As believers in Christ, we need to know Christ in His resurrection designated as the Son of God in power with His human nature, as seen in Rom. 1:3-4.
We need to know Christ in a subjective way, knowing not only the truth concerning His designation to be the firstborn Son of God but even more, experiencing this in our Christian life.
We believers in Christ are mysterious and wonderful beings, for we are being made just like Him; we not only know what the Lord went through and the glory He attained, but we follow in His steps.
It is the most wonderful thing in the universe when a man calls on the name of the Lord and is regenerated with the life of God, for at that moment in time, the divine life enters into man to make him a child of God. Wow.
We believers in Christ are not just men but men with God living in them, God-men, those who have both the human life and the divine life, both the human nature and the divine nature.
And Christ is the firstborn Son of God, being begotten by God in His resurrection to be the firstborn Son, while we are the many brothers of Christ.
Christ as the Firstborn has both divinity and humanity, and we as His believers are the many sons of God possessing both the human nature and the divine nature.
Even as He is so we will be; right now we don’t fully realize what we are and who we are, and those around us can’t clearly see that we are children of God. But when we grow in life and are mature, when we fully become sons of God, we will be made even as He is.
When He returns, if we have cooperated with Him during our Christian life, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.
This doesn’t mean that we become God in the quality of being worshipped; far from it, we will be God only in life, nature, expression, and function, but not in the Godhead.
Humanly speaking, we will grow to be like our parents, expressing them both through our outward features such as our face and walk, and in character.
Spiritually speaking, we are growing in life, we are being transformed, and we’re being conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:28-29) so that we may express Him corporately to be His Body, His bride, and the New Jerusalem!
Christ in His Resurrection was Designated the Son of God in Power with His Human Nature
Rom. 1:3-4 clearly says that Christ came out of the seed of David according to the flesh, and in resurrection, He was designated as the Son of God in power with His human nature to be Jesus Christ, our Lord.
What a mysterious and wonderful speaking! Christ was, is, and will always be the only begotten Son of God possessing the divine life and nature, but through incarnation, He put on humanity, the human nature.
The Jews recognized that Jesus is the seed of David according to the flesh, and many of them admitted that Jesus was a royal descendant of David (Matt. 1:1; 9:27; 12:23; 21:9, 15).
But they did not see that He is also the Son of God, for His divinity was concealed within the shell of His humanity. Regarding the Lord’s status as the Son of God, there was great controversy among the Jews when He was on earth (Mark 2:5-7; John 6:41-42).
Even His disciples were not clear concerning this, for one day the Lord asked them, Who do men say that the Son of Man is? (Matt 16:13) and they said this and that.
Some said He is John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He was a mystery; He was a man in flesh and bones right there among them, but He was also the Son of God.
However, it takes heavenly revelation to see that Jesus is both the Son of Man and the Son of God; He is not only the greatest among the prophets, but He is the Son of the living God (v. 16).
He was the Son of God from eternity (John 1:1; Rom. 8:3), but after He became incarnate, His divine nature was concealed, hidden, and limited by His human flesh.
But praise the Lord, through His death His human shell was broken, and in His resurrection, He was designated in power as the Son of God in His humanity.
There were some other people who were resurrected or raised from the dead, such as Lazarus, but only Christ in His resurrection was designated as the Son of God in His humanity.
His resurrection was His designation as the Son of God. He was already the Son of Man, and all saw Him as such a One and recognized Him as a man; however, there was the need for Him to be designated the Son of God because His divinity was concealed within His humanity.
When He entered into resurrection, Christ brought His humanity into His divinity, and He brought man into God; now there was a man in God, and there was humanity in divinity. Wow!
In His resurrection Christ in His humanity was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness.
The divine power was very much exercised in His resurrection, and this power is the power of life.
The power spoken of in Rom. 1:4 corresponds to being made alive in 1 Peter 3:18. When Christ’s flesh was put to death, His Spirit was made alive; to be made alive here is to be empowered.
On one hand, on the cross, the flesh of Christ was put to death, and He died in His humanity. On the other hand, in His resurrection God the Spirit as Christ’s divinity was enlivened with the new power of life to put divinity into the humanity of Christ and make it divine. Wow.
Before His resurrection, Christ’s humanity was merely human; in His resurrection, the Spirit was made strong to impart divinity into His humanity and make it divine. This is amazing!
It is amazing to realize that, in His resurrection, Christ’s humanity was designated the Son of God in the divine power, and the reality of the power of Christ’s resurrection is the Spirit, who is now mingled with our spirit.
What an amazing fact! What a reality!
Praise You, Lord Jesus, for being incarnated to put on human nature. Praise You for dying on the cross and allowing Your flesh to be put to death. Praise You for being designated in Your resurrection as the Son of God in power with Your human nature! Hallelujah, now Jesus Christ is not only the only begotten Son of God but the firstborn Son of God in His humanity, and there is a Man on the throne! Wow, there is God in man and man in God, and in Christ, we see how divinity permeated humanity to uplift it and bring it into divinity! We praise You, Lord Jesus, for Your designation! Hallelujah, Jesus Christ is designated the Son of God in power with His human nature in resurrection!
Know and Experience Christ as the Designated Son of God in Resurrection with His Humanity
We need to know Christ as the designated Son of God in resurrection with His humanity, and we need to know Him as such a One both by revelation and by experience.
Our knowing of such a Christ should not be something we learned in the Bible or in the morning revival, or something we heard in a message in a meeting somewhere.
It needs to become more than a doctrine to us; it has to become real. Christ has been designated the Son of God in power with His human nature, and there will be a time when we also will be designated sons of God.
How was He designated? He was raised up from the dead by the glory of God.
The glory of God, the divinity, permeated and uplifted His humanity and brought His divine humanity into the divine sonship, so He was designated as the firstborn Son of God.
Before His death, not many knew Him as the Son of God, but after His resurrection, everyone knew that He is the designated Son of God with His humanity.
Today we may go to work or to school, we may do shopping or walk on the street, and no one knows that we are sons of God; even if we tell them that we have God as life in us, they may not believe it, for they don’t see it.
Some may even think we’re a mental case when we say that we are sons of God. But praise the Lord, a day is coming when we, those who know and experience Christ as the designated Son of God in resurrection with His humanity, will be designated as the many sons of God!
Our destiny is to be made the same as He is. Yes, we are human beings, and yes, we have the human life and nature, but at the same time, we are part of the species of God, for we have God’s life and nature in us!
And our destiny is really to become the same as the Firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:2)!
Our goal in our life is that our entire inner being would be brought into resurrection so that we would be designated sons of God a little more.
The goal of our salvation in life is to be conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son of God.
Right now, we are longing and yearning, as we go through the process of regeneration, renewing, sanctification, transformation, conformation, and glorification, but one day we will simply be fully conformed to His image!
It is a gradual process in which both our spirit and our soul and our body are being conformed to the image of Christ!
Eventually, even our humanity will be uplifted through resurrection; this takes place first inwardly, experientially, day by day.
This is why, as we experience Christ as life, we deal with our natural constitution so that we live before the Lord and one with the Lord.
We want to be brought into resurrection because the Body of Christ is absolutely in resurrection and the bride of Christ is a resurrected person! Amen, resurrection itself is the power that designates us to be sons of God in full.
As the Lord operates in us and we open to Him, He saves us in life from our natural constitution, and the power of resurrection operates in us; this will cause us to be designated sons of God a little more day by day.
Physically, we are still in the old creation, but spiritually speaking, we experience something deeper of Christ.
The effect of experiencing Christ’s resurrection is that we are being sonized and our humanity is uplifted.
God will never discard the humanity He created; rather, He terminated the fallen part on the cross and redeemed the created part, and in resurrection, He’s uplifting the created and redeemed part of our humanity.
Forever, we will be human – humanly divine and divinely human, even as Christ is.
This is what Paul yearned for in Phil. 3:10, to know Him and the power of His resurrection, even to attain to the out-resurrection from the dead.
This should also be our hope, not in a selfish or individualistic way but really, being one with the Lord and telling Him,
Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy and experience Christ as the designated Son of God in resurrection with His human nature. Amen, Lord, grant us to experience You in Your resurrection so that our natural constitution would be put to death and we would be constituted with God as life and everything to us. We pray, dear Lord, that we experience a reconstitution through Your resurrection life now. May we attain to the out-resurrection, the overcomers’ resurrection! Keep us in the process of being designated sons of God through resurrection! We don’t want to remain in our natural constitution. We don’t trust anything we have by nature. May everything we have and are be brought into resurrection so that we may be part of Your corporate expression, the church as the Body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the one new man, and the New Jerusalem!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3017-3020 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of 1 and 2 Samuel (2021 winter training), week 8, entitled, The Seed of David Becoming the Son of God.
- Recommending the following sharing on the topic, Knowing Christ in His Resurrection as the Son of God Designated in Power with His Human Nature (by R. K.).
- Hymns on this topic:
– What miracle! What mystery! / That God and man should blended be! / God became man to make man God, / Untraceable economy! / From His good pleasure, heart’s desire, / His highest goal attained will be. / From His good pleasure, heart’s desire, / His highest goal attained will be. (Song on, What miracle! What mystery!)
– In the flesh by incarnation, / Into man He God hath brought; / By His death and resurrection, / Into God He man hath brought; / God and man together mingled, / In Himself is fully wrought. (Hymns #277)
– Minding just the spirit, we the cross will know, / And His resurrection pow’r thru us will flow; / Minding just the spirit, Christ will live thru me, / And His life within will reach maturity. (Hymns #593)
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