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VII. To open the seventh section of conformation:
А. Conformation is the consummation of transformation. Transformation is a gradual work to transform us into the glorious image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18), which needs a consummation, and this consummation is the conformation to conform the transformed believers to the image of the firstborn Son of God — the first God-man — Rom. 8:29.
B. Such a conformation is the full growth of the processed Triune God — the Father embodied in the Son and the Son realized as the Spirit — as the divine life in Christ (Col. 1:28) that grows in the believers unto maturity.
C. It is also the full-grown man at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ — Eph. 4:13.
VIII. To open the eighth section of glorification:
А. Glorification is the final step of God’s organic salvation in Christ, which brings the conformed believers into God’s glory — Rom. 8:18, 21; Heb. 2:10; 1 Pet. 5:10.
B. Such a glorification is the saturating of God’s glory from within the believers like the inking of the sealing that the believers received at their salvation — Eph. 1:13; 4:30.
C. Such a glorification is to transfigure our body of humiliation to be conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21). Hence, it is called the redemption of the believers’ body — Eph. 4:30; Rom. 8:23.
D. Such a glorification, the redemption of our body, is the full enjoyment of our sonship — v. 23.
IX. To open the additional section of the sevenfold intensified organic salvation of God:
Note — The three sections of Christ’s ministry:
1. The first section, His earthly ministry, accomplished by Him judicially in the physical realm as the Christ in the flesh from His incarnation to His death within His human age of thirty-three and a half years.
2. The second section, His heavenly ministry, carried out by Him organically in the mystical realm as the Christ as the life-giving Spirit from His resurrection to the end of the millennium within the age of the church and the age of the kingdom.
3. The third section, His sevenfold intensified heavenly ministry, carried out by Him sevenfold intensified organically in the mystical realm, as the Christ as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit from the degradation of the church to the coming of the new heaven and new earth.
А. To:
1. Save the believers in the church in Ephesus from the formal church life, which has lost the first love to the Lord, the shining capacity of the lampstand, and the enjoyment of Christ as life, to become overcomers so that they will be rewarded to eat of the tree of life in the Paradise of God — the New Jerusalem in the kingdom age — Rev. 2:1-7.
2. Strengthen the suffering believers in the church in Smyrna to overcome the persecution by being martyred so that they will be rewarded not to taste the second death during the kingdom age — vv. 8-11.
3. Sanctify the believers in the church in Pergamos from the union with the world and from the teachings of Balaam and the Nicolaitans to be the overcomers so that they may be rewarded to eat the hidden manna and to have a white stone upon which a new name will be written in the kingdom age — vv. 12-17.
4. Rescue the believers in the church in Thyatira from idol worship, fornication, demonic teachings, and the deep things of Satan to be the overcomers so that they may be rewarded with the authority over the nations in the kingdom age — vv. 18-29.
5. Revive the believers in the church in Sardis from their dead and dying condition to be the overcomers so that they may be rewarded with walking with the Lord in white and with not having their names erased from the book of life but confessed by the Lord before the Father and His angels in the kingdom age — 3:1-6.
6. Encourage the believers in the church in Philadelphia to hold fast what they have that no one take their crown to be the overcomers so that they may be rewarded to be a pillar in the temple of God with the name of God and the name of the New Jerusalem and the new name of the Lord written upon them in the kingdom age — vv. 7-13.
7. Awake the believers in the church in Laodicea from their lukewarm and Christless condition, exhorting them to pay the price for the refined gold, white garments, and eyesalve and to open their door to the knocking Lord to be the overcomers so that they may be rewarded to sit on the throne of the Lord in the kingdom age — vv. 14-22.
B. By:
1. The speaking of the unlimited, life-releasing, sevenfold intensified pneumatic Christ (the Lamb with the seven Spirits as His eyes — 5:6) to the seven churches at the beginning of each epistle respectively becoming the speaking of the sevenfold intensified, all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit to all the seven churches at the end of each epistle universally — 2:1, 7, 8, 11, 12, 17, 18, 29; 3:1, 6, 7, 13, 14, 22.
2. The participation of the overcoming saints who are living in their spirit — 1:10; 4:2; 17:3; 21:10.
C. For:
1. The complete preparation of the bride for Christ the Bridegroom to have His triumphant wedding in the millennium for His satisfaction according to His good pleasure — 19:7-9.
2. The formation of the bridal army for Christ to defeat and destroy His top enemies in humanity, the Antichrist and his false prophet — vv. 11-21; 17:14.
3. The binding of Satan and the casting of him into the abyss for one thousand years — 20:1-3.
4. The bringing in of the kingdom of Christ and of God, which will be the millennium — vv. 4-6.
5. The initial consummation of the New Jerusalem in the millennium (2:7) and its full consummation in the new heaven and new earth (21:2).
D. The final outcome — the ultimately consummated Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God becomes the Bridegroom, and the aggregate of the overcoming saints becomes the bride of the universal romance between the redeeming God and His redeemed man as the conclusion of the entire Scriptures — 22:17.
Prayer: Lord, we thank You for Your divine intention. You want to make us exactly the same as You are in life and nature but not in the Godhead. Lord, You have added Your divine life to our created, fallen, redeemed, and resurrected humanity. Lord, You have sanctified our crooked disposition to make us like You are in Your holy nature. Lord, You are still working until we are redeemed in our body to make us like You. Eventually, we will be able to say, “Lord, what You are, we are, and what we are, You are.” The only difference is that You have the Godhead. We thank You and worship You that we don’t have the Godhead. You are the unique God. You are the Triune God, processed and consummated. We have humanity plus divinity, and You have divinity plus humanity. What a wonder that God has humanity! The processed, consummated Triune God has humanity. Lord, open the heavens to us. We want to be in heaven to see all the things as You see them. Give us the utterance. This is absolutely a new culture in a mystical realm. We need Your language; we need Your utterance.
Conformation is the consummation of transformation. Transformation is a gradual work to transform us into the glorious image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18), which needs a consummation. We are still in the process of being transformed; our transformation has not yet been consummated. The consummation of our transformation is our conformation to conform the transformed believers to the image of the firstborn Son of God — the first God-man (Rom. 8:29).
We need to see the difference between Christ as the only begotten Son and as the firstborn Son of God. Christ being the Firstborn indicates that many sons are following Him. In Christ’s resurrection three big items were produced: the firstborn Son was produced; the life-giving Spirit, who is the transfiguration of the last Adam, was produced (1 Cor. 15:45b); and all the chosen, predestinated ones were regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3). What an outcome this was!
Such a conformation is the full growth of the processed Triune God — the Father embodied in the Son and the Son realized as the Spirit — as the divine life in Christ (Col. 1:28) that grows in the believers unto maturity.
Conformation is also the full-grown man at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). The fullness of Christ is the Body of Christ (1:23), which has a stature with a measure. Christ is all-inclusive and all-extensive, unlimited; He is the One who fills all in all. Such a One has a Body, and this Body is His expression. This Body has a stature, and the stature has a measure. Who can measure the stature of the Body of Christ, the fullness of the unlimited Christ? But our conformation to the image of the firstborn Son of God will be the full-grown man at the proper measure of the proper stature of the proper expression of Christ. The Body is the aggregate of all the believers who through transformation have been conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God. This is the full-grown man at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Although such a measure is immeasurable, we can attain it through our conformation.
Glorification is the final step of God’s organic salvation in Christ, which brings the conformed believers into God’s glory (Rom. 8:18, 21; Heb. 2:10; 1 Pet. 5:10). If we want to enter into glory, we have to be conformed to Christ’s image. We have to finish our “four-year course.” Then a “graduation” will be granted to us. Glorification is the graduation of the full Christian-life course. We will not enter into glory in a spontaneous way according to the concept of many Christians. Glorification is the consummation of a gradual work beginning from regeneration and continuing through feeding, dispositional sanctification, renewing, transformation, building up, and conformation. Then a “graduation paper” will be issued to us, which will be our glorification.
Such a glorification is the saturating of God’s glory from within the believers like the inking of the sealing that the believers received at their salvation (Eph. 1:13; 4:30). When a seal with much ink is applied to some pages of paper, it will saturate through to the last page. Ephesians 4:30 says that we are sealed with the Spirit unto the day of redemption. Unto means “resulting in.” This inking of the sealing Spirit will eventually result in the redemption of our body at our glorification.
How much freedom do we give this inking in our Christian life? To be smoothly sanctified dispositionally, renewed, transformed, and conformed means that we allow the inking to proceed quickly within us unto our glorification. To be in the glory has two aspects. On the one hand, we will enter into glory. On the other hand, this glory saturates us from within by the inking of the sealing Spirit throughout our entire Christian life. We need to be under the inking of the Spirit day by day. Then we will enter into glory through this inward inking, which is the saturating of God’s glory from within us.
Such a glorification is to transfigure our body of humiliation to be conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21). Hence, it is called the redemption of the believers’ body (Eph. 4:30; Rom. 8:23). The Greek word for transformation and transfiguration is the same. To be transfigured is the last step of transformation. It is to change the form of our outward body. Our body today is a body of humiliation, but it will be transfigured into another form of another body, that is, into the glorious body of Christ.
Such a glorification, the redemption of our body, is the full enjoyment of our sonship (v. 23). We are the sons of God, but our body has not yet been “sonized.” Our body will be sonized when it is redeemed. To be transfigured, to be redeemed, is to be sonized. We were born sons of God at the time of our regeneration, but at that time, only our spirit was sonized. Regeneration is the first step of sonizing. Organic feeding, sanctification, renewing, transformation, building, and conformation are the following steps. The last step is the sonizing of our body.
God regenerated us with His divine life. That means He added His divine life to our human life. Our human life was created by God, but it became fallen. This is why we need redemption. Redemption means to redeem back judicially the thing that was lost. When the Lord died on the cross, He died with us, with our natural man. We were crucified with Him, buried with Him, and also resurrected with Him (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 6:4; Eph. 2:6). Therefore, we have been created, fallen, redeemed judicially, uplifted, and resurrected. Our human life and God’s life have been grafted together (Rom. 11:17). Otherwise, how could we live with Him? We live with Him because we have our own life plus His life. Regeneration is to have the divine, spiritual life of God in addition to our human life.
After our regeneration we are dispositionally sanctified with the element of the resurrection life of Christ. Through sanctification our distorted, crooked, perverted, natural nature is adjusted and straightened with His holy nature. The Holy Spirit dispenses God’s holy nature into our being to straighten our crooked disposition. Because we partake of the divine nature, which is perfect and straight, our nature is corrected.
Then our mind is renewed, changed. Philippians 2 says that we should have the mind of Christ (v. 5). God’s renewing work takes place by His Spirit mingling with our spirit to saturate our mind with all the thoughts and logic of God, to change our mind. Based on regeneration, sanctification, and renewing, the Lord Spirit today is transforming our being by the addition of His divine life to cause a divine metabolism within us. This transforms our entire being.
Eventually, this transformation will be completed to make us a full-grown man at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God, who is the aggregate of the Triune God. Finally, through the saturation of God’s glory within us, the glory will come out from us. Then we will enter into glory and will be in glory. When we attain this glory, we will say, “Lord God, what a mercy and grace that we are what You are, and You are what we are.” This is the ultimate consummation of the eight sections of God’s organic salvation.
God’s full salvation is not just to redeem us judicially to forgive us, wash us, justify us, reconcile us to Him, and sanctify us positionally. This was carried out by Christ in the flesh in His earthly ministry. God’s judicial redemption was merely the procedure for Him to save us organically as the life-giving Spirit, as the pneumatic Christ, for us to participate in God’s organic salvation as the purpose of the complete salvation of God in Christ’s heavenly ministry.
According to Isaiah 30:26, the light of the sun will be sevenfold intensified in the millennium. Today we have the Spirit sevenfold intensified.
The first section, His earthly ministry, was accomplished by Him judicially in the physical realm as the Christ in the flesh from His incarnation to His death within His human age of thirty-three and a half years.
The second section, His heavenly ministry, is carried out by Him organically in the mystical realm as the Christ as the life-giving Spirit from His resurrection to the end of the millennium within the age of the church and the age of the kingdom. Incarnation was the first start, the start of His life in the flesh. But resurrection is another start, the start of His being the Spirit, to carry out His heavenly ministry.
The third section, His sevenfold intensified heavenly ministry, is carried out by Him sevenfold intensified organically in the mystical realm as the Christ as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit from the degradation of the church to the coming of the new heaven and new earth. The degradation of the church began within the first century. In 2 Timothy Paul tells us that all in Asia had turned away from him, leaving his ministry (1:15). Also, ones like Hymenaeus and Philetus were trying to overthrow the truth concerning the resurrection, saying the resurrection had already taken place (2:17-18). Paul mentions Demas abandoning him because of his love for the present age (4:10). He also speaks of Alexander the coppersmith doing many evil things to him (v. 14). Alexander the coppersmith must have known Paul well. Otherwise, he could not have been his opposer. All these descriptions show us the degradation of the church. Shortly after writing 2 Timothy, around A.D. 67, Paul was martyred. Less than thirty years later, John wrote the book of Revelation, which shows the degradation of the churches. He also wrote 2 John, which is an Epistle revealing the prohibition against heresy, which was already creeping into the church.
The book of Revelation opens in this way: “Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is coming, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth” (1:4-5). In these verses the seven Spirits are listed as the second of the Divine Trinity. Then the book of Revelation gives us a full record of the move of the sevenfold Spirit in Christ’s heavenly ministry to do a number of things.
The sevenfold intensified Spirit worked to save the believers in the church in Ephesus from the formal church life, which had lost the first love to the Lord, the shining capacity of the lampstand, and the enjoyment of Christ as life, to become overcomers so that they would be rewarded to eat of the tree of life in the Paradise of God — the New Jerusalem in the kingdom age (2:1-7).
Christ as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit worked to strengthen the suffering believers in the church in Smyrna to overcome the persecution by being martyred so that they would be rewarded not to taste the second death during the kingdom age (vv. 8-11). This shows that the believers who do not overcome will taste the second death.
The church in Pergamos had become married to the world, so Christ as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit worked to sanctify the believers there from the union with the world and from the teachings of Balaam and the Nicolaitans to be the overcomers so that they might be rewarded to eat the hidden manna and to have a white stone upon which a new name would be written in the kingdom age (vv. 12-17).
The sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit works to rescue the believers in the church in Thyatira from idol worship, fornication, demonic teachings, and the deep things of Satan to be the overcomers so that they may be rewarded with the authority over the nations in the kingdom age (vv. 18-29).
Christ’s sevenfold intensified heavenly ministry is to revive the believers in the church in Sardis from their dead and dying condition to be the overcomers so that they may be rewarded with walking with the Lord in white and with not having their names erased from the book of life but confessed by the Lord before the Father and His angels in the kingdom age (3:1-6).
Although Philadelphia is the best church, the believers there need to hold fast what they have that no one take their crown to be the overcomers so that they may be rewarded to be a pillar in the temple of God with the name of God and the name of the New Jerusalem and the new name of the Lord written upon them in the kingdom age (vv. 7-13). The name that is upon them indicates that this is what they are. This means that they are the New Jerusalem, and they are God because they have God’s name upon them. Also, they are the Lord Jesus because they have His new name written upon them. Of course, their being God and the Lord Jesus is in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
The believers in the church in Laodicea need to be awakened from their lukewarm and Christless condition. Thus, the Lord exhorts them to pay the price for the refined gold, white garments, and eyesalve and to open their door to the knocking Lord to be the overcomers so that they may be rewarded to sit on the throne of the Lord in the kingdom age (vv. 14-22). They are not only lukewarm but also Christless because Christ is outside, knocking on the door of the church.
We are saved from degradation by the speaking of the unlimited, life-releasing, sevenfold intensified pneumatic Christ (the Lamb with the seven Spirits as His eyes — 5:6). The seven Spirits are the eyes of Christ, who is the Lamb. No one can separate your eyes from your person. The sevenfold Spirit being the eyes of Christ indicates that they are one with Christ. The speaking of the sevenfold intensified pneumatic Christ to the seven churches at the beginning of each epistle respectively becomes the speaking of the sevenfold intensified, all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit to all the seven churches at the end of each epistle universally (2:1, 7, 8, 11, 12, 17, 18, 29; 3:1, 6, 7, 13, 14, 22). At the beginning of each epistle Christ is speaking, and at the end the Spirit is speaking. This shows that Christ is the Spirit.
The overcoming of the degradation is by the participation of the overcoming saints who are living in their spirit (1:10; 4:2; 17:3; 21:10). On the one hand, our overcoming is by Christ’s speaking becoming the Spirit’s speaking. On the other hand, it is by our living in our spirit all the time. In Revelation 1:10 John says that on the Lord’s Day he was in spirit. This shows that John the apostle was a man in the spirit, always living in the spirit.
Christ’s sevenfold intensified heavenly ministry is for the complete preparation of the bride for Christ the Bridegroom to have His triumphant wedding in the millennium for His satisfaction according to His good pleasure (19:7-9).
Christ’s sevenfold intensified heavenly ministry is also for the formation of the bridal army for Christ to defeat and destroy His top enemies in humanity, the Antichrist and his false prophet (vv. 11-21; 17:14). The coming Antichrist and his false prophet will be human enemies of Christ, attacking Christ to the uttermost. They will fight face to face with an army against Christ. But Christ and His bride will destroy them and throw them into the lake of fire.
Christ’s sevenfold intensified heavenly ministry is for the binding of Satan and the casting of him into the abyss for one thousand years (20:1-3).
His sevenfold intensified heavenly ministry is also for the bringing in of the kingdom of Christ and of God, which will be the millennium (vv. 4-6).
Ultimately, Christ’s sevenfold intensified heavenly ministry is for the initial consummation of the New Jerusalem in the millennium (2:7) and its full consummation in the new heaven and new earth (21:2). In other words, the New Jerusalem will be consummated by the overcomers first in the initial part in the thousand years on a small scale and then in eternity on a full scale. All the believers, through the discipline of the one thousand years, will be matured, transformed, and conformed, to participate in the New Jerusalem in eternity.
The final outcome is that the ultimately consummated Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God becomes the Bridegroom, and the aggregate of the overcoming saints becomes the bride of the universal romance between the redeeming God and His redeemed man as the conclusion of the entire Scriptures (22:17). The conclusion of the entire Bible is a couple, which is the consummation of the universal romance of the redeeming God and His redeemed man. The Bridegroom is God as the consummated Spirit, and the bride is the aggregate of all the overcomers. This is all accomplished by the additional section of the sevenfold intensified organic salvation of God.
