The believers are also partners of Christ as God’s Anointed. Hebrews 3:14 says, “We have become partners of the Christ.” Christ is the Firstborn, and we are His brothers. Christ is the Head of the Body, and we are His members. Christ is the anointed One, and we are His partners. Christ has been anointed by God to carry out God’s commission. Now as Christ’s partners we share with Him in carrying out God’s commission.
God has a great “corporation” in the universe, and this corporation is a partnership. God’s operation in His corporation is to work out a glorious expression of Himself. The Son of God has been appointed to carry out God’s plan and to head God’s corporation, which is a corporation of glory. As partners of Christ in God’s corporation, we do the same “business” and have the same interest and concern.
The Greek word for “partners” in Hebrews 3:14, metochos, is the same word for “partakers” in Hebrews 3:1; 6:4; and 12:8. In those three places it means that we share in the heavenly calling, the Holy Spirit, and the discipline; so we use the word partakers. In Hebrews 3:14 and 1:9 the meaning is that we share with Christ; so we use the word partners. We are partakers of heavenly, holy, and spiritual things, sharing in the heavenly calling, the Holy Spirit, and the spiritual discipline. We are partners of Christ, sharing with Him the spiritual anointing as the members share with the Head the Spirit, and sharing with Him the heavenly rest as Caleb shared with Joshua the rest of the good land (Num. 14:30).
A partaker is very different from a partner. We are partakers of food; that is, we are those who enjoy food. But we may be partners of a corporation; that is, we may be joint-owners of that corporation. The King James Version made a big mistake in Hebrews 3:14, translating it as “partakers of Christ.” According to the context, here the Greek word should be rendered partners, not partakers. The portion from 3:7 through 3:14 deals with entering the good land. The type of this entering the good land was the entering of the land under the leadership of Joshua. Joshua was the leader, and Caleb was his partner, comrade, companion, in possessing the good land. Today Christ is the real Joshua, and we are His Calebs. In this matter we are not Christ’s partakers; we are His partners. When we enjoy Christ, we are His partakers. When we follow Him, we are His partners. As His partners, we are working together with Him and cooperating with Him to fulfill God’s desire to have a corporate expression of Himself. We are Christ’s partners in this enterprise. Our being partakers of Christ is for the purpose of being His partners in the divine corporation.
We are partners of Christ as God’s Anointed in God’s anointing with the oil of exultant joy. Hebrews 1:9 says that God has anointed Christ with the oil of exultant joy above His partners. Here we see again that in God’s economy Christ is God’s appointed One to accomplish God’s plan, and we are Christ’s partners in the divine interest. He was anointed by God, and we share with Him in this anointing for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
Christ was appointed by God in eternity past and anointed in time. God the Spirit poured Himself out as the anointing oil upon Christ, the appointed One, anointing Him to be the operator of God’s corporation. As the partners of Christ, we are partners in His anointing. Christ’s being anointed by God was His initial heavenly, divine inauguration. In this inauguration we are His partners. He has obtained the anointing, and we share it with Him because we are His partners. Therefore, we are not only partakers of Christ enjoying Him but also partners of Christ sharing in His operation under God’s anointing. The Holy Spirit is the oil with which God anointed Christ and also us, the partners of Christ.
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