AN OVERVIEW OF THE CENTRAL BURDEN AND PRESENT TRUTH OF THE LORD'S RECOVERY BEFORE HIS APPEARING
Message Eight
Reigning in Life
Scripture Reading: Rom. 5:10, 17, 21; 12:5-7; 16:1-16, 20
I. God's complete salvation is for us to reign in life by the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness—Rom. 5:17, 21:
A. Reigning in life is the full experience of the organic salvation of God—vv. 10, 17, 21.
B. The gift of righteousness is for God's judicial redemption; grace is for us to experience God's organic salvation—1:17; 5:10:
1. The gift of righteousness is God's judicial redemption applied to us in a practical way—3:24, 26.
2. Grace is God Himself as our all-sufficient supply for our organic salvation—1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor. 12:9.
C. The highest attainment of pursuing Christ is to reign with Christ in His divine life through His abounding grace—Phil. 3:13-14; Rom. 5:17, 21:
1. To reign in life is to conquer, subdue, and rule over Satan, the world, sin, the flesh, ourselves, and all the environmental circumstances—8:2, 35-37.
2. There is the need for all the believers who have received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness to practice the restriction and limitation in the divine life—cf. Matt. 8:9.
II. We need to enter into the experience of reigning in life— Rom. 5:17, 21:
A. We were regenerated with a divine, spiritual, heavenly, kingly, and royal life; this life enthrones us to reign as kings over all things— John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5; Rev. 5:10.
B. In experience, to reign in life means to be under the ruling of the divine life—Matt. 8:9:
1. Christ is a pattern of reigning in life by being under the ruling of the divine life of the Father—cf. vv. 5-13.
2. Paul is an example of one who, in his life and ministry, was under the ruling of the divine life—2 Cor. 2:12-14.
3. When we reign in life by being under the ruling of the divine life, we are delivered from the authority of darkness—Col. 1:13a.
4. When we are under the ruling of the divine life, we live in the kingdom of the Son of God's love, where we are ruled and restricted in the sweetness of love—v. 13b.
C. To reign in life is to subdue all kinds of insubordination—Rom. 5:17-18, 21:
1. A reigning spirit must be strong and living, active and not passive, positive and not negative, diligent and not loose.
2. One who has such a spirit not only keeps the position of order and submits to God's authority but also has strong faith and exercises God's authority consistently in the position of ascension—Matt. 28:18; Eph. 2:6.
D. To reign in life is to have our hearts directed by the Lord—Prov. 21:1; 2 Thes. 3:5.
E. Since we reign in life as God does, we become God in life, nature, expression, and function but not in the Godhead—Rom. 5:17, 21; Col. 3:4; 2 Pet. 1:4.
III. Reigning in life in Romans 5 is the key to everything in Romans 6—16:
A. We need to see everything in chapters 6 through 16 in this light.
B. Reigning in life is defined in chapters 6 through 16; all the matters expounded in these chapters are the issue not of our endeavoring but of our receiving the abundance of grace—5:21.
C. If we reign in life, we are in all the matters presented in chapters 6 through 16.
IV. The issue of our reigning in life, under the ruling of the divine life, is the real and practical Body life expressed in the church life—5:17, 21; 12:5-8:
A. Each item of the living of the Body life in Romans 12—13 requires us to be ruled by the divine life to live to the Lord—cf. 2 Cor. 5:14-15:
1. We must present our bodies as a living sacrifice—Rom. 12:1b.
2. We should not be fashioned according to this age, but we should be transformed by the renewing of the mind—v. 2.
3. We should not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, but to think so as to be sober-minded, as God has apportioned to each a measure of faith—v. 3.
4. We should consider that in the Body of Christ we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function—vv. 4-5.
B. We need to live a life of the highest virtues for the Body life by reigning in life:
1. We should love without hypocrisy and love one another warmly in brotherly love—vv. 9a, 10a.
2. We should not be slothful in zeal, but we should be burning in spirit, serving the Lord—v. 11.
3. We should endure in tribulation—v. 12b.
4. We should rejoice with those who rejoice, and we should weep with those who weep—v. 15.
5. If possible, as far as it depends on us, we should live in peace with all men—v. 18.
V. We need to reign in life in imitating the apostle Paul to bring the local churches into the fellowship of the Body of Christ— 16:1-16:
A. Among all the churches that compose the one universal Body of Christ, there is no organization, but there is the fellowship of the Body of Christ—Phil. 1:5.
B. The fellowship among the churches is the fellowship of the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 10:16:
1. The Lord's recovery is based on the truth that Christ has only one Body, which is expressed in many localities as the local churches—Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4; Rev. 1:11.
2. Because there is one Spirit, there is only one Body, and there is only one circulation of life in the Body; this circulation is the fellowship of the Body of Christ—Eph. 4:4; 1 John 1:3, 7.
3. The fellowship of the Body of Christ is the circulation of the Spirit; when the Spirit is circulating within the Body of Christ, divinity, humanity, Christ's person, Christ's death, and Christ's resurrection are all circulating.
4. The divine fellowship is the reality of living in the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 1:9; 12:12-13, 27.
C. It is by the churches' fellowship in the Body of Christ that the God of peace will crush Satan under our feet—Rom. 16:20.
VI. Romans 16 gives us an excellent pattern of the apostle Paul in bringing all the saints into the blending life of the entire Body of Christ; it is in such a life that we can truly reign in life—5:17:
A. Paul greeted the saints one by one, mentioning at least twenty-seven names; this shows that he had a considerable amount of knowledge, understanding, and care with regard to every one of them—16:1-16.
B. Paul's recommendations and greetings express both the mutual concern among the saints and the mutual fellowship among the churches—cf. Col. 4:15-16.