Christ is both the only Begotten Son of God and the firstborn Son, and what we announce today is Christ as the Firstborn Son of God for His propagation.
He was, is, and always will be the only Begotten Son of God in His Godhead, and He always existed and will always exist as such a One. However, in His economy, in time, Christ became a man, and He put on the human nature. When God became man, God was born in humanity to be the Son of Man.
This is astounding – God Himself became a man, and the almighty God was incarnated to be a human being, living as a Son of Man. Hallelujah, our God is the God who became man!
God loved the world so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die for us and redeem us (John 3:16). He was the only begotten Son of God from eternity, but after His incarnation, He became the Son of Man.
Then, through resurrection Christ brought His humanity into divinity, divinizing His humanity, and He was begotten by God to be the firstborn Son of God in His humanity.
Christ always was and will be the only begotten Son of God, and He became the Son of Man through incarnation. Now through resurrection Christ was begotten by God in His humanity to be God’s firstborn Son.
This means that God now in His economy has not just one son but many sons. Christ is the first-born Son, and all the believers in Christ are the many sons of God, those whom Christ as the Firstborn leads into glory.
The apostle Paul saw this in Psa. 2:7, and he realized that on the day of resurrection God begot Christ as His firstborn Son out of the resurrection from the dead, in His humanity, according to the Spirit of holiness (Rom. 1:3-4).
So Christ had two births, the first out of His human mother for Him to be the Son of Man, a perfect and complete God-man, and the second in His resurrection, to be the firstborn Son of God in His humanity.
We need to see who Christ is and we need to enjoy and experience Him as the Firstborn Son of God, for it is this One that leads us into glory to be His many brothers, and it is this firstborn Son of God that we are preaching for His propagation on earth.
Christ became the firstborn son of God not just to return to the Father but for His propagation. He was begotten by God in His humanity as the Firstborn Son of God so that many brothers, many human beings, would be brought into God to be the many sons of God and the many brothers of Christ. Hallelujah!
In Resurrection Christ became the Firstborn Son of God in His Humanity and We all became the Many Sons of God
We can never overemphasize the process the Lord went through to propagate Himself in humanity.
Through incarnation the only begotten Son of God put on humanity and became the God-man (John 1:14, 18; Luke 1:35), and then in resurrection this God-man was born of God to be His firstborn (Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:6; Rom. 8:29).
Before His incarnation, the only begotten Son of God did not have the human nature – He only had the divine nature, not divinity. Through incarnation God put on humanity, and now there’s an element in Him – the human element – that is not yet brought into God.
In resurrection God begot Christ as His firstborn Son in His humanity, and the human nature of Jesus was brought into divinity. Now God’s firstborn Son has both the human nature and the divine nature.
In Rom. 8:3 we see that God sent His Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin; this corresponds to John 3:15-16 where we see the only begotten Son coming to be a man, and to John 1:1, 14, the word of God becoming flesh.
Now there’s a Son of man, the God-man, but the human part was still human. So in His resurrection the humanity of Jesus was divinized, it was uplifted into the divine sonship, so that He may become the firstborn Son of God with both divinity and humanity; this is a human being becoming God!
Christians often appeal to Rom. 8:28 for comfort, being happy to know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
What is God’s purpose? God saved us for His own will and purpose (2 Tim. 1:9), but what is God’s purpose?
In Rom. 8:29 we see the purpose of God: He predestinated us to be conformed to the image of the Son of God, so that He may be the firstborn among many brothers. The One who became the Son of God in Rom. 1:3-4 is now the prototype in Rom. 8:29, and the goal is to have many sons conformed to His image, so that He may have preeminence among them.
This is the reason that we need to know Christ, enjoy Him, experience Him, praise Him, and exalt Him as the Firstborn Son of God, for it is this One – the firstborn Son of God – that we are propagating for His reproduction on earth.
The goal of our gospel preaching is not merely to save people from the lake of fire; it is to produce more sons of God, more brothers of Christ, so that these may be the many members of the Body (Rom. 12), and the Body would become the new man, the bride of Christ, and the kingdom of God.
We need to have a clear vision of Christ as the Firstborn Son of God, the One we are propagating. Through His resurrection Christ was born to be the firstborn Son, and at the same time all His believers were born to be the many sons of God (1 Pet. 1:3; Heb. 2:10).
Among these many sons, only the Firstborn is God’s only begotten Son (John 1:18; 1 John 4:9). We can honestly tell the Lord Jesus,
Lord Jesus, we honor Your invisible presence; You are with us as Emmanuel, You have the preeminence, and You are the center. Lord, You are with us as the only begotten Son of God and as the Firstborn Son of God, and we are the many sons of God praising You and exalting You. Amen, Lord, we want to know You and experience You as the Firstborn Son of God so that we may also propagate You as such a One! Lord Jesus, may there be many more brothers of Christ and sons of God gained all over the earth for Your propagation!
Like Paul, we are Preaching Christ as the Firstborn Son of God for His Propagation
Christ is both the only begotten Son of God and the firstborn Son of God; the One we are preaching as the gospel is Christ as the Firstborn Son of God for His propagation!
The Firstborn has both divinity and humanity, and we – His believers as God’s many sons – also possess the human nature and the divine nature (see 2 Pet. 1:4).
We are God-men; we have a regenerated spirit, and our spirit is both human (it was created by God) and divine (the divine Spirit came into our spirit). The mingled spirit – the divine spirit with our human spirit – is spreading in our inner being to become the spirit of our mind to renew our mind, and we are being transformed by the renewing of our mind.
The mingled spirit spreads into our soul, so that we may have a spirit of power and of love and of sobermindedness; the result is that we propagate this One who as the Spirit is spreading in all our inner being. Day by day there’s a sonizing process going on in us until we see the Lord.
On one hand we personally are pursuing this Firstborn Son of God, not content with where we are but opening our whole inner being and allowing Him to have access to our inner parts to reproduce Himself fully, and this takes place in the church life.
On the other hand, we set aside all our preoccupations with our spiritual condition and we pick up the burden to propagate this Christ as the firstborn Son of God!
In Acts 13 Paul was not preaching Christ as the only begotten Son – as the Gospel of John does (see 1:18; 3:16) – but he was preaching Christ as the firstborn Son of God for propagation.
As the only begotten Son, Christ is the embodiment of the divine life, and the Gospel of John emphasizes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and, as the Son of God, He embodies the divine life (John 1:14).
Through resurrection Christ became the firstborn Son of God as the life-dispenser for the propagation of life (Rom. 8:29).
The reason Christ became the firstborn Son of God is not just to return to the Godhead as both the only begotten and the firstborn Son, but to open the way for a universal propagation of God through the life-dispensing Spirit!
First, Christ was the only begotten Son as the embodiment of life, and now He’s also the firstborn Son for the propagation of life. We need to see this, for this is the focus of our gospel preaching. Christ as the firstborn Son of God is the focus of our gospel preaching, for we want to propagate Him!
We don’t preach the gospel merely so that sinners may be saved and not perish; our view is that we preach Christ as the firstborn Son of God for His propagation so that God may gain many sons to be His corporate expression on earth!
We preach the gospel so that the Bridegroom may have His counterpart, His bride, so that Christ may return and bring in the kingdom of God.
This is why today we, like the apostle Paul, want to propagate Christ as the Firstborn Son of God until God gains what He is after on earth today!
Thank You Lord Jesus for coming as the only begotten Son of God to become in resurrection the firstborn Son of God for Your propagation. Hallelujah, Christ today is the Firstborn Son of God for the propagation of life, and we as the many sons of God are propagating this One for His increase and enlargement! Lord Jesus, we want to preach Christ as the firstborn Son of God for many sons of God to be produced and built up as God’s corporate expression! Amen, Lord, we want to propagate You until You gain what You are after: the church, the Body, the new man, the bride, the kingdom of God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1980, vol. 2, “The Secret of Experiencing Christ,” ch. 4, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Propagating the Resurrected, Ascended, and All-inclusive Christ as the Development of the Kingdom of God (2018 fall ITERO), week 1, Propagating the Resurrected Christ as the Firstborn Son according to the Promise Made to the Fathers.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Thine only Son from death Thou raised, / Firstborn in resurrection, / His work completed, we by faith / Can stand as Thine expression. / We’ve now become Thy many sons / With joy our hearts are ringing; / Thy Firstborn Son so much has done, / We sing with praise unceasing. (Song on, O Father, Thou art boundless love)
# That His only dear Begotten / Might become the firstborn One, / And by Him with many brethren / His expression full be won. / By divine regeneration / We the sons of God became, / But we must mature to fullness, / Thus the birthright to obtain. (Hymns #741)
# Christ will come still as a Man—the Son of Man forever. / First He was God’s only Son, now He has many brothers. / The Father’s Firstborn Son now has a pure duplication; / We truly match each other—we are divine and human. (Song on, Christ is coming as a thief)
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