Next, the God-men have the divine right to participate in God’s being. Our basis for saying this is Paul’s word in 2 Corinthians 3:18 about our being transformed into the Lord’s image "even as from the Lord Spirit." This indicates that the work of transformation is done not by something of the Lord Spirit but by the Lord Spirit Himself. Hence, we are being transformed with God’s very being.
In Ephesians 3:8 Paul speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ, indicating that these riches have been dispensed into us. The unsearchable riches of Christ are the riches of Christ’s being, the riches of what Christ is. For the unsearchable riches of Christ to be dispensed into us means that we participate not only in God’s life, nature, and mind but also in His being.
As God-men we also have the divine right to participate in God’s image. Second Corinthians 3:18 says that we are being "transformed into the same image." This is the image of the resurrected and glorified Christ. In God’s creation man was made in God’s image in an outward way, but the image into which we are being transformed is something inward. To be transformed into the same image is to be conformed to the resurrected and glorified Christ as the firstborn Son of God, to be made the same as He is (Rom. 8:29).
Transformation is a kind of metabolism. The metabolism involved in transformation is comparable to that which takes place in our physical body after we eat, digest, and assimilate food. Transformation is the metabolic function of the divine life in the believers. We Christians, who are God-men, all have the Lord Spirit within us, and the Lord Spirit is in the process of carrying out a metabolic change in our being, transforming us into the image of Christ. To be metabolically transformed into the image of the resurrected and glorified Christ is to participate in God’s image.
Eventually, we will be brought into God’s glory to participate in His glory. Hebrews 2:10 says that God is leading many sons into glory. Paul refers to this in Romans 8:30: "Those whom He predestinated, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified." Glorification is the step in God’s complete salvation in which God will completely saturate our body with the glory of His life and nature. In this way He will transfigure our body, conforming it to the resurrected, glorious body of His Son (Phil. 3:21). This is the ultimate step in God’s organic salvation, wherein God obtains a full expression, which will be manifested ultimately in the New Jerusalem.
(Incarnation, Inclusion, and Intensification, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee)