Now we need to consider how this Christ could be our righteousness given to us by God. First, as the righteousness of God and as our Substitute, Christ had to die. God's righteousness required Christ to die a vicarious death for us, and Christ did this. In the evening before His death, He established a table for His disciples that they might remember Him and enjoy Him. In that establishing of the Lord's table, He took the cup and said to His disciples, "This cup is the new covenant established in My blood, which is being poured out for you" (Luke 22:20). This word connects the thought of God's righteousness with Christ's blood. It is through Christ's blood that we can receive and gain God's forgiveness, and God's forgiveness equals God's justification. When God justifies us, He forgives us, and when God forgives us, He justifies us. According to the word of the Lord Jesus, this forgiveness, or this justification, is fully based on Christ's death, which has fulfilled all the requirements of God's righteousness.

In the new covenant it seems that we have received many things, but actually we have gained only one thing—Christ. The old testament established through Moses gave people only a law. But the new testament, the new covenant, established by Christ through His death, gives us Christ. First, this Christ died for our sins to solve all the problems related to God's righteousness. Then, after this death Christ entered into resurrection. In His resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit that He might enter into us to enliven us, to germinate us, to animate us, to make us alive. Although Christ's death justifies us, we are still dead persons. By itself, Christ's death cannot impart life to us to make us alive that we may enjoy all the issues of God's justification. After God justified us, He desired to give us many blessings; but if we were still dead persons, it would be impossible for us to enjoy all His blessings as our inheritance. Hence, Christ needed to take a further step, the step of resurrection. In the resurrection that followed His death, Christ became a life-giving Spirit. It is altogether right for us to say that He became a life-imparting Spirit, even a life-dispensing Spirit, because the giving of life is the impartation of life, and the impartation of life is the dispensing of life. As such a Spirit, Christ entered into us to enliven us, to bring life into us, to impart the divine life into us to make us alive. In this way we were regenerated to be God's children, to be no longer merely justified sinners but children of God.

Initially, life was in God, having nothing to do with us. But through Christ's death, we were cleansed; we were justified; we were forgiven. Yet we were still dead persons. Then Christ became a life-giving Spirit in resurrection to impart, to dispense, the very life which was in God into us, to enliven us, to regenerate us, to make us children of God, to make us those who are born of God and are no longer merely a justified corpse. We were enlivened; we were regenerated; we were born again to be the children of God.

Romans 8:17 says that as children of God, we are also heirs of God to inherit God as our everything. This means that we will inherit God as our inheritance. Many times the Old Testament, especially the book of Jeremiah, says that Israel will be God's people and He will be their God. The New Testament, in 2 Corinthians 6:16, quotes this word. For us to be God's people means that we are God's inheritance, and for God to be our God means that He is our inheritance. Before this mutual inheritance existed, both God and we, we and God, were poor. Before we had God, we had nothing, and before God had us, He was childless. That was the reason that He desired to dispense Himself into us, to make us all His children; and all His children are now His inheritance. Now God is rich. By this we can understand the significance of this simple word: "I will be your God, and you will be My people." Today, as the children of God, we have Christ, and Christ is the embodiment of God. This God who is embodied in Christ is our life, our person, and our inheritance. Likewise, God also has an inheritance. We are His inheritance.

This is all due to two things: Christ as our covenant and Christ as our light. Christ as our covenant takes care of God's righteousness, and Christ as our light releases God's life into us. We have Christ as our covenant; thus, we have no problem with God's righteousness. We also have Christ as our light; hence, we are rich in the divine life. Now, based on the righteousness of God and in the life of God, we enjoy God as our inheritance. This, in totality, is God's full salvation to us.