Scripture Reading: Col. 1:27; 3:4; Gal. 2:20a; John 14:19-20; 15:4-5
Although the book of Colossians is short, it contains many things which are mysterious. The thought in this Epistle is deep. For this reason chapters one and two are difficult to memorize and recite.
As we read chapter one, we must pay close attention to Paul’s terminology. In verse 12 he says that the Father has qualified us “for a share of the portion of the saints in the light.” In what way has the Father qualified us for this? According to 1:13, He did this by delivering us out of the authority of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
In 1:15 Paul goes on to say that Christ is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation. According to verses 16 and 17, all things were created in Him, through Him, and unto Him, and all things subsist together in Him. Furthermore, as the firstborn from among the dead, He is the Head of the Body, the church (v. 18). In verse 19 Paul tells us that all the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him. The word “fullness” here denotes a living person, not a thing, for an impersonal substance or thing cannot be pleased about something. This fullness was pleased to dwell in Christ, in the all-inclusive One who has reconciled all things to Him (v. 20).
Beginning with verse 24, Paul goes on to speak of God’s economy. What is God’s economy? We may have been Christians for years without knowing what God’s economy is, or without even asking Him to reveal His economy to us. God’s economy is related to the dispensing of Himself into us; however, it involves even more. The Greek word for economy, oikonomia, implies the thought of arrangement or administration. Hence, God’s economy is an administrative arrangement. In some places, as in 1:25, the Greek word is best rendered “stewardship.” God’s economy is His administrative arrangement, His stewardship, to dispense His riches into us. Just as wealthy families have an arrangement to distribute the wealth of the family to its members, so God has an arrangement in His economy to dispense His wealth into His children. Praise the Lord that we are members of God’s household! God’s economy is to dispense the unsearchable riches of Christ into all those chosen by God that they might become His children and members of the universal, divine family. As children of God, we are under His administrative arrangement by which He works Himself into our being.
The goal of God’s dispensation of Himself into us is the one new man. The ultimate consummation of the new man will be the New Jerusalem. Today the new man is a miniature of the eternal New Jerusalem. The difference is not in nature or essence, but only in size or degree. Today we enjoy the new man as the issue, the result, of God’s economy. But in eternity we shall enjoy the New Jerusalem as the ultimate issue of God’s dispensing of Himself into us. It is necessary for all of us in the Lord’s recovery to know God’s economy in this way.
My burden in this message is to point out that the fulfillment of God’s economy does not depend on our effort. Rather, it depends on the growth of life. The focal point of God’s economy is not our doing; it is life growing. Hence, it is crucial for us to see what it means to grow and how to grow. God does not need our doing. Anything that we do in ourselves means nothing. However, God wants us to grow.
In order for something to grow, it must, of course, have life. A table cannot grow, because it does not have life. However, a plant will grow because it is full of life. For example, my wife planted a tomato plant in our backyard. I am amazed how much this plant has grown and how many tomatoes it has produced. Because that tomato plant grew so much, there was the need of stakes to support it and to direct its growth. There was the need for an economy to manage this tomato plant.
I would remind you that after God created man, He put him into a garden, a place of growth. God did not put man into a school, where he could be educated, or into a factory, where he could manufacture things, but into a garden, a place where life could grow. Our need today in the church is for growth, and in order to grow we must have life.
Now we come to a crucial question: What is our life? Probably we all would answer this question by saying that our life is Christ. What, then, is Christ? The life that grows in the church and which is needed for the growth of the church is Christ. But what is this Christ? The answer to this question is found in Colossians. According to this book, Christ is the fullness of God, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn from among the dead, the One in whom all the fullness is pleased to dwell, the mystery of God’s economy, the mystery of God, the reality of all positive things, and the constituent of the new man. For years we have pointed out that Christ is life, but perhaps we have not adequately paid our attention to what Christ is. In short, the Christ who is our life is everything, the reality of every positive thing in the universe. This is the revelation in the book of Colossians.
Colossians contains the highest revelation of Christ in the New Testament. No other book tells us that Christ is the firstborn of all creation or that He is the mystery of God. Colossians reveals that Christ is the mystery of God’s economy and the mystery of God Himself. According to this book, Christ is everything to us.
If we see that Christ is everything, we shall spontaneously realize that we are nothing and nobody. In the words of Galatians 2:20, we have been crucified with Christ and Christ lives in us. He is the One who is patient, kind, loving, and full of life.
However, instead of living Christ, many of us unconsciously strive to improve ourselves. For example, a young brother who is about to get married may make up his mind to be an ideal husband. To do this is to live either according to our self-made culture or according to the culture we have inherited. Sometimes in conferences saints may testify that after that conference they will never be the same. Because such a statement is according to culture, a few days after the conference that person is the same as before. How easy it is to impose a cultural standard on ourselves!
The culture we impose on ourselves is actually a form of asceticism. Suppose a certain brother finds his wife difficult to bear, even though she is a dear sister in the Lord. This brother vows that, whatever the cost, he will be a good husband to his wife. He will bear with her, even if it is with gnashing of his teeth. This brother is living according to asceticism. Every time we make a decision to improve or to be different, we are living according to culture instead of according to Christ.
God’s intention is to dispense Christ into us so that He may be our life and our everything. God wants Christ to be our righteousness, holiness, humility, and patience. Since Christ is everything, there is no need for us to decide to do anything or to be anything. Instead, we should simply turn to the Lord and say, “Lord, thank You. You are my life and my everything. You are the real God and the real man. When I need love, You are love. When I need humility, You, Lord, are humility. Whatever I need, You are.”
God does not want us to try to be good husbands or wives, parents or children. God only wants one person — Christ. However, we should not preach this to our children prematurely. Instead, we should first preach to ourselves, telling ourselves that God does not want our self-improvement, but that He only wants Christ. He has dispensed Christ into us to be our life and our everything so that we may live Him and that He may dwell in us. There is no need for us to strive to be loving. Our love is limited. But Christ is love, unlimited love, and He lives in us.
We need to see the heavenly vision that in His economy, God wants nothing except Christ. Christ is wonderful. As the One who is God and man, He has passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement. All that Christ is and all that He has obtained and attained have been compounded into the all-inclusive Spirit. Now as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, He lives in us. How foolish not to give all the ground in our living to Him! Although we may love Him, we may still limit and restrict Him by our efforts to be good Christian husbands or wives. In ourselves, we still try to be humble, patient, kind, and loving. As long as we do this, there is no way for Christ to live in us.
In John 14, the Lord Jesus spoke of His death and resurrection. Speaking of the disciples’ experience after His resurrection, He says in verse 19, “Because I live, you shall live also.” It was after His resurrection that the Lord could live in His disciples and they could live by Him, according to Galatians 2:20.
Christ wants to live in us. When He lives in us, we live by Him. But where are the Christians today who give Christ the free course to live in them? Very few Christians do this. Even we in the Lord’s recovery do not give Christ the sufficient ground to live in us. Instead, we try to be humble and loving. We try to be a good husband or wife, a good brother or sister. Thus, the ground within us is occupied by ourselves and by our self-effort. Although we may fail in our efforts, we repent, pray, ask for the Lord’s cleansing, and then try once again. We may even welcome the opportunity for a new beginning afforded by a new day, week, month, or year so that we may try once again to be a proper Christian. We may comfort ourselves at the end of the day with the thought that in the morning we shall have a fresh opportunity to try again. We may do the same thing at the end of a week, month, or year. Especially at the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year, we may promise ourselves to have a new beginning. We may thoroughly clear the past, regret our shortcomings, repent for our mistakes, ask the Lord’s forgiveness for our wrongdoings, and then try to have a new beginning. We may say, “Let the past be the past. With the new year I can have a new beginning.” Nevertheless, before long we find that our best efforts still result in failure.
Because we all have this tendency, I am burdened that we would see that God does not want us to try to be proper Christians — He only wants us to live Christ. We should forget about trying to be a good husband or wife and care only to live Christ. Let us love Him, contact Him, and be one with Him. How near and available He is! He is within us and is one spirit with us, waiting to be given the opportunity to live in us. If we would give Christ the ground to live in us, we should cease from all our efforts. Instead of asking the Lord to help us in our efforts, we should pray, “Lord Jesus, I can do nothing apart from You. How foolish I have been in trying so hard! Now, Lord, I see the vision that I cannot do anything without You. Lord, I thank You that You dwell in me. I ask You, Lord, to work within me. Lord, I praise You that You are my life and that You are waiting for the opportunity to live in me. Lord, I thank You that I am in You. Now I am willing to give You all the ground to do everything and to be everything in me.” This is what it means for Christ to live in us.
After praying to the Lord in this way, we should turn to Satan and tell him to no longer tempt us to try to do anything apart from Christ. Say to him, “Satan, don’t tempt me in this way anymore. I assure you that I cannot do anything apart from Christ. Don’t try to get me to do anything.”
In the church meetings, we may enjoy singing, “Christ liveth in me, Christ liveth in me.” However, when the meeting is over, we are the ones who live, not Christ. Instead of Christ living in us, our inward being is occupied with ourselves. But if we see the vision of Christ living in us, we shall stop all our doing. How blessed it is to do nothing and to let Christ live in us! The Lord does not want us to try to improve our behavior. He does not want us to try to be a good husband or wife. The Christian life is Christ living in us. In such a life, we and Christ have one life and one living. Christ lives in our living. Oh, we desperately need to see this vision! We need to pray, “Lord, show me the vision that God only wants one Person. He wants Christ to live in me.” This vision will spontaneously terminate all of our efforts and doings. It will turn us from our trying to the indwelling Christ.
When we cease from our own doing, we shall no longer have any standards or principles apart from Christ. Christ will be our standards and our principles. For example, instead of having a standard that determines what is a good husband or wife, we shall have Christ as our standard. Likewise, instead of having standards concerning kindness, humility, and love, our only standard will be Christ. When Christ becomes our unique standard and principle, He will have the free course to live in us. Then we shall enjoy Him and experience Him.
The book of Colossians reveals that God wants Christ and Christ alone. In this Epistle, Paul points out that God does not want anything of man’s culture. God does not care for philosophy, religion, ordinances, observances, or any kind of ism. God wants only the wonderful, preeminent, all-inclusive Christ, the One who is all in all. Although Christ is all-inclusive, He dwells in us as our life. As the indwelling One, He is waiting for the opportunity to live in us. He is living, real, practical, and available. On the one hand, on the throne He is the Lord of all; on the other hand, He is the life-giving Spirit in us. Both in the Christian life and in the church life, Christ is everything.
If we see this, we shall stop all our doing. In the church life, God does not want us to be doing so much; He simply wants Christ to live in us and grow in us. If I have a vision of Galatians 2:20 — that it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me — I shall never assume that I can do anything. I shall spontaneously cease from all my trying, for I shall realize that I am nothing and nobody and that Christ is everything. As the One who dwells in us to be our life, He is everything to us. He is our holiness, our power, and our wisdom. But He needs to be given the opportunity to be everything in us. If we give Him the ground, He will come in to be everything and to do everything. This is what it means to let Christ live in us.
