Crystallization-Study Outlines
The Gospel of God in Romans

Message One

The Purpose of God, the Gospel of God,
and the High Peak of the Divine Revelation

Scripture Reading: Rom. 1:1, 3-4; 8:3, 28-29; 12:4-5; 16:1, 4-5, 16b, 25-27

1. God’s eternal purpose is to have the church, the Body of Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem—Eph. 1:9-11, 22-23; 3:11; Rev. 21:2:
   1. God is a God of purpose, having a will of His own pleasure; He created all things for His will so that He might fulfill His purpose—Eph. 1:5, 9; Rev. 4:11.
   2. According to His good pleasure, God made a purpose, a plan, in eternity and for eternity, and thus it is called the eternal purpose; this eternal plan was made in Christ, with Christ, through Christ, and for Christ according to God’s desire and pleasure—Eph. 1:9-11; 3:11.
   3. God Himself is the initiation, the origination, and the sphere of His eternal purpose, which nothing can overthrow, for which everything is working, and regarding which He did not take counsel with anyone—1:11.
   4. God’s eternal purpose is to have a corporate man to express Him and represent Him—Gen. 1:26; Eph. 2:15; 4:24.
   5. In eternity past God purposed to gain a group of people to be the Body of Christ for the corporate expression of God the Father in the Son as the Spirit—Rom. 8:9-10, 14, 16, 28-29; 12:4-5.
   6. His purpose in Romans 8:28 refers to the purposeful determination in God’s plan; this is God’s purpose to produce many brothers of His firstborn Son—v. 29.
   7. God has saved us and called us according to His own purpose; God’s purpose is His plan according to His will to put us into Christ and make us one with Christ to share His life and position so that we may be His testimony—2 Tim. 1:9; 1 Cor. 1:30; 6:17.
2. As the totality of all the divine truths, the gospel of God includes the highest truth—the high peak of the divine revelation—that in Christ God became man in order that in Christ man might become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to produce and build up the organic Body of Christ, which consummates in the New Jerusalem—Rom. 1:1, 3-4, 15; Eph. 1:13, 22-23; Col. 1:5, 18; 3:10-11, 15; Rev. 21:2, 9-10:
   1. According to the desire of His heart and His eternal purpose, God wants to make Himself man and to make man God so that God and man may be the same in life and nature—Eph. 1:4-5, 9, 11.
   2. The highest point of God’s gospel is God becoming man so that man may become God in life, nature, and constitution for His corporate expression—John 1:12-14; 12:24; Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4; 12:4-5.
   3. God became man through incarnation; man becomes God through regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification—John 3:5-6; 1:12-13; Rom. 6:19, 22; 12:2; 8:29-30.
   4. It is only by God’s becoming man to make man God that the Body of Christ can be produced and built up, that the bride can be prepared, and that the New Jerusalem can be consummated; this is the high peak of the vision given to us by God in the Holy Scriptures—Eph. 4:16; Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 9-10.
   5. The New Jerusalem is a composition of God’s chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified people who have been made God in life and nature but not in the Godhead—vv. 2, 7, 9-10:
      1. On God’s side, the Triune God has been incarnated in Christ to be a man—John 1:1, 14; 14:10-11.
      2. On our side, we are being constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God so that we may be made God in life and nature to be His corporate expression for eternity—Eph. 3:16-17; 4:4-6, 16; Rev. 21:9-10.
      3. This is the highest truth and the highest gospel—Eph. 1:13; Col. 1:5.
3. The divine thought in Romans concerning the gospel of God is that God became man so that, in God’s complete salvation, sinners may be redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified to become the sons of God, who are the same as God in life and nature, to be the members of the Body of Christ—8:3; 1:3-4; 3:24; 5:10; 8:14, 29-30; 12:2, 4-5; 16:25-27:
   1. In Romans we can see the high peak of the divine revelation: God became man (8:3) so that man may become God (1:3-4) for the producing and functioning of the Body of Christ (12:4-5) as the organism of the Triune God.
   2. Romans explains how the individual Christ becomes the corporate Christ and how we, who were once sinners and enemies of God, become parts of Christ and form His one Body—9:5; 8:3; 1:3-4; 3:23-25; 5:10, 18; 8:2, 11, 32; 12:4-5.
   3. God sent His Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and condemned sin in the flesh so that sinners—serpentine beings, children of the devil—could be reconciled to God and justified by Him in order to receive eternal life and thus become children of God—8:3, 16; 5:10; John 1:12-14; 3:14; 8:44; 1 John 3:1, 10.
   4. Jesus Christ our Lord, who came out of the seed of David according to the flesh, was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead—Rom. 1:3-4.
   5. The firstborn Son of God, the first God-man, is the prototype for the production of the many sons, the many God-men, who, as members of the Body of Christ, are exactly the same as the firstborn Son in life, nature, and expression—8:14, 29; Heb. 1:6; 2:10-12.
   6. The purpose of God’s salvation is to have Christ reproduced in millions of believers so that they may become the members of His Body—Rom. 12:4-5.
   7. Through God’s organic salvation carried out by the divine dispensing of the Triune God as life to the tripartite man, the children of God are growing in life to become sons of God led by the Spirit—5:10; 8:2, 6, 10-11, 14.
   8. The sons of God, the many brothers of Christ as the firstborn Son of God, are the members of the Body of Christ—12:4-5.
   9. We are one Body in the organic union with Christ—vv. 4-5:
      1. The Body of Christ is the top revelation of the Bible and the focal point of Romans—Eph. 1:22-23; 4:16; 1 Cor. 12:13, 27.
      2. The will of God is to obtain a Body for Christ to be His fullness, His expression—Rev. 4:11; Eph. 1:5, 9; Rom. 12:2, 4-5.
      3. We are one Body in Christ, having an organic union with Him; this union makes us one in life with Christ and with all the other members of His Body—vv. 4-5:
         1. The Body is an organism produced and held together by the union in life that we have with Christ—John 15:1.
         2. The actuality of the Body is in our remaining in the organic union with Christ—Rom. 12:4-5.
   10. The local churches are the practical expression of the Body of Christ, for the unique Body of Christ is expressed as local churches—16:1, 4-5:
       1. Although the churches appear in different places, they are not separate, and although they are local, they are still part of the unique, universal Body of Christ—12:4-5; 16:16b.
       2. In Romans 16 we see that all the churches and all the saints live in the universal fellowship of the Body of Christ and that all the saints in all the churches are in the blending life of the entire Body of Christ—vv. 1-23.
       3. The key to living the Body life in the local churches is to walk according to the mingled spirit—the divine Spirit mingled with the regenerated human spirit as one spirit—8:4; 1 Cor. 6:17:
          1. The mingled spirit is the unique organ for God to bring forth and build up the Body of Christ—Rom. 1:9; 7:6; 8:16; 12:4-5.
          2. If we walk according to the mingled spirit, we will be sons of God in full, and as such sons, we will be living members of the Body of Christ for the corporate expression of the Triune God—8:14; 14:17.