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Scripture Reading: Rom. 6:5, 8; 7:4; 9:21, 23-24; 11:17, 24; 12:5
The relationship between God and man is a mystery. The common concept is that God is the Creator, and man is the creature. God is the Lord of the heavens and the earth. He has created all things. Therefore, man as a small, finite being must worship, revere, and fear Him. Since He is all-powerful and human beings are weak and frail, man must trust and depend on Him. Whenever man is in trials and sufferings, he calls on the heavens for help. This reaching after God is inherent in man. This view of man’s relation to God may be scriptural, but it is superficial.
What the Bible reveals as the ultimate relationship between God and us is far deeper than that of Creator and creature. The nature of this relationship is beyond human concept. It is that God and we may have a union in life. The divine life and the human life join together to become one life.
There is a picture of this in nature. I believe we are all aware that the physical things in the world are signs of spiritual realities. The Lord Jesus again and again used common things as illustrations of spiritual matters.
In the plant kingdom a branch that is not doing very well may be cut off the parent tree and attached to a healthier, more productive tree. This procedure, known as grafting, illustrates the union between God and us. A. B. Simpson’s hymn, “I am crucified with Christ,” refers to this in the third stanza:
This the secret nature hideth,
Harvest grows from buried grain;
A poor tree with better grafted,
Richer, sweeter life doth gain.
(Hymns, #482)
The thought expressed in this hymn comes from Romans 11: “You, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in...and became a fellow partaker of the root of fatness of the olive tree...You were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and were grafted contrary to nature into the cultivated olive tree” (vv. 17, 24). We were the poor, small, wild olive branches, grafted into the cultivated, superior olive tree, and are now enjoying the rich nourishment from the root.
The branch that is grafted is not identical to the tree to which it is attached. If they were identical, there would be no need of grafting. It is a branch from a problem tree that is grafted to a tree having some superior quality. The consequence is that the good tree subdues the inferior branch.
Such is the real nature of the Christian life. The Lord Jesus as the true vine is the superior tree. One day by faith through grace you were grafted into Him. Do not despise this grafting. It means that you no longer have just one life. Your life is now from two lives that have been grafted into one. As you enjoy the root of the fatness of this cultivated olive tree, your poorer life is subdued, and you begin to flourish.
The relationship that the Bible reveals between God and us must extend beyond that of Creator and creature until it reaches a union in life.
Grafting is one picture of this union between God and us. Another illustration is given in Romans 7, where we are considered a wife and the Lord Jesus, the Husband: “So then, my brothers, you also have been made dead to the law through the body of Christ so that you might be joined to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit to God” (v. 4). As the wife, we had a former husband, our old man. When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, our old husband was crucified with Him, thus making us a widow. Shortly thereafter, however, we remarried, this time to the Lord Jesus.
Let us consider further the matter of marriage as an example of our relationship with Christ. The first marriage was between Adam and Eve. Adam, you will remember, was created by God from the dust of the ground. Then God breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). Eve, however, came into existence differently. God caused Adam to fall asleep, then took a rib out of his side and built a woman (vv. 21-22). Adam and this woman became one. Their union was a union in life. Eve came out of Adam, and so did her life. Both of them shared one life.
The New Testament applies this example to Christ and the church (Eph. 5:31-32). We came out of Christ; His life becomes our life, and we and He become one. This again is a union in life.
In Romans 9 Paul likens us to vessels formed by God (vv. 21, 23). These vessels are to have God Himself as their content, thus making them vessels unto honor, full of riches and glory. God is our inward content; we are His outward expression. The content and the container are one; here again is a union.
A further illustration is given in Romans 12, where we are depicted as the Body of Christ (v. 5). We are united to Him, just as the body and the head are one entity.
Notice that this grafted life, pictured for us in these different ways, is not an exchanged life. The inferior branch has not given up its poor life in order to get the richer life of the tree to which it is grafted. No. The branch still retains its same essential characteristics, but its life is uplifted and transformed by being grafted to the better life.
What are the results of the grafting? When the fatness of the better tree supplies the grafted branch, all the negative things are taken away. Then the original function of that branch is restored and strengthened. The fruit is still what it was before the grafting, but the problem factors have been overcome. We are the problem branches that God has grafted to Christ. The fatness of His life comes into us, carrying away all the poor elements in us. He uplifts the original function that God had for us, strengthening and enriching it. Then naturally and spontaneously, our whole being is saturated and transformed, and a marvelous fruit comes forth.
I have been concerned to share with the saints this matter of the grafted life because it has been of great help to me. For many years I groped and searched for the way to experience what the Bible tells us. We followed others to teach that we must exchange our poor life for the good life of the Lord Jesus. We also tried to practice reckoning as the way to be free from sinning. We taught that since we are prone to sin, we have to see that we are already dead and then reckon on that fact. The result of reckoning was discouragement. Before we tried to reckon, we were dormant. But once we started to reckon, not only did we find that we were not dead; we were more alive than before.
Only gradually did we come to see that Romans is not talking about an exchanged life or a reckoning method. This grafted life means that whatever lack we have, as long as we are grafted into the precious tree of the Lord Jesus, His excellent life will come into us.
When did this grafting occur? It was at the time we believed and were baptized. Romans 6:3 says, “Are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” When we were baptized, we were baptized into the Lord Jesus in spirit and were identified with Him. The life within Him came into us.
Romans 6:5 goes on to say, “If we have grown together with Him in the likeness of His death, indeed we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”
The words have grown together with Him in the Greek imply an organic union. The meaning is quite rich. It can be likened to a skin graft. The surgeon may cut a piece of flesh from a patient’s leg and attach it to his arm. After a few days the skin taken from the leg will grow together with the flesh of the arm; they will be organically joined to each other. Life growth will occur.
This is the very kind of union meant in Romans 6:5. We have been grafted to the Lord Jesus and are now supplied by His life and His riches. A growth is taking place as we are enjoying Him. This union is not like two dead pieces of wood put together; however closely they may be placed to each other, there is no growing together. There must be a living branch grafted into a living tree for there to be not only a joining but also an organic growing together, with the branch enjoying the riches of the life of the better tree.
The Chinese version translates grown together with Him as “identified with Him.” This is quite good, but we need to include the thought of being joined and growing together with Him. Both the joining and the growth are essential for a successful graft. If the two pieces of flesh do not grow together after a graft, within a few days the grafted skin will decay. The joining together must bring the growth; then the two lives become one.
When a branch is grafted, both it and the tree must be cut. Just binding them together will not join them organically. Both must be cut and then grafted together at the site of the cut. When the two wounds kiss each other, the graft can take, and there will be the growth.
When was the Lord Jesus cut? It was on the cross. The wound of the Lord Jesus is waiting for sinners. His side has been pierced; the blood shed.
When is the sinner cut? He too has been cut on the cross. He experiences this cutting when he repents and receives the Lord.
We had a co-worker from the northeast of China who, before his conversion, was arrogantly opposed to Christianity. One day he went into a temple and noticed an open Bible on the table in front of the idols. His curiosity was aroused, and he began to read Psalm 1. Its words quite impressed him, and he decided to take the Bible home and read it. He did so. The more he read, the more the light shined. Convicted of his sins, he wept, beat his breast, and rolled on the floor in repentance.
Was this repentance not a cutting? He was a branch being cut. Then when he called on the Lord to save him, he was grafted to this One who had already been cut. At the site where the wound of the sinner met the wound of the Lord Jesus, they were grafted together. The Lord began to live and grow in this newly grafted branch to supply him.
When Paul says, “We have grown together with Him in the likeness of His death,” he is saying that in the place where we were cut, we were grafted into the Lord. This grafting is the growing. We are not first grafted and then begin to grow. Rather, we have been grafted into Him in the likeness of His death and have grown together with Him all at the same time.
Notice the two aspects of grafting and growing together in Romans 6:5: “If we have grown together with Him in the likeness of His death, indeed we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection.” The first aspect is in the likeness of His death and refers to our being grafted into Him. The second is in the likeness of His resurrection and refers to His coming into us to grow in us. This second aspect is resurrection.
The initial grafting is related to the Lord’s death. He is the true vine. When He was crucified, He was thoroughly cut. Now His cut wound is waiting for the repentant sinners, and He as the life-giving Spirit moves in us, searching our inner being, enlightening us so that we repent. Our grief and tears are the cut we receive. We have no choice but to believe in the Lord and ask Him to save us: “O Lord, thank You that You died for me. Thank You for shedding Your blood for me. Thank You, Lord, for saving me.” This is the time when we are grafted into Him and grow together with Him in the likeness of His death.
Once we are thus grafted into Him, His resurrection life comes into us and removes all the negative elements within. His life becomes ours in resurrection. He uplifts the original functions given us at creation and enriches, strengthens, and even saturates our whole being. This new life is a life of two lives grafted into one. In this union are victory, life, light, power, and all the other divine attributes. All these are ours not by an exchange, not by reckoning, but by being grafted into Him.
This concept of the divine life and the human life being grafted into one is foreign to human thought. Because of this, when we come to read the Bible, we miss it. I trust that now we have all been deeply impressed that as saved ones, the life we live is that of two lives grafted into one. By the Lord’s grace we have repented, and through repentance and believing we have been grafted into the divine life. In this grafting we grow together with Him. Then in resurrection His life grows in us. The divine life is in us, supplying us. This is the Christian life.
