Philippians 3:10a indicates that Christ lives in us for us “to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.” The word “know” here is equal to “experience.” To know Christ means to experience Him, to enjoy Him, to participate in Him, and to partake of Him. To know Christ is thus to apprehend Him by experiencing Him. We know Christ in order to gain Him. To have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (v. 8) is by revelation, but to know Christ is by experience-to have the experiential knowledge of Him, to experience Him in the full knowledge of Him. First we receive the revelation of Christ, and then we seek the experience of Christ-to know and enjoy Him in an experiential way.
To know Christ is a result of being found in Him. All the words between “be found in Him” in Philippians 3:9 and “to know Him” in verse 10 describe in what condition Paul aspired to be found in Christ. He was willing to suffer the loss of all things and count them to be refuse that he might gain Christ and be found in Him to know Him. According to Paul’s concept, if we would know Christ, we must first be found in Him. Moreover, to be found in Him requires that we count all things loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and then suffer the loss of all things and count them to be refuse. Only when we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, a vision of the supreme preciousness and surpassing worth of Christ, shall we be willing to let go of everything else and count those things as refuse. Then we shall gain Christ and be found in Him. We shall be those who live in Christ and who are found by others in Christ. Being found in Him, we shall surely know Him.
We seek to know not only Christ but also the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. “To know Him” refers to knowing Christ in a general way. But knowing the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings are details related to knowing Christ. Actually to know Christ is to know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.
Christ today is in resurrection. He is no longer natural and no longer in the flesh-He is in resurrection, and the reality of resurrection is the Spirit. Christ is now in resurrection as the pneumatic Christ, as the life-giving Spirit. Since He is the pneumatic Christ in resurrection, it is in resurrection that we meet Him and experience Him.
Christ and His resurrection are one. Christ Himself is the power of His resurrection, and the Spirit as the reality of the power of Christ’s resurrection is Christ in resurrection. We need to experience this power that we may gain Christ. Because Christ is now in resurrection, we cannot know Him experientially unless we know the power of His resurrection.
Christ’s resurrection power is not an outward physical power; it is an inward, intrinsic power. As such, it is a life power. Christ has manifested in His resurrection the intrinsic power of the divine life. This is the power of His resurrection. By experiencing the power of Christ’s resurrection we obtain Christ in reality. The more we experience the power of Christ’s resurrection, the more we obtain Him.
The process of obtaining Christ, as revealed in Philippians 3:10, is to know Him by knowing the power of His resurrection. However, if we would know the power of Christ’s resurrection, we must share in His sufferings and know the fellowship of His sufferings. The participation in Christ’s sufferings-“the fellowship of His sufferings”-(Phil. 3:10; Matt. 20:22-23; Col. 1:24) is a necessary condition for the experience of the power of His resurrection (2 Tim. 2:11) by being conformed to His death. Paul was pursuing to know and experience not only the excellency of Christ Himself but also the life power of His resurrection and the participation in His sufferings. With Christ the sufferings and death came first, followed by the resurrection. With us the power of His resurrection comes first, then the fellowship of His sufferings and conformity to His death. We first received the power of His resurrection. Then by this power we are enabled to participate in His sufferings and live a crucified life in conformity to His death. Such sufferings are mainly for producing and building up the Body of Christ.
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