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Scripture Reading: Phil. 1:21; Rom. 8:6
In this chapter we want to continue our fellowship concerning living Christ.
The Bible, especially the Gospel of John, presents the divine and mysterious things in very simple words. 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 Lord Jesus spoke this word to let His disciples know that in resurrection He would be transfigured from His physical body of blood and flesh into the Spirit. In His resurrection He would live, and they also would live. This word itself is very clear, but the nature of our relationship with Christ is not so apparent from this word alone. This word spoken by the Lord implies the mingling of God and man.
The basic truth of the mingling of divinity with humanity is seen throughout the New Testament. Although some have condemned the use of the word mingle, the word mingle as defined by Webster’s Third New International Dictionary gives an accurate description of our relationship with the Lord. It states that to mingle is “to bring or combine together or with something else so that the components remain distinguishable in the combination.”
Philippians 1:21 says, “To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” To say that we must live Christ is easy, and to understand this simple phrase is also easy, but for us to actually live Christ involves a great deal. To live Christ means that when Christ lives, we who believe into Him and who are now in Him also live. Christ lives, and we also live (John 14:19). This means that we live in Christ’s living and that He lives in our living. If we live in His living, His living will be in our living also. This is the mingled living of two lives. God and man live together. This mingled living is illustrated by the grafting of two trees. When a branch is grafted into another tree, the two live together as one. On the one hand, they are two, but on the other hand, they are one. They are one, yet their two natures remain distinct, and a third nature is not produced.
In 1935 as a young co-worker, I stayed together with another co-worker who was a few years older than I. During our stay together, I committed many small offenses toward him, so I apologized to him quite often each day. After a number of days when I went to apologize to him again, he said, “To apologize is good, but not to offend is better.” This disappointed me very much because I could not stop making offenses. One of my frequent offenses was to spill a few drops of water on his bed as I brought water from the restroom into our bedroom to wash myself. Actually, this was a very small thing, but according to my conscience, I had committed an offense, so I had to apologize. I practiced this according to the instruction I had received about keeping a conscience without offense toward God and man (Acts 24:16). I tried very much to practice this, but it was rather difficult. If I had been careless, I could have spilled a little water on the brother’s bed without being bothered, but that kind of careless living or behavior kills our fellowship with the Lord. Although I exercised to keep my conscience void of offense, I had not been fully helped to live Christ.
Through many years of experience I have learned that the Christian life is more positive than merely keeping our conscience void of offenses. We Christians should keep a clean conscience, but the main point of our Christian life is to live Christ. To live Christ should be our goal. Whether our conscience is clean or not is secondary. Living Christ should be primary. All the troubles in our Christian life come because of our not living Christ.
To merely keep our conscience clean is to be in the realm of morality and ethics. The practice of keeping my conscience clean was a help, but it also became a snare. As I look back on those early experiences, I now realize that morality and ethics is not the Christian life. Today I would never stress only the matter of keeping your conscience without offense; rather, I would charge you to forget about all the other things and live Christ. To me, to live is Christ. To live is not ethics or morality but Christ.
To a banker, to live is his money and the current interest rate. The interest rate is always on his mind, and he is always looking at the newspaper to find out what the current interest rate is. To a stockbroker, to live is the stock market. To the young, ambitious college students, to live is to get the highest degree in the best field. As a trainee in the training, you may think that to live is the training. Actually, our living should be Christ.
As we are engaged in our daily activities, our living should not be those activities but Christ. Our mind should be concentrated on Christ, but this concentration of our mind depends upon our love for Christ. This is why the New Testament charges us to love Christ (Mark 12:30; Rev. 2:4-5; John 14:23; 21:15-17; 1 Pet. 1:8). If we do not love Christ, we cannot live Him, and loving Him is the best way to concentrate our entire being on Him. When a young mother delivers a child, her whole living is that new baby. For her, to live is her new baby. This is because of her love for her child. When we love Christ to the uttermost, our entire being is occupied with Him, and we live Him. This was Paul’s experience; therefore, he said, “To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). To Paul, to continue to live was Christ, and if he should die, it was gain.
Living Christ requires that we love Him to the uttermost. Sometimes when we have been very captivated by something, that night we would have a dream about that thing. Even in our dreams, for us to live is the thing that captivated us. Christ needs to captivate us to such an extent.
Romans 8:6 says, “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” In our practical Christian life we must set our mind on the spirit. When we set our mind on the spirit, our mind is life. Life is God, Christ, and the Spirit. This life becomes real and practical to us when our mind is life. If our mind is not life, God and Christ as our life seem far away, and the Spirit is very objective to us. Christ is our life, but Christ as our life is practical to us when we set our mind on the spirit, and our mind is life. When our mind is set on the spirit, we have life.
To set the mind on the spirit is also to abide in Christ. When we abide in Christ, the issue, the result, is fruit-bearing. If we do not bear fruit, our abiding is false. If a married couple desires to have children and after a number of years does not have any, they may go to a medical doctor to find out what is wrong. We should not be deceived. Our abiding in Christ should produce fruit. Christ today is the Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17), so we can now abide in Him. To abide in Christ, taking Christ as the Spirit, is to set our mind on the mingled spirit, our regenerated spirit. This proper abiding in Christ will surely result in fruit-bearing. Everyone who enjoys Christ will be charged by the Lord to go (John 15:16)! We are charged to “go forth,” which implies that we should go some distance. We should not stay home, but we must go forth to bear remaining fruit. This is the result of abiding in Christ, which is a matter of setting our mind on the spirit.
