Page 24 - Christ in You - The Hope of Glory

It is destined that all God’s sons will attain to the stature of Christ, being conformed
to the maturity of Yahshua, who is the Head.

Ephesians 4:12-13
To the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the
faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure
of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.

This attainment to the stature of Christ does not occur at the same time for all the sons
of God.

I Corinthians 15:22-23
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in
his own order...

What does this mean, “In Christ all shall be made alive”? This is speaking of the
resurrection from the dead. Not all will be resurrected at the same time. There is a
resurrection for the sons of God that the apostle John describes as “the first resurrection.”
This is the resurrection of the firstborn. Those who attain to the first resurrection will be
preeminent in all ways over their brethren who will be resurrected at a later time.

Revelation 20:6
Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection...

As we read in the previous Scripture, the firstborn to open the womb was reserved
unto God. This is the meaning of the phrase “holy unto Yahweh.” The word holy indicates
being set apart for a specific call, role or purpose. The firstborn are set apart specifically for
Yahweh. It is evident that there is a correlation between the first resurrection and the types
and shadows of the firstborn in the Old Testament, for John writes “Blessed and holy is the
one who has a part in the first resurrection.” This perfectly corresponds to the rights of the
firstborn. Their blessings exceeded that of their brethren, and they were set aside as holy
unto Yahweh.
Yahweh’s plan of taking the firstborn male for Himself was altered in practice, but not
in principle, when the Israelites transgressed in the wilderness by fashioning for themselves
a golden calf and degrading themselves in its presence. From this point forward we find that
Yahweh used a substitute for the firstborn male. He chose men willing to qualify themselves
as firstborn by paying a great cost. This was a foreshadowing of those whom Christ would
one day invite to “count the cost” of being His disciples. The tribe of Levi was alone among
the tribes of Israel in answering Moses’ cry, “Whoever is for Yahweh, come to me” (Exodus
32:26). Because Levi accepted the cost of obeying Yahweh, irregardless of what He might
require of them, every male from Levi became holy unto God. Yahweh took the men from
the tribe of Levi in exchange for the firstborn males of all the other tribes.

Numbers 3:40-41
Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Number every first-born male of the sons of Israel
from a month old and upward, and make a list of their names. And you shall take the
Levites for Me, I am Yahweh, instead of all the first-born among the sons of Israel...”