Scripture Reading: Josh. 1:2-6; Phil. 3:8, 12; Rev. 2:7b; Josh. 5:12; Phil. 1:21; Eph. 1:11, 18
According to the divine revelation in the Scriptures, we need to take possession of the good land for Christ so that Christ can make us His possession. Our taking possession of the God-promised good land is for Christ, and Christ’s making us His possession is for us. What does it mean to say that we possess the good land for Christ and that He, for our sake, makes us His possession? My burden in this message is to try to make these two puzzling matters clear.
In the first message of this life-study, we pointed out that to take possession of the God-promised land for Christ and to provide the proper persons to bring forth Christ into the human race are the two major points of the section of the history in the Old Testament in the three books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. These two main points — to take the land for Christ and to provide the bona fide ancestors for Christ — are the spirit of the history from Joshua to Ruth. Since the God-promised land is a type of Christ, to gain the land for Christ means to gain Christ for Christ.
In Genesis God promised Abraham that He would give the good land to Abraham’s descendants. More than four hundred years later, God sent Moses to deliver Israel out of Egypt, telling him that He was sending him to bring the people into the good land. It was a fact that God had given the land to Israel, but this fact was not yet practical. Rather, it was a promise that still needed to be fulfilled. Not even at the time when Israel came to the plains of Moab under the leadership of Joshua was the giving of the good land to Israel a practical fact, for the land had not yet become Israel’s possession. Only after Israel had gained the good land and had taken possession of it did the land actually become theirs as a practical fact.
The good land had been promised to Israel, and the situation was ready for the land to be given to Israel in actuality. God, the Giver, had done everything, but there was still the need for Israel, the receiver, to do something to take possession of what God had given.
The principle is the same with the preaching of the gospel today. God’s salvation has been promised, prepared, and completed in Christ and with Christ. Everything is ready for this salvation to be given to sinners. God wants to give salvation to sinners, but they need to respond to Him by receiving His gift of salvation. To respond to God by receiving His salvation is to do something helpful for God. Actually, to receive God’s salvation is to do God a favor. If you know the heart of God, you will realize that whenever a sinner repents and receives Christ, that sinner is doing God a favor.
At the beginning of the book of Joshua, Israel was ready to go forward, to take the good land, to possess it, and to enjoy it. For Israel to do this meant that they were doing something for Christ, who is typified by the good land. Otherwise, the good land would have lain there idle. Today, Christ as the good land is ready to be taken and possessed by His believers. However, where are those who are ready to take Him, possess Him, and enjoy Him as the all-inclusive good land? Many sinners are not willing to respond to Christ, and even many of His believers are not willing to respond to Him by taking Him, possessing Him, and enjoying Him.
In light of this, let us now consider what it means to gain Christ for Christ. Christ today is the good land given to us by God in a very rich way. Nevertheless, all the riches of Christ, all that Christ is, remain separate from most Christians. As the One on the throne in the heavens, Christ is strong and powerful, but we are weak. He is rich, but we are poor. Whereas Christ is strong, powerful, and rich, we are weak, impotent, and poor. The reason for this situation is that we have not endeavored to gain Christ. However, when we gain Christ, He becomes our experience. Then Christ becomes in us what He should be. This means that our gaining Christ is not only for our enjoyment but also for Christ to be what He should be.
According to the New Testament revelation, Christ is perfect, complete, rich, and powerful. Furthermore, it is a fact that God has given such a Christ to us. Although He is wonderful, we are pitiful. If we see this, we will realize that there is a need for us to do something that will make Christ real to us and even to the unbelievers so that He will be what He should be. How can Christ be what He should be? Christ can be what He should be only by our gaining Him. If we gain Christ and experience Christ, Christ will become real to us. This is not only for us — it is also for Christ. This is to gain Christ for Christ.
Our need today is to gain more of Christ, to possess more of Christ, and to experience more of Christ. Our gaining, possessing, and experiencing Christ will make Him real to us. This is not only for our enjoyment but also for Christ to be what He should be. At present, the Christ among us is much less than the Christ in the heavens. The Christ among us is different from the Christ in the heavens. This means that among us Christ is not yet what He should be. In order for Christ to be what He should be among us, we need to gain Him. The more we gain Christ, possess Christ, experience Christ, and enjoy Christ, the more He becomes among us what He should be. In this way our gaining of Christ is for Christ. We gain Christ for Christ so that He may have His corporate expression. This is to make the good land the land of Immanuel (Isa. 8:8).
Paul was one who struggled to pursue Christ in order to gain Christ (Phil. 3:8, 12). However, very few of today’s Christians, including us, are like Paul. We may be seeking Christians, but we may pursue Christ only to a certain extent, being content with a routine church life and routine work and service for Christ. Following such a routine does not enable us to endeavor to gain Christ. Because so many Christians do not pursue Christ in order to gain Him, God needs the overcomers.
The Bible shows us that, first, God tried to work with the race of Adam, but the Adamic race was a failure. Then God had a new start with another race, with Israel, the race of Abraham. Eventually, Israel also failed God. Then God went to another people — the church. However, although God has been working with the church for nearly two thousand years, God has not yet gained what He desires. Thus, as early as the first century, the Lord came in to call for overcomers (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 20-21; 21:7), and today He is still sounding out the call for the overcomers. Nevertheless, even among devoted Christians it is hard to find some overcomers, some who are pursuing Christ in order to gain Him.
At the time of Joshua, there were two or three million Israelites, but there were not many Joshuas and Calebs. There were not many endeavoring ones, genuine pursuers of God. Without such ones both the good land and the Giver of the land would have been idle. Both the land and the Giver of the land needed certain ones to take the land, possess the land, and enjoy the land. Those who possessed the land did a favor to the One who gave them the land.
We today need to take and possess the land for Christ. We need to gain Christ for Christ. If we do this, we will do Christ a favor. However, if we go on living a routine Christian life and church life, we will not be able to gain the land for Christ. For this, God needs some overcomers. There are millions of real Christians on earth today, but where are the overcomers? God is calling for overcomers, but who will answer His call? Who will respond to God’s call by pursuing Christ in order to gain Christ? I hope that many among us will do Christ a favor by responding to God’s call for overcomers.
When we enjoy Christ, He makes us His possession. This is something organic. If we take Christ, possess Christ, and enjoy Christ as our all-inclusive good land, the land will become our supply. What the land supplies us will cause us to become organic.
The main thing that the land affords us is food. If we do not have food, we cannot be organic. When we labor on the land, the land will produce food. Then we eat the food that is produced by our labor on the land, and as a result we become organic.
Anything that we take into us as food transforms us organically. When the Israelites were in Egypt, they ate Egyptian food, and this food caused them to have an Egyptian constitution. Eventually, God brought them out of Egypt and into the wilderness, where they remained for forty years. Every day while they were in the wilderness they ate something heavenly — manna. The manna constituted them into a heavenly people. Eventually, the manna ceased. Regarding this, Joshua 5:12 says, “The manna ceased on that day, when they ate of the produce of the land; and there was no longer manna for the children of Israel, but they ate of the yield of the land of Canaan that year.” From that time onward, their constitution began to be different, for they began to be constituted with the produce of the good land. Thus, the children of Israel were constituted in three ways: first, in Egypt with Egyptian food; second, in the wilderness with manna; and third, in Canaan with the produce of the land. In each case they were constituted not by teachings or regulations but by what they ate.
As believers in Christ today, we also are constituted according to what we eat. If we want to be a heavenly people, we need to eat Christ as our heavenly manna. If we want to be overcomers, we need to labor on Christ as our good land. To labor on Christ means to gain Christ as our enjoyment. First, of course, we need to take the land. This requires that we dispossess the “Canaanites.” After possessing Christ as the land, we need to labor on the land. Through our labor something will be produced, and that produce will become our food, our supply. As we eat Christ as this food and enjoy Him, we will be constituted with Him, being made the same as Christ in life and nature. This is what Paul meant when he said, “For to me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21).
This enjoyment of Christ will transform us metabolically and cause us to become Christ’s treasure, His possession. Paul speaks of this in Ephesians 1. In this chapter we first have God’s choosing and predestinating, and then we have Christ’s redeeming. Through the redemption of Christ, we enter into Christ as a particular kind of element, and this element becomes our enjoyment that constitutes us into God’s inheritance.
First, God comes into us to be our inheritance. When we enjoy Christ, He constitutes us to be God’s inheritance. On the one hand, we have Christ as our good land, as our possession. On the other hand, the enjoyment of this possession constitutes us with Christ, and we thereby become God’s inheritance.
The process of being constituted with Christ to become God’s inheritance is altogether organic. This means that we need to take the all-inclusive Christ as our good land and labor on Him to gain some produce, which will be our organic, transforming food. As we eat this food, we will grow and gradually mature in the divine life. We will be constituted with Christ organically, transformed by Christ as a new element. Then in an organic way we will become God’s inheritance, His treasure and possession.
