LESSON FORTY-EIGHT

THE BELIEVERS’ EXPERIENCE
OF THE DISPENSING
OF THE PROCESSED TRIUNE GOD
IN OTHER ASPECTS

(8)

OUTLINE

9. Having the highest standard of morality and virtues:
   1. Having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand in order that they would walk in them.
   2. Having been redeemed from all lawlessness and purified to Christ, a particular people as His unique possession, zealous of good works.
   3. Being regulated by the governing principles:
      1. Concerning things: all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.
      2. Concerning themselves: all things are lawful, but they must not be brought under the power of anything.
      3. Concerning others: all things are lawful, but not all things build up.
      4. Concerning God: whatever they do, do all to the glory of God.
   4. Practicing surpassing righteousness:
      1. Not getting angry surpassing not murdering.
      2. Not lusting after a woman by looking at her and committing adultery in the heart surpassing not committing adultery.
      3. Not divorcing surpassing divorcing one’s wife with a certificate of divorce.
      4. Not swearing surpassing not breaking an oath.
      5. Not resisting an evil one but turning to him the left cheek plus the right, letting him have their cloak plus their tunic, and going two miles instead of one mile when compelled surpassing practicing an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
      6. As sons of the heavenly Father, loving their enemies and praying for their persecutors surpassing loving their neighbor and hating their enemy.
   5. Being perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect.

TEXT

In this lesson and the next we will see that through the experience of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity, the believers have the highest standard of morality and virtues.

HAVING THE HIGHEST STANDARD
OF MORALITY AND VIRTUES

In the New Testament salvation is based on the principle of faith; it has nothing to do with the law. The believers have been saved through faith, not through the keeping of the law. However, after they are saved, they must live a life that has a standard of morality higher than that of the old law. They should not think that, just because God does not deal with them according to the principle of the law but according to the principle of faith, they should not care for the moral commandments of the law. On the contrary, their standard of morality must be far higher than that of the requirements of the law.

When we speak of the highest standard of morality, we are not using the word morality in a traditional way. Rather, we are referring to the highest standard of morality and virtues achieved through the dispensing of the processed Triune God. The highest standard of morality is the standard of life required by God. It is the living of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose life was a composition of God with the divine attributes and man with the human virtues. He lived such a life on earth in which the attributes of God were expressed in the virtues of man. God’s intention in His New Testament economy is that all the believers in Christ would become a reproduction of Christ, the God-man, in order to express Him in all the human virtues created by God for man. With the divine attributes of the God-man these virtues are strengthened, enriched, uplifted, and filled.

A. Having Been Created in Christ Jesus
for Good Works, Which God Prepared Beforehand
in Order That They Would Walk in Them

In God’s eyes the church, the masterpiece of God’s work, is the highest poetry (Eph. 2:10), expressing God’s infinite wisdom and divine design. This masterpiece is an absolutely new item in the universe; it is something newly originated by God. As the believers, we compose God’s masterpiece and are absolutely new because we are the mingling of God and man. As God’s masterpiece, we have been created “for good works, which God prepared beforehand in order that we would walk in them” (v. 10). However, the good works for which God created us are not the good things according to our general natural concept but the definite good things that God preplanned and ordained for us to walk in. These good things include doing His will, living the church life, and bearing the testimony of Jesus.