In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him, and unto Him.
And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners,
hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son, Whom He appointed heir of all things, through Whom also He made the worlds;
Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power.
Dear Lord, as we gather together here this morning, we want to thank Thee for what Thou hast done during the past few days. We thank Thee for speaking to us, and we believe that Thy Spirit is working in us. We thank Thee for Thy presence with us.
Lord, we want to give Thee glory from the very start of this meeting. We do praise and thank Thee that Thou art the same yesterday, today, and forever. We believe that Thou wilt be with us as Thou hast been with us during the past few days.
Lord, there is nothing more precious to us than Thy very presence. We pray that Thou wilt remove any veil that may be upon our hearts. We pray that our hearts may turn toward Thee with unveiled face, that the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ may be seen.
We realize that unless Thy glory appears to us, we are totally hopeless and helpless. It is the prayer of our hearts that Thou wilt show us Thy glory—show us Thy glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
Oh Lord, we believe that if Thou dost show Thy glory, everything will be of Thee. May the glory of the Lord fill this place. Lead us in Thy presence to behold Thy beauty and to hear Thy voice.
Oh Lord, we pray that Thou wilt bring us in our spirit even to heaven, and Thou wilt accomplish that which no man can do. It is for Thy purpose; it is for Thy glory. We pray in Thy precious name. Amen.
For the sake of those who may have come only this morning, I want to remind you of the theme of this conference. Thank God, we do not gather without any direction. We believe that the Lord has put something in our hearts—something that is very dear to His heart and something that He desires for us.
The theme of this conference is “Conformed to the Image of God’s Son.”
This is God’s eternal will. We find in the Word of God that, even before the foundation of the world, God purposed in His heart according to His good pleasure. This is what pleases Him.
That purpose concerns His beloved Son: that all things, whether in heaven or upon the earth, will be gathered together—summed up—in Christ Jesus.
God further purposed in His beloved Son that His beloved Son should have a bride, His counterpart, His likeness. That is the church, the body of Christ.
We find that, in God’s purpose, Christ Jesus is the centre of His will. Yet it is also the purpose of God that there should be something in union and oneness with Christ. That is man—those who are redeemed of the Lord.
We who are being chosen have been chosen even before the foundation of the world. We have been chosen in Christ Jesus. Whom He chose, He called; whom He called, He justified; and whom He justified, He glorified.
To be glorified simply means to be conformed to the image of His beloved Son. What a glorious purpose God has purposed in Christ for us.
I often feel that, among God’s people, we are so need-oriented. For instance, we come to this conference. What is the purpose behind our coming? We come that we may get something. We come that our problems may be solved.
Now, if that is our purpose in coming, then we are need-oriented. And if we are all need-oriented, then we are all self-centred. But this is not God’s perfect will.
God wants us to be purpose-oriented. Being purpose-oriented delivers us from being self-centred. We want God’s purpose to be fulfilled. Even to be conformed to the image of God’s Son is for His sake. Then we will be God-centred; we will be Christ-centred.
Dear brothers and sisters, at the very outset we need to be clear: we are not here for ourselves. We are here for our God, for our beloved Christ. We want to be conformed to the image of God’s Son because this is what He wants, and we want Him to have what He desires.
During the past few days, we have been fellowshipping on this very subject. My responsibility is very simple. As a matter of fact, during the past few days the whole thought of being conformed to the image of God’s Son has already been spoken about.
But because my responsibility is “the image of the invisible God,” I have to go back to the very beginning. Those who have been with us during the past few days, you have to excuse me, because I am leading you back to the beginning.
To be conformed to the image of God’s Son, first of all we need to have a clear concept of what image is. If we do not know what image means, how can we be conformed to that image?
Unfortunately, among God’s people there is not a clear understanding of what image means in the Word of God. When we see a statue, we say it is an image. When we see a picture or a photograph, we say it is an image.
But, dear brothers and sisters, whether it is a statue or a photograph, according to the Word of God they are shadows. They may give some of the original concept, but there is no life in them.
Image in the Word of God is derived likeness. It is not only a likeness, but it is a likeness derived from the original. Therefore, it is something living. It is not merely something that outwardly looks the same.
A photographer, if he is skilled, may take a picture of a person and bring out not only the outward features of that person, but even some of the person’s character. Such a picture is very lively. Yet, even though it is lively, it is lifeless. Therefore, it cannot be considered an image according to the strict meaning of Scripture.
An image is a derived likeness. It has to be born; it is not something made.
Brothers and sisters, when we consider being conformed to the image of God’s Son, we must be reminded again that it is not something merely outward. It is intensely inward. It is something that must be worked in us. We have to be conformed to that image first of all by faith.
With that in mind, we are able to find out what is meant by being conformed to the image of God’s Son.
During the first session, we fellowshipped on how the invisible God is made known. God is invisible because He is Spirit. But even though He is invisible, He is not unknowable.
From the very beginning of human history, we find that God has used all kinds of ways to reveal Himself. If God did not reveal Himself, we would never be able to know Him. He would be the greatest mystery in the whole universe. We could not penetrate into Him; He is far, far beyond us.
But thank God, He is the God Who reveals Himself. All that we know about God is from revelation. If you know anything about God that is not from revelation, you may know about God, but you do not know God Himself.
This is very simple. Before we were saved, before the Lord met us, that was our condition. We might have been brought up in a Christian family. I was brought up in a Christian family, and I do thank God for that.
Originally, our family was not Christian at all. But by the grace of God, when my father was young, my grandfather sent him to a mission school. My grandfather was a builder, and he wanted to do business with Westerners. My father, being the firstborn, was sent to a mission school to learn English so that he could help him in his business.
But thank God, when my father was in that mission school, he got saved. At that time in China, if anyone believed in so-called Christianity, he would be called a “rice Christian,” because only poor people who needed help would go to the missionaries and say, “I believe in Jesus.”
So people looked down upon these so-called Christians. When my father got saved, my grandfather was so ashamed that he kept him from going to school. He thought that if my father could be separated from the foreigners, he would be all right.
But thank God, my father’s faith was real. Because of this, out of our big family, when I was born, I was born into a Christian home. My father loved the Lord.
In our family, every evening before supper, we had prayer together. My father would gather the whole family, and there would be a large Bible. He would read from the Word of God, and then we would all kneel down as he led us in prayer.
From my childhood, I knew about God. I never doubted God. I never doubted Jesus as the Saviour. I knew the Bible stories. As a matter of fact, before I was saved, I preached and led prayer meetings.
But I did not know Him. I thought He was far, far away. I knew He was there, and I knew Jesus was the Saviour of the world. But I felt that I was all right. I thought, “Jesus saves sinners, but I really do not need Him.” That was my situation.
Brothers and sisters, if there is no revelation from above, not only do you not know God, but you do not know yourself. That was my situation. But thank God, it pleased Him to reveal His Son in me. That was the beginning of my Christian life.
Do not forget our first lesson, because that first lesson guides us all through our life. How do we know God? By revelation. Unless God reveals His Son in us, we do not really know Him.
We may know a great deal about Him, but there is no relationship. Because there is no relationship, there is no life. And because there is no life, there is no conformity to the image of God’s Son.
Throughout the Bible, even before the coming of our Lord Jesus to this earth, we find that God tried in many different ways to reveal Himself. He tried to make people know about Him.
The invisible God is made known by visible things—by what He has created. Through creation, we begin to understand His eternal power.
Even in human history, we find that God is behind human history. He spread people all over the world. He determined the nations and their boundaries. When we really think about human history, we cannot help but say that it is His history, because He is in control. He is truly God.
We also find how He tried to speak to people. In the Old Testament, He appeared to people, sometimes as an angel and sometimes in human form. Whenever you see in the Bible “the angel of the Lord,” it speaks of the second Person of the Triune God.
God was always trying to show Himself to man. God not only created man; He wanted to have a relationship with man.
God gave the law to the nation of Israel. By the law, He revealed something of His inner character. Because He is holy, He wants us to be holy. He is righteous; therefore, we need to be righteous.
Through the prophets, in many portions and in many ways, He spoke to us. He used all kinds of types and figures to reveal His heart. Even through those holy men of God, He revealed something of His character.
But in spite of all these things, God was still not fully known, because there was nothing that could be His own image, through which He might be fully known.
At the end of time, in the fullness of time, He sent His only begotten Son into this world. No one has ever seen God, but the One Who is in the bosom of the Father has declared Him.
Brothers and sisters, we now come to what we will share this morning: Christ, the exact image of the invisible God.
In Colossians 1:15, we find that He, the Son of God’s love, is the exact image of the invisible God.
In order to understand this, we have to go back to the very beginning. That is why we find in the Gospel according to John: “In the beginning was the Word.”
This beginning is further back than Genesis 1:1. Genesis 1:1 is the beginning of creation, when God began to create. But the beginning in the Gospel of John is the beginning of all beginnings.
God is the beginning. Aside from Him, there is nothing. In the beginning, there was God—the supreme One, the Triune “I AM THAT I AM,” the self-existing One.
But John begins by saying, “In the beginning was the Word.” We would say, “In the beginning was God,” but John says, “In the beginning was the Word.”
The word Logos simply means speech, expression, utterance. In the beginning was the utterance. In the beginning was the speech.
Does this not tell us something? From the very beginning, God, Who is invisible, has speech. He has the Word.
How do we know people? If a person is silent, we do not know what is within him. But once he opens his mouth, then we begin to see what is in him, because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
If God were silent, if He never said a word, who would know Him? But thank God, God is such that He is the Word. From the very beginning, God wanted to say something. There is an expression that reveals what He is.
In our human experience, our word is connected with our person. A word and a person are one, because it is I who speak, and my speech reveals what I am.
But the wonderful thing is this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” The Word is another Person. The Word was with God.
Yet, even though the Word is another Person, “the Word was God.” He is one with God. That is the mystery of the Godhead.
What we need to see is that, in the very beginning, even though God is Spirit and invisible, He desires to reveal Himself. This is within Him.
The Son is the Word. The Son of God’s love is His speech, His representation, and His manifestation. Because They are one, whatever God is, that is what the Word is. There is nothing more and nothing less.
Do not think that God is unknowable. According to the human mind, even the best human mind thinks that if there is a God, then He is an unknown God.
The Athenians were famous for their philosophy. They believed that there must be Someone beyond, but they could not penetrate into Him. Therefore, they had an altar “to an unknown god.”
How we misunderstand God altogether! Our God is a God Who reveals Himself, and the way He reveals Himself is by His Word. That was from the very beginning. That is the very nature of God.
If we do not know Him, it is not because God does not want us to know Him; it is because we do not seek Him.
The representation is there; the manifestation is there. But it is in heaven, transcendent. Yet thank God, one day the Word became flesh and tabernacled among men, full of grace and truth.
In other words, when the Word became flesh, what was transcendent became immanent. What remained in heaven now appeared on earth.
Brothers and sisters, in order for the Son of God to do this, He Who originally was in the form of God emptied Himself.
If you read Philippians 2, you find that our Lord Jesus Christ subsisted in the form of God.
Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped.
The form here is not something outward. The form, in the original, means something inward. It means the essence, the substance.
Our Lord Jesus, as the Son of God, was in the form of God. He had all the essence and substance of God. As the Bible says, all the fullness of the Godhead was in Him. Whatever God is, the Son is. There is nothing more and nothing less.
Hebrews says that He is the outshining of the glory. We cannot look directly at the sun; if we do, we will be blinded. But we see the outshining of the sun, and by seeing the light, we know the sun.
Our Lord Jesus was in the form of God. All the essence of God was in Him. Because He is God, all the glory, power, and authority are His. To be equal with God was not something to be grasped, because this is what He was.
In order to come into this world, He had to lay aside, as it were, that form for a time. The Bible tells us that He emptied Himself.
He did not empty Himself of His deity, because this is what He is. But He was able to empty Himself of all the honour and glory attached to God. He could lay aside His rights as God for a time in order that He might take up the form of a bondservant.
In the incarnation, we need to see this emptying. He subsisted in the form of God, yet He laid aside, or hid, that form for a time so that He could take up another form.
That form, the form of a bondservant, was not an outward appearance. It was an inward reality.
When Christ came into this world, from the form of God He took the form of a bondservant. As far as His inward mind was concerned, He took the mind of a bondservant.
He was God. He was authority. He was sovereign, all-powerful, the supreme will. No one could tell Him what to do, because He was the One in command. Yet He laid aside that form, hid it, and took up another inward mind: the mind of a bondservant.
A bondservant has no rights whatsoever. He has no right even to his own life, because he is somebody’s property. His responsibility is to obey commands and orders.
Think of it: when our Lord Jesus came into this world, how He emptied Himself. In His inward heart, there was the form of a slave. Outwardly, He took human fashion. You looked at Him, and He was a man; but inwardly, He was a bondservant. That was His mindset. That was His emptying.
When God first created man, man was supposed to be a bondservant to God. Man was not created to be his own master.
When the Lord appeared to Saul, He said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goads.”
Why did the Lord say that? Because Saul thought that he was his own master. But the Lord reminded him that he was created to be a bondservant. Like an ox under a yoke, if it does not listen to its master, the master warns it with the goad. If it kicks against the goads, it only hurts itself.
Man was created to be over all, but under One. Man was given dominion over all things, but he was not the owner. He was to obey his Creator.
That is the real man. When our Lord Jesus came into this world, He was the man after God’s own heart. He was the man God first created man to be: outwardly a man, inwardly a bondservant. Therefore, He could fully represent and manifest God.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among men, full of grace and truth. Here we find that, as a man, He was full of grace and truth.
What is grace? What is truth? If you read the whole Gospel according to John, you find that His life upon this earth manifested these two things. He manifested what grace is, and He manifested what truth is.
The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth subsist through Jesus Christ. We know that God is grace and that He is truth. But grace and truth were in heaven. With the coming of our Lord Jesus into this world, He brought grace and truth into this world.
He showed us what grace is, and He showed us what truth is. Oftentimes, we think that if there is grace, there is no truth; and if there is truth, there is no grace. These two things seem to be opposite to each other.
If I am going to be gracious, how can I be truthful? If I want to be true, how can I be gracious? Everything has to be just right, and whatever is not right has to be judged.
But, brothers and sisters, the Word tells us that grace and truth subsist in Christ Jesus. He is both grace and truth. All His deeds are grace; all His words are truth. Grace and truth work together in Him.
That is the way the Gospel according to John is written. We find how our Lord Jesus Christ was on earth: He did something gracious, and then He said something truthful. Grace and truth subsist in Christ Jesus.
For the first time in the world, we truly see what grace is and what truth is.
According to the original meaning, grace includes three things:
That is what our Lord has brought into this world. We find that He is so beautiful that He truly attracts our hearts. We find that He is so gracious as to give universally and freely. And He causes us to be gracious.
Again, in the Gospel according to John, He says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” He is the Amen and the Amen. Whatever He says is true and eternally true.
That is what we notice in His life. When you look at His life on earth—full of grace and truth—what is your reaction? If you are not prejudiced, when you see a person full of grace and truth, you will say, “He is a great man. He is Elijah, or He is Jeremiah, or He is one of the prophets.”
You may even say, “Confucius has come to life. He is the greatest man in the world.” That is the verdict of the world.
But, brothers and sisters, in John 1:14 there is a sentence in parentheses:
And we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father.
Without revelation, when you look at the life of Jesus, you will find that He is a great man. That is the verdict of the world.
One day our Lord Jesus asked His disciples, “Whom do men say that I am?” The disciples, in order to please their Master, did not tell Him anything bad. They only brought Him the best comments.
The Jewish people said, “Who is a greater prophet than Elijah?” Because our Lord Jesus wept, they said He must be Jeremiah. Or He might be the prophet of whom Moses spoke—the prophet whom God would send from among their brethren.
They said, “He must be that prophet,” because He spoke with authority. But the world does not know. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
But thank God, if we truly receive revelation and contemplate Him, we find that He is something more than merely a man.
Behind a life full of grace and truth, you see a glory. That glory is the glory of the only begotten Son with the Father. You can see the glory of God.
People may receive His acts of grace, or even hear His words of truth, and yet they do not see the glory. The glory was, in a sense, hidden.
When our Lord Jesus came into this world, He came incognito. Sometimes a king wants to know the real situation of his people, so he changes his dress and pretends to be somebody else. In this way, he can know the actual condition of his people.
When our Lord Jesus came into this world, He put aside temporarily the form of God and took upon Himself the form of a bondservant. He came in the fashion of a man. He came incognito.
People saw Him only as a man—the perfect man. They were unable to see His divine glory. But if you truly contemplate Him, then you will see a glory, and that glory is the glory of the only begotten Son with the Father.
Thank God, we do see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But this means that we need to ponder before Him.
What we have seen and heard, we must lay up in our hearts, just as Mary, the mother of Jesus, pondered these things in her heart. We must not simply see or hear and then forget.
As we see the life of our Lord Jesus on earth, we need to ponder. If, after hearing, we simply forget, and after seeing, we forget, then we will only see that He is a man full of grace and truth. We will not see the glory of God.
Actually, it is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He is the full representation and manifestation of the invisible God.
Not only in His life, but also in His death, He is the full representation and manifestation of the invisible God. Our brother mentioned this last night, and I will only mention it briefly.
At the cross of our Lord Jesus, what do we see? What do we see in His death? Do we see only His sufferings? Even when we see His sufferings, do we see only His physical suffering?
The truth is that His suffering on the cross was more than physical. The greatest of His sufferings was when He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
Behind all the sufferings of Christ, there is the glory of God. The cross is a symbol of shame, but to us the cross is glory. Because of that cross, we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
At the cross, He manifested the love of God to the fullest. At the same time, He manifested the righteousness and justice of God to the fullest.
Even though He is the Son of God, the only begotten Son, when He took upon Himself the sin of the world, the Father would not spare Him. When God crushed Him on the cross, God turned His face away.
It shows the perfect righteousness of God—perfect love and perfect righteousness. It is the full representation and full manifestation of the invisible God.
Dear brothers and sisters, we need to be conformed to the image of God’s beloved Son because He is the exact image of God. God has revealed Himself to us in His Son.
During that last night before His crucifixion, while He was having the Passover with His disciples, Philip asked the question, “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”
How the heart of our Lord was hurt. “Have I been with you so long, and dost thou still ask, ‘Show us the Father’? Dost thou not know that the Father is in Me, and I am in Him?”
If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. There is nothing less and nothing more.
Dear brothers and sisters, have we seen the glory of God? We cannot look at His glory directly, but we have seen His glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
His glory is the Father’s glory. May the glory of the Lord appear to us. It has already appeared in Christ Jesus, and may we see that glory today.
I often feel that if only we see the glory of God, nothing else matters anymore. May the Lord grant us this vision.