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Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:29
Now we must see that we need to be conformed to the image of God’s Son that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29). We can illustrate what this means by considering a group of eight brothers. The first brother is a very big, husky, strong American, but the other seven are weak and sickly. If this big, husky American man would say that the other seven are his brothers, no one would believe him. On the other hand, if all his brothers were the same as he is, everyone would say that they are his “twins” because they all look the same.
The situation among today’s Christians is a sad story. Today, in a sense, Satan can “clap his hands” and say to the Lord, “You are the Firstborn among many brothers, but look at Your millions of believers. Who is the same as You?” This is why Romans 8:29 says that God predestinated those whom He has justified to be conformed to the image of His Son. This is like saying that all the weak and sickly brothers have to be conformed to the image of their husky brother. When we are conformed to the image of Christ, then He can be the Firstborn among His many brothers. What a shame it is to Christ that His brothers, His “twins,” are so poor and do not match Him!
In the new man Christ is all and in all. There is no room for any natural person. In the new man there is no Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free man. All are Christ. Christ is all the members and in all the members (Col. 3:10-11). He is everything in the new man. Actually, He is the new man, His Body (1 Cor. 12:12). There is no such thing as a Japanese church, a Chinese church, a Puerto Rican church, or a Taiwanese church. In the new man there is room only for Christ. We all should be conformed to the image of Christ, the Son of God, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers. If we would not be conformed to the first God-man, the prototype, then this God-man would not have “twins.” Then He could not be the Firstborn. This is what Paul means in Romans 8:29.
The image of God’s Son is the image of the Lord Jesus Christ (1:3-4). The Lord Jesus Christ is God and man. Thus, His image is the image of One who is both God and man. He lived a life of man for the expression of God. He was a man whose living was not by His human life but by God’s divine life. Thus, God’s divine attributes became His human virtues. The image of God’s Son is the image of the first God-man in the universe, who is Christ. All His believers as His many “twins” should be conformed to His image.
The believers in Christ, who have been called and justified by God, were predestinated to be conformed to the image of the first God-man, Jesus Christ (8:29-30). They become the many God-men as the many brothers (the mass reproduction) of the first God-man (the prototype).
Thus, Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18) becomes the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29-30). Without us He cannot be the Firstborn. For someone to be the firstborn, he needs “twins.” If he is the only son, he is not the firstborn. He is the only begotten. For Christ, the first God-man, to be the firstborn Son of God, He needs us, the “twins,” to be conformed to His image.
Christ, as the Son of God, put humanity upon Himself in His incarnation. Although He was the Son of God possessing divinity, His human part was not divine; that is, it was not the Son of God. Christ’s human part, as the seed of David, was designated, uplifted into His divinity by the Spirit of holiness (the essence of His divinity) in resurrection to become a part of His divine sonship. Thus, as the only begotten Son of God without humanity, Christ became the firstborn Son of God with both divinity and humanity. All the God-men, the believers in Christ, need to be conformed to the image of such a firstborn Son of God, living a life crucified in the human life to live by the divine life that they may be the real God-men to be the expression of God in humanity with the divine attributes lived out from humanity, to be the reality of the church as the organic Body of Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem, as revealed in details from the following chapters of Romans (chapters 9—16) to the end of Revelation, for the carrying out of the eternal economy of God.
