p374 * * * I have read your tract. I am not sure that scripture ever speaks of life being given because we have righteousness. God in giving life does so after righteousness is accomplished, so that when we receive life we enter into divine righteousness already perfect; but never that I know into life by righteousness, save as wrought in the resurrection of Christ, so that the communication of His life introduces us into it. "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." But righteousness has been wrought out, life freely given by love and that in Christ, so that we become the righteousness of God in Him. We can say grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life in the sense of our full ultimate enjoyment, and what Christ has accomplished for this purpose. … Righteousness was accomplished in Christ before life was communicated to us; and when through grace it is communicated to us it places consequently in that righteousness in which He is before God, thus it produces it in us as fruits according to the power of the Holy Ghost given to us as seal of that righteousness, and which sheds abroad the love that is in God, who has done all this, in our hearts.

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