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Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:29; Phil. 3:10; 1 John 3:2
I. The definition of conformation:
А. Conformation being the effect of transformation in life — 2 Cor. 3:18.
B. With the firstborn Son of God, the God-man who joins God to man, as the mold — Rom. 8:29.
II. The purpose of God’s salvation in life:
А. To conform the believers to the image of the firstborn Son of God — v. 29.
1. To be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God being to be conformed to the image of the God-man, who is the union of the processed Triune God with the transformed tripartite man:
а. To be conformed to the glorious image of God as the Word who became flesh.
b. To be conformed to the lowly image of the man in whom God is embodied — Phil. 2:7-8.
c. To live the life of the God-man in which the divine attributes are expressed in human virtues.
2. To live a life of denying our natural life under the crucifixion of Christ by being conformed to His death — 3:10c.
3. To live out the reality of the spiritual life of God by the power of Christ’s resurrection — v. 10a.
4. To take the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, as our life and person — 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2; Gal. 5:16, 25.
B. To be led into glorification in the divine glory by arriving at maturity of life through transformation in life — Eph. 4:13b; Col. 1:28; Rom. 8:30; Heb. 2:10a.
III. The consummation of God’s salvation in life:
А. The believers being absolutely like God in God’s righteousness and holiness in the consummation of their maturity in life — 1 John 3:2; Eph. 4:24.
B. The New Jerusalem, in which the believers consummate, and God, who sits on the throne in eternity, appearing in the divine glory in full resemblance to one another, both being like jasper — Rev. 4:3a; 21:11, 18a, 19b.
In order to be our life God was incarnated to accomplish redemption for us. He died and resurrected, and in resurrection He was transfigured to become a life-giving Spirit so that He might enter into us. In this way He regenerated us, and we received Him as our life within. After this what we need to do is to allow this life to transform us from within. This transformation is entirely a matter of spiritual metabolism. We thank the Lord that we are all in this process of transformation. However, this transformation has a goal. What is this goal? It is to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God. In this chapter we want to consider the matter of conformation.
Conformation is the effect of transformation in life (2 Cor. 3:18), with the firstborn Son of God, the God-man who joins God to man, as the mold (Rom. 8:29). Conformation is the end result of transformation. It includes the changing of our inward essence and nature, and it also includes the changing of our outward form so that we may have the same image of Christ, the God-man, in glory.
God’s firstborn Son, the God-man who joins God to man, is the mold to which we are being conformed. We are His mass production. Both the inward and the outward changes in us, the product, are the results of the operation of the law of the Spirit of life (v. 2) in our being.
The goal of God’s salvation in life is to conform the believers to the image of the firstborn Son of God (v. 29).
To be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God is to be conformed to the image of the God-man, who is the union of the processed Triune God with the transformed tripartite man. As the only begotten Son of God before His incarnation, Christ had divinity but not humanity. He was self-existing and ever-existing, as God was. His being the firstborn Son of God, having both divinity and humanity, began with His resurrection.
This God-man is a joining of the processed Triune God with the transformed tripartite man. He is both God and man. Now God has been processed, and man has been transformed. By joining these two together, Christ becomes the God-man to whose image we are being conformed. When we are conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son, we are conformed, on the one hand, to the glorious image of God as the Word who became flesh and, on the other hand, to the lowly image of the man in whom God was embodied (Phil. 2:7-8). Thus, we live the God-man life, a life in which the divine attributes are expressed in human virtues.
From the beginning Christ existed in the form of God, having the essence and nature of God’s glorious being. When He became in the likeness of men, entering into the condition of humanity, He was found in the lowly image of a man who embodied God. On the one hand, as God He was glorious; on the other hand, as a man He was lowly. Christ joined these two aspects together. When He was on this earth, sometimes He was glorious; that was His being God. Other times when He spoke, people might not have seen much glory there, but the words they heard Him speak were truly glorious. If we read Matthew 5 through 7 or John 14 through 17, we can sense that this man, the Lord Jesus, is so great. His wisdom and His utterances are indescribable. We can only say, “Glorious! Glorious! Truly glorious!” He spoke as a man, yet what was expressed in His words was glory. Was Jesus the Nazarene speaking there? Yes, He was the lowly Jesus of Nazareth, yet His words, which were the words of God, were full of glory. His words were great, high, and glorious, yet they were uttered by a humble, lowly, and small Jesus. How marvelous this is!
Such is the image to which we are being conformed. In this image there is man, and there is also God; there is glory, and there is also lowliness. By ourselves we cannot make it. We need this wonderful One to save us by being our life. He can conform us to such an image that we may live such a God-man life, a life in which the divine attributes are expressed in human virtues.
Let me say a little more here. When I was young, I observed that in July the northern Chinese would make a kind of dessert called ch’iao-kuo. They used a board that had seven designs carved out on it in the shapes of a fish, a chicken, a bird, a tiger, a lion, a leopard, and a child respectively. These seven carvings were seven molds with which this dessert was made. People kneaded the dough and filled each mold with dough. After being baked, when the molds were emptied, the dough came out in the shapes of a small fish, a small chicken, a small bird, a small tiger, a small lion, a small leopard, and a small child. This is conformation. The original dough was just a lump without a nose or eyes; it had no definite shape. Then after it had passed through molding and baking, it was no longer only a lump of dough; it became seven pieces of dough baked in different shapes. After this process they became delicious desserts. But this kind of mold is only an outward mold.
Fruit trees produce fruit, such as apples, peaches, apricots, bananas, and papayas. These different fruit trees do not need the gardener to provide molds for them to produce different kinds of fruit. Apple trees produce fruit in the shape of apples, and for thousands of years the shape of apples has remained unchanged. Likewise, peach trees produce peaches. Fruit trees do not need our worrying, nor do they need our instructions, nor do they need molds. The shape of the fruit is in the life element of the tree. The life element of the peach tree is peach; as a result, the peach tree spontaneously bears peaches.
Consider the matter of human conception. When a fetus is conceived in the mother’s womb, it does not have a mold. Yet when it grows in the womb, it develops ears, eyes, nose, and other parts of the body until it grows into a boy or a girl. Although there is no outward mold, it grows into a proper shape. The shapes of the living things are not determined by any outward mold but are derived from their genes. What are the genes? We may say that the genes are the inward “mold” of life, which God gave us in His marvelous creation. This mold of life is not outward and does not come by imitation. Rather, it is contained in the life element. Different fruit trees bear different fruit according to their intrinsic life element.
Today we who believe in Christ have both the human life and the divine life; the divine life can transform our human life. This may be compared to a caterpillar being transformed into a butterfly. The caterpillar grows and grows until finally it becomes a butterfly, and what is left of the original caterpillar is just an empty cocoon. We are sinners within and transgressors without; that is, we are just like caterpillars. However, after a period of time we will be transformed into butterflies. Today we are all like caterpillars, but we all have the life of God within us. Since the day God entered into us, He has been transforming us daily. God’s work of transformation within us is very deep and very fine. Hence, it cannot be as fast as the transforming of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
This One who is transforming us from within is not only God but the God-man. This God-man is God Himself who was incarnated, died on the cross, terminated the old creation, and entered into resurrection. In resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. This was God passing through various processes. If He did not pass through all these processes, He would not be able to come into us. Now He has passed through all these processes. Therefore, like the air, it is easy for Him to enter into us. After He comes into us, He does the work of transformation in us. He is not adjusting us. Often we have the old concept of morality and think that the Holy Spirit in us is adjusting us. If we have a bad temper, we think that we need the Holy Spirit to adjust us so that we would not have a bad temper. This is our concept. Although this concept is not heretical, it is a wrong teaching. This is the influence of the teachings of Confucius. This is the concept of the Chinese philosophers and Confucius’s disciples, but this is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible tells us that men became sinners and transgressors due to the fall. One day God, who is holiness, righteousness, love, and light, passed through the processes of incarnation, death, and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit. Thus, He was able to come into us. When He came in, He brought with Him some factors and elements with which to transform us in our inward being day by day. Therefore, the apostle Paul says in Philippians 1:19, “This will turn out to salvation through...the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”
The Lord Jesus is the Triune God who was incarnated to put on human nature. Originally, He was merely God, but now by putting on human nature through His incarnation, He has become a God-man. In His wisdom and by His sovereignty God planned and prepared the cross, and on this cross Jesus, the God-man, was crucified. As God, He is without sin and is also holy, and through His death on the cross He released His life. But He is also a man, and through His death on the cross all the negative things in the universe that were hanging on Him, such as sins, trespasses, Satan, the flesh, passions, lusts, and the world, were crucified with Him. Then Christ came out of death and entered into resurrection. In resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. The Triune God passed through these processes, and now in this life-giving Spirit there is God, there is man, there is the all-inclusive death, and there is the effectiveness of death. In this death sin was dealt with, the world and Satan were judged, and the flesh and lusts were eliminated. Furthermore, in this Spirit there is the power of resurrection that releases the divine life, the eternal life, the uncreated life.
This Spirit is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. We may use this example: I like to drink lemon juice with some honey and a little salt. First, I have a glass of plain water, then I add lemon, and then I add some honey and a small amount of salt. Eventually, in this glass there are water, lemon, honey, and salt. When I drink this glass of liquid, I get the water, the lemon, the honey, and the salt. Originally, the Spirit of God was like the plain water. When God was incarnated, humanity was added to divinity. Then He was crucified, and by this, His death and the effectiveness of His death were also included in this Spirit. He then entered into resurrection, so the power of resurrection was also added to this Spirit. Now the Spirit who regenerates us is this Spirit. When He regenerates us, He comes to live in us. This all-inclusive Spirit contains the processed Triune God with His complete and full divinity and His perfect humanity. In addition, this Spirit has His death with its effectiveness and His resurrection with its power. This all-inclusive Spirit is Christ, and Christ is God. God was incarnated to be Christ, Christ was transfigured to become the Spirit, and the Spirit comes into us with all these elements.
Whenever we rise up in the morning and fellowship with the Lord who is in us, calling on His name, He, as the Spirit of reality, supplies us within. God is Christ, the Lord, and the Spirit, and He is in us. When we receive His supply, we are satisfied and uplifted. We sense an operation within us that kills the negative things within us, such as our bad temper and our quick disposition and also supplies us with the abundant life. This is metabolic transformation. The result of such a transformation is that we are conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus was both God and man, and He passed through death and resurrection. Likewise, we are both God and man, and we also passed through death and resurrection. We are those who are the union of the Triune God and the tripartite man; we died and now are living.
We are being conformed to the image of the God-man, the firstborn Son of God. He is the firstborn Son, and we are the many sons. Thus, we enjoy all the riches of God.
Furthermore, to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God is to live a life of denying our natural life under the crucifixion of Christ by being conformed to His death (Phil. 3:10c). To be conformed to the image of Christ, we need to be conformed first to His death. If we are not the same as He is in His death, then we will not be like Him. Therefore, Philippians 3:10 says that we must be in the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. He suffers, and we suffer with Him; this is the fellowship of His sufferings. In this way we are conformed to the mold of His death. The mold of Christ’s death is to live a life of denying our natural life under the crucifixion of Christ. In our daily life we should not do anything by our natural life. Rather, in everything we must deny our natural life. This is to apply death to ourselves. We have a mold in us, and that mold is death, the denying of our natural life.
In the image of the firstborn Son of God there is the element of death, that is, the denying of His own life. While He was living on the earth, He denied His own life every moment and lived by the Father’s life instead. Although His crucifixion was the final stop of His journey on earth, throughout the thirty-three and a half years of His life, He lived under the death of the cross by denying Himself and living by the Father’s life. This also is a great element in the all-inclusive Spirit. In the matter of love we have to ask, “Lord, is it I who love, or is it You who loves in me, from me, and through me?” If we love by ourselves, that is a love by our natural life and is without death or resurrection. If we deny our natural life and live by Christ, then we are according to the apostle Paul’s word: “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). This is to be conformed to the death of Christ.
To be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God is to live out the reality of the spiritual life of God by the power of Christ’s resurrection (Phil. 3:10a). The power of Christ’s resurrection is the life that raised Him from the dead. In order to know and experience this power of Christ we need to be joined and conformed to the death of Christ. We need to live a life of crucifixion as He did. Our being conformed to His death allows His resurrection power to rise up so that His divine, spiritual life may be practically expressed through us.
To be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God is to take the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, as our life and person (1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2; Gal. 5:16, 25).
The goal of God’s salvation in life is also that we be led into glorification in the divine glory by arriving at maturity of life through transformation in life (Eph. 4:13b; Col. 1:28; Rom. 8:30; Heb. 2:10a). Glorification is a matter that we need to be led into. According to 2 Corinthians 3:18, our transformation is from glory to glory. Transformation is a pathway of glory, and it increases from one degree of glory to another degree of glory. When we have passed through this kind of transformation, the result is our conformation, which is very close to glorification and leads us into glorification.
The consummation of God’s salvation in life is the believers’ absolute resemblance to God in His righteousness and holiness in the consummation of their maturity in life (1 John 3:2; Eph. 4:24). Ephesians 4:24 says, “Put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality.” Our putting on the new man is not instantaneous; it is a gradual putting on. We must put off the old man and put on the new man. Our putting off the old man is also gradual. Do not think that our old temper and old habits can be completely put off at once. The Holy Spirit in us is very patient. We put on the new man in the renewed and transformed spirit of our mind. This new man is created according to the image of God, and the image of God denotes God’s righteousness and God’s holiness. The more we put off the old man and put on the new man, the more we will be like God in His righteousness and holiness. Previously we could buy certain things, but now we cannot. We can no longer go to the places we went to before. We find that some styles of clothing we wore before are not suitable for us to wear now. We can no longer hang up or display some of the paintings and decorations that we used to have at home. This is to express God’s righteousness and holiness in the reality of our living. The more we put on the new man, the more we will manifest the image of God’s righteousness and holiness in our living.
The ultimate consummation of God’s salvation in life is that the New Jerusalem, in which the believers consummate, and God, who sits on the throne in eternity, will appear in the divine glory in full resemblance to one another, both being like jasper (Rev. 4:3a; 21:11, 18a, 19b).
The New Jerusalem is the consummation of us, the redeemed believers. The entire wall of the New Jerusalem is jasper. This is the image of the wall. Revelation 4:3 shows us that the God who sits on the throne is like a jasper stone in appearance. Therefore, both the New Jerusalem and the God who sits on the throne are the same in appearance. This is our consummate conformation as the corporate New Jerusalem. This New Jerusalem is exactly the same as the God who sits on the throne. God, who sits on the throne, is jasper, and we also are jasper. The color of jasper is green, and it is bright. This symbolizes that we are bright in life just like God. In our actions and in our living, we are righteous and holy like God. In essence we are jasper, which is full of the life that is so bright, just like God. This is the consummate conformation.
