«　WEEK 2　DAY 5　»

　　2 Cor. 1:12 …In singleness and sincerity of God,…in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.

　　1 Tim. 1:15-16 …Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am foremost…I was shown mercy, that in me…Jesus Christ might display all His long-suffering for a pattern to those who are to believe on Him unto eternal life.

　　All the disciples and apostles who saw the resurrected Christ not only saw Him objectively but also experienced Him subjectively. Through their seeing of Christ, He entered into them and became the subjective One in them. When the day of Pentecost came, this was the reason they were living, energetic, and operative. The resurrected Christ was in them.

　　The grace that motivated the apostle [Paul] and operated in him was not some matter or some thing but a living person, the resurrected Christ, the embodiment of God the Father who became the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, who dwelt in the apostle as his everything. This corresponds to Paul’s declaration in Philippians 4:13: “I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me.” Here Him refers to the resurrected Christ who became the life-giving Spirit. In such a Christ, Paul was empowered to do all things. This is the grace of God. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 3175)

　　Grace is something of God which is wrought into our being and which works in us and does things for us. It is nothing outward … In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul does not tell us that by the grace of God he has what he has, or even that by the grace of God he does what he does. It is not a matter of doing, having, or working; it is absolutely a matter of being. Hence, Paul says, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” This means that the grace of God had been wrought into his being, making him that kind of person. Grace is not outside of us or beside us. It is a divine person, God Himself in Christ, wrought into our being to be the constituent of our being. Grace is the Triune God wrought into our being to be what we should be and to live, work, and do things for us so that we may say, “I am what I am by the grace of God. It is not I, but the grace of God.”

　　Paul indicates that by himself he was nothing and by himself could never be an apostle and that he labored more than the others, yet it was not he who labored—it was the grace of God. The grace which was with Paul and which enabled him to labor more than others was actually God Himself. God in Paul was eternal life as his supply and support for the carrying out of His New Testament economy.

　　Throughout the centuries, all the living servants of the Lord have had this resurrected Christ living in them. We can testify that He as the grace of God lives in us, enabling us to do what we could never do in ourselves. We may be persecuted and opposed, and we may suffer very much; however, we have the resurrected Christ in us. The more we are opposed, the more alive and active we become. We must all declare that in our labor it is not we but the grace of God with us.

　　We should not be the ones working; rather, the grace of God, the resurrected Christ who lives in us, should be the One working. We need to learn of Paul to coordinate with the One living in us. Although in ourselves we cannot carry out the Lord’s work or bear the burden of the churches, the work is easy to do and the burden is easy to bear when it is the processed and consummated One living in us who does the work and bears the burden. We should praise the Lord that we can simply enjoy His living and His working and rejoice in Him.

　　Grace is the incarnated, crucified, resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit to enter into us, to indwell us, and to be our life and life supply. Such an amazing grace can make a sinner the foremost apostle. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3175-3177)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Galatians, msg. 31