«　WEEK 1　DAY 5　»

　　Gal. 2:16 And knowing that a man is not justified out of works of law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we also have believed into Christ Jesus that we might be justified out of faith in Christ and not out of the works of law…

　　Second Corinthians 5:7 says that we believers do not walk by sight, by appearance, but by faith. Sight brings you a lot of things, but faith annuls all things. When sight is here, you see all the material things. When faith comes in, all these physical things disappear. Some of the young people may be burdened to serve the Lord full time, but they may wonder how they can be supported. If you think in this way, you are walking by sight, not by faith. Throughout the years I have walked by faith, but eventually all things came to me. I was saved by the Lord from the Japanese army’s hand. Otherwise, they would have killed me. The Lord also saved me from death due to tuberculosis of the lungs. This is to walk by faith. The worldly people do not have God. They have only the things they can see. But because we have God, we do not walk by anything we see. We walk by our unseen God. Eventually, all the things we need come to us. This faith links us all the time to God. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” pp. 297, 300)

　　Under God’s New Testament economy we are not to keep the law. On the contrary, we are justified through faith in Christ (Gal. 2:16). Faith in Christ denotes an organic union through believing. The faith in Christ by which we are justified is related to our appreciation of the person of the Son of God… The more we describe Him and speak of His preciousness, the more something will be infused into the being of the listeners. This infusion will become their faith, and this faith will cause them to respond to our preaching. In this way they will appreciate the person we present to them. This appreciation is their faith in Christ. Out of their appreciation for the Lord Jesus, they will want to possess Him. The Christ who has been preached to them will become in them the faith by which they believe. Faith is Christ preached into them to become their capacity to believe through their appreciation of Him.

　　The genuine experiential definition of faith is the preciousness of Jesus infused into us. Through such an infusion, we spontaneously have faith in the Lord Jesus… The teaching of doctrine did not impress us with the preciousness of the person of the Son of God. But one day we heard a living message filled with the preciousness of Christ. When His preciousness was infused into us through the preaching of the gospel, we spontaneously began to appreciate the Lord Jesus and believe in Him. We said, “Lord Jesus, I love You. I treasure You.” This is what it means to have faith in Christ.

　　The expression out of faith in Christ [in Galatians 2:16] actually denotes an organic union accomplished by believing in Christ. The term in Christ refers to this organic union. Before we believed in Christ, there was a great separation between us and Christ. We were we, and Christ was Christ. But through believing we were joined to Christ and became one with Him. Now we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. This is an organic union, a union in life. This union is illustrated by the grafting of a branch of one tree into another tree. Through faith in Christ we are grafted into Christ. Through this process of spiritual grafting, two lives are grafted and become one.

　　Many Christians have a shallow understanding of justification by faith. How could Christ be our righteousness if we were not organically united to Him? It is by means of our organic union with Christ that God can reckon Christ as our righteousness. Because we and Christ are one, whatever belongs to Him is ours. This is the basis upon which God counts Christ as our righteousness. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3272-3273)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” chs. 7-11