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Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 15:45b; John 14:16-20, 26; 12:24b; 1 Pet. 1:3; 2 Cor. 5:17
In the foregoing messages we have covered both the objective and the subjective aspects of the Man-Savior’s resurrection. Concerning the subjective aspect, we have seen that Christ’s resurrection was His transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit to enter into His believers, His germination of the new creation to impart the divine life into His believers for their regeneration, and His propagation to produce the church as His reproduction. This message is the conclusion to the series of messages on the subjective aspect of Christ’s resurrection. The concluding point is that the Man-Savior’s resurrection issues in His living within us. The result of the Man-Savior’s transfiguration, germination, and propagation is that He lives in His believers.
Through resurrection the Man-Savior was transfigured into the life-giving Spirit. Then He entered into us to germinate us, the old creation, so that we might become the new creation. This term “the new creation” is used by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “So that if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, they have become new.” The old creation includes the heavens, the earth, billions of items, and mankind. But the new creation includes only the chosen and redeemed people of God. God’s people once were the old creation. But when Christ as the life-giving Spirit entered into us, we were germinated with the Triune God to become the new creation.
This germination depends on a “germ” and the germ with which the resurrected Christ has germinated us is the Triune God. Although this term may not sound pleasant to your ears, it is nevertheless the truth that the Triune God is the germ with which the pneumatic Christ has germinated us. Hallelujah, we all have been germinated with the “divine germ!” It is a fact that, as those who have been germinated with the Triune God, we have this divine germ within us. Because we have been germinated through the Man-Savior’s resurrection, we have been regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3).
The Man-Savior’s germination of the new creation is His propagation, His multiplication. In the Gospels we have the one Christ, the unique Christ. But in John 20, after the breathing of the life-giving Spirit as the breath into the disciples, there were at least one hundred twenty-one “Christs.” According to chapter one of Acts, these one hundred twenty-one — the one hundred twenty disciples plus the Lord Jesus — had a long prayer meeting lasting ten days. In Acts 1 one hundred twenty-one Christs met together to pray. Then on the day of Pentecost, another three thousand were germinated. The one Christ first became one hundred twenty-one Christs, and then three thousand one hundred twenty-one Christs. This germination is actually the reproduction of the pneumatic Christ in His resurrection.
On the day of Pentecost Christ was living within three thousand one hundred twenty of His members. The Christ who was living in them was the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the life-giving Spirit. This pneumatic Christ is the very Christ in resurrection.
Here we should speak not of the resurrected Christ but of the Christ in resurrection. Christ Himself is resurrection, and the reality of resurrection is the life-giving Spirit. Actually, the life-giving Spirit is the resurrection. Christ in resurrection is the resurrection itself, and this resurrection is the life-giving Spirit.
The life-giving Spirit is the reality of resurrection. If you are not in the life-giving Spirit, you are not in resurrection. But if you are in the life-giving Spirit, you are in resurrection.
John 14:16-20 reveals that the Christ in resurrection now lives in us. In verses 16 and 17 the Lord Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever; even the Spirit of reality, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and shall be in you.” According to verse 16, the Lord Jesus will ask the Father to give the disciples another Comforter. The Son was the first Comforter. Therefore, the first Comforter asked the Father to send another Comforter, the Spirit of reality, who will be in us. Then in verse 18 the Lord goes on to say, “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.” When taken together with verse 17, this indicates “He” who is the Spirit of reality in verse 17 becomes the “I” who is the Lord Himself in verse 18. This indicates that after His resurrection the Lord became the Spirit of reality. Then, referring to the day of His resurrection, the Lord says in John 14:20, “In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” Here the Lord clearly says “I in you,” revealing that He Himself will be in us.
As the Lord lives in us, He does not cease to be in the Father. On the one hand, in John 14:20 He says, “I am in My Father;” on the other hand, He says, “I in you.” The Lord certainly is not saying, “When I come into you, I shall cease to be in the Father.” On the contrary, here the Lord seems to be saying, “When I come into you, I shall come into you with the Father. Not only am I in the Father, but the Father also is in Me. Therefore, when I am in you, the Father who is in Me is also in you.”
This understanding of verse 20 is proved by the Lord’s word in verse 23: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” Here the Father and the Son making an abode with us is equal to the phrase “I in you” in verse 20. Who is in us? The “I” who is in us is not only the Son, but the Son with the Father. But what about the Spirit? In John 14:26 the Lord Jesus speaks of “the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name.” The Son came in the Father’s name (John 5:43) because the Son and the Father are one (John 10:30). Now we see that the Spirit is sent in the Son’s name because the Spirit and the Son also are one (2 Cor. 3:17). This is the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — reaching us as the Spirit. Hence, when the Spirit comes, the Son and the Father also come.
When we put these verses together, we see that the One who is within us is not simple. No doubt, this One is the Son, but this is the Son in whom the Father is, and also the Son who is coming with the Spirit. Therefore, eventually we see that “I” in John 14:20 is the Triune God.
In John 14:19 the Lord Jesus says, “Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you shall live also.” If the Lord had remained in the tomb, He would not have lived, and the disciples would not have seen Him again. But this verse indicates that because He lives we shall see Him. He said that He would rise up and live and that we also shall live. What does this mean? In order to understand this verse, we need to study the entire New Testament. The Lord’s word, “You behold Me; because I live, you shall live also,” means, “I shall live in you to make you live.” Here the Lord Jesus is telling us that after His resurrection He would live in us.
At this point let me ask you a question: have you seen the Lord Jesus? Some might answer this question by saying that they have seen the Lord Jesus in the saints, the believers. One who answers the question in this way does not have the proper understanding of John 14:19. The Lord does not say in this verse, “You behold Me because you see Me in other believers.” Rather, the Lord’s word indicates that we see Him because He lives in us. We live because He lives. This means that we live because He lives in us to make us live.
In answer to the question concerning whether we have seen the Lord, we should say, “I have seen the Lord because He lives in me.” For example, a brother sees his wife because she lives with him. But the One we now see not only lives with us — He lives in us. Every moment He lives in us. Because He lives in us, we may see Him.
The chorus of the well-known hymn, “He lives,” goes like this:
He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.He lives, He lives, salvation to impart!You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.
This is a good hymn, and I appreciate it. The chorus says that we know Christ lives because He walks with us and talks with us. However, this is not as good as saying that we know Christ lives because He lives within our heart. In answer to the question, “How do you know Christ lives?” the chorus of this hymn answers, “He lives within my heart!” We know that the Lord lives not simply because He walks with us and talks with us, but because He lives in us.
How do you know Christ lives? You should answer this question by saying, “I know He lives because He lives in me” Likewise, if we are asked if we have seen the Lord Jesus, we should say, “Yes, I have seen the Lord, for He lives in me. Even while you are asking me this question, He lives in me. Because He lives in me, I see Him. Even now as I am speaking, I can see Him. While I am speaking to you, He is speaking to me. I am simply a transmitter speaking whatever He speaks to me.”
The Lord’s word, “Because I live, you shall live also,” certainly was fully fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. When Peter stood up with the eleven, that was Christ in resurrection. Peter’s speaking was also Christ in resurrection. If someone had asked Peter where Christ is, he might have said, “Christ is here. Don’t you see me? If you see me, you see Christ because He lives in me.”
Regarding our experience of Christ in resurrection, we may use the term “the pneumatic Christ.” Although we do not like to speak of the spiritual Christ, we like the expression “the pneumatic Christ.” This expression indicates that Christ is the Spirit who gives life. The pneumatic Christ is actually the life-giving Spirit Himself, not in a doctrinal way but in an experiential way. Throughout the centuries, a number of Christian teachers have said that in our experience Christ is identical to the Spirit. Doctrinally this is difficult to explain; however, experientially we know that Christ is the Spirit living in us.
According to the New Testament, both Christ and the Spirit live in us. Do we, then, have two living in us or one? The best answer to this question is to say that the One who lives in us is the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the life-giving Spirit.
Christians often say, “Our Christ is living; we have a living Christ.” But many believers do not realize that this living Christ is the Christ in resurrection and the Christ who is resurrection. In John 11:25 the Lord Jesus said, “I am the resurrection.” Here we see that Christ Himself is resurrection. The very Christ who is now in resurrection is the resurrection itself.
The New Testament charges us to walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25). To walk by the Spirit simply means to walk in resurrection. In order to experience this, we need to deny ourselves so that Christ may live in us. If we die, Christ lives. Christ lives in us by our dying.
Now that Christ lives within us, we are intimately involved with Him. We may say that He and the believer become one “seed.” You are the shell, and He is the life within the shell. The shell needs to die so that the life within it may live. Therefore, when we die, Christ lives. We die to live Him, and He lives by our dying.
This word about Christ’s living in us as a result of our dying may be called a “heavenly logic” or a “spiritual philosophy.” This kind of philosophy is much better than any natural, human philosophy. Our philosophy is that we die so that Christ may live in us. According to this heavenly logic, Christ lives through our dying.
Christ living in us through our dying is a matter of resurrection. Paul says, “To know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Phil. 3:10). We cannot know Christ without knowing the power of His resurrection, because the very Christ we live today is resurrection. Resurrection is the pneumatic Christ who is the life-giving Spirit.
More than forty years ago, Brother Nee told us that the reality of resurrection is the Spirit. Although he did not explain much what it means to say that the Spirit is the reality of resurrection, I was deeply impressed by his word. I was also troubled by it and said to myself, “How can we say that the Spirit is the reality of resurrection?” After years of study and experience, I can testify that resurrection, the pneumatic Christ, and the life-giving Spirit are one. This Christ is the resurrection, and this resurrection is the life-giving Spirit.
Because the Spirit is the reality of resurrection, we need to walk according to the Spirit. When we walk according to the Spirit, we walk in resurrection. When we walk by the life-giving Spirit, we walk with the living Christ, and this living Christ is the Christ in resurrection.
