Now we want to see what the life of Christ, as the continuation of God’s building, has accomplished for us.
First, it gives the believing sinners life, who have been justified by God in Christ as the righteousness from God to them that they may live in this life before God (Rom. 1:17).
Also, this life makes the God-justified believers the many sons of God (Rom. 8:14; Heb. 2:10), who are the many brothers of Christ (Rom. 8:29) through regeneration (1 Pet. 1:3) by the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2) with Christ’s producing and multiplying life.
This life is imparted into the dying believers that they may grow in Christ out of death unto maturity (Rom. 8:11). Our regeneration transpired in our spirit. But we have another part of our being which is dying, that is, our mortal body. We need the life of Christ to be dispensed into this dying part.
The indwelling Christ moves in the believers by the Spirit of life that they may enjoy Christ’s life with its peace (Rom. 8:5-6). People who gamble set their mind on gambling, but our mind is set on the spirit. We can set our mind on the spirit because the indwelling pneumatic Christ is moving in us. The result is that we have Christ’s life with peace.
Another accomplishment of the life of Christ in God’s dynamic salvation is that it sanctifies us (Rom. 6:19-20) with the holy nature of God as the holy element.
This life renews us, by the Spirit of life, based upon the washing of regeneration, from the old element of our old man into the new constitution of our new man (Rom. 12:2b; Titus 3:5).
It also transforms us metabolically by the Spirit of life with the element of Christ’s divine life, from our old constitution to our new constitution, for the building up of Christ’s organic Body (Rom. 12:2b, 5; 2 Cor. 3:18).
This life goes on to conform us to the image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God that we may be the full-grown God-men for the Triune God’s expression (Rom. 8:29).
Such a life glorifies us through the redemption of our body that we may enter into the freedom of glory and our full sonship (Rom. 8:21, 23, 30). Although we are sons of God, many times we are weak because of our mortal body. But one day our body will be glorified and redeemed. We will be the glorious sons of God, who can soar like an eagle. Isaiah 40:31 says, “Yet those who wait on Jehovah will renew their strength; / They will mount up with wings like eagles.” In the coming age, when our bodies are redeemed, we will be able to fly like the transcendent, soaring birds.
The life of Christ in which we are saved also makes us reign as kings mainly over the negative things such as Satan, sin, the world, the flesh, etc.
All the above ten items are for the producing and the building up of the organic Body of Christ expressed as the local churches; this is covered in the last five chapters of the book of Romans.