God in Christ is the Kingdom of God. Thus the Kingdom is filled with the Righteousness of God's own Person.

Jesus now is repeating the love of God. He is "losing" His Life in people. The Kingdom of God is being enlarged.

We observe the same "confusion" of personality occurring in people.

Was Paul living or was Christ? Or was God the Father? Could we say that Paul and Christ were both heirs of God in that God cannot be seen any longer apart from Jesus and Paul?

The Jew, Paul, was seeking the righteousness that is by faith in Christ. Paul possessed a certain amount of righteousness in terms of the Law but rejected this earned righteousness as garbage. Paul was endeavoring to lay hold on the righteousness that can come only through union with Christ, who is an inseparable part of God.

The Kingdom of God is God in Christ in Paul (and in the other members of the Body of Christ). Because of the indwelling of God and Christ in Paul and in us, Paul and we begin to reveal in our personalities the righteous Nature of God.

The eternal righteousness of the Kingdom is not a righteousness declared legally by grace apart from our personal transformation. A declared righteousness, a righteousness by association with Christ, is necessary at the beginning of our redemption. But if a declared righteousness were the true Kingdom righteousness the Lamb would have a blemished bride, and Israel and the world would continue in sin.

We have died to the Law of Moses that we lawfully may be married to Christ. The marriage brings forth the righteous thoughts, words, and actions of Christ, and these behaviors are righteous because they are the thoughts, words, and actions of God Himself.

God has promised to Judah and Jerusalem His Divine Life and Presence. The Lord Himself becomes our righteousness, our Sabbath, as we enter the rest of God: as we cease from our own thoughts, words, and deeds, choosing instead to abide in the thoughts, words, and deeds of God.

If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: (Isaiah 58:13)

Marriage to the Lamb, the marriage in which He becomes our righteousness, is not as though the Lord possesses us in the manner of a spirit possessing a medium. Rather it is a slow, sometimes painful, substitution of a Divinely infused humanity for our adamic humanity.

God humbles us and causes us to hunger—often over a period of years. There are numerous desires in our adamic humanity. Some of these are worthy; many are not. Each human desire without exception must be intensely, thoroughly examined by Divine fire. Parts of our adamic humanity are burned away for eternity. Other parts die and are resurrected in Christ. In this manner the Lord becomes our righteousness of personality and behavior.

To be continued.