Message Seven

The Resurrection of Christ
and
the Believers’ Experience of Christ
in His Resurrection Life

Scripture Reading: Rom. 1:3-4; 4:17, 24-25;
6:4-5, 8-9; 7:4; 8:9-11, 34; 10:9; 14:9

1. The book of Romans reveals the intrinsic significance of the resurrection of Christ—4:17; 6:4; 14:9; 1:3-4:
   1. God is the One who gives life to the dead; this is God’s great power of resurrection—the power that Abraham experienced when he offered Isaac according to God’s command—4:17; Heb. 11:17-19.
   2. Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, that is, through the manifestation of divinity—Rom. 6:4; 1:4; 8:34:
      1. Considering Christ as God, the New Testament tells us that Christ Himself rose from the dead—14:9; John 10:17-18.
      2. Regarding Christ as man, the New Testament says that God raised Him from the dead—Rom. 8:11, 34; Acts 2:24; 3:15.
   3. The Lord Jesus was raised from the dead for our justification—Rom. 4:25:
      1. Christ’s resurrection proves that God’s requirements were satisfied by His death for us, that we are justified by God because of His death, and that in Him, the resurrected One, we are accepted before God—3:24.
      2. As the resurrected One, He is in us to live for us a life that can be justified by God and is always acceptable to God—8:10; Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:9.
   4. Christ died and lived again that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living; we live to the Lord, and we die to the Lord; therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s—Rom. 14:8-9.
   5. Christ was designated the Son of God out of the resurrection of the dead, and His resurrection was His birth as God’s firstborn Son—1:4; 8:29; Acts 13:33:
      1. Before His incarnation Christ already was the Son of God, the only begotten Son—John 1:18; Rom. 8:3.
      2. By incarnation Christ put on an element, the human flesh, which had nothing to do with divinity; that part of Him needed to be sanctified and uplifted by passing through death and resurrection—John 1:14; Rom. 1:3-4.
      3. By resurrection His human nature was sanctified, uplifted, and transformed; hence, by resurrection He was designated the Son of God with His humanity, and now, as the Son of God, He possesses humanity as well as divinity—Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5.
      4. By incarnation Christ brought God into man; by resurrection He brought man into God, that is, He brought His humanity into the divine sonship—Acts 7:56; Matt. 26:64; Dan. 7:13.
      5. In this way the only begotten Son of God was made the firstborn Son of God, possessing both divinity and humanity—Rom. 8:29; Heb. 1:5.
      6. God is using such a Christ, the firstborn Son, as the producer and as the prototype, the model, to produce His many sons—Rom. 8:29-30.
   6. In resurrection Christ is the pneumatic Christ, the life-giving Spirit—vv. 9-10:
      1. Christ’s resurrection was His transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit in order to enter into the believers—1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:18; John 14:16-17.
      2. The reality of resurrection is Christ as the life-giving Spirit—1 Cor. 15:3-4, 20, 45b.
      3. Not only has Christ become the life-giving Spirit, but when He comes to us, He comes as the Spirit, the pneumatic Christ—John 20:21-22.
      4. When we receive Christ today, we receive not only the redeeming Christ but also the life-giving Christ; now we enjoy the redeeming Christ, the Lamb, and the pneumatic Christ, the Spirit—1:29; 20:22; Rom. 8:3, 9.
      5. If we know and experience Christ as the pneumatic Christ, we will be brought into resurrection and live in resurrection—John 11:25; Phil. 3:10.
      6. The pneumatic Christ is the indwelling Christ; in resurrection Christ as the life-giving Spirit is in the believers—Rom. 8:9-10; John 14:16-17; 2 Cor. 13:5; Col. 1:27.
2. The book of Romans unveils crucial aspects of the believers’ experience of Christ in His resurrection life—4:24; 10:9; 6:4-5, 8-9; 7:4; 8:11:
   1. We believe on God who has raised Jesus our Lord from the dead; the faith that is accounted to us as righteousness is our believing on God, who righteously judged Christ for our sins, righteously put Him to death in our place, and righteously raised Him from the dead—4:3, 9, 22, 24-25.
   2. If we confess with our mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead, we will be saved—10:9:
      1. Christ’s being raised from the dead was invisible; hence, it requires our believing.
      2. Although Christ’s death has redeemed us, it is His life in resurrection alone that can save us—3:24; 5:10.
      3. Only when we believe in the great miracle that God performed in Him in raising Him from the dead can we be both redeemed and saved—6:4; 10:9.
   3. After baptism we become a new person in resurrection, and we walk in newness of life—6:3-4:
      1. Resurrection is not only a future state; it is also a present process—8:11.
      2. To walk in newness of life is to live today in the realm of resurrection and to reign in life—6:4; 5:17.
      3. Living in the realm of resurrection is a living that deals with all that is of Adam in us until we are fully transformed and conformed to the image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God—12:2; 8:29.
   4. Romans 6:5 says that we will be in the likeness of Christ’s resurrection; this does not refer to a future, objective resurrection but to the present process of growth:
      1. Just as the element of Christ’s death is found only in Him, so the element of Christ’s resurrection is found only in Christ Himself; He Himself is resurrection—John 11:25.
      2. After experiencing a proper baptism, we continue to grow in and with Christ in the likeness of His resurrection; this is to walk in newness of life—Rom. 6:4-5.
   5. In His resurrection Christ is transcendent over corruption and death; since we are one with Him in this resurrection, we also are transcendent over corruption and death—vv. 8-9.
   6. We have been joined to Him who has been raised from the dead, to the resurrected Christ as our Husband; this joining indicates that in our new status as a wife, we have an organic union in person, name, life, and existence with Christ in His resurrection—7:4.
   7. If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal body and to our entire tripartite being so that we may carry out God’s will to have the Body of Christ—8:2, 6, 10-11; 12:1-2, 4-5.
   8. The church as the Body of Christ is absolutely in the resurrection life of Christ—8:11; 12:4-5; 1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 2:6; Matt. 16:18; cf. Gen. 2:21-24:
      1. The church is a new creation in Christ’s resurrection—2 Cor. 5:17.
      2. To be in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to be absolutely in the resurrection life of Christ—John 11:25; Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 1:9:
         1. The Body of Christ is in resurrection, that is, in the pneumatic Christ, the life-giving Spirit—Rom. 8:9-10; 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17.
         2. The Body of Christ is the issue of our living by the resurrection life of Christ—Rom. 6:4-5, 8-9; 8:11; 12:4-5.
      3. In order to live the Body life in the local churches, we need to live in the organic union with the resurrected Christ—vv. 4-5; 16:1, 3-5, 7-13, 16.