Glorification is the final step of God’s organic salvation in Christ which brings the conformed believers into God’s glory (Rom. 8:18, 21; Heb. 2:10; 1 Pet. 5:10). If we want to enter into glory, we have to be conformed to Christ’s image. We have to finish our “four-year course.” Then a “graduation” will be granted to us. Glorification is the graduation of the full Christian-life course. We will not enter into glory in a spontaneous way according to the concept of many Christians. Glorification is the consummation of a gradual work beginning from regeneration and continuing through feeding, dispositional sanctification, renewing, transformation, building up, and conformation. Then a “graduation paper” will be issued to us, which will be our glorification.
Such a glorification is the saturating of God’s glory from within the believers like the inking of the sealing which the believers received at their salvation (Eph. 1:13; 4:30). When a seal with much ink is applied to some pages of paper, it will saturate through to the last page. Ephesians 4:30 says that we are sealed with the Spirit unto the day of redemption. Unto means “resulting in.” This inking of the sealing Spirit will eventually result in the redemption of our body at our glorification.
How much freedom do we give this inking in our Christian life? To be smoothly sanctified dispositionally, renewed, transformed, and conformed means that we allow the inking to proceed quickly within us unto our glorification. To be in the glory has two aspects. On the one hand, we will enter into glory. On the other hand, this glory saturates us from within by the inking of the sealing Spirit throughout our entire Christian life. We need to be under the inking of the Spirit day by day. Then we will enter into glory through this inward inking, which is the saturating of God’s glory from within us.
Such a glorification is to transfigure our body of humiliation to be conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21). Hence, it is called the redemption of the believers‘ body (Eph. 4:30; Rom. 8:23). The Greek word for transformation and transfiguration is the same. To be transfigured is the last step of transformation. It is to change the form of our outward body. Our body today is a body of humiliation, but it will be transfigured into another form of another body, that is, into the glorious body of Christ.
Such a glorification, the redemption of our body, is the full enjoyment of our sonship (Rom. 8:23). We are the sons of God, but our body has not yet been “sonized.” Our body will be sonized when it is redeemed. To be transfigured, to be redeemed, is to be sonized. We were born sons of God at the time of our regeneration, but at that time only our spirit was sonized. Regeneration is the first step of sonizing. Organic feeding, sanctification, renewing, transformation, building, and conformation are the following steps. The last step is the sonizing of our body.
God regenerated us with His divine life. That means He added His divine life to our human life. Our human life was created by God, but it became fallen. This is why we need redemption. Redemption means to redeem back judicially the right thing that was lost. When the Lord died on the cross, He died with us, with our natural man. We were crucified with Him, buried with Him, and also resurrected with Him (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 6:4; Eph. 2:6). Therefore, we have been created, fallen, redeemed judicially, uplifted, and resurrected. Our human life and God’s life have been grafted together (Rom. 11:17). Otherwise, how could we live with Him? We live with Him because we have our own life plus His life. Regeneration is to have the divine, spiritual life of God in addition to our human life.
After our regeneration we are dispositionally sanctified with the element of the resurrection life of Christ. Through sanctification our distorted, crooked, perverted, natural nature is adjusted and straightened with His holy nature. The Holy Spirit dispenses God’s holy nature into our being to straighten our crooked disposition. Because we partake of the divine nature, which is perfect and straight, our nature is corrected.
Then our mind is renewed, changed. Philippians 2 says that we should have the mind of Christ (v. 5). God’s renewing work takes place by His Spirit mingling with our spirit to saturate our mind with all the thoughts and logic of God, to change our mind. Based on regeneration, sanctification, and renewing, the Lord Spirit today is transforming our being by the addition of His divine life to cause a divine metabolism within us. This transforms our entire being.
Eventually, this transformation will be completed to make us a full-grown man at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God, who is the aggregate of the Triune God. Finally, through the saturation of God’s glory within us, the glory will come out from us. Then we will enter into glory and will be in glory. When we attain this glory, we will say, “Lord God, what a mercy and grace that we are what You are, and You are what we are.” This is the ultimate consummation of the eight sections of God’s organic salvation.
God’s full salvation is not just to redeem us judicially to forgive us, wash us, justify us, reconcile us to Him, and sanctify us positionally. This was carried out by Christ in the flesh in His earthly ministry. God’s judicial redemption was merely the procedure for Him to save us organically as the life-giving Spirit, as the pneumatic Christ, for us to participate in God’s organic salvation as the purpose of the complete salvation of God in Christ’s heavenly ministry.
(The Divine and Mystical Realm, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee)