Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:19-20; 2:10; 3:8; 4:13-15; 5:29-30, 32
We have seen that God’s economy is Christ with the church and that the word economy denotes a dispensation. God’s intention is to dispense Himself into His chosen people. To be saved is not merely to have our sins forgiven, to be justified, and to be made ready for heaven. To be saved is for God to begin dispensing Himself into us.
God’s dispensation is altogether related to Christ. According to the natural concept, we think that after salvation we need to improve our behavior, seek power, or carry on a fruitful work for the Lord. Some Christians believe that they need to pursue such gifts as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing. Others feel that the most important thing for a saved one is to gain the proper knowledge of the Bible. However, if we view salvation from the perspective of God’s economy, we shall see the Christian life in a different way.
The New Testament does speak of proper conduct, power, gifts, and knowledge. Nevertheless, the crucial point is how much of Christ has been wrought into us. God is seeking to work Christ into us. We all need to be enlightened to see what God is doing today. God’s intention is not to improve us. Whatever we are in ourselves means nothing to God. What matters to Him is that Christ is wrought into us.
In 1:19 and 20 Paul speaks of the “surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” This power was wrought in Christ when God raised Him from among the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies. Today God’s main activity is to work this Christ into us.
Suppose one day you are unpleasant with another brother or sister. Surely you would repent and ask the Lord to forgive you for your poor attitude. You may even pray that the Lord will make you better. Even if you do not make this request specifically, deep within this is your feeling as you pray about your failure. This kind of prayer is religious. You may have read the book Christ versus Religion, but you are still very religious in your daily practice. If you see God’s economy, you will pray like this, “Lord, the Devil within me caused me to behave in that way. But, Lord, even if my behavior had been good, it still would not have been You living within me. Lord, You do not want me to be good — You want to live in me. Lord, in one sense, I do repent and ask You to forgive me. But I also put the blame on Satan and command him to get away from me. Lord, I will not try to be better. I just need You to live in me.”
Galatians 2:20 says that we have been crucified with Christ and that Christ now lives within us. We may have some knowledge of this verse and declare, “It is no longer I, but Christ.” However, in our daily living it is no longer Christ, but I. To recite Galatians 2:20 is one thing, but to live out Christ in a practical way is another.
Suppose you are very kind to the brothers and sisters. You may not sense any need to repent or ask the Lord to forgive you. Nevertheless, according to God’s evaluation, it makes little difference whether you are kind or unkind toward others as long as you are the one living and not Christ. Whether our behavior is good or bad, we still do not live out Christ. God’s economy is focused on Christ. His economy is not a matter of ethics, morality, or good character. In His economy God desires to work Christ into us. In our relationships with the brothers and sisters in the church, we need to live out Christ.
Some books have been written about Christ as life. However, it is difficult to find a group of Christians who genuinely live by Christ. God’s intention is not to improve us; it is to work the living Christ into us, into our mind, emotion, and will. God’s desire is to replace us with Christ. He wants to see that Christ is being lived out of the brothers and sisters in the churches. Oh, may the Father of glory give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may be enlightened to know what God is seeking to accomplish today. I repeat, God is not seeking to improve us — He is endeavoring to work Christ into us.
The Christ God is seeking to work into us is the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ. Satan put Christ on the cross. But God raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies. Now God intends to work this crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ into us. There is a great difference between ethics, conduct, and behavior, on the one hand, and such a Christ wrought into our being, on the other.
Throughout the centuries, Christians have argued about doctrines and practices. For example, there has been much disputation about baptism, head covering, foot-washing, and about loudness or quietness in Christian meetings. In Galatians 6:15 Paul says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Gk.). Forms and regulations do not avail anything, because they are not Christ. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is the new creation that is in Christ Jesus. The new creation that Paul refers to is Christ wrought into our being. When Christ is wrought into us, a new creation takes place within us. Furthermore, this new creation is not merely an individual matter; it is a corporate matter involving the corporate entity of the new man, the Body of Christ.
God’s concern is not foot-washing, the length of our hair, or how many times we have been baptized. God cares about how much of Christ has been wrought into us. God is not concerned whether or not we are humble or proud, crude or gentle. He cares only that Christ is wrought into our being. Again and again I wish to proclaim that God cares only for Christ. Morality, ethics, forms, and regulations cannot produce a church that matches Christ. Only Christ Himself wrought into us can produce a church to match Himself.
The church is the Body of Christ. Only what comes out of Christ can be part of the Body of Christ. This means that mere gifts, teachings, and power cannot produce the Body. Nothing other than Christ wrought into the saints can produce the Body of Christ. Our eyes need to be enlightened to see this vision. In Ephesians 1 Paul prayed in a specific way, asking that our inner eyes be enlightened so that we may see that God’s intention is to work Christ into us. God does not desire to adjust us or to improve us. His intention is to work Christ into us.
In a very real sense, we need to repent more of our goodness than of our evil. When you are good to your wife in a natural way, you need to repent and say, “Lord, forgive me. This is not Christ. In myself I may be good, but I am not living by Christ. Lord, I am good in a natural way, but I do not give You the opportunity to live out of me.” We all are full of regret when we do things that are bad, but we may not realize that we need to be even more repentant when we do good things apart from Christ.
In 2:10 Paul says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God before prepared that we should walk in them.” We should not think that we are able to work for God or to do God’s work. We are God’s workmanship. This indicates that God does not expect us to work for Him. On the contrary, He is seeking the opportunity to work upon us. If we consider our situation, we shall realize how much work remains to be done on us. God does not need us to work for Him. Rather, He will work on us until we become His masterpiece. We, the church, are the masterpiece of God’s work, expressing God’s infinite wisdom and divine design. The reason we are God’s masterpiece is that Christ is being wrought into us. We can boast to God’s creation that we have Christ in us. The more Christ is wrought into us, the more we become part of God’s workmanship, God’s masterpiece.
In 1934 I met a certain brother in Shanghai. Before I met him, I heard many good things about him. At that time, I was not able to discern between Christ and good behavior. Eventually, through the help of Brother Nee, I realized that although this particular brother was good, not much of Christ was lived out of him. We all need to learn the difference between natural goodness and Christ. A person may be good in certain aspects, but these good things may have nothing to do with Christ. Our desire should not be to become a good brother or sister; we should desire to become a “Christ” brother or a “Christ” sister. If we would be God’s masterpiece, Christ must be wrought into us. This should be not only a revelation, but also a revolution that takes place within our being. Oh, may we all see clearly that God does not desire us to be good Christians, but to be “Christ” Christians, those who have Christ wrought into them and lived out of them.
In 3:8 Paul says that he preached the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel. What Paul preached was not doctrine, gifts, knowledge, or power. He preached the riches of Christ. This means that Paul ministered these riches to others. The unsearchable riches of Christ include all the aspects of what Christ is to us. In a gradual way, Christ’s riches need to be wrought into us. For example, we are not the ones who should be patient, kind, gentle, or loving. Rather, Christ must be wrought into us to be our patience, kindness, gentleness, and love. This means that we need to participate in the riches of Christ and to have these riches daily, even hourly, wrought into us in a specific way. In our daily experience we should be able to itemize Christ’s riches. Christ must become our patience, our love, our everything.
Christ must be wrought into our being to such an extent that He makes His home in our hearts (3:17). I am concerned that for many of us the matter of Christ making His home in our hearts is simply a doctrine. Is Christ actually making His home in your heart? Who is presently at home in your heart — you or Christ? If you are honest, you will have to say that, for the most part, your heart is your home, not Christ’s home. You are the one living there, not Christ. We may hear a message about Christ making His home in us and shout that our heart is Christ’s home. But there may be no reality to support what we proclaim. In order for Christ to make His home in our heart, we need to take Him both as our person and as our life. In such a case, we shall be able to testify that the person living in our heart is no longer the self, but Christ.
The crucial issue is not whether we are humble or proud, weak or powerful, gifted or not gifted. The question concerns who is living in our heart. Who is the person taking up residence in your heart? You may be unusually gifted, but your heart may not yet be Christ’s home. Rather, it may be the home of the self, as long as you are still the person living in your heart.
Today’s Christianity is a religion of behavior, doctrine, work, power, gifts, and knowledge. However, it is virtually devoid of the reality of Christ. Most Christians are veiled by natural and religious concepts. This is the reason that we need a heavenly vision to know what is in God’s heart and to see what He planned in eternity.
God desires to have a people who care only for Christ. He wants a people who are not occupied with knowledge, work, behavior, or power, but who simply care for Christ in a very practical way. The experience of the riches of Christ and the reality of Christ making His home in our hearts should not be mere doctrines. They must be the reality of our daily Christian experience.
In the past, quite often husbands and wives have come to me with problems. Usually the husband would accuse the wife, and then the wife would accuse the husband. Then they would say, “Since you are a servant of the Lord and have spiritual understanding, you can discern who is right and render a fair judgment.” My practice was not to judge according to right and wrong. Instead, I would ask them whether or not Christ was making His home in their hearts. I would then go on to ask if Christ was living in them while they were accusing each other. Usually, they had nothing further to say, and eventually the word went out not to bring such problems to me.
Sometimes people come to me with the intention to argue about doctrine. But instead of answering them in a doctrinal way, I ask them to what extent Christ is making His home in their heart. What good does it do to be right in doctrine if we do not have Christ living in us? The Pharisees were apparently correct as far as doctrine was concerned. However, the Lord Jesus still rebuked them because they did not have any reality.
In a very practical way, our hearts need to become Christ’s home. He must be able to live in us and to settle down in us. He, not the self, must be the One who occupies our hearts. This is our need today.
Apart from this, it does not matter very much whether husbands love their wives or wives submit to their husbands. In the book of Ephesians the matter of Christ making His home in our hearts is more strategic than love for wives or submission to husbands. However, I am fully assured that if a brother allows Christ to make His home in his heart, he will certainly love his wife in a proper way. Moreover, if a wife allows Christ to dwell in her heart, she will no doubt be submissive to her husband.
What we need more than anything else is for Christ to make His home in our hearts. The Lord’s recovery is not a matter of doctrine, biblical interpretation, or conduct. Furthermore, it is not a matter of knowledge, gifts, power, or work. In contrast to all this, the Lord’s recovery is altogether a matter of Christ wrought into us and making His home in our hearts.
In 4:13 Paul says that we all need to arrive “at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” We need to become not only a perfect man, complete man, or whole man, but a full-grown man, one who has the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The fullness of Christ is the Body of Christ (1:23), which has the stature with the measure.
In 4:15 Paul goes on to say that we need to hold to truth in love so that we may grow up into Christ in all things. To grow up into Christ in all things is to have Christ increase in us in all things until we attain to a full-grown man.
In 5:30 Paul says that we are members of Christ’s Body. This indicates that we are members of Christ, parts of Christ. According to our natural constitution, we cannot be members of Christ’s Body. Christ Himself is the element, the factor, that makes us part of Him. Hence, in order to be parts of Christ as members of His Body, we must have Christ wrought into our very being.
In 5:32 Paul says that the great mystery is Christ and the church. In the Lord’s recovery we should devote our attention to the matter of Christ being wrought into us to make us a proper church for the expression of Christ. This is God’s economy.
