The "likeness" of Christ's resurrection has to do with the separating of our spirit, our soul, and finally our body from every trace of the bondages of sin and death. Christ has been resurrected and now is filled to overflowing with Divine Life.

It is God's plan that each member of the Church, the Body of Christ, the Temple of God, be resurrected and filled to overflowing with Divine Life in spirit, in soul, and in body.

Total resurrection requires acceptance of and cooperation with the death and resurrection that God requires of us.

It is necessary always to keep firmly in balance our identification with Christ.

Everything we are and will become is in Him and is Him in a profound sense. We can become discouraged quickly in our attempts to live the overcoming life if we lose sight of the fact that we are one with Him in His death, His resurrection, His victory, His righteousness, His holiness, His inheritance, His power, His authority. He is the one Seed of Abraham. When we are in Him we are part of the one Seed and heirs with Him of the promises of God.

He is the Vine. We are the branches growing out from the one true Vine.

It is possible to overemphasize our dependence on the righteousness of Christ, to misapply the passages that describe our identification with Christ. It is possible to apply the gift of grace and identification with Christ in such a manner that we ourselves do not grow into the image of Christ.

There are steps in the life of faith that we must take by our own will and determination, meanwhile looking to the Holy Spirit for guidance, encouragement, and power. If we talk about how righteous Jesus is, and then keep on walking in the appetites of the flesh, we are missing the mark. We are ignoring the bulk of the admonitions of the New Testament writings.

Our acceptance of our identification with Christ's righteousness can cause us to grow spiritually lazy and passive if we do not proceed from the area of belief to the area of practice. Most of the writings of the Apostles are addressed to the disciples, exhorting us to pursue the life of faith and righteousness.

If we claim there is nothing we are to do, Christ did it all, we do not understand the operation of the new covenant.

It does us no good to cry Lord! Lord! if we do not do what He says.

As in all other areas of the Christian discipleship there is a balance to be sought. All that we are is in Him and through Him. Yet, we are commanded to seek Christ diligently so we may more perfectly lay hold on the Virtue that flows to us each day from Him.

There will be a visible working out of the life of Christ in us if we truly are in Him. There will be a new creation. The new creature is the Kingdom of God. We are entering the Kingdom of God as the new creature, Christ, is being formed in us.

This is why Paul, in the sixth chapter of Romans, directs us to live as though we have been raised from the dead.

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (Romans 6:13)

To be continued.