In this lesson we will see that in the completing stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of glorification, the believers will experience the redemption of their body.
In Romans 8:23 Paul speaks of “the redemption of our body.” To be redeemed in our body is to be glorified (v. 30). Hence, glorification and the redemption of our body are synonymous. No matter how mature we may become in the divine life, as long as we have not been glorified, we have not been redeemed in our body. Only when we are glorified will our body be redeemed. Therefore, the believers will be glorified and redeemed in their body simultaneously.
First Corinthians 1:30 says that Christ has become “wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” This indicates that in God’s full salvation Christ is righteousness (for our past), by which we have been justified by God so that we may be reborn in our spirit to receive the divine life (Rom. 5:18). Then He is sanctification (for our present), by which we are being sanctified in our soul, that is, transformed in our mind, emotion, and will, with His divine life (6:19, 22). Eventually, Christ will become our redemption (for our future), that is, the redemption of our body, by which we will be transfigured in our body with His divine life to have His glorious likeness (Phil. 3:21). God’s complete and perfect salvation will make our entire being—spirit, soul, and body—organically one with Christ and will make Christ everything to us.
When the believers are redeemed in their body, glorified, they will enjoy the full divine sonship, of which the Holy Spirit is the foretaste, the firstfruits. Romans 8:23 says, “Not only so, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan in ourselves, eagerly awaiting sonship, the redemption of our body.” The firstfruits of the Spirit are simply the Spirit as the firstfruits of the coming harvest of what God is to us. The firstfruits are the Holy Spirit as a sampling of the full taste of God, that is, as the foretaste of the full blessing to come. We have received and are enjoying the Spirit; we are enjoying the processed Triune God as our everything. The full taste of this will come in the day of glory. Before the full taste comes, God gives us a foretaste today. This foretaste is the Spirit as the firstfruits of the harvest of the full enjoyment of all that the processed Triune God is to us.
The issue of our enjoyment of the Spirit as the firstfruits is the redemption of our body, which is the full sonship. We have sonship in our spirit through regeneration, and we may also have sonship in our soul through transformation, but we do not yet have sonship in our body through transfiguration. Therefore, although we have received the sonship, having the beginning of the sonship spoken of in Galatians 4:5, we will not obtain the full sonship until our body is transfigured to be conformed to the body of Christ’s glory (Phil. 3:21). As we are enjoying the Spirit as the foretaste, we are still groaning, hoping for, and eagerly awaiting the sonship in our body, that is, the redemption of our body, in the future.
The redemption of the believers’ body is for redeeming God’s acquired possession. Ephesians 1:14 says that the Holy Spirit “is the pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of the acquired possession.” As God’s redeemed ones, we are His possession, which He acquired with the precious blood of Christ (Acts 20:28). In God’s New Testament economy, the processed Triune God has become our inheritance, and we have become God’s possession. How marvelous! We give nothing, and we get everything! God acquired us at a cost, but we inherit God at no cost.
Through Christ’s redemption God has acquired, secured, purchased us to be His possession. Therefore, the redemption of our body, that is, the transfiguration of our body of humiliation into a glorious one (Phil. 3:21), is for redeeming God’s acquired possession. In His salvation God first gives Himself to us as our inheritance with the Holy Spirit as a pledge. Then we begin to enjoy God as our inheritance. Actually, our experience of the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity is our enjoyment of God as our inheritance in a practical way. As we enjoy God as our inheritance, His element comes into our being and transforms us to make us His inheritance for His enjoyment. Therefore, the coming glorification will not be only for us but also for God. The redemption of our body will be both for our enjoyment and God’s enjoyment. The Holy Spirit within us is not only a foretaste but also a pledge, guaranteeing that God is ours and that we will be His. He is our inheritance for our enjoyment, and we will become His inheritance for His enjoyment.
The Triune God has put His Spirit into us as a pledge, guaranteeing that He will be our inheritance unto the redemption of our body. We are God’s possession, yet our body is still in the old creation. Therefore, we still need to be redeemed in our body unto the redemption of God’s possession. Daily we enjoy the Triune God in the way of the Spirit’s pledging. To enjoy God in this way as our inheritance is to receive the dispensing of the processed Triune God into us. Eventually, we will be saturated with Him and constituted of Him as our inheritance. This enjoyment and constitution will make us His inheritance. One day, as God’s inheritance, we will be redeemed in our body into His glory to be His possession in glory for Him to gain us and enjoy us in full.