Search
Scripture Reading: John 6:57; 14:19; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21; Rom. 6:4-5; 11:24
In the New Testament there are four main verses — two in the Gospels and two in the Epistles — that reveal the matter of living Christ. The first verse, John 6:57, says, “As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” This is the first verse in the New Testament that directly touches the matter of living Christ. The second verse is also in the Gospel of John. John 14:19 says, “Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live.” The phrase because I live means that Christ lives in resurrection. Yet a little while indicates His death and that He will live again in His resurrection. The clause because I live, you also shall live indicates that because He lives in resurrection, we also shall live with Him and by Him. In the New Testament John 6:57 and 14:19 are the most basic verses in unveiling to us how we can live because of Christ and with Christ. The third verse, perhaps the best in the Epistles concerning our living because of Christ and with Christ, is Galatians 2:20. It says, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith.” The fourth verse is Philippians 1:21 which says, “To me, to live is Christ.”
By these four verses we can learn how to live Christ. In this matter I do not use the phrase live by Christ, because the word by does not convey the proper thought. In John 6:57 the word because implies that there is a factor. The word by (used in the KJV), however, indicates an instrument, not a factor. To walk by Christ implies that Christ is the instrument for walking, as a cane is used for walking. To walk because of Him indicates that He is the factor of our walking. This understanding is also the meaning in the Greek. John 14:19 reveals that we live Christ in His resurrection. After His resurrection He lives, and also we live. We do not merely live by Him but because of Him.
We do not live by Christ, taking Christ as our instrument; rather, we live because of Christ, taking Christ as a factor of our living. The food that we eat is not an instrument but a supplying factor. We live not by food but because of the food. Food supplies us so that we can live because of its supply. In using a cane as an instrument to walk, there is no need to eat the cane, but to live because of food, we must eat the food. Without eating, food cannot become a factor of our living. We live Christ in His resurrection, and we live Christ by eating Him. Eating brings in a factor to our being. When we eat a good breakfast in the morning, the nourishment we receive energizes us. The energizing element of Christ is a supply, a factor, for us to live Christ.
Galatians 2:20 says, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Christ has been eaten by us, and now He is within us, living within us. While He is living within us, He is being digested by us. The way Christ lives in us is by being digested by us. He now has become the supply, the very factor, with which we live. We live with Christ as the supplying factor. The clause it is no longer I who live means that we are finished. Yet the later clause the life which I now live indicates that we continue to live. In order to describe this experience, we may say, “Christ lives for me.” However, it is better to say that Christ lives within us to be the factor for us to live with Him. According to Galatians 2:20, there seems to be two who live. There are two subjects, Christ and I, and these two subjects act on one predicate — live. “I live,” and “Christ...lives.”
In order to describe one living with two lives, Paul uses the illustration of grafting (Rom. 11:24; 6:5). The uncultivated branch has been cut off from the uncultivated tree, and this uncultivated branch is grafted into the cultivated tree, the good tree. The uncultivated branch is cut off from the original tree, and the cultivated tree is cut open. These two cuts are put together, and grafting takes place. These two now become one, yet the branch is still the branch, and the tree is still the tree. They are two things, yet they live together. The branch and the tree live, but the two live together as one. The living of the branch and the tree is a mingled living. Their living is a mingling. To say that the grafted branch lives by the cultivated tree is not very accurate. The grafted branch lives in the cultivated tree and with the cultivated tree. Thus, the cultivated tree lives, and the grafted branch lives in the cultivated tree’s living.
Some have mistakenly said that we Christians live an exchanged life. According to this concept, we exchange our poor life for a good life from Christ. This, however, is absolutely wrong. If our Christian life is an exchanged life, then our poor life is finished after being exchanged with the life of Christ. Although the Bible does say that we have been crucified, it also says that we still live (Gal. 2:20). When the Bible says that we have been crucified, this means that we have been cut off from Adam, the uncultivated tree. Through crucifixion we have been cut off from Adam, and in resurrection we have been grafted into Christ. We have been crucified, cut off, from Adam, and we have been put into the resurrected Christ. Therefore, we are not finished; we are still living. However, we are not living in ourselves, we are living in Christ, with Christ, and because of Christ, taking Christ as the factor for our living. When He lives, we live in Him. Our living is within His living; thus, our living and His living are mingled together as one living.
The New Testament reveals that we have an old man (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22) and that we are a new man (2 Cor. 5:17; Col. 3:10-11; Eph. 4:24; 2:15). Before we were saved, we were an old man without the new man. But after we were saved, we became a new man with an old man. Before we were saved, our soul was our person, and our spirit was merely an organ for us to contact and receive God. But when we were saved, receiving Christ as the life-giving Spirit into our spirit, our spirit became our new person, a new man. This new man is our regenerated spirit with Christ, who is the life-giving Spirit, as its life. Our spirit has become our new person, and the soul has become an organ to serve our spirit.
Through regeneration our spirit received the divine life, making it a new man. Thus, our new man is the spirit, and our soul has become the organ of this new man. Our soul serves our spirit by its ability to think, understand, interpret, decide, love, or hate. All these abilities are for the spirit’s use, to serve the spirit’s purpose. Our soul has been rejected as the person, but our soul is still useful as an organ for our new man, the regenerated spirit.
In order to live Christ, to live because of Christ, we must learn to deny our soul. The truth of denying the soul has been opposed by some. Some have said that if we deny our soul, we will be finished. To deny our soul, however, means to deny the soul as our person but not as our organ. As an organ, our soul — our mind, emotion, and will — is very useful. In spiritual experience, the more spiritual we are, the more thoughtful we are. The more spiritual we are, the more emotional we are. Actually, if we do not know how to weep or shed tears, we are not very spiritual. However, we need to consider how we shed tears. If we shed tears from our soul as our person, this is not to live Christ.
For many years I never shed tears from my soul as my person. But when I began to live in the spirit, in my new man, taking the soul as my organ, I began to shed tears. At these times I shed tears by the soul as my organ, not as my person. The person who shed tears was my spirit. It is the same principle today. When we love someone by our soul as a person, that is wrong. It may be love, but it is of the old man and is still related to the flesh. To love by our soul as our person is wrong, but to love by our spirit as our person with our soul as our organ is right. It is impossible to love someone without our soul. Our spirit, strictly speaking, does not have the loving ability. In order to love, we must have a loving organ. The loving organ is our emotion, a part of our soul.
Our spirit by itself cannot weep or shed tears. In the Gospels the Lord Jesus wept (John 11:35; Luke 19:41). He wept from His spirit as His person with His soul as His organ. He did not love by the soul as His person; rather, He loved by His spirit as His person with His soul as His organ. Today, as Christians, we are the same as the Lord Jesus. In our Christian life our soul must be denied as our person, yet our soul is still very useful as an organ. When our soul rises up to be our person, we should tell our soul, “Dear soul, you were my person in the past but not today. Today you are my organ in resurrection, and my person is my regenerated spirit with the Lord Jesus as its life. This spirit is the new man, and this new man is my person. You, dear soul, are now only my organ. Stay in your position, and do not propose anything to me. When I love or think, you must be my loving and thinking organ.”
In my personal time with the Lord, my confession has most often been about living from the soul as my person. Very often I forgot that the soul was not my person, and I listened to him. My soul told me to love, so I loved. I lived the old man, not in doing bad things but in doing good things. To merely do good things is not to live Christ; it is not something of the tree of life. Both good things and bad things are of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Only when we live Christ in our spirit are we living the tree of life. We must ask ourselves each day whether we have lived Christ or whether we have just behaved properly. Many times I have confessed to the Lord, saying, “Lord, forgive me. I still have not succeeded in living You. I lived You perhaps only one-fourth of the time. But the rest of the day, I lived the old man by doing good. Paul could say, ‘To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain,’ but I cannot say this. Lord, forgive me.”
Question: As unsaved people, we lived the old man. Now that we are saved, we live the new man. This seems to indicate that the old man is finished. How can we say that our old man, the soul, still remains as an organ? Romans 6 and 7 reveal that our old man was not only crucified with Christ but also buried with Him. How can our soul, our old man, come back to be the organ of our new man?>
Answer: We should not forget that Romans 6 does not stop at burial but goes on to resurrection (vv. 4-5). The crucified person was buried and resurrected. The natural faculties of our soul were crucified and buried, but they were also resurrected. We now have the faculties of our soul in resurrection. The soul as an organ of our new man, the spirit, is not in its natural condition. It is in a resurrected condition. Our natural man, our natural being, has been uplifted in Christ’s resurrection. Our humanity has been crucified, buried, and uplifted by Christ’s resurrection.
Question: As we have been crucified, buried, and resurrected, what was resurrected concerning us?
Answer: Before we were saved, our mind was very dull and foolish, our emotion was unrestricted and unbridled, and our will was either very stubborn or very weak. However, after we received Christ, He not only regenerated our spirit, but He also uplifted our mind, emotion, and will through His resurrection. His resurrection immediately uplifted the natural faculties of our soul. Since we are saved persons, our mind, emotion, and will are surely different from the past.
Because we have been grafted into Christ, we are growing together with Christ, and the faculties of our soul are continuing to be uplifted and enriched. Romans 6:5 says, “If we have grown together with Him in the likeness of His death, indeed we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection.” To “have grown together with Him” is to have “an organic union in which the growth takes place, so that one partakes of the life and characteristics of the other...This is grafting (11:24). Such a grafting (1) discharges all our negative elements, (2) resurrects our God-created faculties, (3) uplifts our faculties, (4) enriches our faculties, and (5) saturates our entire being to transform us” (v. 5, footnote 1, Recovery Version; see also verse 5, footnote 2).
Question: My concept has been that the life of the soul and the faculties of the soul are two different things. The life of the soul needs to be denied, but the faculties of the soul, including the mind, emotion, and will, need to be preserved. Is this an accurate understanding?
Answer: The life of the soul is the person, whereas the faculties of the soul are the soul as an organ. The soul is the organ, and the faculties of the soul are the abilities of this organ. It is better to say that we have the person of the soul and the organ of the soul.
Question: Our spirit contains the Spirit of Christ, who is a person with a mind, emotion, and will. How can we say that we do not have these faculties in our spirit?
Answer: Our spirit today is the new man, and in this new man, in this spirit, we have Christ as our life. Christ does have the faculties of loving, thinking, and deciding. However, the faculties of Christ are spiritual faculties, that is, they are the faculties of God. These divine faculties of Christ could only be manifested indirectly through our faculties. The faculty of Christ’s thinking is never expressed directly by itself. It is always expressed through our mind (1 Cor. 2:16).
Adam was created according to God’s image. Many Bible teachers define the image of God as the faculties of God to love, hate, and think. God loves, so we love; God hates, so we hate; God is very thoughtful, so we are thoughtful also. We have the image of God, yet this image remains empty without any content until we receive God. When we were without God, we exercised our minds in an empty way without God as the content in our mind. But when we receive God, God becomes our content. God’s thinking becomes the content of our mind, and His love becomes the content of our emotion. A glove is a good illustration of this. The glove has five fingers, but these five fingers have only the image of the fingers, not the reality of the fingers. When the hand enters into the glove, then the fingers of the hand become the content of the fingers of the glove. Our mind, emotion, and will are just the fingers of the glove. When Christ comes into us with His mind, emotion, and will, His faculties become the very content of our human mind, emotion, and will.
Not many Christians understand these details of the spiritual life, but we need a vision of these details so that we can be those who live Christ.
