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Prayer: Lord, we extol You with our full acknowledgment. We acknowledge that You are the Lord of all, that You are the speaking God, and that You are the Spirit who dispenses Your life into our being. Lord, we praise You that we can acknowledge so many things concerning You. Lord, in speaking Your word, we pray that You will be one spirit with us and that You will speak in our speaking, making our speaking Your speaking. Lord, we want to be one spirit with You. We do not want to do anything or to speak anything without being one spirit with You. Lord, in these days You are teaching us to speak the things of a new culture in a new language. Lord, we ask You to give us the new language for the new culture. Amen.
In this chapter we come to the next two sections of God’s organic salvation—renewing and transformation.
Renewing is the fourth section of God’s organic salvation.
All the regenerated believers have been created into one new man in Christ (Eph. 2:15; Col. 3:10); hence, they are God’s new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). In Christ we, both the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers, have been created into the new man.
This new creation is out of God’s old creation, of which so many old things should be renewed to become new. We may regard ourselves as quite good, but whether we are good or bad, we are of the old creation, and thus we need to be renewed.
In fact, the creation of the new man has been completed by Christ on the cross (Eph. 2:15); but in practicality, the believers, who are the members of the new man, should apply to themselves what Christ has completed by being practically renewed in their living. We need to apply to ourselves what Christ has accomplished.
Renewing is implied in sanctification, which makes the believers new while it is going on within them. The more we are sanctified, the more we are renewed. To be renewed, therefore, is based on the ongoing sanctification.
Titus 3:5 says that God “saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.” This tells us that renewing is the continuation of the washing of regeneration. God first regenerates us and then continues to renew us. Regeneration lays the foundation of the divine life upon which the renewing continues to build up the divine life within a believer. Regeneration is accomplished once for all, but renewing is an ongoing process through the whole life of a believer until he becomes matured to be a full-grown man.
In regeneration a new life, the divine life, is added to our natural life, causing these two lives to become one. In sanctification our distorted, crooked, and perverted nature is adjusted by God’s holy nature. In renewing the mingled spirit penetrates our troublesome mind, causing it to be changed and even to become the mind of Christ (Phil. 2:5; 1 Cor. 2:16). Our mind is the source of all kinds of trouble and surely needs to be renewed.
We are renewed by the Spirit (Titus 3:5). Renewing is by the renewing Spirit mingling with the believers’ regenerated spirit indwelt by Christ as one spirit to spread into the believers’ mind (Eph. 4:23) to renew their entire being as a member of the new man.
We, the regenerated saints, as parts of the new man and as God’s new creation should walk in the newness of the divine life in resurrection (Rom. 6:4).
In order to be renewed by the mingled spirit, the renewing Spirit mingled with the believers’ regenerated spirit, the believers need to put off their old man, that is, renounce and deny their old self (Eph. 4:22; Matt. 16:24). To deny the self and bear the cross is to apply the cross to the self.
The believers also need to put on the new man, that is, apply what Christ has accomplished in creating the new man, by living and magnifying Christ through the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:24; Phil. 1:19-21). Whereas the cross is for the putting off of our old man, the Spirit is for the putting on of the new man. To put on the new man we need the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Renewing takes place through the consuming by the believers’ environmental suffering (2 Cor. 4:16). This suffering kills the believers’ outer man and renews their inner man day by day. Human life is more a life of suffering than a life of enjoyment. Much of the believers’ environmental suffering is related to their family life, to their daily life with their spouse, children, and relatives. Our environment is according to God’s sovereign arrangement, and we cannot escape it. God arranges our environment so that little by little and day by day our outer man will be consumed and our inner man will be renewed.
The believers must be thoroughly and absolutely renewed so that they may be practically the genuine new creation of God and for God (Gal. 6:15).
The believers should be renewed to be as new as the New Jerusalem since they all will be the consummating part of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2). Nothing of the old creation can be brought into the New Jerusalem. Since the New Jerusalem will be constituted with the believers, they need to be thoroughly and absolutely renewed.
Transformation is the fifth section of God’s organic salvation.
Regeneration has added the divine life to the believers’ redeemed life, making the two a “grafted” life; thus, the believers participate in God’s divinity.
Some Christian teachers hold strongly to the concept of what is called an “exchanged life.” This concept is found in the biography of J. Hudson Taylor written by his son and daughter-in-law. According to this concept, the Christian life is an exchanged life, a life in which we exchange our life for the divine life, the life of Christ. This teaching concerning an exchanged life is a great error. In the New Testament there is no such thing as an exchanged life. Yes, the first part of Galatians 2:20 says, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live.” This, of course, is true: the old “I” has been crucified with Christ, and this “I” lives no longer. However, in this verse Paul goes on to say, “The life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God.” On the one hand, the old “I” has been crucified; on the other hand, there is a new “I,” and this new “I” lives by the faith of Christ. This is a matter not of an exchanged life but of a grafted life, two lives that have been grafted together to be one life. God has added His divine life to our redeemed human natural life and grafted our life with His life.
By means of this grafted life the believers participate in God’s divinity. The believers are being mingled with God, and God is mingling Himself with them. As a result, the believers have divinity in their being and participate in God’s divinity.
Sanctification has sanctified the believers, especially in their nature, with the holy nature of God to change their nature; thus, they also participate in God’s divinity. The more we are sanctified, the more we participate in God’s divinity.
Renewing has renewed the believers mainly in their mind to change their mind with the mind of Christ; thus, they also participate in God’s divinity.
Three things cause us to participate in God’s divinity: regeneration, sanctification, and renewing. Regeneration changes our life, sanctification changes our nature, and renewing changes our mind. All three things enable the believers in Christ to participate in God’s divinity. If we realize this, we will see that as believers we are not only human but also divine. Today we, the believers in Christ, are both divine and human. We are human and divine persons. Because we are divine as well as human, we are also mystical.
Transformation transforms the believers’ entire being, by the transforming Spirit in their spirit filled with Christ, into the glorious image of Christ, that they may fully participate in God’s divinity. To be filled with Christ, who is divine, is to be filled with divinity. At present we are participating in God’s divinity only partially, but when our entire being is transformed and filled with divinity, we will fully participate in God’s divinity.
Transformation is by renewing; it is the issue of renewing. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.” This indicates that transformation is the issue of renewing.
Renewing is mainly in the believers’ mind (Eph. 4:23); transformation is in the believers’ soul for their entire being.
Transformation is not any kind of outward correction or adjustment.
Transformation is a kind of metabolism, by the addition of the element of the divine life of Christ into the believers’ being, to be expressed outwardly in the image of Christ. This can be illustrated by having a healthy complexion through proper nutrition. The way to have such a healthy complexion is not to apply cosmetics but to eat nourishing food and then to digest and assimilate it metabolically. If we eat properly, the food we digest and assimilate will supply us with a new element which will eventually produce an outward and visible change in our facial color. The principle is the same with transformation. Transformation is a matter of inward metabolism issuing in an outward expression.
Transformation is accomplished by the Lord Spirit (the pneumatic Christ) transforming the believers into the image of the glory of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). The metabolism involved in transformation eventually transforms us into the image of the glory of Christ.
The believers should behold the Lord with an unveiled face and reflect Him like a mirror to express Him. This gives the ground and the way for the transforming Spirit to transform the believers’ entire being into the glorious image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God who expresses God to the uttermost.
The believers should live and walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25) and walk according to the mingled spirit (Rom. 8:4b), that the divine life of Christ may have the way to regulate them and transform them into the image of the Lord in glory.
Transformation should be consummated by conformation, which is maturity in the divine life for the believers to be conformed to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God, to fully participate in God’s divinity. Thus, they manifest God in life, in nature, in inward thinking, and in outward expression to enjoy the divine sonship and to participate in God’s divinity in full.
At this point I would like to say a further word about a new utterance that the Lord has given us: participate in God’s divinity. This language is very strange and marvelous. I believe that this word about participating in God’s divinity is something altogether new. In God’s organic salvation we, the believers in Christ, can participate in God’s divinity. God’s life has been imparted into our life, His nature is being wrought into our nature, His mind is being wrought into our mind, and we even have His divine element, the element of the riches of His unsearchable life, to transform our entire being. Thus, we have God’s life, God’s nature, God’s mind, and the divine element of all His riches, and now we can participate in God’s divinity in full. For us to participate in God’s divinity means that He is making us Him. He is making us God in His life, in His nature, in His thinking, and in His expression but not, of course, in His Godhead.
For God to work Himself into us in such a way is not merely to make us holy, and it is not merely to make us perfect, victorious, and spiritual. God is working His life, nature, mind, and element into us in order to make us God in life, in nature, in mind, and in expression.
Regarding this, I have a very heavy burden for you all, especially for the co-workers and elders. I have the full assurance that you are one with the ministry for the Lord’s recovery, and I appreciate this. However, I am very concerned that you may not realize and acknowledge that God has imparted His life into us, that He is working His nature into our nature, that He is working His mind into our mind, and that He is working the element of His unsearchable riches into our entire being, especially into our spirit and our soul. Eventually, when our body is glorified, we will be the same as God in every part of our being. This is not a human thought—it is the divine revelation. We all need to see this, and we all need to pray, “Lord, work Yourself into me richly in every aspect—in the aspects of Your life, Your nature, Your mind, and Your rich element—to make my whole being, spirit, soul, and body, the same as You are.”
