Philippians 1 through 3 reveals our progressive experience of Christ. In chapter 1 to experience Christ is a matter of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. No doubt, this is a matter of our experience of Christ as the Spirit of Jesus Christ in our spirit (v. 19). In chapter 2 our experience of Christ is a matter related to our mind. In verse 5 Paul tells us that our mind should be indwelt by Christ’s mind. Thinking the same thing and doing all things without murmurings and especially reasonings are matters in our mind (vv. 2, 14). In chapter 3, as we will see in this message, to experience Christ in the final state is to experience Him in our body. Our experience of Christ in our body, that is, the transfiguration, the redemption, of our body, will be the consummation of the experience of Christ (v. 21). This will be the conformation of our natural body to the heavenly form of the body of Christ’s glory. Our entire being will be brought into glory by experiencing Christ.
In 3:20-21 Christ is revealed as the One who transfigures our body. The life which Paul lived in the experience of Christ was that of eagerly awaiting the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would come from the heavens to transfigure his body of humiliation, conforming it to the body of His glory. Thus, he took the Christ whom he experienced as his expectation.
In verse 20 Paul says, “Our commonwealth exists in the heavens, from which also we eagerly await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” This verse indicates that Christ who transfigures our body will come from the heavens. We are waiting for Christ to come back so that we may be brought into the ultimate consummation of God’s salvation—the transfiguration of our body. As we await and love the Lord’s glorious appearing from the heavens, we should live a God-expressing and flesh-restricting life (Titus 2:12-13; Luke 21:34-36; 2 Tim. 4:8).
According to Philippians 3:20-21, from the heavens we are eagerly awaiting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, “who will transfigure the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of His glory.” The transfiguration of our body is the ultimate consummation of God’s salvation. In His salvation God first regenerated our spirit (John 3:6), now is transforming our soul (Rom. 12:2), and consummately will transfigure our body, making us the same as Christ in all three parts of our being.
In Philippians 3:21 Paul refers to our body as “the body of our humiliation.” This describes our natural body, made of worthless dust (Gen. 2:7) and damaged by sin, weakness, sickness, and death (Rom. 6:6; 7:24; 8:11). But one day this body will be transfigured and conformed to the body of Christ’s glory. Christ’s body of glory is His resurrected body, saturated with God’s glory (Luke 24:26) and transcendent over corruption and death (Rom. 6:9).
Our spirit has been regenerated, and our soul may be fully transformed, yet our body remains old. With all its physical weakness and illnesses, it is under the power of death. It is mortal and subject to infirmity and death. Though our body may be enlivened by the Spirit who indwells us (8:11), it is a mortal body, subject to death and needing to be redeemed. Today, by cooperating with the Spirit in our spirit, we may experience the Lord’s spreading of the divine life into our body to enliven and even saturate it to a certain degree. Nevertheless, no matter how much our body may be enlivened and saturated by the Spirit, it still requires the Lord’s full redemption. This is the reason we often groan in ourselves (v. 23). But we praise the Lord that when He comes back, He will transfigure the body of our humiliation. Then “we will be like Him” (1 John 3:2), not only in our spirit and in our soul but also in our body. At that time we will be in His full likeness both inwardly and outwardly, from the center of our being to the circumference, from our innermost spirit to our outermost body. That will be the ultimate consummation of the Lord’s salvation.
The transfiguration of our body is the redemption of our body for the full sonship of God (Rom. 8:23). Although we have the divine Spirit as the firstfruits in our spirit, our body has not yet been saturated with the divine life. Our body is still the flesh, linked to the old creation, and it is still a body of sin and death that is impotent in the things of God (6:6; 7:24). Hence, we groan together with the creation and eagerly await the glorious day when we will obtain the full sonship, the redemption and transfiguration of our body (8:19-23).
The transfiguration of our body will be the glorification of our entire being (vv. 30, 17; 1 Pet. 5:10; 2 Tim. 2:10). Objectively, glorification is that the redeemed believers will be brought into the glory of God (Heb. 2:10a; 1 Pet. 5:10a). Subjectively, glorification is that the matured believers will manifest from within them, by their maturity in life, the glory of God as the element of their maturity in life (Rom. 8:17-18, 21; 2 Cor. 4:17). The Lord is in us as the hope of glory to bring us into glory. At His coming back, on the one hand, He will come from the heavens with glory (Rev. 10:1; Matt. 25:31), and on the other hand, He will be glorified in His saints (2 Thes. 1:10). His glory will be manifested from within His members, causing their body of humiliation to be transfigured into and conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21). Thus, the unbelievers will marvel, admire, wonder at, the One who is in us, the believers. We are on the way of being brought into glory by the sanctifying work of the Spirit; sanctification is the gradual process of glorification (Heb. 2:10-11; 1 Thes. 5:23; Eph. 5:26-27).
The reality of our glorification is our gaining of God Himself, for the glory of God is God Himself (Jer. 2:11; Eph. 1:17; 1 Cor. 2:8; 1 Pet. 4:14), and the manifestation of God is the glory of God (Acts 7:2). Without God, we do not have glory. When we gain God, we are glorified. The measure of God that we have determines the measure of our glory. The believers’ entering into the glory of God to participate in the glory of God is their entering into God to enjoy God Himself. The more we enjoy God and the more of God we have in us, the more we have His glory. As we enjoy God, we manifest the glory of God, glorifying God, and God is expressed through us.
The believers’ transformation in the divine life today is God’s expression in the believers’ glory. Hence, this daily transformation is from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:17). The subjective glory of God in us, the expression of God in us, is a glory that progresses from one degree to another. The consummation of glory into which the believers will enter by transformation in life is that they will be glorified; their body will be redeemed, and they will thereby enter into the glory of God to fully enjoy God as glory (Rom. 8:21, 23, 30). The believers’ arriving at glorification is the climax of their maturity in the life of God and the climax of God’s salvation in life (Heb. 6:1a; Rom. 5:10). Glorification is the ultimate consummation of God’s salvation in life; it is God’s salvation in life saving us to the uttermost through regeneration, transformation, conformation, and glorification.
We were made according to Christ, who is the image of God (Gen. 1:26; Col. 1:15). One day Christ came in the form of a man (Phil. 2:7-8). Through death and resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit in order to dispense Himself into us (1 Cor. 15:45). We received Him, and He came into us. This Christ is now within us doing the work of transformation, not only transforming us into His image but also conforming us into His form. Eventually, He will come to transfigure our body into the likeness of His glorious body. Then we will be fully, completely, and ultimately the same as He is (1 John 3:2b). We will be like Christ, and He will be fully like us. Christ and we will be in the same image and in the same likeness. This was God’s purpose in creating man to express God Himself. This is God’s desire and His heart’s delight, and this is also what God is waiting for in His good pleasure (Eph. 1:5). Therefore, the transfiguration of our body, the glorification of our entire being, is the accomplishment of God’s economy for the satisfaction of God’s desire.
In verse 21 of Philippians 3 Paul says that the transfiguration of the body of our humiliation is “according to His operation by which He is able even to subject all things to Himself.” The transfiguring of our body is accomplished by the Lord’s great power, which subjects all things to Himself (Eph. 1:19-22). This is the almighty power in the universe.
In summary, the transfiguration of our body indicated in Philippians 3:21 is the redemption of our body mentioned in Romans 8:23; this is the final step of Christ’s redemption applied to our being. The transfiguration of our body is our hope of glory, for which we are eagerly awaiting. First, we were regenerated in our spirit; now we are being transformed in our soul; eventually we will be transfigured in our body. Thus, in our tripartite being, we will be absolutely the same as Christ is. He is the firstborn Son of God, and we will be conformed to His image to be the many full-grown sons of God, who are the many brothers of Christ and the members of the Body of Christ, the corporate expression of the Triune God (v. 29; 12:4-5).