The woman is not seen in her glory on the earth, she is in Heaven, in the spirit realm. She is clothed with the righteousness of the Sun of righteousness. The created realm is under her feet because she is the Body of Christ and coheir with Christ of the works of God's hands. Because of her oneness with the Lord Jesus she possesses the keys of the Kingdom of God, the key of David.

The adornment upon her head, her tiara, represents the Lord's heroes of faith—God's faithful saints who have sought and pursued the Lord until He has become their life. They shine as the stars of the firmament forever.

The woman in the heaven, who is a sign and wonder, is the Church of Christ. The Son who is being born of her is Christ—Christ in the saints.

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, (Galatians 4:19)

Paul's "little children" were the believers who lived in Galatia.

Paul, a member of the Church of Christ, was travailing in his ministry in the pains of birth until Christ, the Son, was formed in the saints of the churches in Galatia.

In Galatians 4:19, as in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, it is the one Son who is emphasized. Other writings of the Scripture emphasize the perfecting of the saints. But these two passages are speaking, not of the development of eminent saints but of the bringing forth of Christ, of God's anointed King. Christ, the Lord and Conqueror, is being formed in the members of His Body.

There is a time to stress the bringing of many sons to glory. In other instances it is more fruitful to stress the creating of the one Son in the sons.

Galatians 4:19 is not addressed to non-Christians. It is addressed to believers only, that they may press forward to the eternal formation of Christ in them.

It is not Christ-likeness that is to be formed in saints, as a figure of speech referring to an imitation of Christ's Personality and behavior. Rather, it is Christ, His Substance, His Virtue, His Spirit, His Life. It is the Divine Nature, the Word of God, the Seed of God, that is formed in the saint.

There are other verses in the New Testament that reveal it is Christ who is created in the believer, not merely Christ-likeness:

To whom [the saints] God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: (Colossians 1:27)

The foremost revelation of the new covenant is that Christ is being formed in the saints and will abide in the saints.

The Christian Church is the Body of Christ, His fullness:

Which [the Church] is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. (Ephesians 1:23)

The major statement is found in the fourth chapter of Ephesians:

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying [building up] of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: (Ephesians 4:12,13)

To be continued.