Fourth, the life of God continuously renews and transforms us so that eventually we who are transformed by Him may be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son (Rom. 8:29). The Lord Jesus originally was God’s only begotten Son; at that time, within Him there was only divinity, with no humanity. It was not until He became the Son of Man, putting on the flesh, that He had humanity. But this part, His humanity, was still not the Son of God. When He was crucified on the cross, His humanity was brought to death, passed through resurrection, and was uplifted to be brought into divinity. Through this, the part that was His humanity also became the Son of God. Now, He is the firstborn Son of God, having both divinity and humanity. Moreover, we who believed in Him and were regenerated became God’s many sons (Rom. 8:19). He is the Firstborn, with divinity plus humanity; we are the many sons, with humanity plus divinity. He and we, we and He, both have the divine and human natures.
Before we were saved, we were persons living merely in our humanity. Some people do things by their reasoning, and they are able to suppress themselves in not getting angry, nor talking loosely; they are proper and ethical people. There are also some whose will is not that strong, who do things foolishly, who always make mistakes and get upset. Regardless of whether we are proper or not, ethical or not, we have only humanity, and no divinity. But one day we believed in Jesus; the Son of God as the life-giving Spirit came into us. As soon as He came in, we who believed in Jesus, regardless of whether we were good or evil, had divinity added into our humanity. Therefore, in actuality, we Christians all have a double character. The first character is our original nature, our human nature; the second character is the added nature of God. If we pray and contact the Lord adequately, the divine nature within will increase, and we will be able to live out a superior living.
We all have this experience. Once this Jesus has entered into us, He will by no means go out. You may not want Him, but He still wants you; you may not like Him, but He still likes you. Within us He is full of grace, desiring to work on us in every way in order to sanctify, renew, and transform us step by step so that eventually we will be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God, so that we will be exactly like Christ. Christ the firstborn Son was simply divinity living in humanity expressing the divine attributes. It is the same with us, with humanity mingled with divinity; it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. Also, we live out this Christ from within us. The living of us the many sons is identical with that of Christ the Firstborn; our humanity lives by divinity so that the divine attributes may be expressed in the human virtues to the extent that we are full of the glory and beauty of divinity. In this way, Christ the Son of God can be the Firstborn among God’s many sons so that God may obtain the corporate expression of His firstborn Son with the many sons for the accomplishing of His original purpose of creation.
We were created in His image by the Triune God. Now through the redemption and salvation of the Triune God, every one of us one day will be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son. Thus, God’s firstborn Son with the many sons will constitute God’s corporate expression. This also accomplishes God’s original purpose of creation, that is, that man may have God’s image and, by God’s life, live Him out to express Him. Moreover, He desires those who are saved by His life to express the glory and beauty of His divine attributes in their human virtues. When we who died with Christ and live with Him express the glory and beauty of the divine attributes, such as love, light, holiness, righteousness, patience, and humility, in our human virtues, God will obtain an unsurpassing glory through this. In this way, we are corporately conformed to the image of the firstborn Son.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee in Hualien on April 29, 1990)