Furthermore, to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God is to live a life of denying our natural life under the crucifixion of Christ by being conformed to His death (Phil. 3:10c). To be conformed to the image of Christ, we need to be conformed first to His death. If we are not the same as He is in His death, then we will not be like Him. Therefore, Philippians 3:10 says that we must be in the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. He suffers, and we suffer with Him; this is the fellowship of His sufferings. In this way we are conformed to the mold of His death. The mold of Christ’s death is to live a life of denying our natural life under the crucifixion of Christ. In our daily life we should not do anything by our natural life. Rather, in everything we must deny our natural life. This is to apply death to ourselves. We have a mold in us, and that mold is death, the denying of our natural life.
In the image of the firstborn Son of God there is the element of death, that is, the denying of His own life. While He was living on the earth, He denied His own life every moment and lived by the Father’s life instead. Although His crucifixion was the final stop of His journey on earth, throughout the thirty-three and a half years of His life He lived under the death of the cross by denying Himself and living by the Father’s life. This also is a great element in the all-inclusive Spirit. In the matter of love we have to ask, “Lord, is it I who love, or is it You who loves in me, from me, and through me?” If we love by ourselves, that is a love by our natural life and is without death or resurrection. If we deny our natural life and live by Christ, then we are according to the apostle Paul’s word: “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). This is to be conformed to the death of Christ.
To be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God is to live out the reality of the spiritual life of God by the power of Christ’s resurrection (Phil. 3:10a). The power of Christ’s resurrection is the life that raised Him from the dead. In order to know and experience this power of Christ we need to be joined and conformed to the death of Christ. We need to live a life of crucifixion as He did. Our being conformed to His death allows His resurrection power to rise up so that His divine, spiritual life may be practically expressed through us.
To be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God is to take the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, as our life and person (1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2; Gal. 5:16, 25).
The goal of God’s salvation in life is also that we be led into glorification in the divine glory by arriving at maturity of life through transformation in life (Eph. 4:13b; Col. 1:28; Rom. 8:30; Heb. 2:10a). Glorification is a matter that we need to be led into. According to 2 Corinthians 3:18, our transformation is from glory to glory. Transformation is a pathway of glory, and it increases from one degree of glory to another degree of glory. When we have passed through this kind of transformation, the result is our conformation, which is very close to glorification and leads us into glorification.
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