First Corinthians 15:10 unveils that for our experience and enjoyment, Christ is the grace of God. Grace is the central thought of 1 Corinthians. Paul says in 1:4, “I thank my God always concerning you based upon the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus.” 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.
First Corinthians 15:10 says, “By the grace of God I am what I am; and His grace unto me did not turn out to be in vain, but, on the contrary, I labored more abundantly than all of them, yet not I but the grace of God which is with me.” Grace, mentioned three times in this verse, 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.
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. Anything we eat must first be processed. Apart from being processed in resurrection to become the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, God cannot be eaten and enjoyed by us. Our Triune God is not only God in creation, but, much more, He is God in resurrection. 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. Hence, the grace of God is altogether a matter in resurrection.
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. After passing through this process in Christ, the Triune God entered into resurrection. 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.