Acts 13:33, which says, “God has fully fulfilled this promise to us their children in raising up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘You are My Son; this day have I begotten You’” reveals that Christ’s resurrection was a birth to Him. Even though He is eternally the only begotten Son of God in the Godhead (John 3:16; 1:14), in His resurrection He became the “Firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29).
From eternity past, Christ has been the only begotten Son of God in His divinity. When He became a man through incarnation, He put on the flesh, which had nothing to do with divinity. Although His flesh was without sin, it still was not divine. Therefore, Jesus needed to be born of God in His humanity through resurrection so that His humanity would be sanctified, uplifted, transformed, and brought into the divine sonship. In His incarnation, Christ brought divinity into humanity and in His resurrection, He brought humanity into divinity.
Romans 1:3-4 concern what transpired during Christ’s incarnation and resurrection. These verses speak concerning the divine Son becoming a man and this man through resurrection bringing His humanity into the divine sonship to be born, begotten, as God’s Firstborn Son: “Concerning His Son, who came out of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The phrase out of used twice in these verses denotes Christ’s source through each of His births—the seed of David and the resurrection of the dead. On the day of His resurrection, God said to the man Jesus, “You are My Son; / Today I have begotten You” (Psalm 2:7). On that day, God gained a God-man Son, Jesus Christ, as the Firstborn among many brothers – His believers who were born again through His resurrection – for the fulfillment of God’s heart’s desire (1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 1:5).
Further Reading:
Witness Lee, Crystallization-Study of the Epistle to the Romans, Message 18 (Print).
Witness Lee, Life-Study of 1 & 2 Samuel, Message 31 (Print).
Witness Lee, The Governing and Controlling Vision in the Bible, Chapter 4 (Print).
Holy Bible Recovery Version, all verses mentioned in this post and their corresponding footnotes (Nook, Kindle, iBooks, Print).
(Most references in the Further Reading can also be viewed on www.ministrybooks.org.)
Heb.1:5 For to which of the angels has He ever said, “You are My Son; this day have I begotten You”? And again, “I will be a Father to Him, and He will be a Son to Me”?
Heb. 1:6 And when He brings again the Firstborn into the inhabited earth, He says, “And let all the angels of God worship Him.