When the Process of Designation is Completed we will be the Same as Christ

David was a man after God’s heart, and he wanted to build a house for God; this was a noble desire, but God told David that it was his son that will build Him a house, and his seed will be called the Son of God (see 2 Sam. 7:12-14a). David’s response was to go to the Lord and pray these words back to Him so that He may do as He said.

Here we see that, in a mysterious way, the seed of David (which literally referred to Solomon, his son, but actually referred to the Lord Jesus) became the Son of God, and this One would build God a house.

The seed of David becoming the Son of God speaks of the process of Christ being designated the firstborn Son of God by resurrection (see Rom. 1:3-4) and it also speaks of the process of our being designated the many sons of God by resurrection (Heb. 2:10-11).

God promised David that his seed will be the Son of God, and the Lord Jesus was the fulfilment of this promise; Jesus came as God becoming a man, and in His humanity He lived a perfect human life, died an all-inclusive death on the cross, and in resurrection He brought His humanity into His divinity, being begotten by God in His humanity to be the firstborn Son of God.

As the fulfillment of God’s promise to David, Christ as a Man in the flesh was designated the Firstborn Son of God, and millions of believers are in the process of being designated sons of God by resurrection. Hallelujah! Today all the genuine believers in Christ are in the process of becoming God’s fulfillment of His promise to David, and we are the fulfillment of Christ’s promise in Matt. 16:18, I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it!

By our daily growth in the divine life and by our passing through the process of transformation, we are being designated the sons of God.

The consummation of the process of growth in the divine life and transformation in life for the building up of the Body of Christ is our glorification – our being glorified by being transfigured even in our mortal body to be the same as Christ, the firstborn Son of God, is in His life, nature, expression, and function, but not in the Godhead.

Passing through the Metabolic Process of Transformation to be Built up in the Body and be Designated the Sons of God

The more we grow in the divine life and pass through the metabolic process of transformation, the more we are designated the sons of God. What does it mean to be transformed? According to 2 Cor. 3:18, the Lord as the Spirit is in us, and we need to fellowship with Him and behold Him face to face, having an unveiled face so that we may reflect Him.

We need to open our spirit to contact Him, our heart to love Him and receive Him, and our mouth to call on His name and pray, and we will spontaneously reflect Him, the One whom we behold and we’re infused with; this beholding and reflecting causes us to be gradually transformed into His glorious image from glory to glory, and eventually we will look the same as the Lord Jesus.

The more we look to the Lord and behold Him, the more He impresses Himself into our being, making us His reflection. We behold the Lord and we reflect Him; this is transformation, a metabolic process in which our old element is being discharged and the new element of God infused into us is added to our being.

This is God’s economy and His heart’s desire: He wants to dispense Himself into our being and fill us with Himself so that He would become our life, our constitution, and our everything, and He would be lived out of us spontaneously. For us to be transformed into His image we need to receive Christ, digest Him, and assimilate His element by spending much time with Him and allowing the life-giving Spirit to dispense life into all the inward parts of our being.

Through the metabolic process of transformation we are being made in the same image as Christ and the Body of Christ is being built up to be the house of God; through transformation, God is building Himself into man and He is building man into Himself, and we become God’s dwelling place in spirit (see Eph. 1:22-23; 2:20-22).

The more we stay in this metabolic process, the more we remain in the experience of Christ as resurrection, as the deifying, designating, and sonizing Spirit, the more there will be the building up of the Body of Christ, and the more we are designated the sons of God.

This building will consummate in the New Jerusalem as a great, corporate God-man (Rev. 21:7); the New Jerusalem will be the aggregate, the totality of all the fully matured and designated sons of God. It is good to give the Lord many simple prayers of cooperation with His inward operation, telling Him,

Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to You. Lord, build Yourself into our being and build us into Yourself. We want to behold You with an unveiled face so that we may reflect You to others and be conformed to Your image. Lord Jesus, keep us in this metabolic process of having our old element slowly replaced with Your divine element until we are the same as You are in life, nature, expression, and function. Have more ground in our being to sonize us, deify us, and designate us the sons of God in resurrection!

When the Process of Designation is Completed we will be the Same as Christ!

The Bible clearly tells us that God wants us not only to be our God and we to be His people, but that He wants to be in us, dwell in us, be one with us, and even make us the same as Christ, God’s firstborn Son, in every possible way.

We don’t know what we will be when we will see Him, but we know that we will be just like Him. Today we are in the process of being designated sons of God, and this process is of sanctification, transformation, conformation, and glorification. We should not be conformed to this age but be transformed by the renewing of the mind so that we may know what the will of God is, that which is good and well-pleasing and perfect (Rom. 12:2).

Through our growth in life and transformation in life we are being designated sons of God, and our entire inward being is being daily saturated with the divine life. The consummation of the process of being designated the sons of God is glorification when we shall be fully resurrected and designated the sons of God in nature and in appearance.

One day the process of sonizing, deifying, and designation the sons of God will be completed, and for eternity we will be the same as Christ, God’s firstborn Son, in our spirit and soul and body (1 Thes. 5:23; 1 John 3:2; Rom. 8:19, 23).

The apostle Paul was “Jesus living again” in many instances in his life, no matter the outward circumstances: when he was in prison in Philippi and an earthquake came, he was singing and enjoying the Lord, and the first church in Europe was started in this way (the jailer and his whole house were saved). Also, when he was on the ship as a prisoner being guarded by many Roman soldiers on the way to Rome, he was Jesus living again, and others saw Christ in him.

This should also be our daily experience. We need to realize that in and through resurrection Christ, the firstborn Son of God, became the life-giving Spirit, and as such a Spirit He enters into us to dispense and build Himself into us to become our inner constitution, making us God-men, the many sons of God (1 Cor. 15:45; Heb. 2:10), the mass reproduction of Himself as the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29).

We, as human seeds, become the sons of God with divinity through the metabolic process of transformation, which process is the building up of the church as the Body of Christ and the house of God (Eph. 1:22-23; 2:20-22) by the building of God into man and man into God.

Daily as we enjoy the Lord, pray-read His word, and cooperate with His inner speaking to let Him make His home in our heart more, the divine element is mingled with our human element and we are being transformed into the same image as Christ. The result of such a daily process of designation is that we become the many sons of God who are the same as Christ, and together we compose the Body of Christ in this age and the New Jerusalem in eternity to be God’s corporate expression in humanity.

Today we are in the process of being designated sons of God, but one day this process will be completed, and for eternity we will be the same as Christ, God’s firstborn Son! What a glorious future we have, and what a glorious hope we hold dear!

Lord Jesus, we praise You for daily taking us through the process of sanctification, transformation, and conformation to Your image until we will be glorified and made the same as You are in life, nature, expression, and function (but not in the Godhead)! Lord, thank You for becoming the life-dispensing Spirit who is in our spirit to impart the divine life into all the parts of our being little-by-little and day-by-day until we will fully become the same as Christ, God’s firstborn Son! Lord Jesus, build Yourself into us and build us more into Yourself today until we are fully conformed to Your image!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Dick Taylor’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 & 2 Samuel, msg. 26 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revivalon, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection and Ascension, week 2 / msg 2, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection (2) – The Seed of David Becoming the Son of God by Resurrection.
• All verses are taken from, Recovery Version Bible.
• Hymns to strengthen the burden in this article:
  # In my spirit He regenerated me, / In my soul He’s now transforming me. / He will change my body like unto His own, / Wholly making me the same as He. (Hymns #948)
  # Christ is the hope of glory, my very life is He, / He has regenerated and saturated me; / He comes to change my body by His subduing might / Like to His glorious body in glory bright! (Hymns #949)
  # Full Salvation. / Redemption’s not the goal / Full Salvation. / Involves much more— / Full Salvation. / Is all about life spreading— / Filling every part. / Christ is— / In me as my hope of— / Glory—Wonderful! / One day— / This seed will fully blossom! / I’ll be glorified! (Song on Being Glorified)