Our redemption begins with belief in the Gospel, repenting of our past manner of life, and receiving by faith the blood atonement made by the Lord Jesus.

Then we are baptized in water. Water baptism signifies we have died with the Lord Jesus and have been raised with Him to the right hand of the Father in Heaven.

The remainder of our discipleship consists of working out in practice what we declared to be true in water baptism: our whole first nature, not just our sinful tendencies but our entire old nature has died with the Lord Jesus on the cross; our new born-again nature has ascended in Jesus to the right hand of the Father, there to await the Day of Resurrection.

We bear about in our physical body the dying of the Lord.

A firstfruits of our personality, our born-again spiritual nature, already has entered the Kingdom of God. Now we are to interact with the Divine Life of Jesus until all of our inner personality has experienced the death of the cross and the resurrection Life of the Lord Jesus. It is a daily death and a daily resurrection. It is the forming of Christ in us.

In this manner we attain the first resurrection, the resurrection to righteousness, immortality, and glory.

At the time of the Lord's appearing we shall be given the white robe—the body of incorruptible life that is formed as our mortal body is sown to the death of the cross.

Then we will descend from Heaven with the Lord (or be changed if we are still alive on the earth) and clothe our mortal remains with the white robe of resurrection life that has been formed as we faithfully have sown our body to the death of the cross.

This is the first resurrection, the resurrection to righteousness, immortality, and glory. It is achieved by entering the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus on a daily basis.

The Christian pilgrimage is full of challenges. Let us say someone has hurt us grievously. Now the battle is joined. We can place the hurt before God and seek the grace of forgiveness, or we can plan on avenging ourselves.

If we choose to avenge ourselves our inner nature remains unchanged. We have saved our life, so to speak, but we have lost the part of the first resurrection that could have been ours. We have not attained the first resurrection in this instance.

If we place the hurt before God, obtaining the Virtue of the body and blood of Christ, part of our natural man dies on the cross as he forgives his enemy. In his place comes the body and blood of the Lord, which is eternal life.

The action of forgiving the person who hurt us has resulted in our attaining the first resurrection, in this measure. Part of us has died. Christ has been formed in part of us. The new creation, the Kingdom, has come into being. The new creation is neither Christ nor us. The new creation is a new person formed from the marriage, the union of our personality with Christ. It is eternal. It is "new wine" and God will put it in a new bottle in the Day of Resurrection. (from The Christian and the Ten Commandments)