We have seen that Eph. 5:25-27 presents Christ in three stages. In the first stage, the stage of the flesh, Christ gave Himself up for the church. In the second stage, He as the life-giving Spirit is sanctifying, cleansing, nourishing, and cherishing the church. Eventually, in the third stage, He will present a glorious church to Himself as His Bride.
We need to consider how Christ will present the church to Himself as a glorious church. When I was young, I thought that Christ was merely in the heavens and that the church was on earth. My concept was that at His coming back from the heavens to the earth, He would suddenly take up the church and present her to Himself. According to this concept, Christ is far away in the heavens, and we on earth are making ourselves ready to be presented to Him. I realized later, however, that this is a natural concept that makes Christ too objective.
God’s economy is altogether different from the natural concept and from religion. In His economy, God is working Christ into us. Eventually, Christ will present the glorious church to Himself not by coming merely in an objective way, but by expanding within us and then by coming out of us.
Romans 8 indicates that God has not only called us and justified us, but that He will also glorify us. Years ago I was taught that one day the Lord would suddenly descend from the heavens and sweep us up into glory. But this concept of glorification is not according to God’s economy. Christ will glorify us not by descending upon us from the heavens, but by coming forth from within us. The hope of glory is not the Christ in the heavens, but the Christ who is in us (Col. 1:27). If we do not take Christ as our life and our person, we shall have no way to enjoy the glory that is within us. We need to say, “Lord Jesus, I take You as my life and my person. Lord, I offer my heart to You. Take my heart, Lord. Possess it, occupy it, and make Your home in it.” If you practice this, spontaneously you will come to know the glory within you.
Many of us were taught that the light of God shines upon us from outside of us. Our experience of the Lord’s shining, however, is different from this. According to our experience, the light shines not from the outside, but from within us. When you take Christ as your life and your person, do not expect the heavens to open and a great light to shine upon you in an outward way. If your experience is like that of so many, the Lord’s shining will be inward, a shining from within. Such a shining is an expression of the inner glory. Our hope of glory is Christ in us. Hence, when God glorifies us, He will not need to send the glory from above; rather, He will cause Christ to shine forth from within us. This indicates that glorification is a subjective experience of the indwelling Christ.
Contrary to the religious concept, our glorification will not be a sudden event. Rather, it will take place gradually as Christ expands within us and saturates us with Himself. Christ glorifies us as He “eats us up” little by little. We all need to be eaten, devoured, swallowed up, by Christ as the glory within us. Within us we have Christ not only as our life and our person, but also as the very glory of God.
We may use the metamorphosis of an ugly caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly as an illustration of glorification. A caterpillar is not instantaneously transformed into a butterfly by a beauty that suddenly descends upon it and envelops it. No, the beauty of the butterfly is contained within the life of the caterpillar. As the law of this life functions within the caterpillar, the caterpillar is gradually transformed into a butterfly. As this process takes place, the beauty of the butterfly swallows up the ugliness of the caterpillar.
In the same principle, Christ is in us to be our hope of glory. As the indwelling glory, He takes every opportunity to expand within us. The inner glory saturates us and even swallows us up. One day our entire being will be saturated with the divine glory. On that day we shall be brought into glory in a full way.
This is completely different from the religious teaching that tells us we must try to behave ourselves until someday when we hope to be suddenly transported into a realm of glory. According to the religious concept, we must try our best to please the Lord. If we are pleasing to Him, one day He will swoop down from heaven and carry us away to glory. What a contrast between this and God’s economy! God’s economy is to dispense Christ into us. As believers, we have Christ in us as our glory. Our need is not to behave ourselves or to endeavor to please God; it is to take care of Christ as the hope of glory and to allow this glory to be our life and person.
What we have within us is not simply life or the Spirit, but Christ Himself as the very glory of God. This Christ will present the church to Himself as a glorious church. However, He will do this not in a religious way, but in the way that is according to God’s economy. This means that He will expand within us and saturate us with Himself until we have been wholly swallowed up by the inner glory. Then He will come forth from within us.
Most Christians expect Christ to come from the heavens. I am very familiar with the verses which speak of this. On the one hand, Christ will come from the heavens. But on the other hand, much to the surprise of many, He will come from within us. Objectively Christ is in the heavens, but subjectively and experientially He is in us. As the One indwelling us, He will come from within us.
Since the day Christ came into us, He has been seeking a way to come out through us. It is easy for Him to get into us, but it is not easy for Him to get out of us. For example, we can easily sow a seed into the soil, but it takes time and it requires a process for this seed to grow out from the soil. Nevertheless, just as the seed eventually grows and comes out from the earth, so Christ eventually will saturate us, swallow us up, and then come out through us.
Most Christians today miss the mark of God’s economy because they are veiled by religious concepts. They simply do not know what God’s economy is. The contrast between religion and God’s economy can be illustrated by the Lord’s human living. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, the temple with all its rituals, practices, and ordinances was still in Jerusalem. In the temple the priests presented the offerings, burned the incense, and lighted the lamps. However, God was not in the temple — He was in the Lord Jesus. Sometimes the Lord stayed in the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary in Bethany. He visited with them and spoke with them in a normal, human way. Nevertheless, while He was in that house in Bethany, the priests continued to perform the rituals in the temple. With the priests in the temple we see the practice of religion, but with the Lord in Bethany we see God’s economy. God’s economy is to work Himself into man. His economy was carried out not in the temple, but in that house in Bethany, for there Christ, the embodiment of the fullness of God, was present. Those who worshipped in the temple were practicing their religion, but Lazarus, Martha, and Mary enjoyed the presence of the Lord Jesus. The local churches today should not be like the temple in Jerusalem, but be like that home in Bethany. This means that the churches should not be places of religion, but be places where God’s economy is being carried out.
Religion teaches that God will bring us into a sphere, a realm, of glory. According to the religious concept, the Lord will instantaneously transport us into this objective glory. Until then we must behave ourselves and seek to order our lives according to the Scriptures. In everything and in every way we must try our best to be scriptural. Then, according to this teaching, we shall be qualified one day to be caught up into the realm of God’s glory.
Contrast this concept with the economy of God. According to God’s economy, the glory has already come into us and is now dwelling within us. This glory is the very Christ who is our life and our person. Christ will present a glorious church to Himself not by suddenly coming down upon the church, but by expanding within the church until the church has been wholly permeated, saturated, and swallowed up with Himself. How different this is from trying to please God in an outward way! Glorification is altogether a matter of Christ’s expanding within us and swallowing us up with Himself. This is God’s economy.
Let us turn from religious teachings and give ourselves absolutely to God’s economy. The Bible reveals that in His economy God is working Christ into us. On the day we repented and believed in the Lord Jesus, Christ came into us as the element of glory. Now He is in the process of presenting a glorious church to Himself by spreading Himself within us. According to Ephesians 3:17, Christ’s expanding within us is actually His making His home in our heart. Christ is saturating us and even “eating us up.” This will go on until He comes out of us. By this process Christ is presenting the church to Himself as a glorious church.
Ephesians 5:27 does not say that Christ will present to Himself a nice church nor even a victorious church, but it says that Christ will have a glorious church. It is possible to be victorious without being glorious. Many books tell us how to be victorious, but I do not know of a book that tells us how to be glorious. Likewise, many messages have been given on the way to have victory. But have you ever heard a message about how to be glorious? Christ wants a glorious church, not merely a victorious one.
Not many of us have the confidence to say that we are glorious. The reason for this is that we realize that we have not given the Lord the full opportunity to saturate us and to come out through us. After receiving the Lord Jesus into us, many of us became distracted or snared by religious teachings. Instead of concentrating on the indwelling Christ, we paid attention to other things. Therefore, in the Lord’s recovery we all must be brought back to the indwelling Christ. From the depths of our being we need to tell the Lord that we want to take Him as our life and our person and give Him the full ground within our being.
If the Lord were only in the heavens, He could not be our life and our person. But Christ is both in the heavens and in us. It is this indwelling One whom we must take as our life and person. When we do this, He makes His home in our heart. He expands in us, saturates us, and gradually swallows us up. Eventually, at the time of His coming back, He will be fully expressed from within us. This is God’s economy in life.
In God’s economy, Christ is even now in the process of presenting the glorious church to Himself. As this process takes place, He is making His home in our heart by becoming our life and our person. In this way, He saturates our inner being with Himself. It is not His intention to correct us, adjust us, or to improve us. His aim is to glorify us. In order to achieve this goal, He is now carrying on the process of glorification within us.
No matter how nice, good, right, or victorious you may be, you are not yet glorious. Christ’s intention is not to obtain a church that is nice, right, or good, but to obtain a church that is altogether glorious. Hence, Christ cares only to glorify us by saturating us with Himself and by swallowing us up. Day by day, He is devouring us and replacing us with the element of what He is. This process transpires in the depths of our being. Oh, how we need to experience such an intimate, personal Christ! Our Christ must not be a Christ in teaching, but be a Christ making His home in our heart, a Christ saturating our being with His element.
A well-known hymn tells us to trust and obey. God’s economy, however, is more than just trusting and obeying; it requires that we be “eaten up” by Christ. Christ wants us to eat Him, and He wants to eat us. Hence, in God’s economy there is a mutual eating. My burden in this message is to point out that Christ’s intention is to “eat us up.” When we have been consumed by Christ in a full way, He will then present the church to Himself as a glorious church.
Do you know why the church today is not very glorious? The reason is that not many have allowed Christ to eat them up. If the church is to become glorious, we need to allow the indwelling Christ to consume every part of our inward being. According to verse 25, Christ gave Himself up for the church. Now He is working within us to saturate us and to come out of us. However, He does not intend to come out of us and leave us aside. On the contrary, He wants to come out of us by saturating us and devouring us. We need to pray, “Lord Jesus, eat me up!” When Christ has finished consuming us inwardly, He will be able to boast to Satan, “Satan, look at My glorious church!”
The goal of God’s economy is to gain a glorious church. God has ordained us unto glory (1 Cor. 2:7). This is not an objective glory, but a glory that is subjective and experiential. Such a glory is actually the very Christ whom we eat and by whom we are being eaten up. Our desperate need today is to eat the Lord and to allow Him to consume us. Only in this way will the church become the glorious church for which Christ is longing.
