I would like to point out the first verse of Hymns, #483, which says:

Buried with Christ, and raised with Him too;
What is there left for me to do?
Simply to cease from struggling and strife,
Simply to walk in newness of life.
    Glory be to God!

I like this hymn. It is one of the highest hymns in all the hymnals of Christianity. How wonderful and excellent it is that we have been buried with Christ! But burial is not the end. Following burial, there is resurrection. If burial were the end, that would be the death of Adam. Christ’s death is not like this. He was buried and raised up, and we are in Him. Thus we have been buried and raised up with Him. Now the only thing left for us to do is simply to walk in newness of life. This stanza comes from Romans 6:4, which says, “We have been buried therefore with Him through baptism into His death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we might walk in newness of life.”

We were crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, and raised up with Christ to simply walk in newness of life. A husband should not try to love his wife. He needs only to walk in newness of life. If he tries to love his wife, his loving will not last. His loving of his wife must be his walking in newness of life. In the same way, a wife should not try to submit herself to her husband. She should simply walk in newness of life. The newness of life in verse 4 is in contrast with the old man in verse 6. We were the old man, but today we are something new. We are God’s new creation, the new man. Now what is there left for us to do? Simply to walk in newness of life.

In this message we come to the second element of the structure of the gospel of God. We have seen that the gospel of God is constructed with three elements. The first one is the righteousness of God; the second, the life of Christ; and the third, the faith of the believers. The righteousness of God is judicial, the life of Christ is organic, and the faith of the believers is practical.

The judicial righteousness of God has taken care of all the requirements of God’s righteous law. God’s judicial righteousness brings God Himself in Christ to us as our life, and this is organic. Then the faith of the believers is needed, and this faith is practical. If the righteousness of God plus the life of Christ were without the faith of the believers, nothing would happen. The righteousness of God and the life of Christ to us need not our own faith, but the faith of the believers to make them practical.

Romans 5:17 says, “For if by the offense of the one death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” This verse tells us that death reigns through Adam. But we need to be those who receive the abundance of two things: the abundance of grace and the abundance of the gift of righteousness. We have seen that righteousness has two aspects: objective and subjective. Here the righteousness is objective. The objective righteousness has been given to us as a gift. Also, Romans 3:24 says that we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. We believers have received two things in abundance: the abundance of grace and the abundance of the gift of righteousness. We have received the grace and the gift.

I would like us to be impressed with note 2 on Romans 5:17 in the Recovery Version. This note is one of the many nuggets and diamonds buried in the Recovery Version. It says:

The gift of righteousness erases judgment. Judgment comes from sin, but righteousness comes from grace. Righteousness always accompanies grace and is its result. Subjective righteousness (4:25b) comes from grace (vv. 17, 19), and grace comes from objective righteousness (vv. 1-2).

When I wrote this note, I spent much time to get the word erase. Objective righteousness is Christ as God’s righteousness given to us to be our righteousness, and this righteousness erases God’s righteous judgment on us, the sinners. Adam brought judgment to us through sin. Christ as righteousness erases this judgment. Judgment comes from sin, but righteousness comes from grace. Grace is also Christ. It is God in the Son to be enjoyed by us. Objective righteousness issues in grace, and grace issues in subjective righteousness. Eventually, all three—objective righteousness, grace, and subjective righteousness—are Christ Himself. Objective righteousness is Christ given to us, grace is Christ enjoyed by us, and subjective righteousness is Christ lived out of us.