God’s purpose for the church is to subdue His enemy by displaying His multifarious wisdom through the church. The church is God’s masterpiece, His work of art, His amazing handiwork to be displayed for all to see God’s multifarious wisdom.
Through the church God’s wisdom is being expressed in its multi-faceted way, in its many aspects, and from many angles. In His wisdom God takes sinners ruined and corrupted by Satan and makes them sons of God, the sonship, and builds them up to be the church, His masterpiece, His work of art and His poem for all to see, admire, and be amazed at.
It is truly amazing to realize that all the believers in Christ are in the process of regeneration, sanctification, and glorification so that they may become the New Jerusalem, a miraculous structure of treasure expressing God’s infinite wisdom and divine design.
Hallelujah, what a glorious destiny awaits us, and what an amazing result does the process of organic salvation have!
What a wise God we have. And God’s wisdom is Christ Himself, who became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption (see 1 Cor. 1:30).
Wisdom is not a thing; wisdom is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who became wisdom to us from God. Christ is wisdom to us from God as righteousness, holiness (sanctification), and glory (redemption).
For our spirit, Christ is wisdom to us from God as our righteousness. For our soul, Christ is wisdom to us from God as holiness (sanctification). For our Body, Christ will be wisdom to us from God as glory (redemption).
Christ became our righteousness to cover us before God and qualify us to enjoy all that God has and is in Christ. Christ is sanctifying us in our soul today so that we may be transformed in our mind, emotion, and will with the divine life.
Eventually, Christ will redeem and transfigure our mortal body to be like unto His own, a body of glory, to fully be like Him in glory to express Him corporately. Hallelujah for Christ, the wisdom of God to us, who is our righteousness, sanctification, and glorification!
Christ Became Wisdom to us from God as Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption
In order for the church to corporately express and openly display God’s multifarious wisdom to the enemy, Christ became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).
Christ was made by God wisdom to us as three vital things in God’s salvation:
1. Christ is our righteousness (for our past): Christ became our righteousness by which we have been justified by God so that we may be reborn, regenerated in our spirit and receive the divine life of God (see Rom. 5:18).
At the time of our regeneration, Christ as our objective righteousness covered us before God and qualified us to receive God’s life and enjoy all that God is. Christ is our righteousness; He is wisdom to us from God to be our righteousness.
2. Christ is our sanctification (for our present): Christ is sanctifying us in our soul mainly by transforming us in our mind, emotion, and will with His divine life (see Rom. 6:19, 22).
Today we are in the lifelong process of transformation, and Christ is sanctifying us day-by-day to saturate and permeate every part of our soul with the divine life. Christ became wisdom to us from God to be our sanctification, transforming us in our soul to be God’s expression.
3. Christ is our redemption (for the future): Eventually, Christ will redeem our mortal body by transfiguring it with His divine life to have His glorious likeness (see Phil. 3:21).
He regenerated our spirit, He is now transforming our soul, and He will transfigure our body by fully saturating it with the divine life so that we may have a glorious spiritual body like Him and express Him corporately. Christ is wisdom to us from God to be our redemption: He will glorify our body!
It is of God that Christ became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption. This is God’s desire, that we would participate in and enjoy such a complete and perfect organic salvation in which our entire being – spirit, soul, and body – is made organically one with Christ and in which Christ becomes everything to us.
This is not of ourselves or of any man: it is of God, He initiated this, He is working this out, and He will get all the glory. He justified us and regenerated us in our spirit, today He is sanctifying us in our soul, and eventually He will transfigure our body.
What a wisdom this is from God! What a Christ we have! Our Christ is the wisdom of God, and He became wisdom from God to us for our full and complete organic salvation for our past, present, and future.
Christ as God’s full salvation is being dispensed into our tripartite being for God’s full expression is the wisdom of God.
Thank You Lord for becoming wisdom from God to us for regenerating us in our spirit, sanctifying us in our soul, and redeeming us by transfiguring our body. Thank You Lord Jesus for becoming our righteousness covering us before God and qualifying us to receive God’s life. Thank You for constantly sanctifying us by transforming us in our mind, emotion, and will with Your divine life. We praise You, Lord, for You will one day redeem our mortal body by transfiguring it with Your divine life to have Your glorious likeness! Hallelujah for such a complete and full organic salvation!
Daily Taking Christ as our Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption
Based on 1 Cor. 1:30 we can say clearly that Christ is the wisdom of God to us to be our righteousness for our past (in our spirit), our sanctification for our present (in our soul), and our redemption for our future (in our body). This is the correct interpretation of this verse.
However, we should not be limited only to this: we need to daily experience Christ as our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption subjectively.
We are passing through the process of being regenerated in our spirit, sanctified in our soul, and transfigured in our body to be the same as the Lord Jesus (see 1 John 3:2), but at the same time today we can experience Christ as the wisdom of God to us as our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
We need to be righteous before God and before man, taking Christ as our righteousness subjectively and letting Him be wrought into us so that He may be lived out of us as our subjective righteousness. We apply the blood of Christ and take Christ as our righteousness before God, and we seek to be right with God and right with man.
Our daily living needs to be in sanctification: we need to have a holy living, a living that is unto God and saturated with God. In our relationships, at work, at school, while travelling, at home, and in the church life, we need to exercise our spirit and cooperate with the Lord’s sanctifying work in us.
We need experience Christ as our redemption to be daily terminated, replaced by Christ, and brought back to God.
In speaking to our spouse and children, in relating to our neighbours, in honoring our parents, in working or studying, in all things we need to not do things in an old way according to our natural man but be terminated, replaced with Christ, and brought back to God.
In the church life we may not like a certain brother or sister, we may prefer one of the elders, we may like to hang out only with some people, we may not be inclined to care for the young people or for the older saints, etc – in all things we need to experience Christ as our redemption.
We need to no longer live in a natural way but live Christ by first being terminated, replaced with Christ, and brought back to God in all things. May we be those who experience Christ daily as our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption subjectively!
Lord Jesus, we take You as our righteousness objectively before God, and we want to experience You and have You wrought into us to the point that You are being lived out of us as our subjective righteousness. Lord, we open to Your sanctifying work in us; we want to walk according to the holy divine nature and have a holy living for the church life. We want to experience You as our redemption subjectively in our family life and church life, being terminated by You, replaced with You, and brought back to God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-Study of 1 Corinthians (msg. 9), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Vision, Practice, and Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ, week 2 / msg 2, God’s Purpose for the Church (2) – To Subdue God’s Enemy by Displaying His Multifarious Wisdom through the Church.
- Picture credit for 1 John 3:2 and more spiritual quotes via, Christian Pictures Blog.
- Hymns on this topic:
# But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, / Who became wisdom to us from God: / Both righteousness and sanctification / And redemption, / And the God of peace Himself / Sanctify you wholly, / And may your spirit and soul and body / Be preserved complete, / Without blame, at the coming / Of our Lord Jesus Christ, / Of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Song on 1 Cor. 1:30)
# God’s Christ, who is my righteousness, / My beauty is, my glorious dress; … / Our beauty this, our glorious dress, / Jesus the Lord, our Righteousness. (Hymns #295)
# Thus we’re sanctified completely, / Saturated thoroughly; / Not the old religious concept: / Separated doctrinally. / But ’tis Christ Himself within us, / Added to our every part, / All supplying, satisfying, / Making home in all our heart. (Hymns #1136)
Hallelujah for Christ as the Wisdom of God to us!
“Christ was made wisdom to us from God as three vital things in God’s salvation: righteousness (for our past), by which we have been justified by God, that we might be reborn in our spirit to receive the divine life (Rom. 5:18); sanctification (for the present), by which we are being sanctified in our soul, that is, transformed in our mind, emotion, and will, with the divine life (Rom. 6:19, 22); and redemption (for the future), that is, the redemption of our body (Rom. 8:23), by which we will be transfigured in our body with His divine life to have His glorious likeness (Phil. 3:21). It is of God that we participate in such a complete and perfect salvation, making our entire being—spirit, soul, and body—organically one with Christ and making Christ everything to us. It is altogether of God, not of ourselves, that we may boast and glory in Him, not in ourselves.” (Life-study of 1 Corinthians, p. 84)
Lord do more sanctifying work within each member of Your so we may prevail by preaching the gospel to all thirsty hearts around. That we may be Your channels flow You out to all our relatives, friends, coworkers and neighbors. Lord do have mercy on us that we maybe fill to the brim in order to flow You out to so so many around us amen.