'What It Means To Have Christ Living in You'

How do we pass from Pentecost to the place where Christ is living in us? How do we arrive at Paul's level of maturity: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet it is not I who am living but Christ who is living in me?"

We see here that Paul stands in relation to Christ as Christ stands in relation to the Father. Christ lives by the Life of the Father and Paul lives by the Life of Christ. Christ can do nothing of Himself apart from the Father. Paul can do nothing of Himself apart from Christ.

This is the state of being to which every member of the Body of Christ is called. But how do we get here?

There are two aspects of "Christ in you." The first aspect is the transformation of our personality as every particle is brought down to death and then raised again in Christ. The second aspect is the coming of the Father and the Son to dwell in this transformed personality. God will dwell only in Christ, and only in us to the extent Christ has been formed in us.

Does this make sense to you?

Let's think for a moment about the first aspect—the forming of Christ in us. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, (Galatians 4:19—NIV)

The problem is that of our will. We can make little progress in having Christ formed in us until we count that we have been crucified with Christ and resurrected with Christ.

We must turn over our life to Jesus, not just as a doctrinal stance but in actuality. We must give up our life that Christ may become our life. Once we make the determination that our first personality is to be assigned to the cross and our new born-again personality is to be in Christ at the right hand of God, the Spirit of God then brings us through situation after situation in which our adamic nature can be brought down to death.

We say "can" be brought down to death because we have a choice as we come to each point of death. We can blame others for our discomfort. We can cling to our life, our hope of joy. We can save our life. If we do this our self-will remains intact and Christ is not formed in us. In so doing we forfeit all hope of appearing with Christ, for those who appear with Him and work with Him in the establishing of the Kingdom of God on the earth are those whose life He is.

"When Christ who is our life shall appear . . . ."

You know, the most dangerous of all spiritual places to find yourself in is to have trusted in the blood atonement for the forgiveness of your sin, to have spoken in tongues and perhaps prophesied, to have been saved and to have experienced the Life of the Spirit of God, and then to cling stubbornly to some desire, some hope, some ambition, some plan of your own.

Why is this such a dangerous condition?

It is dangerous because Satan, who also wants the joy that attends the Presence of God, preserves his own will. This is the most distinguishing characteristic of Satan—he exerts a will other than the will of Christ.

When he enters the assembly to enjoy the spiritual activity he notices that you are holding on to your own way even though you profess faith in Christ and speak in tongues. Satan has access to your personality through your self-will. The first thing he will do in you is to point out the faults of the saints. You will find yourself hopelessly bound with a spirit of gossip and slander. You will become a member of the synagogue of Satan, the synagogue of the accuser of the brothers.

Every time God moves forward in the Divine plan the religious people who are full of self-will cry, "This is the work of the devil."

Why do they do this? It is because their insistence on running their life the way they want to provides an open door for the accuser of the brothers.

The Pentecostal-Charismatic movement is at this very fork in the road. The believers who attempt to use their gifts to save the world, not hearing from the Lord but going by what they perceive to be the need, will become the False Prophet mentioned in the Book of Revelation.

The believers who turn to Christ and wait to hear what He is saying, who will set out to meet the needs of people only as He directs, will become an object of accusation and slander. The believers who are active in their own religious works will come against the remnant of people who choose to put their own life on the cross with Jesus.

Every time you come to the end of yourself because of trouble, pain, or danger, you have a wonderful opportunity to call on Jesus that His Life, His body and blood, might lift you up. Every time you die in this way and come to life in Jesus you are eternally changed.

Like Paul you are living by His resurrection and sharing His sufferings. You are counting every aspect of your adamic life as loss for Christ, as so much garbage, that you may become a new creation in which all the old has passed away and all the new is of God through Jesus Christ.

Does such a transformation, such an exchange of your life for His, interest you? Then tell God right now this is how you desire the rest of your life to be conducted.

We stated that there are two aspects of "Christ in you." The first aspect we have just discussed. It is the transformation of what we are, a change from an adamic soul to a life-giving spirit. Christ is formed in us and He is the Tree of Life. As we mature in Him we also become trees of life so other people can partake of Divine Life through us.

The second aspect of "Christ in you" is the coming of the Persons of the Father and the Son to dwell in our transformed personality. Christ is coming to dwell in Christ, so to speak.

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 14:23—NIV)

When this fullness of God comes to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit we have become a tree of life. We have become a representative part of the very Throne of God. It is to this end we have been destined.

Now that the Morning Star, the herald of the Day of the Lord, has risen in our personality, we are qualified and competent to return with the Lord Jesus and help establish the Kingdom of God on the earth. The Lord Jesus gives us the authority to govern the nations, and then He gives us the Morning Star, Christ in us, so we will not be ruling over people in our adamic nature. This would be terrible for them and for us!

Please notice the condition for the coming of the Father and the Son to dwell in our personality: "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching." This is the condition, that we obey the teaching of Christ and His Apostles. In fact, teaching people to obey the commandments of Christ and His Apostles is the main point of the Great Commission!

Now, this is where Satan has attacked the Christian churches. Satan has provided us with "another gospel," a gospel that claims we do not have to obey the teachings of Christ and His Apostles because we are "saved by grace."

The teaching that salvation is solely by forgiveness and it is not critical that we keep the commandments of Christ is antinomianism, a form of an ancient philosophy called Gnosticism.

The Christian teaching of our day, which is worldwide, is that we do not have to keep the commandments of Christ to be saved. We go to Heaven "by grace." This is not scriptural. It is utterly destructive of God's intention to build a house, a place of rest for Himself.

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 14:23—NIV)

The condition on which the Father and the Son will make their eternal abode in us (their "mansion" in us—same Greek term as in John 14:2) is that we obey the commandments given by Christ and His Apostles. God and Christ will never make Their abode with us, Their "mansion" with us, unless we obey Christ.

Now we can understand why Satan has issued the false doctrine of "grace." Satan knows that until we begin to obey the commandments of Christ and His Apostles, of which there are hundreds in the New Testament, his kingdom is in no danger.

There appears to be little understanding in Christian circles of how deadly, how destructive the teaching of lawless grace is. The moral character of the churches in America has been destroyed by this doctrine. The moral cesspool into which our government has fallen reflects the doctrine of lawless grace taught in the churches.

Lawless grace, the doctrine that to be saved we need only make a profession of faith in Christ without a transformation of our personality, must be driven from the churches immediately. If it is not, our nation will be visited with terrible judgments! God has given His Son to speak to us but we are not hearing Him. We have invented a "dispensation of grace" by means of which we hope to go to Heaven by doctrinal belief. There is no new creation in it. There is no house of God, no resting place for God in it.

Let us not imagine for one moment that an individual can profess faith in Jesus Christ and this mental assent to theological truth makes the person suitable as a house for God; as a resting place for God. How could it? Nothing has taken place in the personality. Christ has not been formed. The personality still is characterized by worldliness, lust, and self-will. Is such an untransformed believer, an individual who has never taken up his cross, qualified and competent to be the eternal dwelling place of God? This is absurd! Sometimes I think our present doctrine of lawless grace is schizophrenic—split off from reality.

The Christian teaching of today is unscriptural, and moral chaos has resulted. It is not too late for us to change, but perhaps soon it will be too late!

Back to The Mystery of the Gospel