In this message we shall see that in the completing stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of glorification, the believers will be redeemed in their body.
In Romans 8:23 Paul speaks of “the redemption of our body.” To be redeemed in our body is to be glorified (Rom. 8:30c). Hence, glorification and the redemption of our body are synonymous. To be glorified is to be redeemed in our body. No matter how mature we may become in the divine life, as long as we have not been glorified, we have not been redeemed in our body. But when we are glorified, our glorification will also be the redemption of our body. Therefore, the believers will be glorified and redeemed in their body simultaneously.
First Corinthians 1:30 tells us that Christ has become “wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” In God’s full salvation Christ is righteousness (for our past), by which we have been justified by God, that we may be reborn in our spirit to receive the divine life (Rom. 5:18). Then He is sanctification (for the present), by which we are being sanctified in our soul, that is, transformed in our mind, emotion, and will, with the divine life (Rom. 6:19-22). Eventually, Christ will be our redemption (for the future), that is, the redemption of our body, by which we shall be transformed in our body with the divine life to have Christ’s glorious likeness (Phil. 3:21). It is of God that we participate in such a complete and perfect salvation, making our entire being-spirit, soul, and body-organically one with Christ, and making Christ everything to us.
When the believers are redeemed, glorified, in their body, they will enjoy the full divine sonship of which the Holy Spirit is the foretaste, the firstfruit. This firstfruit is the foretaste as a guarantee that in the future we shall enjoy the full taste, and that full taste will be the full sonship, which is the redemption of our body, our glorification.
Romans 8:23 says, “We ourselves also, having the firstfruit of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan in ourselves, eagerly expecting sonship, the redemption of our body.” The firstfruit of the Spirit is the Spirit Himself as the firstfruit of the coming harvest of what God is to us. We enjoy the Spirit as the foretaste of the full blessing to come. Hence, to have the firstfruit of the Spirit is to enjoy the Spirit as the firstfruit. This firstfruit is the Holy Spirit as a sampling of the full taste of God as our enjoyment of all that the processed Triune God is to us. The full taste will come in the day of glory. But before that full taste comes, God has given us a foretaste today. This foretaste is the divine Spirit as the firstfruit of the harvest of the full enjoyment of all that the processed Triune God is to us.
The issue of the enjoyment of the Spirit as the foretaste is the redemption of our body, which is the full sonship. As we are enjoying the Spirit as the foretaste, we are still groaning for and eagerly expecting sonship. The sonship in 8:23 is the full sonship, the consummation of the sonship, not the initiation of the sonship as in Galatians 4:5. The full sonship is the redemption of our body. We have sonship in our spirit through regeneration, and we may also have sonship in our soul through transformation, but we do not yet have sonship in our body through transfiguration. Therefore, although we have received the sonship already, we shall not receive the full sonship until our body is transfigured and conformed to the glorious body of Christ (Phil. 3:21). In the future we shall have sonship in our body. This is full sonship, the redemption of our body, which is our longing and our expectation.
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