In this message we shall continue to consider what Christ is in His person to the believers.
We come now to the very important and vital matter of Christ being the One who lives within the believers so that they may live Him. Christ is not only our life; He as a person lives in us. All Christians need to realize that we have another person-Christ-living in us. We need to see the vision that the very One who died on the cross to redeem us is now living within us.
Christ, on the one hand, is in the third heavens. But on the other hand, He lives within us. Christ became the life-giving Spirit in order that He might live in us. Without being the life-giving Spirit, it would not be possible for the heavenly Christ to live in us. According to the New Testament revelation, Christ is both the ascended Lord and the life-giving Spirit. As the ascended Lord He is sitting in the heavens at the right hand of God, and as the life-giving Spirit He lives within us. Now we have Christ not only as our life but also as our person. Because He lives in us, we should take Him as our person and live Him.
In Galatians 2:20 Paul says, “Christ lives in me.” We need a proper understanding of what it means for Christ to live in us. It is rather easy to understand that Christ lives, but it is difficult to understand how Christ lives in us. For Christ to live in us does not mean that He lives instead of us. In Galatians 2:20 Paul says, on the one hand, “no longer I,” and on the other hand, “Christ lives in me.” The phrase “in me” is of great importance. Yes, it is Christ who lives, but He lives in us.
In order to understand how Christ can live in us, we need to consider John 14. Before His death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus said to the disciples, “Because I live, you shall live also” (v. 19). Christ lives in us by causing us to live with Him. Christ does not live alone; He lives in us and with us. He lives in us by enabling us to live with Him. In a very real sense, if we do not live with Him, He cannot live in us. We have not been altogether ruled out, and our life has not been exchanged for the divine life. We continue to exist, but we exist with the Triune God. The Triune God who now dwells within us causes us to live with Christ. Hence, Christ lives in us through our living with Him.
In John 6:57 the Lord Jesus said, “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me shall also live because of Me.” The Son did not live by Himself. However, this does not mean that the Son was set aside and ceased to exist. The Son, of course, continued to exist, but He did not live His own life. Instead, He lived the life of the Father. In this way the Son and the Father had one life and one living. It is the same in our relationship with Christ today. We and Christ do not have two lives. We have one life and one living. We live by Him, and He lives in us. If we do not live, He does not live; and if He does not live, we cannot live. On the one hand, we are terminated; on the other hand, we continue to exist, but we do not exist without Christ. Christ lives within us, and we live with Him. Therefore, we and He have one life and one living.
Paul’s word in Galatians 2:20 about Christ living in us is definite and emphatic. There is no ambiguity here. Paul clearly says that Christ, as a person, lives in us. This Christ who lives in us is the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the Spirit. Now that He dwells in us as the Spirit, we need to learn how to let Him live in us and how to live together with Him. A normal believer is a person who has one life and one living with Christ. We are one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17), we have one life with Him, and now we should be one person with Him. Sooner or later, those who seek the Lord realize that Someone divine, heavenly, eternal, and spiritual lives in them as a person. If we see this, we shall also see that just as He lived because of the Father, we should now live because of Him, taking Him as our person.
Paul could say not only that Christ lived in him, but also that to him to live was Christ (Phil. 1:21). On the one hand, Christ lived in Paul; on the other hand, Paul lived Christ. Inwardly Christ was Paul’s life, and outwardly Christ was Paul’s living. Paul and Christ thus had one life and one living. Christ’s life was Paul’s life, and Paul’s living was Christ’s living. The two, Christ and Paul, lived as one. First Corinthians 6:17 refers to such a living. In this verse Paul says that we are one spirit with the Lord. The organic union that has taken place between us and Christ causes us to be so close and intimate with Him that we are even one spirit with Him. If we would live Christ, we must take Him as our person and be one person with Him. He and we must be one in a practical way.
To live Christ is not merely to be holy, spiritual, and victorious. To live Christ is to live a person. We admit that the expression “live Christ” is new. We use this term deliberately. In our daily living we should simply live Christ. We should live a life that is Christ Himself.
The Gospel of John reveals that, as those who believe in Christ, we need to live Christ. We have seen that, according to John 6:57, we should live because of Him. Furthermore, according to John 14:19 and 20, we live in Christ in the way of coinherence. He lives in the Father, we live in Him, and He lives in us. We not only coexist with Christ; we coinhere with Him. This means that He lives in us and we live in Him. We have such a life of coinherence with Christ because He is the pneumatic Christ, the life-giving Spirit.
Christ lives in us so that we may live Him. We need to practice living Christ in all the details, particularly in the small things, of our daily life. I believe that this was Paul’s experience and practice. The books of Galatians and Philippians indicate that Paul was a person who practiced living Christ in all the small things. His desire was to be found in Christ by others (Phil. 3:9). This indicates that in all things, in every detail of his life, he practiced living Christ. For Paul, this was not a mere doctrine; it was also a fact. It should also be real and practical to us that Christ lives in us and that we live Him.
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