4. Christ in Us
CHAPTER 4
Christ in Us
I will remain in you. (John 15:4)
We pass now to the second thought, “Christ in us.” We look up to heaven and see Him there surrounded by all His retinue, endued with all His infinite resources and enthroned above all power and dominion.. Yes, that is all mine; but there is something better. Having seen all the riches of the throne, we may bring Him down here and have Him erect that throne in our heart and make our heart a very heaven.
Christ in Heaven
If you read the epistle to the Ephesians you will see that in the first chapter the apostle prays that their eyes may look up into heaven and see what He has. Put the glass to your eye; behold that cloud. See how He ascends; He is above the grave; He is above the fetters of the tomb; He is above the forces of death and hell; He is above the forces of nature; He is above the ranks of angels; He is above all the things that could harm or hurt you. And so you follow Him with the glass of faith, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named until at last, dazed with the ineffable glory, you pause overwhelmed.
Christ in the Heart
That is one vision. But if you read further you will see another vision. He has prayed that we might see Christ in heaven. But now he prays that we “may be strengthened with might in the inner man,” for something higher and grander. “What is it, Paul? Can there be anything grander?” Oh, yes, there is and it is this, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19). That is the other heaven, that is the heaven brought down and put into your heart. The first thought is Christ up there. This is Christ descending out of heaven like the New Jerusalem and making His dwelling in your inmost being.
Christ Formed in Us
That was Paul’s cry in Galatians 4:19 for his spiritual children in Galatia. “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” That is his prayer for those who are already Christians. “My dear children,” you are regenerated; but I am travailing in birth until there shall be something more, even the very person of Christ, born in you! That is more than your being newborn. It is Christ Himself born in the newborn soul. That precious golden casket placed in the believer’s breast will open and in it will come another treasure, brighter than the golden casket: the jewel of Christ’s own living presence in his heart of hearts.
“My little children, born you have been, but you want a greater One to come and dwell in you; and I travail in birth, until Christ be formed in you.” This is not a character to be formed but a Person coming to live in us, becoming so one with us that the government shall be on His shoulder, and we shall sing in the empire of the heart, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:6-7).
It is the child Christ born in the heart, so that it becomes not only a converted life but a Christ life, a divine life. It is not a Christian battling and struggling alone but a Christian taking into his bosom the Lord to fight his battles, just becoming a temple for God’s indwelling; so that the Infinite One can say, “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people” (2 Corinthians 6:16b). It is not, “They shall be my people, and I will be their God,” but it is God who is first: He will be their God and they shall be His people.
Christ’s Teachings
The truth of His indwelling is found in all Christ’s deeper teachings. He did not venture to give it in the beginning because His disciples were not ready. He referred to it in the sixth chapter of John and they were offended when He said: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (6:51). They said: “We cannot understand Him,” “This is a hard teaching,” and went away and walked with Him no more. They thought it transcendental and sentimental.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of John He unfolds this truth once more. He says: “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.… “Jesus replied, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’” (John 14:21, 23). And again, in the fifteenth chapter: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. … If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you” (15:5, 7). And again He says: “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (14:26). In the seventeenth chapter of John He says: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one” (17:11). And He adds: “[T]hat the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (17:26b).
This was the last prayer Christ ever offered for His people: “That I myself may be in them.” That seventeenth chapter of John was the highest utterance of Christ in this world and these last words are most precious of all. Oh, if we want His prayer fulfilled, we must enter into the meaning of this message and never stop short of its actual experience.
The Epistles
Again and again throughout the latter epistles we find this same truth repeated. In Colossians the apostle speaks of “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints” (1:26). He seems almost afraid to state it. Like someone about to tell good news he hesitates; it is so overwhelming. That mystery hidden for ages past is now to be manifested to those who believe. This truth is like the white stone with the name upon it “known only to him who receives it” (Revelation 2:17b). Paul has at last been permitted to give the bride this signet ring. This is the secret: “Christ in you the hope of glory” (1:27). Have you received it? Has it been opened to you? It is the sapphire jewel that will outflash the glories of the New Jerusalem.
Paul testifies in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” That is the way Paul obtained it—by dying to his own life and taking Christ instead.
The Lord came to the isle of Patmos and gave John this message: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will go in and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). It was written to the Church of Laodicea—the people that called themselves the Church of God but whose hearts were closed; self was on the throne. “I am rich,” they said; “I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing” (Revelation 3:17). Outside stood the pleading form of Jesus, His locks wet with the dew of the morning. Christ Himself was knocking and waiting and saying: “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come and eat with him, and he with me.” Oh, is it not a pathetic picture, a shameful picture! This message was addressed to the last of the seven Churches, the closing representative of modern Christianity; the Church of today. He was outside the door and the church inside, satisfied to have Him there. And He is saying: “But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked”; while they said, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.”
Christ’s Own Dependence
Christ said in the fifth chapter of John that He had no independent life of His own but was constantly dependent on His Father for every word and act. The Christ life is the very life that Christ lived on this earth. Is it not strange to hear Him say, with all His resources, “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear…” (5:30). Jesus, who walked this earth as our Example, never tried to be independent, but He constantly received His Father’s life; drew His being from His Father and lived by Him. “Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me” (6:57).
So He wants you and me to live by Him. He is just repeating the life He lived when He trod the hills of Galilee: utterly dependent, an empty vessel, receiving all from above. So, now, He requires you and me to be empty vessels, receiving all from Him. “In that day”—“When the spirit of Truth is come”—will He bring something that will make you important, something that will make you so pure that you will sit down and look at your holiness? Not a bit of it. This is what happens when the Holy Spirit comes into the heart: “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father” (14:20). You shall understand how I have been linked with Father and dependent on Him for My very life. And you shall learn thus to depend upon Me. “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (14:20). You will not know that you are holy and strong; but you will know that I am holy and strong and in you as your purity and strength.
He represents this union by the double figure of a glorious sunrise and a home scene. First, “I will manifest myself” (14:21, KJV). This is a Greek word meaning to shine forth, conveying the same idea as Isaiah when he says: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you” (60:1). This is what Jesus means when He says: “I will manifest myself to him.” How it suggests the closing promise of the Old Testament: “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings …” (Malachi 4:2a).
The other figure is that of the home. “[W]e will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23b). He will make our spirits His dwelling place. The once sad and sinful heart now indwelt by Christ shall become the palace of a king, where the believer shall dwell under the shadow of His presence and in the joy of His fellowship.
Christ never is so distant from us
As even to be near,
He dwells within the yielded spirit,
And makes our heaven here.