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First Corinthians 15:10 unveils that for our experience and enjoyment, Christ is the grace of God. Grace is the central thought of 1 Corinthians. Paul says in 1:4, “I thank my God always concerning you based upon the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus.” In verse 9 Paul goes on to say that God has called us into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. This means that God has called us to participate in, or to partake of, the Son. The fellowship, the enjoyment, and the partaking of Christ are grace.
First Corinthians 15:10 says, “By the grace of God I am what I am; and His grace unto me did not turn out to be in vain, but, on the contrary, I labored more abundantly than all of them, yet not I but the grace of God which is with me.” Grace, mentioned three times in this verse, is the resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit (v. 45) to bring the processed Triune God in resurrection into us to be our life and life supply that we may live in resurrection. Thus, grace is the Triune God becoming life and everything to us.
Apart from the Triune God being processed in Christ, He cannot be enjoyed by us as the grace of God. Apart from the resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit, the grace of God cannot reach us, and we cannot participate in it. Therefore, the grace of God must be the resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit for our participation in Him.
The enjoyment of the processed Triune God is grace. Anything we eat must first be processed. Apart from being processed in resurrection to become the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, God cannot be eaten and enjoyed by us. Our Triune God is not only God in creation, but, much more, He is God in resurrection. God in creation is for our worship, but God in resurrection is not only for our worship but also for our enjoyment. The Jews know how to worship God only as their Creator; however, we enjoy our Triune God as the life-giving Spirit. God in resurrection is for enjoyment. Hence, the grace of God is altogether a matter in resurrection.
The unprocessed God is not grace. Rather, grace is the Triune God in resurrection. The God in Paul’s ministry is not merely the God of creation — He is God in resurrection. Resurrection involves the process of incarnation, human living, and crucifixion. After passing through this process in Christ, the Triune God entered into resurrection. Therefore, when we speak of God as the God of resurrection, we imply the process through which He has passed. Christ passed through incarnation, through thirty-three and a half years of human living, and through six hours of crucifixion. After He died, He was placed in a tomb. Then He went into Hades and had a tour of the realm of death. Following that, He came forth in resurrection. Now He is the God not only of creation but also of resurrection. This processed God is now our grace.
Christ, the grace of God, is now in resurrection as the life-giving Spirit, the consummation of the processed Triune God. Since He is in resurrection, we, His believers, should also be in resurrection and live in resurrection. Resurrection means that all the old, natural things have been terminated and that something new and spiritual has been germinated. This is resurrection — the termination of the natural and the germination of the spiritual, to transform the natural into the spiritual. In resurrection we do not live a natural life but a life that was terminated in the old nature and germinated in the new nature to make us members of Christ.
It is by this grace that Saul of Tarsus, the foremost of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15-16), became the foremost apostle, laboring more abundantly than all the apostles. His ministry and living by this grace are an undeniable testimony to Christ’s resurrection. The grace of God operated in him and for him, accomplishing things on his behalf.
In 1 Corinthians 15:10 grace is the Christ who is in resurrection and who is resurrection. By this grace Paul could be what he was and labor more than all the other apostles. Not I but the grace of God which is with me in 1 Corinthians 15:10 equals no longer I...but...Christ who lives in me in Galatians 2:20. This shows that Christ Himself is the grace of God — God Himself working through the apostle.
All the disciples and apostles who saw the resurrected Christ not only saw Him objectively but also experienced Him subjectively. Through their seeing of Christ, He entered into them and became the subjective One in them. When the day of Pentecost came, this was the reason they were living, energetic, and operative. The resurrected Christ was in them. Not only was Christ Himself resurrected objectively, but in resurrection He lived in Peter, John, and all the other apostles and disciples.
The grace that motivated the apostle and operated in him was not some matter or some thing but a living person, the resurrected Christ, the embodiment of God the Father who became the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, who dwelt in the apostle as his everything. This corresponds to Paul’s declaration in Philippians 4:13: “I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me.” Here Him refers to the resurrected Christ who became the life-giving Spirit. In such a Christ, Paul was empowered to do all things. This is the grace of God.
Grace is something of God which is wrought into our being and which works in us and does things for us. It is nothing outward. Grace is God in Christ wrought into our being to live, work, and do things for us. In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul does not tell us that by the grace of God he has what he has, or even that by the grace of God he does what he does. It is not a matter of doing, having, or working; it is absolutely a matter of being. Hence, Paul says, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” This means that the grace of God had been wrought into his being, making him that kind of person. Grace is not outside of us or beside us. It is a divine person, God Himself in Christ, wrought into our being to be the constituent of our being. Grace is the Triune God wrought into our being to be what we should be and to live, work, and do things for us so that we may say, “I am what I am by the grace of God. It is not I, but the grace of God.”
By this grace Paul could be what he was and labor more abundantly than all the other apostles. Paul indicates that by himself he was nothing and by himself could never be an apostle and that he labored more than the others, yet it was not he who labored — it was the grace of God. The grace which was with Paul and which enabled him to labor more than others was actually God Himself. God in Paul was eternal life as his supply and support for the carrying out of His New Testament economy.
Throughout the centuries, all the living servants of the Lord have had this resurrected Christ living in them. We can testify that He as the grace of God lives in us, enabling us to do what we could never do in ourselves. We may be persecuted and opposed, and we may suffer very much; however, we have the resurrected Christ in us. The more we are opposed, the more alive and active we become. We must all declare that in our labor it is not we but the grace of God with us.
We should not be the ones working; rather, the grace of God, the resurrected Christ who lives in us, should be the One working. We need to learn of Paul to coordinate with the One living in us. Although in ourselves we cannot carry out the Lord’s work or bear the burden of the churches, the work is easy to do and the burden is easy to bear when it is the processed and consummated One living in us who does the work and bears the burden. We should praise the Lord that we can simply enjoy His living and His working and rejoice in Him.
Although many Christians define grace as unmerited favor or undeserved goodness bestowed on us, grace revealed in the Bible is far more than merely unmerited favor. Grace is the incarnated, crucified, resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit to enter into us, to indwell us, and to be our life and life supply. Such an amazing grace can make a sinner the foremost apostle.
