Search
Prayer: Lord, we extol You again, acknowledging that You are the One whom God sent to speak His words and that You are also the One who gives the Spirit, the bountiful Spirit, all-inclusive Spirit, life-giving Spirit, the indwelling Spirit, not by measure. Hallelujah! Oh, this really meets our need! We need the word, and we need the Spirit. We need the words of life, and we need the Spirit of life. Lord, we thank You that through the years You have been speaking Your word to Your recovery and that You have been also giving Your Spirit to Your recovery. Thank You for Your revelation and for Your move. We praise You that You have shown us Your economy, with Christ as the centrality and the universality. Oh, what a Christ we have! We thank You for Your organic salvation, we thank You for Your Christ, and we thank You for the Spirit. Lord, we are still here receiving Your revelation with Your vision. Every day You give us new words. We thank You for showing us that we participate in God’s divinity. We have received Your life and Your nature, and by these we participate in God’s divinity. We thank You that we also have the divine mind, the mind of Christ, and by this also we participate in God’s divinity. We thank You that we are enjoying the riches of Christ as the element that transforms us metabolically so that by this metabolism we can participate in God’s divinity to the fullest. Lord, we are here before You to enjoy something further. Lord, as we come to the matters of conformation and glorification, we ask You to be with us and to give us the words, the new language for a new culture. Once again, we pray that You will cover us from Your enemy, the troublemaker. Bind him and put him into the corner. Amen.
Conformation is the seventh section of God’s organic salvation.
God’s intention is to make man like Him in His divine life, in His divine nature, and in His image as His expression but not in His Godhead. For God to make man like Him in this way actually means to make man God. God has imparted Himself into us to make us the same as He is in life and in nature but not in His Godhead. This is the divine intention.
In order to carry out His intention, God regenerates the believers in Christ with His divine life so that they may begin to participate in His divinity. Since we, the believers in Christ, participate in God’s divinity, we are gods. Second Peter 1:4 says that we partake of the divine nature. To partake of something is to participate in that thing. We partake of God’s nature, and thus we participate in God’s divinity. The divine One has imparted Himself into us to become our being. He dispenses Himself into us to be our life, our nature, our mind, and everything to us. If we are not those who participate in God’s divinity, then who participates in it? The angels cannot participate in God’s divinity, because they do not possess anything of God as we do. We are more blessed than the angels, for they are merely God’s servants, but we are God’s sons, possessing God’s divinity.
After they have been regenerated, the believers begin to grow.
Just as a child grows through feeding, the regenerated believers grow through the divine feeding. However, many of today’s Christians are not growing, because with them there is no feeding. Due to their lack of feeding, they also lack the proper sanctification, renewing, and transformation.
We grow first through the divine feeding and then through the divine sanctification. Sanctification causes us to grow. The more we are sanctified, the more we grow. In John 17:17-19 the Lord Jesus prayed, saying, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You have sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sake I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” To be sanctified is to be separated from the world. Daily we need to be sanctified, separated from the world, so that through this sanctification we may grow.
The regenerated believers grow also through the divine renewing. Renewing is therefore a factor of growth in the divine life.
The divine transformation in the divine life is a strong factor of the believers’ growth. Without the divine transformation we cannot grow. Many of today’s Christians do not grow because they do not have the divine feeding, the divine sanctification, the divine renewing, and the divine transformation.
The believers need to grow until they mature in the divine life by the maturing Spirit in their spirit enriched with Christ to be a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Col. 1:28; Eph. 4:13). We cannot mature without the proper supply, and this supply is the life-giving Spirit, who is the maturing Spirit in the believers’ spirit enriched with Christ. We can testify that our spirit is enriched with Christ. Eventually, we will be a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. In Ephesians 4:13 the word fullness refers to the Body of Christ. We have to be fully matured in order to be a fully grown man at the measure of the stature of the Body of Christ.
In God’s organic salvation the believers will be conformed to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29).
As the firstborn Son of God, Christ was begotten by God in His resurrection with both His divinity and His enlivened and uplifted humanity, possessing two natures, both divine and human (Acts 13:33; Rom. 1:4; 1 Pet. 3:18).
In resurrection Christ’s humanity was sanctified, enlivened, uplifted, and transformed. Our humanity had become fallen and has been redeemed by Christ. His humanity did not need to be redeemed, but His humanity, which died on the cross, needed to be sanctified, enlivened, uplifted, and transformed. Through resurrection the Lord’s dead humanity was sanctified, enlivened, uplifted, and transformed into the divine sonship. In resurrection He was begotten of God to be the firstborn Son of God both with His divinity and with His sanctified, enlivened, uplifted, and transformed humanity. The firstborn Son of God was therefore begotten of God with both divinity and humanity, and we are being conformed to His image.
The conformation of the believers is the consummation of their transformation in the divine life through which they participate in God’s divinity in full.
Glorification is the eighth section of God’s organic salvation.
In regeneration God seals the regenerated believers with His Spirit (Eph. 1:13). When a piece of paper is sealed with ink, the ink saturates the paper. This is an illustration of the fact that the sealing of the Spirit involves the believers’ being saturated with the Spirit.
The sealing of the sealing Spirit is like inking, saturating the sealed believers from within with the glorious life element of God throughout their life, resulting in the redemption of their body (4:30; Rom. 8:23). Throughout our entire Christian life, this sealing, this “inking,” is saturating our being from within. With what does the sealing Spirit seal the believers? The Spirit is sealing them with the glory of the divine life. The glory of the divine life is the “ink,” and throughout the believers’ life this ink by the “inking” is saturating their entire being from within with the glorious life element of God.
Such a saturating will eventually result in the redemption of our body. Ephesians 4:30 says that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit “unto the day of redemption.” Here the word unto means “resulting in” or “for.” This sealing is for the redemption of our body, and it will result in the redemption of our body. From the time we were saved and regenerated, the Spirit as the seal in us has been sealing us continually with the glorious life element of God unto the day of the redemption of our body.
At the time of the rapture of the believers who are matured in the divine life, they will be brought in their spirit exulting with Christ from without into the glory of God for their glorification (Rom. 8:30; Heb. 2:10).
The matured believers will be glorified from within through the lifelong saturation with the glory of God and from without through their being brought into God’s glory.
At present the “inking” is saturating us with God’s glory from within. This is a lifelong matter. Eventually, we will be brought into God’s glory in an outward way. Whereas the inner saturating is a lifelong process, our being brought into God’s glory outwardly will be instantaneous. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be brought into God’s glory. Thus, the matured believers will be glorified from within through the lifelong saturation with the glory of God and from without through their being brought into God’s glory.
The glorification of the matured believers is the top portion of their divine sonship in God’s organic salvation, which sonship they received at the time of their regeneration (Gal. 4:5; Rom. 8:23). In God’s organic salvation the matter of sonship is very critical and central. The redemption of our body is the highest enjoyment of the sonship. Romans 8:23 says, “We ourselves groan in ourselves, eagerly awaiting sonship, the redemption of our body.” As an elderly person with a number of physical infirmities, I often groan because of the weakness of my body. However, while I am groaning, I am awaiting sonship, the redemption of my body. The day is coming when our body will be redeemed, and we will enter into the full enjoyment of the divine sonship.
The redemption of the believers’ body is the transfiguration of their body at the Lord’s coming back (Phil. 3:20-21).
The word redemption indicates that the redemption of the body is judicial because the believers’ redeemed body is of the fallen old creation. This redemption of the believers’ body is the finalization of God’s judicial redemption. The word transfiguration indicates that the redemption of the believers’ body is organic because the transfiguration of their body is by the divine life within them.
The divine glorification of the glorified believers makes the consummated believers participate in God’s divinity to the uttermost.
In these messages we have considered the eight sections of God’s organic salvation: regeneration, feeding, sanctification, renewing, transformation, building, conformation, and glorification. God’s goal in these eight sections of His organic salvation is simply to make us God, that is, to make us a duplication, a xerox copy, of God.
Through regeneration God imparted His life into our being. Now we have the divine life, and we are also partaking of the divine nature. In addition, we have God’s mind and the element of Christ’s unsearchable riches. To have the riches of Christ means that we have God’s being. Therefore, we have God’s life, God’s nature, God’s mind, and God’s being. Eventually, we will be conformed to the image of Christ, the first God-man, and we will be fully saturated with the glory of the divine life and be brought into God’s glory. At that time we will have God’s life, God’s nature, God’s mind, God’s being, and God’s glory, and we will bear God’s image. We will surely have become God in life, in nature, and in expression but not in the Godhead. If such a person is not God, what is he? When our body is redeemed and transfigured and we thereby enjoy the highest portion of the divine sonship, we will be able to say, “Hallelujah! I have been made God. Praise the Lord that I have God’s life, God’s nature, God’s mind, God’s being, and God’s glory and that I am in God’s image!”
