God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory form the basic structure of the book of Romans. Romans can be divided into several sections. After the introduction (1:1-17) and the section on condemnation (1:18—3:20), there are sections on justification (3:21—5:11), sanctification (5:12—8:13), and glorification (8:14-39). These sections are related respectively to God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory. Therefore, these three divine attributes are related to the very structure of the book of Romans.
In which of these three sections are we today? The correct answer is that we are in the section of sanctification. We have passed through justification, but we are not yet in glorification. We all are destined to spend the whole of our Christian life on earth in the section on sanctification. I have been in this section for more than fifty years. Do not be disappointed by the length of time you must spend in this section. The time may seem long to you, but it is not to the Lord, with whom a thousand years are as one day (2 Pet. 3:8).
Although we are not yet in the section on glorification, we may nonetheless enjoy something of glorification while we are in the section on sanctification. We may enjoy the foretaste or firstfruit of glorification. Sometimes when I am alone with the Lord, I experience a foretaste of the glorification to come. Every proper Christian should have experiences like this.
God’s dispensation must be according to His righteousness. If Christ had not become a man with flesh and blood and if He had not died on the cross to take away our sins, it would have been impossible for God to dispense Himself into us. When some hear this, they may argue, “To say this is to be too legal and strict. Don’t you know that God is love? He is not that strict and legal. Because God the Father loves me, He can simply come to me and dispense Himself to me, no matter how sinful I may be.” Such a concept ignores the fact that God is a God of righteousness. As such a righteous One, He is more strict and more legal than any of us.
Yes, God is the Father and He does love us. However, according to the parables in Luke 15, we cannot come directly to the Father. The prodigal needs the shepherd (the Son) to seek him and to find him, and he needs the woman (the Spirit) to enlighten him so that he can wake up, repent, and decide to come home to the Father. Only through the Son’s seeking and finding and through the Spirit’s enlightening can sinners return to the Father. Without the Son’s redemption and the Spirit’s enlightenment, we cannot come home to Him. Furthermore, if the Son had not died for us, the Father would not have the ground to receive us. However, because of the redemptive death of His Son, the Father has the ground to receive all who come to Him through Christ. This indicates that the Father’s receiving of us must be according to His righteousness. Apart from the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ, there is no way for the righteous God to receive us and to impart Himself into us. If God were to dispense Himself into us without the requirement of His righteousness being fulfilled, He would place Himself in an unrighteous position. Therefore, the dispensation of the Triune God must be according to His righteousness.
God’s righteousness required that we die because of our sin. However, if we had died, we would have perished. Because God does not want us to perish, He provided Christ as our substitute. Christ died on the cross for us according to God’s righteousness to fulfill God’s requirements. The purpose of Christ’s death on the cross was not to enable us to go to heaven when we die; it was to fulfill God’s righteous requirements so that He could dispense Himself into us.
Suppose you would like to dispense juice into a glass, but you find that the glass is not clean. If you fill a dirty glass with juice, the juice will not be fit to drink. Hence, before dispensing the juice into the glass, you must first cleanse the glass. In like manner, before God could come into us, His Son became a man and died on the cross for us, shedding His blood to wash us from our sins. This enabled us to become cleansed vessels, ready to be filled with the Triune God. Before God could dispense Himself into us, we had to be washed in the blood of Christ. This is according to God’s righteousness.
We have pointed out that Christ died on the cross to fulfill God’s righteous requirements. Now we must go on to see that God desires that we also go to the cross and die. If we are not crucified on the cross, God’s righteous requirements cannot be fulfilled in us in a practical way. In the eyes of the righteous Father, nothing is more righteous than for us to die on the cross. If we die, we are righteous in every way. However, if we refuse to die, we have no righteousness in our relationships with others and even with material things. We may treat people unfairly, and we may fail to handle our material possessions properly. Therefore, to be righteous before God, we not only need to be washed—we also need to die. When we die, we are spontaneously justified. A proper Christian is one who has died with Christ and who conducts himself daily according to this fact. If a believer lives in a natural way, he will be unrighteous. But if he experiences the death of the cross, he will be righteous in everything, with everyone, and in every way.