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In this lesson we will continue to see other aspects of Christ being the portion for the believers' enjoyment.
In Galatians 2:20 Paul said, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." Although Paul said that "it is no longer I who live," he also said that "it is Christ who lives in me." It was Christ who lived, yet it was in Paul that He lived. Christ and Paul, they two, had one life and one living. This shows us that Christ is not only life to us, the believers, but also a person living in us. We have another person, Christ, living within us.
We must see this vision: the One who died on the cross for our redemption is living now in us. I have died in Christ through His death, but now He lives in me through His resurrection. According to the revelation of the New Testament, on the one hand, this resurrected Christ is in the third heavens; on the other hand, He lives in us. His living in us is entirely by His being the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). As the life-giving Spirit, He lives in us to be our life and our person.
In John 6:57 the Lord Jesus said, "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." The Son did not live by Himself; He lived because of the Father. This does not mean that the Son was set aside and ceased to exist. The Son, of course, continued to exist, but He did not live His own life. Instead, He lived the life of the Father. He had one life and one living with the Father. It is the same in our relationship with Christ today. We live by Him, and He lives in us. On the one hand, we are terminated; on the other hand, we continue to exist. However, we do not exist without Christ; we live because of Him and live with Him. Hence, we have one life and one living with Him. Not only so, we live because of Him by eating Him. To eat is to take food into us to be assimilated into our body organically. Hence, to eat the Lord Jesus is to receive Him into us that He may be assimilated by the regenerated new man in the way of life. Then we live by the Lord whom we have received.
In Philippians 1:21 Paul said, "To me, to live is Christ." Paul's life was to live Christ. To him to live was Christ, not the law or circumcision. He would not live the law but would live Christ, not be found in the law but be found in Christ (3:9). Christ was not only his life but also his living. He lived Christ because Christ lived in him. He was one with Christ both in life and in living. He and Christ had one life and one living. They lived together as one person. Christ lived within Paul as Paul's life, and Paul lived Christ without as Christ's living.
Christ lives in us so that we may live Him. The normal experience of Christ is to live Christ, and to live Christ is to have Christ magnified always under any circumstance. We need to practice living Christ in our daily life, whether in great things or in small things. Our experience and practice of living Christ must reach the extent that others can see that in all things, in every detail of our life, we are in Christ. Christ lives in us as life and we live Him as His expression. This must be something real and practical to us.
In Galatians 4:19 Paul said, "My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you." When the Galatian believers were regenerated through Paul's preaching of the gospel to them the first time, Christ was born into them but not formed in them. The apostle then travailed again that Christ might be formed in them. To have Christ formed in us is to have Christ fully grown in us. First, Christ was born into us at the time we repented and believed in Him, then He lives in us in our Christian life, and, finally, He will be formed in us at our maturity. Christ's being formed in us is needed that we may be sons of full age and heirs to inherit God's promised blessing, and that we may mature in the divine sonship.
That Christ is being formed in us implies that we are being constituted of Christ. This is a living, organic matter. Christ is now living in us to constitute our entire being with Himself that every part of our soul—mind, emotion, and will—may be like Him. This is what 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, that we "are being transformed into the same image." The indwelling Christ is being formed in us; He is becoming our inner constituent. If we receive Christ as our person in our thinking, preference, and will, His element will gradually become our inner constituent. Eventually, our entire being will be constituted of the element of Christ. This is not merely a concept, theory, or theology. This is a divine fact that we can experience in full. As the living One, Christ with His element is becoming our constituent organically, being constituted into our entire being, so that we may have His form and express His image.
The Christ who lives in us and who is being formed in us is also making His home in us. In Ephesians 3:17 Paul said, "That Christ may make His home in your hearts." Our heart is composed of all the parts of our soul—mind, emotion, and will—plus our conscience, the main part of our spirit. These parts are the inward parts of our being. Through regeneration Christ came into our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). After this, we should allow Him to spread into every part of our heart. Since our heart is the totality of all our inward parts and the center of our inward being, when Christ makes His home in our heart, He controls and occupies our entire inward being and supplies, strengthens, and saturates every inward part with Himself.
The Greek word for make home is composed of the word for down and the word for dwell. This indicates that Christ wants to make His home deep down in our being. When we were saved, Christ came into our spirit. Now we must give Him the opportunity to spread Himself throughout all the parts of our inner being. As we are strengthened into our inner man, the door is opened for Christ to spread in us, to spread from our spirit to our mind, emotion, will, and conscience. The more Christ spreads within us, the more He settles down in our hearts and makes His home in our hearts. As a result, we are filled with Christ unto all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19), which is the church, as the corporate expression of God for the fulfillment of His intention.
Christ is also the One magnified in us. In Philippians 1:20 Paul said, "According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death." This shows us that in the apostle's bodily sufferings, Christ was magnified, that is, shown or declared great (without limitation), exalted, and extolled. Paul's sufferings afforded him opportunity to express Christ in His unlimited greatness. No matter what the circumstances were, Paul would always magnify Christ.
The word magnify means to make something large to our sight. According to Ephesians 3, the dimensions of Christ—the breadth, length, height, and depth—are the dimensions of the universe. They are immeasurable. Since Christ is already universally great, why does He still need to be magnified? Although Christ is vast, extensive, and immeasurable, in the eyes of the praetorium, the imperial guard of Caesar, Christ was virtually non-existent. In their eyes there was not such a person as Jesus Christ. However, Paul, who was held captive in a Roman prison, magnified Christ among them. He made Christ great in their eyes, and he displayed especially to the jailers who guarded him the unlimited greatness of Christ. He became a living witness of Christ, testifying of Christ's love, wisdom, power, patience, etc., all of which are immeasurable. Through Paul's magnification of Christ, even some in Caesar's household turned to Christ and were saved (Phil. 4:22).
No matter what came upon him, Paul earnestly expected and hoped to magnify Christ in him. In his living, Paul lived Christ. This is to magnify Christ through life. As he was expecting to be martyred, he also lived Christ. This is to magnify Christ through death. Thus, whether through life or through death, Christ was magnified in Paul's body. Paul was not at all exhausted by his imprisonment; rather, he was full of joy and rejoicing in the Lord. No doubt he was shining forth Christ and expressing Him. Such an expression was a declaration of the unlimited greatness of Christ.
Now, as believers in Christ, we also should magnify Christ. As Christ lives in us, is being formed in us, and makes His home in us, spontaneously we will live Him. Then He will be magnified in us. In our daily life we must let others see Christ in the way of enlargement, in the way of magnification, that they may realize His unlimitedness.
Christ also is the One who empowers us. In Philippians 4:13 Paul said, "I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me." To be empowered is to be made dynamic inwardly. Christ dwells in us (Col. 1:27). He empowers us, makes us dynamic from within, not from without. By such inward empowering Paul was able to do all things in Christ.
Paul was a person in Christ (2 Cor. 12:2), and he desired to be found in Christ by others. Now he declared that he was able to do all things in Him, the very Christ who empowered him. This is an all-inclusive and concluding word of his experience of Christ. It is the converse of the Lord's word concerning our organic union with Him in John 15:5: "Apart from Me you can do nothing." According to Philippians 4, we know that what is spoken of here, that we are able to do all things in Christ, the One who empowers us, refers to our being able to live a contented life (vv. 11-12) and to live out the human virtues of Christ, such as to be true, to be dignified, to be righteous, to be pure, to be lovely, and to be well spoken of (v. 8).
Christ is the One who lives in us that we may live Him. He is not only life to us, the believers, but also a person living in us. His living in us is entirely by His being the life-giving Spirit. Now we live because of Him by eating Him. Furthermore, we practice living Him in every detail of our life that we may be found in Him. He lives within us as our life, and we live Him without as His expression. Christ is also the One who is being formed in us. First, He was born into us, then He lives in us, and, finally, He will be formed in us at our maturity. Christ as the living One with His element is becoming organically the constituent within us that constitutes our entire being that we may have His form to express His image. He is also the One who makes His home in our hearts. He desires to dwell deeply in our entire being. He not only comes into our spirit but also spreads into every part of our heart, that He may control and occupy our entire inward being and that He may supply, strengthen, and saturate our every inward part with Himself. Thus, we are filled with Him unto all the fullness of God as God's corporate expression. Christ is also the One who is magnified in us. When we live Christ, express Christ, and display Christ's unlimited greatness, Christ is made great in others' eyes and is seen and realized as the One who is unlimited. He is also the One who empowers us. Christ dwells in us to empower us that we may be able to do all things in Him and to have a contented life and a life that lives out the human virtues of Christ.
