How can we be conformed to the image of God’s Firstborn? To know how to be conformed to the image of God’s Firstborn, we must understand how God’s Firstborn lived on earth. The firstborn Son of God is both the Son of God and the Son of Man. He is the God-man, and He lived the life of a man on earth. The life which He lived on earth was the very life which God desired man to live when He created man. After the fall, man was not able to live the life which God wanted man to live. Hence, the only begotten Son of God came to become the Son of Man. In the four Gospels, from beginning to end, the Lord called Himself the Son of Man (Matt. 8:20; 26:64); He lived as a man on earth. He lived as a man daily under the shadow of the cross, denying and crucifying Himself daily. He told people that none of the words which He spoke was spoken by Himself and none of the things which He did was done out of His own desire (John 8:28-29; 14:10). He spoke words and did things according to His Father’s will. By doing this He fulfilled what God required judicially. This was why He was qualified to die for us on the cross. In His human living on earth for thirty-three and a half years, the Lord Jesus was tested and tried by God. Eventually, according to God’s requirement of righteousness judicially, He was qualified to go to the cross to bear our sins and die for us. God considered Him a sinner, even sin (2 Cor. 5:21), and condemned Him on the cross. His death was altogether a judicial matter for the accomplishment of God’s requirement of righteousness judicially. This was what He did as the Son of Man. The crucified life which He lived on earth as the Son of Man became a mold; we should be conformed to such a mold (Phil. 3:10b).
Today we the saved ones are the same as He is. According to the flesh, we are sons of Adam; we may also say that according to the Spirit of holiness, we are sons of God. However, we have not yet lived like sons of God. Whether or not you live like a son of God depends on whether or not you are living under the shadow of death. Have you died to yourself in dealing with your wife, your husband, your children, or anyone else? To give up ourselves, to remain on the cross, to die to ourselves, is to be conformed to the Lord’s death. When we are thus conformed to His death, the Spirit will operate in us. This is like a grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying; the outer shell decays, but the life within begins to operate. This is referred to in a hymn: “Only then as death is working/Will His life thru me be poured./If no death, no life...” (Hymns, #631).
If we want to experience being conformed to the image of God’s Son, we need to be daily conformed to His death. This is not a matter of endurance. We do not need to learn to try our best to endure; we need to die. When your wife makes you angry, the more you try to endure, the more you will have stomach trouble. What you need is not to endure but to die. Perhaps you would say that you do not know how to die. You need to pray unceasingly. When your wife changes her countenance toward you, pray to the Lord. If you cannot pray outwardly, pray in your heart. The more you pray, the more you know how to die to yourself. Thank the Lord that the brothers and sisters among us more or less have this kind of experience. Some may not have much experience. When they come home happy and notice their wife’s changed countenance, they would say, “O Lord, amen.” But when they are unhappy, they would counter her with a changed countenance or even start to hit her. This is not to be sons of God, but sons of Adam, even sons of the devil (1 John 3:10). Our living becomes an expression of the sons of the devil. If we live this way, how can Christ be the Firstborn among us? Hence, we need to have the experience of conformation every day in our living.
In summary, conformation is the consummation of the believers’ transformation in life, and it is also to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God, who is Christ as the God-man. To be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son is the believers’ becoming full-grown in life as God-men. This is to be conformed to His death in all things through the resurrection power of Christ (Phil. 3:10) and to live Christ for magnifying Him through the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the God-man (Phil. 1:19-21a). This is to be the reprints of the God-man, Christ, that we may be exactly like Him, the firstborn Son of God (1 John 3:2).
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