Outline
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Christ died on the cross to satisfy the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory and was resurrected to become the life-dispensing Spirit as the reality of the tree of life to be our righteousness, holiness, and glory—Gen. 3:24; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 1:30; cf. Eph. 5:25-27:
A
The life of the Triune God dispensed into our tripartite being makes us men of life to be God’s sons and the members of Christ to constitute the Body of Christ for His expression, thus fulfilling God’s original intention—Gen. 2:7, 9; Rom. 8:14; 12:5:
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“The law of the Spirit of life [Gk. zoe] has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death”—8:2.
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“If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life [Gk. zoe] because of righteousness”—v. 10.
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“The mind set on the spirit is life [Gk. zoe] and peace”—v. 6.
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“If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life [Gk. zoe] to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you”—v. 11.
Morning Nourishment
Rom. 8:4 That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.
In the book of Romans Paul first covers the subject of condemnation and then proceeds to cover justification, sanctification, and glorification. As God deals with us, He always cares for three of His divine attributes—His righteousness, holiness, and glory…Righteousness is related to God’s acts, to His ways, actions, and activities…Holiness is God’s nature…Glory is God Himself expressed…Therefore, in righteousness we see God’s ways, in holiness we see God’s nature, and in glory we see God expressed. Three of the sections in Romans—justification, sanctification, and glorification—were composed according to these three attributes of God: justification according to God’s righteousness, sanctification according to God’s holiness, and glorification according to God’s glory. (Life-study of Romans, p. 197)
Today’s Reading
In the first stage of God’s salvation [justification], we participate in the righteousness of God…In the second stage we are in the process of sanctification, a process in which God works His divine nature into us… Although we have obtained and participated in God’s righteousness outwardly, God’s holiness needs to be wrought into us inwardly. The second stage of God’s salvation is that He works His holy nature into our being.In order to accomplish this, God has been processed into the available Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2)…Before He was processed, He was able to create the world, but He was unable to enter into His creature. Although He could do many things outside of us, He could not come into us until He had passed through the complete process of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Since being processed, He has become and still is the available Spirit of life. Now, like the air for breathing (John 20:22), it is so easy for Him to enter into us…Since Christ, the life-giving Spirit, is in us, our spirit is life because of righteousness (Rom. 8:10). The Lord has made our spirit life by regeneration. Now, as the Spirit of life in our spirit, He is spreading Himself from our spirit into our soul—into our mind, emotion, and will. Eventually, He will even expand into our mortal body. In such a way God saturates us with Himself. This saturation is called sanctification. Through this saturation God works Himself with His holy nature into our entire being—into our spirit, soul, and body (1 Thes. 5:23). Thus, our whole being will be fully permeated, sanctified, with His holy nature. We are presently undergoing this process of sanctification, the second stage of God’s salvation.
In the next stage we will be raptured and glorified. That will be the redemption of our body. Glorification means to transfigure our vile body into a glorious body (Phil. 3:21). At that time we will be completely and absolutely brought into God Himself as our glory. Then we will be fully glorified.
The first stage of God’s salvation, justification, takes care of our spirit; the second stage, sanctification, mainly deals with our soul, with a slight amount of saturation in our body; and the third stage, glorification, concerns our physical body. In Romans 8:10 Paul says that if Christ is in us, our spirit is life because of righteousness, meaning that in God’s justification we have gained righteousness. Through this righteousness our spirit has been made alive and actually becomes life. However, there is not yet the divine life in our soul. Therefore, we need to cooperate with the indwelling Christ by setting our mind upon the spirit, enabling the Spirit of life to saturate our mind with Himself. Then our mind will be life. If we continue to cooperate, this saturating and spreading One will spread Himself from our spirit even into our mortal body. Then we only need to wait for the time when our body will be brought into His glory. That will be our glorification. (Life-study of Romans, pp. 197-199)
Further Reading: Life-study of Romans, msgs. 17, 32, 60