Live In and By Christ
Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. (John 15:4—NIV)
What does it mean to "remain in Christ," to "abide in Christ"?
When Christ spoke this to His disciples, it was not possible for them to remain in Christ. Christ was a person and they were people—separate individuals. They could not live "in" Jesus.
Since Christ was crucified and rose from the dead, it now is possible for us to live in Christ and Christ to live in us. We can live "in" Jesus.
But what does it mean to live "in" Jesus and Jesus "in" us?
I would submit this does not mean merely that we keep on believing the theological facts pertaining to salvation. I think it means in the spirit realm it is possible for one person to live within the personality of another.
We say we believe Christ lives in our heart. Are we living in Christ’ heart, for it is a two-way street?
In the Book of Revelation Christ says He stands at the door of the human heart and requests admittance.
In the Jewish feast of Tabernacles, the worshiper spends time in a booth made from wood and paper. He is dwelling "in" God, in a figure.
The Father’s House is Jesus Christ Himself and those who are part of Christ. Christ through His death on the cross has made it possible for us to dwell in God through Christ and for Christ to live in us.
Paul claimed that he was no longer living but Christ was living in Him.
The Lord Jesus prayed that we might be one with each other in Christ in God as Christ and the Father are One.
Here surely is the supreme mystery and end of the Gospel—that Christ is in us, the Hope of glory.
I have thought for fifty years about the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles, and have written about it for thirty-five years, at least. Tabernacles is the next spiritual feast after the feast of Pentecost, and is ready for our participation now. In fact, it is the "Tabernacles experience," not a removal from the earth, that will enable us to survive in the coming days.
God is ready to enter His people through Jesus Christ. Are we ready to enter Christ to the same extent? Do we really desire to forsake our own life that we might become the expression of God to His creation?
One of the big differences between the Pentecostal experience and the Tabernacles experience lies in the demands made on us by each of the two spiritual interventions in our life. Pentecost requires that we yield to the Holy Spirit to the point of speaking by the Spirit. Tabernacles requires that we turn over our entire life, particularly our self-will, so the Father and the Son may make Their eternal dwelling in us through the Fullness of the Holy Spirit.
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)
Probably the biggest issue of the Tabernacles experience (I am not trying to start a new doctrine, but "Tabernacles experience" is a handy term to use) is that of our self-will.
In basic salvation we die to the world, so to speak, and come alive into the Kingdom of God.
In the Pentecostal experience we die to sin as the Spirit leads us to put to death the acts of our sinful nature.
In the Tabernacles experience we die to our self-will that we may enter resurrection ground. Canaan is a type of life lived in the fullness of the Presence of God through Christ, and then a type of our inheriting the saved nations of the earth.
If we are to survive in the coming days of spiritual oppression we must learn to live in and by Jesus Christ. It is not enough to have our flesh anointed with the Holy Spirit. We ourselves must become the dwelling place of God through Christ. Only then can we bear the fruit of Christ’s moral image that the heavenly Father is hoping for.
We die to the world by choosing to die with Christ and to come alive with Christ.
We die to sin by following the Holy Spirit.
But our death to self-will we cannot control. It is organized and operated by the wisdom of God. Only He knows the crosses and prisons that will produce the perfect rest in Himself He desires for each one of us.
We must be made barren so to speak; for the new Jerusalem is composed of those who have endured barrenness in the Lord that they might bear eternal fruit.
Many call to us to come down from the wall, to come down from the cross. We choose to ignore them because we trust only in the Lord. We will not attempt to take our spiritual gifts and callings and use them according to our own notion of how the Kingdom of God should be built. Yet we do not languish in passivity, we labor to enter the rest of God.
It is not easy to live in this manner when the clamor on every side is to go out and save the world. But it is the way of all true prophets and witnesses of God.
We don’t just go fishing. We wait until the Lord Jesus makes us fishers of men. This waiting may continue for many years—maybe until we are too old to do much of anything without God’s strength.
Paul had to be brought low, didn’t he, that the excellency of the power might be of God and not of himself.
I eagerly expect and hope I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:20,21—NIV)
Paul had elected to take his place on the cross with Christ and to share in the resurrection and ascension of Christ. Then God, through numerous afflictions, made that crucifixion and that resurrection a day-to-day experience. The result has been the manifestation of the Life of Jesus through Paul’s Epistles, the Epistles that have changed the course of world history.
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. (Galatians 2:20—NIV)
We read passages such as the above and assume the learning of them somehow makes them true in ourselves—some kind of doctrinal stance that all Christians take who are on their way to Heaven.
Not so! While it is good to memorize Galatians 2:20, it has to be lived out in the realities of life. We must experiences the sufferings and death of Christ until it no longer is our self-will that is dictating our actions but Christ who actually is living out His Life in us.
Then we live by faith—faith that Christ will give us the continual strength and wisdom we need to overcome the hurdles placed in front of us.
By the way, don’t waste your time rebuking the devil. When you are afflicted call on the Lord. Your problems are coming ultimately from Him, although God may permit Satan to afflict you as was true in the case of Job.
It was Satan who afflicted Job. But imagine how inappropriate it would have been for Job to spend his days rebuking the devil for destroying his family and possessions!
In the present hour we are becoming "too smart for our spiritual britches," as the old American saying goes.
The solution is not arrived at by our proud flesh rebuking the devil in some kind of spiritual engagement. The solution is arrived at as we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, looking always and only to Him that He might either remove the problem or else give us the strength to endure until deliverance finally does come.
We are crucified each day that the Life of Christ might increase in us. The Life of Christ shall increase in us if we bring each decision, no matter how small, to the Lord for His solution. In this manner we live in Christ and He lives in us. Such leaning on the Lord is to be true of us every minute of every day and every night, and must always be increasing as we go from glory to glory. This is the normal Christian life.
Thus we arrive at the rest of God, which includes transformation into the moral (and, when the Lord comes, outer) image of Christ and also untroubled rest in the very Center of the Person of God. This is where Christ dwells and He wants us to be with Him where He is.
One of my favorite chapters is the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. In this chapter the Lord Jesus tells us that it is His flesh and His blood that are eternal life, and that it is as we eat His flesh and drink His blood that we are made candidates for the resurrection that will take place when He appears.
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. (John 6:57—NIV)
The above verse indeed is remarkable. It informs us that we are to live by and because of Him, by and because of Jesus, as He lives by and because of the Father.
Is there a more wonderful statement in any language?
Now, to what extent does the Lord Jesus live by and because of the Father?
To the extent that in the present hour it is difficult for us to determine whether Christ and the Father are one Person; whether Christ is the Father (as some believe); whether there are three Gods in One or whether Christ is a Manifestation of the Father; and so forth and so on.
It appears today the Lord is willing to reveal the mystery of God, but only as we experience this mystery of all mysteries, not as we come to understand it through study.
The truth, as I think I am experiencing it, is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three Persons. The Father is the Greatest of all and the Son and the Spirit do His bidding.
The Son is the Servant of the Father, there is no scriptural doubt about that. The Son learned obedience to the Father by the things the Son suffered. This is perfectly clear in the Scriptures.
The fact is, the Son is so much a part of the Father, and lives so totally by and because of the Father, that They become indistinguishable. It is somewhat like the marriage of Adam and Eve where Eve was actually Adam in another form, every part of Eve having been fashioned from a part of Adam.
This is marvelous enough, and I think it is scriptural. The Father has made the Son, who proceeded from the Father’s own Being, both Lord and Christ.
Thus the Lord Jesus Christ is God to us, and we are to worship Him, He having been established in this exalted state by the Father. Christ Himself is not the Father, however.
There is something yet more marvelous.
We are being made an eternal part of this Oneness.
As we eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood, we are learning to live by and because of Him just as He lives by and because of the Father.
I hope you don’t stumble at this. It would be blasphemous of me to say such a thing, but it clearly is scriptural. And we must always adhere strictly to the Scripture whether or not human custom or reasoning agrees to the possibilities.
God is in Christ who is in us who are in Christ who is in God. This is the wheel in the middle of the wheel.
To live in and by Jesus Christ means to look to Christ for every thought we think, every word we speak, every deed we perform. We have been born of Him and we are to live by His body and blood, which are given to us every time we turn aside from our adamic impulses and seek His will. Christ has been conceived in us and is being formed in us.
When we keep His commandments the Father and He will come and make Their eternal home in us.
All that we are is to be Christ and Christ is to be all that we are. There is no end to this development until we arrive at maturity as measured by the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Anything short of the fullness of Christ in our personality is loss for us; loss for Christ; loss for other people.
When we are living in and by Christ we are living in resurrection life, for He is the Resurrection and Life. In order for Satan to overcome us he would have to overcome the resurrection life of Christ. This, of course, He cannot do.
Let us, as Paul, strive continually to gain Christ, to know Him, the power of His resurrection, what it means to share His sufferings. Relatively speaking, everything else we possess or encounter is garbage. In Christ is the fullness of all that God Is. As a member of the race of man, we have been created to be the Throne of God. When we are less than this we cannot possibly find fulfillment, perfect peace, perfect joy.
If we are to survive spiritually we must set aside each day a place and time for prayer.
If we are to survive spiritually we must meditate in the Scriptures continually. Then we will not be drawn into the next new flap when it comes along—and it surely will! Recently I heard that some Christians are not paying their bills because they have been told we are in the Year of Jubilee. It is difficult to believe God’s people would be so easily led astray. They wouldn’t be if they would meditate in the Scriptures and pray each day. But teachers whose god is their belly are always available it appears.
If we are to survive spiritually in the coming days we must place everything on the altar of God. Not to do so leaves us open to the deceits of Satan, who always is looking for our weak spot. One idol is enough to prevent us from receiving the rewards assigned to the overcomer.
If we are to survive spiritually in the coming days we must learn to live in and by Christ. The human personality by itself will be helpless in the face of the powerful spiritual tornadoes on the horizon. We shall be blown about as so many bits of straw.
But Christ is the Rock of Ages. If we are in Him and He is in us, the very mountains may be removed and cast into the sea, but we ourselves shall never be moved—no, not when the earth and heaven flee from the face of God.
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