The redemption of the believers’ body is the issue of the sealing of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30). The Holy Spirit is the seal and also the sealing. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit as the seal is put in us once for all. The sealing of the Holy Spirit, however, is not a once-for-all matter. Rather, this sealing is still taking place in us today. At the time of our salvation we were sealed, and even until now we are still being sealed. Paul says in Ephesians 4:30 that we were “sealed unto the day of redemption.” The word unto indicates that our being sealed continually with the Holy Spirit results in, or issues in, the redemption of our body. We were sealed with the Holy Spirit, and we are continually experiencing the sealing of the Holy Spirit with a view to the redemption of our body.
When we believed in the Lord Jesus, we were sealed in our spirit and began to experience the sealing. However, we have not yet been sealed with the Holy Spirit in the various parts of our soul—our mind, emotion, and will. Hence, this sealing, which begins in our spirit, is spreading into our mind, emotion, and will to saturate us and transform us with the divine element through the divine dispensing. One day even our body will be sealed with the Spirit, for our body will be saturated with the Spirit. That will be the day of the redemption of our body. Thus, we will be made God’s inheritance.
The redemption of our body will be to the praise of God’s glory (1:14). God’s glory is God expressed. God wants to be glorified, expressed, in His New Testament believers. Today this expression is not visible, but one day it will be visible. At that time our God will be fully glorified and expressed though us and among us. Furthermore, God’s expression through His New Testament believers will call forth universal praise. We will become a corporate body to express God, and the entire universe will praise His glory.
For us to be redeemed in our body is not only to enjoy the full divine sonship but also to have our body of humiliation transfigured and conformed to the body of Christ’s glory (Phil. 3:21). When the Lord Jesus returns, our body will be transfigured, fully redeemed, glorified. This is the ultimate consummation of God’s salvation. After we are transfigured, we will be the same as Christ in all three parts of our being.
In Philippians 3:21 Paul refers to our body as “the body of our humiliation.” This describes our natural body, which is made of worthless dust (Gen. 2:7) and damaged by sin, weakness, sickness, and death (Rom. 6:6; 7:24; 8:11). But one day this body will be transfigured and conformed to the body of Christ’s glory. Christ’s body of glory is His resurrected body, which is a mystery. On the day of His resurrection, He appeared to His disciples with such a body. Although He had a body that could be seen and touched, He came into a room while the doors were shut (John 20:19). Christ’s resurrected body, the body of Christ’s glory, is saturated with God’s glory (Luke 24:26) and transcendent over corruption and death (Rom. 6:9).
Our spirit has been regenerated and our soul may be fully transformed, but our body remains old. With all its physical weaknesses and illnesses, our body is under the power of death. It is mortal and subject to infirmity and death. Our body may be enlivened by the Spirit who indwells us (Rom. 8:11), but it is still a mortal body subject to death and needing to be redeemed. By cooperating with the Spirit in our spirit, we may experience the Lord’s spreading of the divine life into our body to enliven and even to saturate it to a certain degree. Nevertheless, no matter how much our body may be enlivened and even saturated by the Spirit, it still requires the Lord’s full redemption. This is the reason that we often groan in ourselves (v. 23). When the Lord comes back, He will transfigure the body of our humiliation. Then “we will be like Him” (1 John 3:2) not only in our spirit and in our soul but also in our body. At that time we will be in His full likeness both inwardly and outwardly, from the center of our entire being to the circumference, from our innermost part, our spirit, to our outermost part, our body. That will be the ultimate consummation of the Lord’s salvation.
The Lord’s transfiguring the body of our humiliation, conforming it to the body of His glory, will be “according to His operation by which He is able even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:21; cf. Eph. 1:19-22). To transfigure our body of humiliation is a difficult matter and needs the operation of the One who is able to subject all things to Himself. This is the almighty power in the whole universe.