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Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:29; Phil. 3:10; 1:19-21a; 1 John 3:2; Rom. 8:30; Heb. 2:10; 1 Pet. 5:10; 1 Thes. 2:12; Rom. 8:23; Eph. 4:30
I. In the consummation of the divine economy.
II. Conformation — Rom. 8:29:
А. Conformation being the consummation of the believers’ transformation in life.
B. Conformation being to be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son:
1. God’s firstborn Son being Christ as the God-man.
2. To be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son being that the believers become full-grown in life as God-men:
а. To be conformed to Christ’s death in all things through the power of His resurrection — Phil. 3:10.
b. To live Christ for magnifying Him through the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (who is the God-man) — 1:19-21a.
c. To be the reprints of the God-man, Christ, that the believers may be exactly like Him, the firstborn Son of God — 1 John 3:2.
III. Glorification — Rom. 8:30:
А. Glorification being the spreading forth of Christ’s glory from the believers by their growing to maturity in Christ’s life.
B. Being also the believers’ entering into the glory of God — Heb. 2:10; 1 Pet. 5:10; 1 Thes. 2:12.
C. Being also the believers’ enjoyment of the redemption of their body — Rom. 8:23; Eph. 4:30.
D. Being also the ultimate consummation of God’s complete salvation in the believers.
E. The ultimate consummation of God’s complete salvation being the New Jerusalem — the crystallization of the union and mingling of God with man, the processed and consummated Triune God with His regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite elect.
IV. The interrelation between God’s judicial redemption and God’s organic salvation:
А. God’s judicial redemption qualifies and positions the believers to enjoy God’s organic salvation and enter into God’s higher grace for the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy and the attainment of God’s ultimate purpose.
B. Judicially, the church of God, which He redeemed and obtained through His own blood (Acts 20:28), was produced through God’s judicial redemption. On the other hand, organically, the church of God is constituted with the God-regenerated people in the divine life. This organic aspect issues in the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23).
C. God’s organic salvation needs to be maintained constantly through God’s judicial redemption:
1. When the believers’ fellowship with God is interrupted due to their sins, it can be restored through the redeeming blood of Christ — 1 John 1:6-7.
2. When the believers have a case against them before God because of their sinning, Christ, their Redeemer, is responsible for undertaking their case in His status as their Advocate in heaven before God — 2:1-2.
D. The believers’ ultimate transfiguration in their body to enter into God’s glory is the redemption of their body (Eph. 4:30; Rom. 8:23), implying the element of redemption, because regardless of how spiritual, renewed, and transformed the believers are, their body still belongs to the old creation and therefore still needs God’s judicial redemption that it may receive God’s organic salvation and be transfigured to enter into glory (Phil. 3:21; Rom. 8:30).
E. God’s judicial redemption as the procedure is purposeless without God’s organic salvation. It would be merely for sinners to be redeemed, have their sins forgiven, and become righteous people justified by God, but the purpose is unclear to the majority of believers, who mistakenly consider their going to heaven as the purpose of their being redeemed and are unaware that, according to the revelation of the Holy Scriptures, God’s judicial redemption as the procedure is with God’s organic salvation as the purpose, which is to regenerate us, shepherd us, sanctify us dispositionally, renew us, transform us, and build us up into the Body of Christ, which ultimately consummates the New Jerusalem as the ultimate purpose of God’s organic salvation to be God’s enlargement and expression in eternity.
In the previous chapters we covered regeneration, shepherding, sanctification, renewing, transformation, and building up. Regeneration is to have God’s life put into us in addition to our own life. After regeneration we still need God’s shepherding in life. Furthermore, we need to be sanctified in our disposition by allowing God to change our peculiar being with His holy nature as the element. The man created by God was upright, honest, and not crooked, but after the fall, man became deceitful, dishonest, and strange. Among us there are many couples who have been married for many years, but is there a husband and wife who have never lied to each other? The husbands always claim that they are faithful and honest to their wives, but God knows that they often deal with their wives deceitfully so that they themselves may gain some advantage and their wives may suffer loss. We fallen people are corrupt by birth. Hence, we need God’s sanctifying work to change us dispositionally.
Furthermore, we need renewing. The renewing referred to in the Scriptures is to have the divine essence added into our being. Renewing is altogether a matter of changing our mind. In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul says that the old covenant was of the letter and had no life in it, but we, as ministers of the new covenant, are ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit (v. 6). The Jews regarded the Mosaic law according to the letter, so their heart turned away from God. When they thus turned away from God to live and walk according to the Mosaic law in letter, layer after layer of veils were put on their heart. The Jews had received the traditional teachings from their forefathers through generations, so their mind was fixed, shaped, and difficult to alter. The same is true with the old Christians in Christianity today. Their heart must turn to the Lord so that the veils covering them may be taken away. Hence, in 2 Corinthians 3:16 Paul says, “Whenever their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”
When our heart turns away from the Lord to other things, those things become layers of veils covering us. Today the different schools of theology have their preconceptions. There is only one Bible, yet everyone’s reading is different. For example, in general, those who teach concerning the Trinity in theology consider that the Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Spirit is the Spirit. In their concept the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are separated. Many insist on the traditional concept, so they are not able to see the pure truth in the Bible. Another example is concerning the human spirit. Many people have never seen that man has a spirit. However, there are at least three portions in the Scriptures that refer to both the Spirit of God and the spirit of man. First, John 4:24 says that God is Spirit and that those who worship Him must worship in spirit (the human spirit). Second, John 3:6 says that that which is born of the Spirit (the Spirit of God) is spirit (the spirit of man). Third, Romans 8:16 says that the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God. If we have a renewed mind, we can see clearly from these three passages that within us we have a human spirit.
I am afraid that after listening to the messages for three or four days, some of you who are here still have the veils within you. The Bible says that renewing is in the spirit of your mind (Eph. 4:23). Only when your spirit becomes the spirit of your mind can you be renewed. This means that your mind can be renewed only when it has the spirit spread into it. If your mind is filled with yourself, you cannot be renewed. First Corinthians 15:45 says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” This verse clearly refers to Christ as the Spirit, yet if you insist on not believing, there is no help for you. You need to put aside what you insist on and open yourself to the Lord. The Lord will say to you, “Child, My word says that I am Spirit, so you should also say that I am Spirit.” If you receive the Lord’s word in this way, your mind will be renewed.
We need to be not only renewed but also transformed. Transformation is altogether a matter of the divine life working metabolically in us that we may be transformed not only in our inward disposition but also in our outward image, that is, to be transformed into the same image as the Lord. After transformation we still need to be built up. We need to be joined and knit together in the divine life for the building up of the Body of Christ, which will consummate the building of the New Jerusalem.
In this chapter we will cover the matters of conformation and glorification. It is not easy to present the truths. Augustine said that if you try to comprehend the Triune God, it is like using a small ladle to measure the ocean. It is really so. Just as the truth concerning the Triune God is profound, so also is the truth concerning conformation. Not only do we need to be transformed and built up, but we also need to be conformed.
To whom or to what are we to be conformed? Are we to be conformed to the likeness of the Chinese or Americans or Japanese? We are to be conformed to the likeness of the Son of God. Romans 8:29 says, “Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.” God’s predestinating us to be conformed to the image of His Son is for His Son to be the Firstborn among His many sons.
Concerning the Son of God, there is a very difficult question in theology, that is: How many sons does God have? Hebrews 12:23 mentions the church of the firstborn. The firstborn sons here refer to us, the saints. But how can we say that the saints are the firstborn sons? James 1:18 says that God “brought us forth by the word of truth, purposing that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” As the constituents of the church, we are the firstfruits of God’s creatures. To say that the firstfruits refer to the firstborn sons is a relative way of speaking. The day will come when both the Gentiles and the Jews will turn to worship God. Although that situation is not here yet, today we believers take the lead to worship God. Hence, in this sense we are the firstborn sons, the firstfruits of God’s creatures.
On the other hand, John 1 says that Christ is the only begotten Son of God (v. 18), whereas Romans 8 says that Christ would be the Firstborn among many brothers (v. 29). Christ was the only begotten Son of God, and then He became the firstborn Son of God with many brothers. Hence, as the Son of God, Christ has two statuses, one being the only begotten Son and the other, the firstborn Son. What is the difference between God’s only begotten Son and God’s firstborn Son? God’s only begotten Son has divinity but not humanity, whereas God’s firstborn Son has both divinity and humanity. When God became flesh, He brought divinity into humanity; when the Lord was resurrected, He brought humanity into divinity; that is, He mingled humanity with divinity. The mingling of humanity with divinity produced the second status of the Son of God, that is, the firstborn Son of God.
In eternity the Lord was the only begotten Son of God. In time He became flesh to be a man, but He was not yet the firstborn Son of God. When did He become the firstborn Son of God? Romans 1:3-4 says, “Concerning His Son, who came out of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” There are two “accordings” here: according to the flesh, He is the seed of David, a man; according to the Spirit of holiness, He is the Son of God. He was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead.
When and how was the designation done? This requires a little explanation. First Peter 3:18 says, “Christ also has suffered once for sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, on the one hand being put to death in the flesh, but on the other, made alive in the Spirit.” This verse tells us that after He died in the flesh, Christ was still active in His Spirit. What was He doing? In John 12:24 the Lord said that He was the grain of wheat that bears much fruit by falling into the ground and dying. When a grain of wheat falls into the ground, its outer shell dies and decays, but its life within is active. The grain on the one hand dies and on the other, lives. When the grain dies, this death gives the life within an opportunity to operate to bring forth tender sprouts. This is resurrection. When the Lord was buried in the tomb, His flesh, the humanity that was with Him, died. However, His divinity, the Spirit of holiness, had a great opportunity to work. First, He resurrected the humanity of Christ. At the same time, He uplifted the humanity of Jesus into divinity. It was at that moment that God said, “You are My Son; this day have I begotten You” (Acts 13:33). This day here refers to the day of the Lord’s resurrection. Hence, it was at the time that the Spirit of holiness uplifted the humanity of Christ and resurrected His flesh that God said, “This day have I begotten You.” From that time on, He has been the firstborn Son of God.
Since He is the firstborn Son, there must also be the brothers. Otherwise, how can He be called the Firstborn? His brothers are we the saved ones. Actually, we and He as the firstborn Son were all brought forth in the same delivery. We were born in His resurrection. First Peter 1:3 says that at the time of Christ’s resurrection, that is, in His resurrection, God regenerated all of us. You should not think that you have been regenerated for two months or that you have been regenerated for sixty-seven years. You were regenerated two thousand years ago by being resurrected together with Christ. Some may not be able to accept this word. Again, this is a problem of the mind. God has His timetable, and you have your timetable; the two timetables have different ways of counting. We need to take God’s way of counting. According to His counting, He chose us before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4); furthermore, Christ was slain from the foundation of the world, that is, from the creation of the heavens and the earth (Rev. 13:8). According to God’s way of reckoning, at the resurrection of Christ, that is, about two thousand years ago, we were resurrected with Him and were regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3).
After regeneration we became children of God, the many sons of God, who are the many brothers of Christ. However, we still need to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. We are to be conformed not to God’s only begotten Son but to God’s firstborn Son because God’s only begotten Son does not have humanity, but God’s firstborn Son has both divinity and humanity. Why is it that after we were regenerated to become the sons of God, we still have to be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son? Although we were regenerated to become sons of God, we are not yet like sons of God. Perhaps this morning some of you husbands and wives still had a quarrel, and after the quarreling you came to the meeting. Therefore, we need to be conformed to the image of God’s Son so that He may be the Firstborn among many brothers. In the United States today about one hundred twenty million, which is half of the population, are Protestants and Catholics. However, wherever you go today, as you observe, can you discern the Christians? If you listen to people’s talk in the offices, especially on Mondays, it is all about where they went to dance or went for pleasures over the weekend, and many filthy words are spoken. Many among them are Christians, yet they have not been conformed to the image of Christ. Hence, today we urgently need to be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son. To be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son equals to live out His image. When we all live out His image, the world will see Christ as the Firstborn of God because all His brothers will be manifested here.
How can we be conformed to the image of God’s Firstborn? To know how to be conformed to the image of God’s Firstborn, we must understand how God’s Firstborn lived on earth. The firstborn Son of God is both the Son of God and the Son of Man. He is the God-man, and He lived the life of a man on earth. The life that He lived on earth was the very life that God desired man to live when He created man. After the fall, man was not able to live the life that God wanted man to live. Hence, the only begotten Son of God came to become the Son of Man. In the four Gospels, from beginning to end, the Lord called Himself the Son of Man (Matt. 8:20; 26:64); He lived as a man on earth. He lived as a man daily under the shadow of the cross, denying and crucifying Himself daily. He told people that none of the words that He spoke were spoken by Himself, and none of the things that He did were done out of His own desire (John 8:28-29; 14:10). He spoke words and did things according to His Father’s will. By doing this He fulfilled what God required judicially. This was why He was qualified to die for us on the cross. In His human living on earth for thirty-three and a half years, the Lord Jesus was tested and tried by God. Eventually, according to God’s requirement of righteousness judicially, He was qualified to go to the cross to bear our sins and die for us. God considered Him a sinner, even sin (2 Cor. 5:21), and condemned Him on the cross. His death was altogether a judicial matter for the accomplishment of God’s requirement of righteousness judicially. This was what He did as the Son of Man. The crucified life that He lived on earth as the Son of Man became a mold; we should be conformed to such a mold (Phil. 3:10b).
Today we the saved ones are the same as He is. According to the flesh, we are sons of Adam; we may also say that according to the Spirit of holiness, we are sons of God. However, we have not yet lived like sons of God. Whether or not you live like a son of God depends on whether or not you are living under the shadow of death. Have you died to yourself in dealing with your wife, your husband, your children, or anyone else? To give up ourselves, to remain on the cross, to die to ourselves, is to be conformed to the Lord’s death. When we are thus conformed to His death, the Spirit will operate in us. This is like a grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying; the outer shell decays, but the life within begins to operate. This is referred to in Hymns, #631: “Only then as death is working / Will His life thru me be poured. / If no death, no life.”
If we want to experience being conformed to the image of God’s Son, we need to be daily conformed to His death. This is not a matter of endurance. We do not need to learn to try our best to endure; we need to die. When your wife makes you angry, the more you try to endure, the more you will have stomach trouble. What you need is not to endure but to die. Perhaps you would say that you do not know how to die. You need to pray unceasingly. When your wife changes her countenance toward you, pray to the Lord. If you cannot pray outwardly, pray in your heart. The more you pray, the more you know how to die to yourself. Thank the Lord that the brothers and sisters among us more or less have this kind of experience. Some may not have much experience. When they come home happy and notice their wife’s changed countenance, they would say, “O Lord, Amen.” But when they are unhappy, they would counter her with a changed countenance or even start to hit her. This is not to be sons of God but sons of Adam, even sons of the devil (1 John 3:10). Our living becomes an expression of the sons of the devil. If we live this way, how can Christ be the Firstborn among us? Hence, we need to have the experience of conformation every day in our living.
In summary, conformation is the consummation of the believers’ transformation in life, and it is also to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God, who is Christ as the God-man. To be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son is the believers’ becoming full-grown in life as God-men. This is to be conformed to His death in all things through the resurrection power of Christ (Phil. 3:10) and to live Christ for magnifying Him through the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the God-man (1:19-21a). This is to be the reprints of the God-man, Christ, that we may be exactly like Him, the firstborn Son of God (1 John 3:2).
To be glorified is to enter into glory. After passing through regeneration, shepherding, dispositional sanctification, renewing, transformation, building up, and conformation to the image of the firstborn Son of God, the believers are mature and qualified to be raptured, and they are simply awaiting the Lord’s coming back. When the Lord comes back, they will enter into glory to enjoy the highest portion of the divine sonship (Rom. 8:23). Hence, glorification is the spreading forth of Christ’s glory from the believers by their growing to maturity in Christ’s life. We may say that glorification is the manifestation of the glory of the firstborn Son of God from within us, or that it is our entering into glory (Heb. 2:10; 1 Pet. 5:10; 1 Thes. 2:12). This glory is the Triune God. Hence, to enter into glory is to enter into the Triune God. When our entire being enters into the Triune God, we are glorified. Glorification is also the believers’ enjoyment of the redemption of their body (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 4:30). This is also the ultimate consummation of God’s complete salvation in the believers. At this point God’s organic work has been completed. God’s organic work is from regeneration to glorification, from God’s entering into man to man’s practically being brought into God. Regeneration is God entering into man, whereas glorification is man entering into God. Thus, man is altogether mingled and joined with God to express the image of God. That is glorification. The ultimate consummation of God’s complete salvation is the New Jerusalem — the crystallization of the union and mingling of God with man, the processed and consummated Triune God with His regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite elect.
Finally, we want to see the interrelation between God’s judicial redemption and God’s organic salvation. God’s judicial redemption and God’s organic salvation are very much related. The judicial redemption was accomplished by Christ on earth in thirty-three and a half years. The organic salvation is being carried out by Christ from His resurrection through eternity. The relationship between the two is that first, God’s judicial redemption as the procedure qualifies and positions the believers to enjoy God’s organic salvation and enter into God’s higher grace for the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy and the attainment of God’s ultimate purpose.
Second, judicially, the church of God was produced through God’s judicial redemption. Without such a redemption the church could not have been produced, because Acts 20:28 says that God purchased, redeemed, His church through His own blood. On the other hand, organically, the church of God is constituted with the God-regenerated people in the divine life. This organic aspect issues in the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23).
Third, God’s organic salvation needs to be maintained constantly through God’s judicial redemption. You should not say that since you have the judicial redemption and therefore have entered into the organic salvation, you no longer have anything to do with the judicial aspect and you do not need the judicial aspect. No, you still need God’s judicial redemption. God’s organic salvation needs to be maintained constantly through God’s judicial redemption. For example, when the fellowship of the believers with God is interrupted due to their sins, they need to have their fellowship restored through the redeeming blood of Christ. Hence, 1 John 1:6-9 says that if we sin, we need to confess our sins to God and ask for His forgiveness; then God will wash away our sins with the blood of Christ and restore our fellowship with Him. Therefore, organically, when our fellowship with God is broken, it has to be restored through the redeeming blood. In addition, when the believers have a case against them before God because of their sinning, Christ, their Redeemer, is responsible for undertaking their case in His status as their Advocate in heaven before God (2:1-2). We should not say that since we are in the organic salvation, we have nothing to do with redemption anymore. The redemption is still here maintaining us because sometimes we may still be weak.
Fourth, the believers’ ultimate transfiguration in their body to enter into God’s glory is the redemption of their body (Eph. 4:30; Rom. 8:23). Why is it that at that time our body will still need to be redeemed? At that time we will have been transformed into the image of the Lord and will soon be raptured into glory, so why is it that our body will still need to be redeemed? This is because regardless of how spiritual, renewed, and transformed the believers are, their body still belongs to the old creation and therefore still needs God’s judicial redemption that it may receive God’s organic salvation and be transfigured to enter into glory (Phil. 3:21; Rom. 8:30). Our being raptured and transfigured to enter into glory is an organic matter, but our body still needs to be redeemed. Hence, there is the need of the redemption of the body.
Fifth, God’s judicial redemption as the procedure is purposeless without God’s organic salvation. It would be merely for sinners to be redeemed, have their sins forgiven, and become righteous people justified by God, but the purpose is unclear to the majority of believers, who mistakenly consider their going to heaven as the purpose of their being redeemed and are unaware that, according to the revelation of the Holy Scriptures, God’s judicial redemption as the procedure is with God’s organic salvation as the purpose, which is to regenerate us, shepherd us, sanctify us dispositionally, renew us, transform us, and build us up into the Body of Christ, which ultimately consummates the New Jerusalem as the ultimate purpose of God’s organic salvation to be God’s enlargement and expression in eternity.
