«　WEEK 2　DAY 4　»

　　1 Cor. 15:10 …By the grace of God I am what I am; and His grace unto me did not turn out to be in vain, but… I labored more abundantly than all of them, yet not I but the grace of God which is with me.

　　Gal. 2:20-21 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith…I do not nullify the grace of God…

　　Grace is the central thought of 1 Corinthians [cf. 1:4]… In verse 9 Paul goes on to say that God has called us into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. This means that God has called us to participate in, or to partake of, the Son. The fellowship, the enjoyment, and the partaking of Christ are grace. Grace, mentioned three times in 1 Corinthians 15:10, is the resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit (v. 45) to bring the processed Triune God in resurrection into us to be our life and life supply that we may live in resurrection. Thus, grace is the Triune God becoming life and everything to us. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 3173)

　　Apart from the Triune God being processed in Christ, He cannot be enjoyed by us as the grace of God. Apart from the resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit, the grace of God cannot reach us, and we cannot participate in it. Therefore, the grace of God must be the resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit for our participation in Him. The enjoyment of the processed Triune God is grace …God in creation is for our worship, but God in resurrection is not only for our worship but also for our enjoyment. The Jews know how to worship God only as their Creator; however, we enjoy our Triune God as the life-giving Spirit. God in resurrection is for enjoyment.

　　The unprocessed God is not grace. Rather, grace is the Triune God in resurrection. The God in Paul’s ministry is not merely the God of creation—He is God in resurrection. Resurrection involves the process of incarnation, human living, and crucifixion…Therefore, when we speak of God as the God of resurrection, we imply the process through which He has passed. Christ passed through incarnation, through thirty-three and a half years of human living, and through six hours of crucifixion. After He died, He was placed in a tomb. Then He went into Hades and had a tour of the realm of death. Following that, He came forth in resurrection. Now He is the God not only of creation but also of resurrection. This processed God is now our grace.

　　Christ, the grace of God, is now in resurrection as the life-giving Spirit, the consummation of the processed Triune God. Since He is in resurrection, we, His believers, should also be in resurrection and live in resurrection. Resurrection means that all the old, natural things have been terminated and that something new and spiritual has been germinated. This is resurrection—the termination of the natural and the germination of the spiritual, to transform the natural into the spiritual. In resurrection we do not live a natural life but a life that was terminated in the old nature and germinated in the new nature to make us members of Christ.

　　It is by this grace that Saul of Tarsus, the foremost of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15-16), became the foremost apostle, laboring more abundantly than all the apostles. His ministry and living by this grace are an undeniable testimony to Christ’s resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15:10 grace is the Christ who is in resurrection and who is resurrection. By this grace Paul could be what he was and labor more than all the other apostles. Not I but the grace of God which is with me in 1 Corinthians 15:10 equals no longer I…but…Christ who lives in me in Galatians 2:20. This shows that Christ Himself is the grace of God—God Himself working through the apostle. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3173-3175)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of 1 Corinthians, msg. 65