Message Twelve

Taking Christ as Our Expectation

Scripture Reading: Phil. 3:20-21

1. The life which Paul lived in the experience of Christ was one that awaited the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would transfigure his body of humiliation, conforming it to the body of His glory; thus, he took the Christ whom he experienced as his expectation—3:20-21.
2. “For our commonwealth exists in the heavens, from which also we eagerly await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ”—v. 20:
   1. Our national life is not in any earthly country; our real citizenship, our true commonwealth, is in the heavens—Eph. 2:6, 19.
   2. Because our citizenship is in the heavens, we should not be occupied with earthly things, the physical things needed for our existence—1 Tim. 6:6-10.
   3. In dealing with our body, we should take care of our physical need but should not indulge in excessive physical enjoyment—Phil. 3:17-19; 1 Cor. 9:27.
   4. As we await and love the Lord’s glorious appearing, we should live a God-expressing and flesh-restricting life—Titus 2:12-13; Luke 21:34-36; 2 Tim. 4:8.
3. Christ “will transfigure the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of His glory, according to His operation by which He is able even to subject all things to Himself”—Phil. 3:21:
   1. 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:
      1. 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 for our glorification, making us the same as Christ in all three parts of our being (1 John 3:2).
      2. The body of our humiliation is 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).
      3. The body of His glory is Christ’s resurrected body, saturated with God’s glory (Luke 24:26) and transcendent over corruption and death (Rom. 6:9).
      4. 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.
   2. The transfiguration of our body is the redemption of our body for the full sonship of God—Rom. 8:23:
      1. 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; cf. 2 Cor. 5:4.
      2. 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—Rom. 8:19-23.
      3. The redemption of our body is through the saturation of the divine element by the sealing Spirit of God—Eph. 1:13; 4:30; 1 Cor. 1:30; Luke 21:28.
   3. The transfiguration of our body will be the glorification of our entire being—Rom. 8:30, 17; 1 Pet. 5:10a; 2 Tim. 2:10:
      1. Objectively, glorification is that the redeemed believers will be brought into the glory of God to participate in the glory of God—Heb. 2:10a; 1 Pet. 5:10a.
      2. 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:
         1. The Lord is in us as the hope of glory to bring us into glory—Col. 1:27; Heb. 2:10a.
         2. 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:
            1. 1) His glory will be manifested from within His members, causing their body of humiliation to be transfigured into His glory, conforming it to the body of His glory—Phil. 3:21.
            2. 2) Thus, the unbelievers will marvel at Him, admire Him, wonder at Him, in us, the believers.
      3. 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.
      4. The reality of the believers’ glorification is their gaining of God Himself—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):
         1. The believers’ entering into the glory of God to participate in the glory of God is their entering into God Himself to enjoy God Himself.
         2. The believers’ being transformed in the divine life today is God’s being expressed in the believers as glory; hence, this daily transformation is from glory to glory—2 Cor. 3:18; 4:17.
         3. 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.
      5. 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. 5:10a.
      6. The believers’ glorification is the accomplishment of God’s economy for the satisfaction of God’s desire:
         1. The full expression of the believers’ glorification is the New Jerusalem, which will be manifested in glory—Rev. 21:10-11.
         2. This is the full expression in eternity of God’s becoming a man in humanity and of man’s being conformed to God in divinity.
         3. This is what God desires and is His heart’s delight, and this is also what God is waiting for in His good pleasure—Eph. 1:5.