«　WEEK 3　DAY 5　»

　　Phil. 3:10 To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

　　Rom. 8:29 Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.

　　One of the greatest verses in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 6:17, says, "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." The implications of this verse are marvelous and far-reaching. We, the believers, are one spirit with the Lord. How tremendous! This implies that we are in Him and that He is in us. It also implies that we and He have been mingled, blended organically, to become one in life. To be one spirit with the Lord implies that we and He are a living entity. We simply do not have words to explain the significance of this verse. (Life-study of Colossians, p. 457)

　　Today the Spirit of God and the human spirit are mingled as one within us so that we can live a God-man life, a life that is God yet man and man yet God. Hence, the God-man life is a living of the two spirits, the Spirit of God and the spirit of man joined and mingled together as one. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 2, "The Issue of the Union of the Consummated Spirit of the Triune God and the Regenerated Spirit of the Believers," p. 193)

　　To be conformed to the death of Christ [Phil. 3:10b] denotes that the believers need to take Christ's death as a mold for their living. The mold of Christ's death refers to His putting to death His human life continuously so that He might live by the life of God. Unless the believers are conformed to the death of Christ, they cannot be conformed to the image of Christ. Therefore, when the believers experience the process of transformation and conformation, they are being conformed to the death of Christ. The death of Christ was present in Him throughout His entire life; therefore, the believers also must daily experience being conformed to Christ's death. (Truth Lessons—Level Three, vol. 3, p. 62)

　　Conformation is the end result of transformation. It includes the changing of our inward essence and nature, and it also includes the changing of our outward form, that we may match the glorified image of Christ, the God-man. He is the prototype and we are the mass production. Both the inward and the outward changes in us, the product, are the result of the operation of the law of the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2) in our being. (Rom. 8:29, footnote 3)

　　We need to take the death of Christ as the mold of our life. The mold of Christ's death refers to the continual putting to death of His human life so that He might live by the life of God. Christ's death is now a mold to which we are being conformed. As our human life is conformed to such a mold, we die to our human life in order to live the divine life.

　　Unless we are conformed to the death of Christ, we cannot be conformed to the image of Christ. Christ's death is a mold in which we are being shaped into His image as the firstborn Son of God. As we are undergoing the process of transformation and conformation, we are being conformed to the death of Christ.

　　Christ's death took place throughout His life. As He was living, He was also dying. Daily He was molded by the cross, even when He was a child, living in a carpenter's home in Nazareth. He was continually being crossed out—crossed out by His mother, by His brothers, and by His disciples, who had no ear to hear what He spoke to them concerning His suffering and death on the cross. Day by day Christ died to the old creation in order to live a life in the new creation.

　　Being conformed to Christ's death should be our daily experience as believers. The more our natural life is put to death, the more the divine life within us will be released. Then in our experience we shall be conformed to Christ's death. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 1613-1614)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1989, vol. 3, "The Experience and Growth in Life," chs. 3-4, 12, 25; CWWL, 1983, vol. 3, "A Living of Mutual Abiding with the Lord in Spirit," chs. 4-5