«　WEEK 8　DAY 3　»

　　John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father)…

　　Heb. 1:6 And when He brings again the Firstborn into the inhabited earth, He says, “And let all the angels of God worship Him.”

　　We need to realize that the date of our regeneration was the date of Christ’s resurrection. When Christ was resurrected from the dead, we, all the believers, were resurrected with Him (1 Pet. 1:3). Through His resurrection He was born to be God’s firstborn Son, and at the same time all His believers were born to be the many sons of God…. Now God has many sons with both divinity and humanity. But among these many sons, only the Firstborn is His only begotten Son. This only begotten Son of God, in His resurrected humanity, is also the firstborn Son of God. As the firstborn Son of God, He has both divinity and humanity, and we His believers as God’s many sons also possess both the human nature and the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). Now day by day we are being conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son (Rom. 8:29). (CWWL, 1980, vol. 2, “The Secret of Experiencing Christ,” p. 472)

　　Christ was the only begotten Son of God from eternity (John 1:18). When He was sent by God into the world, He was still the only begotten Son of God (1 John 4:9; John 1:14; 3:16). By His passing through death and entering into resurrection, His humanity was uplifted into His divinity. Thus, in His divinity and with His humanity that passed through death and resurrection, He was born in resurrection as God’s firstborn Son (Acts 13:33). At the same time, all His believers were raised together with Him in His resurrection and were begotten together with Him as the many sons of God (1 Pet. 1:3). Thus, they became His many brothers to constitute His Body and to be God’s corporate expression in Him.

　　From eternity to eternity, Christ in His divinity is the only begotten Son of God. After He became a man with humanity in His incarnation, He, as the Son of Man, was born to be the firstborn Son of God in His resurrection…. This was the greatest corporate delivery. Because through His resurrection the disciples of Christ were regenerated with the divine life to be the many sons of God, after His resurrection He began to call them His brothers (John 20:17; Matt. 28:10). Hebrews 2:11-12 confirms this…. He also considered them the church, indicating that the church is a corporate composition of the many brothers of the firstborn Son of God.

　　As the only begotten Son of God, Christ had divinity but not humanity; He was self-existing and ever-existing, as God is. His being the firstborn Son of God, having both divinity and humanity, began with His resurrection. With His firstborn Son as the base, pattern, element, and means, God is producing many sons, and the many sons who are produced are the many believers who believe into God’s firstborn Son and are joined to Him as one. They are exactly like Him in life and nature, and, like Him, they have both humanity and divinity. They are His increase and expression in order that they may express the eternal Triune God for eternity.

　　According to Romans 8:29, we have been predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ, the Firstborn of God…. This is our destiny, determined by God in eternity past. 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 reproduction. 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 in our being (v. 2). (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3080-3082)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 293, 295, 435