Scripture Reading: Rom. 5:10, 17, 21
Ⅰ
God's judicial redemption is the judicial aspect of God's complete salvation accord-ing to the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:17a; 3:21-26; 9:30-31) through God's fulfill-ing of all the requirements of His righteous law on sinners by Christ's redemptive death on the cross (Ezek. 18:4, 20; Rom. 6:23; Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:24; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 9:12):
A
It was accomplished in the physical realm of Christ's earthly ministry by Christ in the flesh (John 19:30) and results objectively in the following items:
１
The forgiveness of the believers' sins—Luke 24:47; Eph. 1:7; Psa. 130:4; Luke 7:47.
２
The washing away of the believers' sins—Heb. 1:3.
３
Justifying the believers—Rom. 3:24-25.
４
Reconciling the believers, who were His enemies, to Himself—5:10a; cf. James 2:23.
５
Sanctifying the believers in their position unto Himself for them to be His holy peo-ple—1 Cor. 1:2; Heb. 13:12; 10:29.
B
God's judicial redemption is the procedure of God's complete salvation for the believers to participate in God's organic salvation as the purpose of the complete salvation of God—Rom. 5:21.
Ⅱ
God's organic salvation is the organic aspect of God's complete salvation through the life of God (1:17b; Acts 11:18; Rom. 5:10b, 17b, 18b, 21b) as the purpose of God's salvation, accomplishing all that God wants to achieve in the believers in His econ-omy through His divine life (Gen. 2:9; Rev. 22:14); all the items of God's organic sal-vation are carried out by Christ as the life-giving Spirit in His heavenly ministry organically and subjectively (1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:10, 6, 11):
A
Regeneration is the propagation of the divine life:
１
Regeneration is the center of God's entire salvation and the commencement of God's salvation in its organic aspect.
２
Regeneration re-creates the redeemed believers in their spirit by the Spirit of God to make them a new creation, possessing the divine life and nature, with a new spirit—John 3:6b; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 John 5:11-12; 2 Pet. 1:4; Ezek. 36:26.
３
Through the resurrection of Christ, He imparts His life into His chosen ones as the authority for them to be the children of God, begotten of God to be the divine species—1 Pet. 1:3; John 1:12-13.
４
Through regeneration the believers have the eternal, divine life of God in addition to their natural, human life—3:15, 36.
B
Feeding through shepherding is the nourishment of the divine life:
１
Feeding is the continuation of regeneration through Christ's shepherding His flock by cherishing and nourishing that His sheep may grow in the divine life unto maturity— Eph. 5:29; John 10:10-11, 14-16; 21:15-17; Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 5:4; 2:25; cf. Gen. 48:15.
２
Feeding nourishes His newborn babes (new believers) that they may grow and be saved gradually through the supply of the milk of the word—1 Pet. 2:2.
３
Feeding supplies His growing believers with the solid food of the word of righteousness, which embodies the deeper thought of God's justice and righteousness in His dispensa-tional and governmental dealings with His people—Heb. 5:12-14.
４
Feeding results in the believers' maturity in the divine life unto transformation and conformation to the image of Christ—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2; 8:29.
C
Dispositional sanctification constitutes the believers with the divine nature—2 Pet. 1:4; Eph. 5:26; Heb. 2:10-11; 1 Thes. 5:23-24:
１
This inward saturation of the believers with God's holy nature is by the working of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life, in their disposition—Rom. 15:16; 8:2.
２
The believers are sanctified with the divine, holy nature of God for them to be holy unto God and thus fulfill God's purpose in choosing them—Eph. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:15-16.
３
Dispositional sanctification implies transformation and will ultimately be manifested in the New Jerusalem as the holy city—Rom. 6:19, 22; Rev. 21:2, 10.
D
Renewing is the process of God's new creation, constituting the believers with God as their new element:
１
Renewing is the continuation of the washing of regeneration as a kind of recondition-ing, remaking, or remodeling with the divine life—Titus 3:5.
２
The mingled spirit spreads into the believers' mind, thus becoming the spirit of their mind to renew them, making them the constituents of the one new man—Eph. 4:23-24.
３
Renewing is by the believers' walking in newness of life and serving in newness of spirit in the resurrected Christ—Rom. 6:4; 7:6.
４
Renewing takes place through the consuming by the believers' environmental suf-ferings and through the fresh, daily supply of Christ as the resurrection life—2 Cor. 4:16.
５
The believers must be thoroughly and absolutely renewed that they may be practically the genuine new creation of God, eventually causing them to be as new as the New Jerusalem—5:17; Gal. 6:15; Rev. 21:2.
E
Transformation is the metabolic process in the divine life:
１
It is not any kind of outward correction or adjustment but a kind of divine and mystical metabolism, by the addition of the divine life of Christ into the believers' being, to be expressed outwardly in the image of Christ—Rom. 12:2.
２
It is accomplished by the believers' turning their heart to the Lord for them to behold the Lord with an unveiled face so that the Lord Spirit (the pneumatic Christ) can transform them into the image of the glory of Christ—2 Cor. 3:16-18.
３
The believers should live and walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25) and walk according to the mingled spirit (Rom. 8:4) so that the divine life of Christ may have the way to regulate them and transform them into the image of the Lord of glory.
F
Building up is the joining and knitting together in the divine life:
１
When we allow Christ to be the Head in everything and when we grow up into Him in all things, we will be supplied with the riches of His life, receiving something from Him to transfuse into other members of the Body—Eph. 4:15-16.
２
To build up the Body of Christ is to minister Christ as the life-giving Spirit into the saints for their growth into Christ—2 Cor. 3:6, 8; 1 Cor. 14:4b; John 7:37-39.
３
We must help the saints learn to enjoy the Lord and be nourished by the Lord so that they can grow—Phil. 1:25; 2 Cor. 1:24.
４
The building up of the Body of Christ is in love and by love; this is the building up of the church as the Body of Christ to consummate the building up of the holy city, New Jerusalem—1 Cor. 8:1b; Matt. 16:18; Eph. 4:16; Rev. 3:12; 21:10-11.
G
Conformation is the maturity in the divine life:
１
Conformation is the consummation of the believers' transformation in life.
２
Conformation is to be conformed to the image of God's firstborn Son by the believers' becoming full-grown in life as God-men—Rom. 8:29.
３
They are conformed to Christ's death in all things through the power of His resur-rection (Phil. 3:10; S. S. 2:8-9, 14) to live Christ for His magnification through the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the God-man—Phil. 1:19-21a.
４
Conformation results in the believers becoming the reprints of the God-man, Christ, that the believers may be exactly like Him, the firstborn Son of God—1 John 3:2.
H
Glorification is the full manifestation of God's complete salvation:
１
In regeneration God seals the regenerated believers with His Spirit unto the day of redemption, the day of their glorification—Eph. 1:13; 4:30; Rom. 8:23.
２
The matured believers will be glorified from within through the lifelong saturation with the glory of God and from without through their being brought into God's glory— Eph. 4:30; 2 Thes. 1:10; 1 Thes. 2:12; 1 Pet. 5:10; Rom. 8:23, 30; Heb. 2:10.
３
Glorification is the believers' enjoyment of the redemption of their body, which is the transfiguration of their body at the Lord's coming back—Phil. 3:20-21.
４
Through glorification God realizes the fulfillment of His eternal purpose—the New Jerusalem, having the glory of God—Rev. 21:9b-11.
Ⅲ
The experience of God's organic salvation equals reigning in Christ's life—Rom. 5:17, 21:
A
We have been regenerated with a divine, spiritual, heavenly, kingly, and royal life—Mark 4:26; 1 John 3:9.
B
Reigning in life in Romans 5 is the key to everything in Romans 6—16; if we reign in life, we are in all the matters presented in these chapters.
C
In experience to reign in life means to be under the ruling of the divine life:
１
Christ is a pattern of reigning in life by being under the ruling of the divine life of the Father; in order to reign in life, we have to submit to the divine life—Matt. 8:9.
２
Paul is an example of one who, in his life and ministry, was under the ruling of the divine life—2 Cor. 2:12-14.
３
There is the need for all the believers who have received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness to practice the restriction and limitation in the divine life.
D
The issue of our reigning in life, living under the ruling of the divine life, is the real and practical Body life expressed in the church life—Rom. 12:1-4, 9-12, 15, 18.
E
Reigning in life is "unto eternal life"—5:21:
１
Into in John 4:14b (unto in Romans 5:21) speaks of destination and also means "to become" or "to be."
２
The eternal life will eventually be the New Jerusalem; the New Jerusalem is the totality of the divine life, the totality of the life of God.
３
The New Jerusalem, the universal incorporation of the union and mingling of divinity with humanity, is the issue and goal of our reigning in life.