«　WEEK 6　DAY 2　»

　　Rom. 1:1 Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, a called apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.

　　3-4 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.

　　In Romans 1:1 Paul said that he was “separated unto the gospel of God,” and then he goes on to say that the gospel of God concerns God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1:3). This indicates that the gospel of God is a gospel of sonship. The goal of this gospel is to transform sinners into sons of God for the formation of the Body of Christ.

　　As we consider this matter of sonship, certain important words command our attention: designation, resurrection, sanctification, transformation, conformation, glorification, and manifestation. We are being designated sons of God through the process of resurrection. In this process a number of steps are involved. These steps include sanctification, transformation, conformation, and glorification….Glorification will also be the manifestation….On the day of our glorification, no one will need to ask us whether or not we are Christians, for we shall be manifested as sons of God. That manifestation will be the consummation of the process of designation by resurrection.

　　To serve God in the gospel is to serve Him not only in the matters of redemption, justification, and forgiveness, but especially in the matter of sonship…. According to this gospel, sinners in the flesh can be transformed into sons of God in the Spirit. What glad tidings! (Life-study of Romans, pp. 565, 578)

　　We must exercise our faith to preach… an uplifted gospel. We should not preach a gospel that has been lowered down to what we think is the level of people’s understanding… We need to realize that within man there is a God-created talent, ability, to receive God and to receive and understand His gospel.

　　Unbelievers can understand more of the gospel than we realize. Whenever we preach the gospel, we must believe that those listening were created by God with a certain ability, a talent, to receive and understand the message of the gospel. We need to improve our gospel preaching. We should preach an uplifted gospel and never lower the concept.

　　We need to preach an uplifted gospel, a gospel that covers more than the ABCs of God’s salvation. This will satisfy the hunger and thirst that is within man because of the way God created him. It will also stir up the interest of those who hear to come again to hear the preaching of the gospel.

　　Man was created for God, and within him there is the ability to understand the things of God, and there is a hunger for these things. Therefore, as we preach the gospel in an uplifted way, we must believe that the hearers have the ability to understand what we are saying. We need to enrich and uplift the word of our gospel preaching. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 1304-1306)

　　The embodiment of God is Christ, the realization of Christ is the Spirit, the issue of the Spirit is the Body of Christ, and the consummation of the Body of Christ is the New Jerusalem. These five mysteries cannot be clearly explained by today’s traditional theology in Christianity….The Lord’s burden given to us is that we bear the testimony of His recovery, and one of the main points is to refute and correct the defects and errors of traditional Christian theology. We cannot say that traditional theology is all wrong; in fact, some of it is quite right. Nevertheless, it is incomplete….We must present the truth concerning the economy of God item by item according to the entire Bible. This is the Lord’s special commission to us. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 2, “The Governing and Controlling Vision in the Bible,” p. 307)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Exodus, msg. 113; Life-study of Romans, msgs. 54-56