CHAPTER 10
The Reformation of the Lord Jesus
From Shadows to Substance, From Law to Life, From Flesh to Spirit
Introduction
The Turning Point in Redemptive History
With the New Covenant established in the blood of the faithful Firstborn Son, the whole Old Covenant order stands at a divinely appointed turning point. The Torah, the sacrifices, the priesthood, the tabernacle and temple, the Davidic kingdom—none of these were ends in themselves. They were shadows and patterns, holy but provisional, pointing beyond themselves to a greater reality.
When the Lord Jesus comes as the true Israel, the Last Adam, and the Mediator of the New Covenant, He does not simply improve what came before or add a new layer to Israel’s story. He reforms it. He brings the age of shadows to its intended conclusion and ushers in the age of substance. The writer to the Hebrews uses a single word for this: diorthōsis—”reformation”—a setting right and restoring to proper order, “imposed until the time of reformation” (Hebrews 9:10). In Him, the entire Old Covenant economy is brought to its goal and reconstituted in a new and enduring form.
This chapter does not rehearse what the New Covenant is—that ground has been laid already. Here we look at what the Lord Jesus does with it. We will watch Him fulfill and transform the Torah, replace the whole sacrificial system with His once-for-all offering, set aside the Levitical priesthood and establish His own eternal priesthood, shift the center of worship from an earthly sanctuary to the true Heavenly Tabernacle, reform kingship by His heavenly enthronement, and inaugurate a new humanity as the Last Adam. In all these ways, He brings the Old Covenant order from shadow to substance, from letter to Spirit, from flesh to resurrection life.
The Faithful Son Who Recapitulates Israel’s Story
The Lord Jesus does not stand alongside Israel as one more figure in the nation’s story. He steps into Israel’s place, embodies its calling, and lives out in His own life what the nation was meant to be. Isaiah can speak of the Servant as “Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isaiah 49:3), yet that Servant also restores Jacob and gathers Israel (Isaiah 49:5–6). The nation’s vocation is concentrated in One.
The Gospel of Matthew makes this visible. When Herod seeks the Child’s life, Joseph takes Him down into Egypt until the danger has passed. Matthew tells us that this fulfills Hosea’s word: “Out of Egypt I called My Son” (Matthew 2:15; Hosea 11:1). In Hosea, the “Son” is Israel called out in the Exodus. Matthew sees that this ancient act was itself prophetic: it looked ahead to the true Son, called out of Egypt to accomplish the Exodus that would not fail. Israel’s history was already a shadow of Christ.
He then passes through the waters of the Jordan. Israel crossed that river under Joshua to enter the land; prophets like Elijah and Elisha crossed it at key moments of transition. The Lord Jesus’ baptism at the Jordan marks the beginning of His public ministry and signals that a new Joshua and a greater prophetic succession has arrived. As He comes up from the water, the Spirit descends upon Him and the Father declares, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Where God had long lamented Israel’s disobedience, He now openly delights in a Son who will not fail.
From the waters, the Spirit drives Him into the wilderness for forty days. Israel was tested forty years in the wilderness and failed at every point; the faithful Firstborn meets the same adversary in the same setting and overcomes where Israel fell. Faced with hunger, He refuses to demand bread on His own terms, confessing that man lives by every word from God. Invited to throw Himself from the temple to force a miracle, He refuses to test the Father. Offered all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for idolatrous worship, He answers that only the Lord is to be worshiped and served. In every temptation, He quotes from the very chapters of Deuteronomy that recorded Israel’s wilderness failures. He walks back through their story and writes it anew in obedience.
As Moses ascended Sinai to receive the Law, so Jesus ascends a mountain and delivers the Sermon on the Mount. There He does not merely explain Moses; He speaks as the Lawgiver in person: “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you” (Matthew 5:21–22). He brings the Law to its inner intention, revealing that the true obedience God desires is not only external but flows from a heart made pure by grace. This is the new Sinai, and He is the Prophet like Moses whom Israel was commanded to hear (Deuteronomy 18:15).
Where the prophets compared Israel to God’s vine—a vine that yielded only wild, bitter grapes—the Lord Jesus declares, “I am the true vine” (John 15:1). Where Israel was called to be a light to the nations but often became a cause of blasphemy among them (Romans 2:24), He announces, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). In Him, the calling of the firstborn nation is not discarded; it is fulfilled and elevated. He is the faithful Son, the true Israel, the Firstborn who succeeds where the corporate firstborn failed.
The Kingdom Announced and Inaugurated
With the faithful Son now present, the kingdom proclamation begins: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Mark records the same announcement in slightly different words: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). The appointed time has reached its fullness; the reign of God, long promised by the prophets, is drawing near in a new way.
This kingdom arrives not in the form most of Israel expected. It is not a sudden political revolution or an immediate expulsion of Rome. It comes quietly yet powerfully, hidden yet real, as the King Himself walks the villages of Galilee. His works reveal that the powers of the Age to Come are already breaking into this present evil age: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them (Matthew 11:5). These are not random acts of mercy; they are the very signs Isaiah had associated with the coming kingdom (Isaiah 35:5–6; 61:1). They show that the powers of the Age to Come have already begun to break into this present evil age in the person of the Son.
When He casts out demons by the Spirit of God, He declares that this is proof that the kingdom of God has come upon them (Matthew 12:28). He likens His ministry to binding the strong man and plundering his house (Matthew 12:29). Satan’s hold on humanity is being broken; the usurper is being bound in the presence of the stronger Man. The Day of the Lord has not yet dawned in its fullness, but the King is already confronting and disarming the powers.
Because this kingdom arrives in a form that confounds natural expectation, He teaches about it in parables. He speaks of a mustard seed that begins as the smallest of seeds yet grows into a tree, and of leaven hidden in three measures of meal until all is leavened (Matthew 13:31–33). He tells of wheat and tares growing together until the harvest (Matthew 13:24–30), revealing that, in its present form, the kingdom does not immediately uproot all evil but allows the righteous and the wicked to grow side by side until the appointed time of separation in the Age to Come. He speaks of a treasure hidden in a field and a pearl of great price, showing that the kingdom is of surpassing value, worthy of the loss of all things (Matthew 13:44–46). Through these parables the disciples learn that the kingdom is already present yet veiled, a mystery they will only fully understand as the ages unfold (see Chapter 23).
Yet as the kingdom is proclaimed and demonstrated, the nation largely refuses its King. Cities that saw His mighty works do not repent (Matthew 11:20–24). The leaders accuse Him of working by the power of Beelzebub (Matthew 12:24). The builders reject the stone that God has chosen as the chief cornerstone (Matthew 21:42). This rejection is not a failure of God’s plan but its appointed path. The Son must suffer, be rejected, be killed, and after three days rise again (Mark 8:31). The way to the throne runs through the cross.
After His resurrection, the enthronement is openly declared. Peter proclaims on the day of Pentecost that the risen Christ has been exalted to the right hand of God and has poured out the Spirit (Acts 2:33). He reads Psalm 110 as describing this very moment: “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool’” (Acts 2:34–35). David did not ascend to heaven; the words are fulfilled in the Son of David who has. On that basis Peter announces: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). The Davidic promises are not postponed to a distant earthly millennium; they are fulfilled in the resurrection and ascension. The King now reigns, enthroned at the right hand of the Father, ruling in the midst of His enemies until all things are brought into subjection.
When He tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), He does not mean that His kingdom has no bearing on the world, but that it does not arise from this world’s structures or operate by this world’s weapons. It is from above, heavenly in origin and nature, yet directed toward the earth. It advances through the word and the Spirit, conquering hearts rather than storming palaces. It is present and powerful, yet awaits its full unveiling at His appearing, when the kingdom already entrusted to Him will be openly manifested in the Age to Come.
The Reformation of the Torah: Fulfillment, Not Abolition
In His mountain teaching the Lord Jesus anticipates a misunderstanding: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). He insists that not one stroke of the Law will pass away “till all is fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). The Law and the Prophets are not set aside as failed experiments; they are brought to their God-appointed completion in Him.
To “fulfill” the Torah is more than to obey its individual commandments, though He does that perfectly. It is to bring out the fullness of what it was always pointing toward—prophetically, morally, and covenantally. In its types and shadows, the Torah anticipated Him; in its moral demands, it reflected His own character; in its covenant structure, it exposed the need for His obedience and His blood. He is simultaneously the goal and the end of the Law “for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Romans 10:4).
The righteousness He sets forth surpasses the meticulous external righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). They tithed herbs and washed cups with exactness, yet remained full of greed and self-seeking (Matthew 23:23–28). He reveals that true obedience reaches inward to the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The commandment against murder extends to anger and contempt in the heart; the commandment against adultery extends to lustful looking. The permission for divorce given because of hardness of heart is relativized by the original creational design of lifelong covenant union. The requirements about oaths are superseded by a simple, truthful “yes” and “no.” The old “eye for eye” rule was already a step of grace, because it put brakes on wild revenge—but in Christ, even that is lifted to a higher plane, where His disciples are called not to retaliate at all, but to respond to wrong with mercy, patience, and generous love. The command to love one’s neighbor is extended to include love for enemies, so that the children may resemble their Father who sends His rain on the just and the unjust. In each case He does not contradict Moses; He reveals what the Law really demanded and what only a New Covenant heart can begin to walk out.
In fulfilling the Torah, He also removes it as a system for attaining righteousness by works. The Law was “weak through the flesh” (Romans 8:3); it could reveal sin but could not cure it. Its ministry was a ministry of condemnation when it stood over Adamic flesh. In Christ the Law’s demands are met and its curse exhausted. Those who are in Him are no longer under the Law as a covenant of condemnation, yet the “righteous requirement of the law” is fulfilled in them as they walk according to the Spirit (Romans 8:4). The Torah has thus been reformed: its shadows have met their substance, its accusations have been silenced by the blood, and its righteousness is being inscribed on hearts by the Spirit of grace.
The Reformation of Sacrifice: From Repetition to Once-for-All
The sacrificial system of the Old Covenant was divinely given and deeply woven into Israel’s life. Bulls and goats, lambs and doves, grain offerings and peace offerings filled the yearly calendar. Yet Scripture itself testifies that these sacrifices, for all their solemnity, could never accomplish the final removal of sin. “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). They could sanctify “for the purifying of the flesh”—granting ritual cleanness and maintaining covenant order—but they could not cleanse the conscience or perfect the worshiper (Hebrews 9:13; 10:1–2).
Psalm 40 already glimpses what God truly desires. He does not ultimately delight in sacrifices and burnt offerings as such; He desires a heart ready to do His will, a Servant in whom the Law is written inwardly. The writer to the Hebrews puts these words on the lips of Christ as He comes into the world: a body prepared, a will delighting in obedience, an offering of Himself that displaces the whole previous sacrificial order (Hebrews 10:5–10). This is the one sacrifice God has been seeking: the self-offering of the faithful Son.
The Lord Jesus consciously gathers up the meaning of Israel’s sacrifices when He institutes the Supper on the night of Passover. The Passover lamb had marked Israel’s doors with blood so that the destroyer passed over their houses and spared their firstborn (Exodus 12). Now He takes the cup and says, “This cup is the New Covenant in My blood, which is shed for you… for the remission of sins” (Luke 22:20; Matthew 26:28). His blood is Passover blood and covenant blood at once. He is the true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and His death is the true covenant-making act in which God binds Himself to His people on a new and indestructible basis.
The Day of Atonement ritual finds its fulfillment here as well. Once a year the high priest took the blood of goats and calves and entered the earthly Most Holy Place, securing a symbolic cleansing for the people and the sanctuary. Christ, by contrast, enters “the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation,” and He does so “not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood,” entering the true Holy Place once for all and obtaining “redemption of the age” (literal, Hebrews 9:11–12). His offering does what the old sacrifices could never do: it reaches the conscience, purges it from dead works, and frees the worshiper to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14).
Because this sacrifice is offered by the eternal Son in the power of the eternal Spirit, it never needs repetition. By one offering He has “perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14, literal). The sacrificial order has been reformed from top to bottom: the many offerings give way to one; the animal blood gives way to the Son’s blood; the repeated reminder of sins yields to their true removal. The cross is the once-for-all covenant event in which the shadow of sacrifice yields to its substance.
The Reformation of the Priesthood: From Levi to Melchizedek
As the sacrifices go, so must the priesthood that administered them. The Levitical priesthood was holy and necessary under the Old Covenant, yet it carried within itself signs that it was not God’s final arrangement. Its priests were sinners who needed to offer sacrifices for themselves as well as for the people (Hebrews 5:3). They were subject to death, so that many priests succeeded one another and their ministry was constantly interrupted (Hebrews 7:23). The very fact that God later swore an oath concerning another priest—”You are a priest to the age according to the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4 literal, see Appendix O)—showed that the Aaronic order could not bring perfection (Hebrews 7:11).
In the Lord Jesus, a new priesthood arises. He does not become priest on the basis of genealogy from Aaron, but by divine oath and by the power of an indestructible life (Hebrews 7:16–21). Because He lives forever, His priesthood is permanent and non-transferable. He does not need to offer sacrifice for His own sins, for He is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners (Hebrews 7:26). The offering He brings is Himself, and what He accomplished once in His death, He applies continually in His living intercession. On this basis He is able to save “to the uttermost”—completely and for the age, that is, the Age to Come—those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25, literal, Age to Come).
This priestly reformation extends outward to those who belong to Him. Under the Old Covenant, Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests but never fully attained that calling. Under the New Covenant, those united to the faithful Firstborn become “a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). They are built together as living stones into a spiritual house, a dwelling of God in the Spirit, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ (1 Peter 2:5; Ephesians 2:21–22). The church of the firstborn is thus a priestly people, deriving all its authority and access from the one Great High Priest.
How this priestly vocation unfolds across the Seventh Day and the Eighth Day—in inner-court and outer-court ministry, celestial and terrestrial glory—has been explored in earlier chapters and will be covered extensively in Chapter 20. Here the emphasis is that every such distinction rests on the singular, sufficient, eternal priesthood of the Lord Jesus. He is the Priest to the age according to the order of Melchizedek; all other priestly service in the Eighth Day flows from and depends upon His.
The Reformation of the Sanctuary: From Earthly Copy to Heavenly Reality
From Sinai onward, Israel’s worship centered on a sanctuary. First came the tabernacle, the tent whose pattern Moses was shown on the mountain; later came the temple in Jerusalem. Both were divinely mandated, and both were described in language that pointed beyond themselves. The Lord told Moses to make the tabernacle and its furnishings “according to the pattern” shown to him (Exodus 25:40), and Hebrews comments that this meant the priests were serving “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (Hebrews 8:5). The earthly sanctuary was a real meeting place with God, but it was never the ultimate one. It was a handcrafted model of a higher reality.
When the Lord Jesus appears as High Priest, He does not take up service in that earthly structure. He comes “with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation” (Hebrews 9:11). He enters not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us (Hebrews 9:24). The true tabernacle, the real inner court, is the heavenly sanctuary where the Father dwells and where the ascended Son now ministers.
At His death, the veil of the temple is torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). The barrier that had symbolically guarded the Most Holy Place is removed by God’s own hand. Hebrews interprets this as the opening of “a new and living way” into the Holiest, through the veil of His flesh and by His blood (Hebrews 10:19–20). What only the high priest could do once a year under the Old Covenant—enter the inner sanctuary with blood—becomes the normal privilege of believers under the New. They are invited to draw near with boldness, hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22). Access, once restricted, has been reformed into access freely granted in the Son.
The Lord Jesus also redefines the temple itself. When challenged in Jerusalem, He speaks of “this temple” being destroyed and raised in three days. John tells us He was speaking of the temple of His body (John 2:19–21). The true temple is not ultimately a stone building but the incarnate Son, crucified and raised. In Him, God dwells among humanity in a way that surpasses all former manifestations. The Word became flesh and “tabernacled” among us (John 1:14); His risen, glorified humanity is the definitive meeting place of God and man.
Through union with Him, believers become temples as well. Paul tells the Corinthians that they collectively are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in them (1 Corinthians 3:16), and that each believer’s body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). The sanctuary pattern has been internalized: the Spirit no longer dwells in a house made with hands, but in living men and women being built together as the true house of God.
The Reformation of the Kingdom: Heavenly Enthronement, Not Earthly Replica
Israel’s hope for the kingdom, shaped by the prophets, centered on the restoration of David’s throne, the defeat of hostile nations, and the renewal of the land. That hope was not false, but it awaited a deeper fulfillment than many imagined. The Lord Jesus reforms this hope, not by canceling what God promised, but by enlarging and elevating it.
After His resurrection and before His ascension, the disciples ask, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). He does not deny that restoration is coming, but He redirects them. The times and seasons are in the Father’s authority; their task is to receive the Spirit and bear witness “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:7–8). In other words, the kingdom will be restored not by a sudden political upheaval, but by the exaltation of the Messiah to the Father’s right hand and the worldwide mission that flows from that enthronement.
The New Testament consistently interprets the Davidic promises in this heavenly light. Christ, born of David’s line according to the flesh, is declared Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:3–4). The sure mercies of David—God’s covenant commitment to an eternal Davidic throne—are fulfilled when God raises the Lord Jesus from the dead never to see corruption (Acts 13:34–37). James at the Jerusalem Council sees the inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God as the rebuilding of David’s fallen tent (Acts 15:14–17). The kingdom is not shrunk to an inward, private reality nor inflated into a merely political regime; it is revealed as the universal, heavenly kingship of the risen Son, presently exercised and moving toward open manifestation.
His kingdom is “not of this world” in origin and method, yet it is deeply engaged with this world in its aim. From the throne at the Father’s right hand, He orders all things toward the day when every enemy is beneath His feet and then hands the kingdom to the Father so that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:24–28). The reformation of the kingdom means that we no longer look for a return to an old earthly arrangement in Jerusalem below, but for the appearing of the King who already reigns from the Heavenly Jerusalem above. The Age to Come will reveal what is already true in heaven: that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him.
The Reformation of the Human Person: The Last Adam and the New Humanity
The Lord Jesus does not only reform covenants, priesthood, and sanctuary; He reforms humanity itself. Scripture presents Him as the Last Adam and the Second Man, the head of a new race. “The first man Adam became a living soul; the Last Adam became a life-giving Spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45, literal). The first Adam received life and transmitted corruption; the Last Adam possesses life in Himself and imparts it to others. “The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:47).
In Adam, humanity bears the image of the man of dust—mortal, corruptible, subject to decay and death. In Christ, humanity is appointed to bear the image of the heavenly Man. “As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man” (1 Corinthians 15:49). This promise looks toward the resurrection, when the natural, soulish body is raised a spiritual body—still truly human and embodied, yet now animated and wholly permeated by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:42–44). Within this new humanity, resurrection unfolds in an ordered way: the faithful, through deep union with Christ, receive celestial bodies fitted for the Heavenly Jerusalem and the inner-court ministry of the Royal Priesthood, while restored but previously unfaithful believers, together with the renewed nations, receive terrestrial bodies suited to priestly and national service upon the renewed earth—all under the headship of the Last Adam.
Christ’s own resurrection is the beginning of this new humanity. He is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). The firstfruits were the initial portion of the harvest offered to God, both consecrating and guaranteeing the full harvest to come. His emergence from the tomb in a glorified body is the first sheaf of a great resurrection harvest. “Each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming” (1 Corinthians 15:23). The reformation of the human person has already begun in Him and will be brought to completion in all who belong to Him.
Even now, before that final transformation, the Spirit applies this new-creation life inwardly. Those who are in Christ are already, in seed-form, “a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). They are being “conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29), “transformed from glory to glory” as they behold the Lord with unveiled face (2 Corinthians 3:18). The Father’s purpose is that the faithful Firstborn should truly be “the Firstborn among many brethren,” and that He should “bring many sons to glory” through the path the Son has already walked (Romans 8:29; Hebrews 2:10).
The anthropological reformation is therefore twofold. On the one hand, the Last Adam has already been raised in glory as the head of the new humanity. On the other hand, by the Spirit, the members of that humanity are being prepared even now for the day when their bodies will be “conformed to His glorious body” (Philippians 3:20–21) and they will be “counted worthy to attain that Age and the resurrection from the dead” (Luke 20:35–36, literal). In that resurrection, the faithful will share fully in the life of the Age to Come, bearing at last, in spirit, soul, and body, the image of the heavenly Man.
Conclusion
Reformation Accomplished, Union Awaiting
In the Lord Jesus, the whole Old Covenant order is brought from shadow to substance, from promise to fulfillment, from flesh to Spirit. Covenantally, He fulfills the testing covenant under which Israel failed and establishes the New Covenant in His blood—a covenant grounded in divine initiative, guaranteed by divine oath, and administered by His eternal priesthood. In relation to the Torah, He brings the Law and the Prophets to their intended goal, revealing their true depth and writing their righteousness on the hearts of His people by the Spirit.
In sacrifice, He replaces the endless flow of animal blood with His own once-for-all offering, obtaining redemption of the age and cleansing the conscience so that the worshiper may truly draw near. In priesthood, He sets aside the weak and mortal Levitical order and takes up the Melchizedek priesthood that never passes away, saving to the uttermost those who come to God through Him. In sanctuary, He moves worship from an earthly tabernacle to the heavenly reality, opens the way into the Holiest, and makes His own body—and then His people—the true temple of God. In kingship, He reigns as the Davidic Son at the right hand of God, already Lord and Christ, advancing a kingdom that is present in power and destined for open manifestation. In humanity itself, He appears as the Last Adam and Second Man, inaugurating the new creation in His own resurrection body and securing the future transformation of all who belong to Him.
Yet all this reformation, complete in Him, is not meant to remain external to us as a distant arrangement in heaven. The purpose of God is that those who are called according to His purpose should be drawn into what the Son has accomplished. The faithful Firstborn does not keep His obedience, His death, His resurrection, His priesthood, and His kingdom to Himself. He joins His people to Himself so that they may be crucified with Him, raised with Him, seated with Him in the heavenly places, and conformed to His image.
The question that now stands before us is how this sharing takes place. By what bond are believers united to the Lord Jesus, so that His history becomes theirs, His righteousness their covering, His Spirit their life, and His inheritance their hope? The next chapter therefore turns to the central mystery of the apostolic proclamation: union with Christ. Through this union, the faithful are crucified with Him, raised with Him, seated with Him in the heavenly places, and transformed by His Spirit into His likeness. Union with Christ is the living bond by which the fruits of His reformation become the inheritance of His people; it is the foundation of sanctification, priesthood, inheritance, and participation in the ages to come. To this mystery of union, and to its role within the purpose of the ages, we now turn.
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