Colossians 2:2 says that Christ is the mystery of God. Because God is hidden, invisible, and beyond understanding, He is a mystery. As the embodiment of God, Christ is the mystery of God (v. 9). Because Christ is in us, God is in us.
In Ephesians 3:4 Paul mentions the mystery of Christ. Verse 6 reveals that the mystery of Christ is His Body, the church. The church today as the Body of Christ is a mystery. Unbelievers cannot understand why we believers love one another even though we are of different ages and nationalities. We are joyful and love one another because Christ is within us.
God is a mystery, Christ is a mystery, the church is a mystery, and even the believers are a mystery (John 3:8). Our acquaintances may not understand why we regularly attend church meetings. The mystery in the Bible is Christ in us, the mystery of God is Christ, and the mystery of Christ is the church.
Christ is a wonderful person. There are many expressions and titles used to describe Christ in the Bible. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word is Christ (v. 14). It is wonderful that, as the Word, Christ was with God and also was God. Furthermore, according to verse 14, “the Word became flesh.” This flesh was the man Jesus. Thus, Christ as the Word is both God and man; He is a wonderful God-man. Our limited mind thinks of God and man as distinct and separate. However, God and man became one in Christ.
John 1:29 says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Christ is the Lamb of God. According to Exodus 12, a lamb is for redemption. Again, it is wonderful that Christ, who is God, could become the Lamb of God. Christ’s name is Wonderful, because we cannot explain Him (Isa. 9:6).
Christ died on the cross as a man and also as God. We cannot explain how God could die. Charles Wesley wrote in a hymn, “Amazing love! how can it be / That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me? / ’Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies!” (Hymns, #296). The One who died on the cross was God, the eternal Word who became a man and as the Lamb of God took away our sin.
After dying on the cross and being buried for three days, Christ rose from the dead. On the night of His resurrection, He appeared to His disciples in a way that we cannot comprehend. The disciples were in a room, and all the doors were shut because the disciples were afraid of the Jews (John 20:19). Suddenly, Jesus was standing in their midst. Because He did not come through a door, the disciples thought that He was a spirit, or a ghost (Luke 24:37). But He said, “Peace be to you,” and He showed them His hands and His side (John 20:19-20). Was Christ physical or spiritual? If He was physical, how could He come in when the doors were shut? If He was spiritual, how could His disciples touch His hands and His side? We cannot explain this—it is wonderful.
John 20:22 says, “He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.” When the Lord disappeared, He did not go away, for He had entered into His disciples. Just before His crucifixion He had told His disciples that He was going away (13:33). When Peter and the other disciples heard this, they were saddened. The Lord told them, “Do not let your heart be troubled...I am coming again...I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of reality...He abides with you and shall be in you” (14:1, 3, 16-17). The Lord was not satisfied merely to be with His disciples outwardly. He explained that He needed to go in order to be able to enter into them. To enter into His believers as life, He had to go through death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). After rising from the dead, Christ was able to enter into His believers as the Holy Spirit.
First Corinthians 15 deals with resurrection. Verse 45 says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” The last Adam, who was Christ in the flesh, became the life-giving Spirit through death and resurrection. Second Corinthians 3:17 says, “The Lord is the Spirit.” The Greek word for Spirit, which is pneuma, may be translated also as “breath.” As the Spirit, the Lord is the holy breath; He is like the air. Because we are surrounded by air, when we breathe, the air gets into us. As a result, we are in the air, and the air is in us. Likewise, when we pray and call on the Lord’s name, He enters into us. We abide in Him, and He abides in us.
Today Christ is not only the Word, God, a man, and the Lamb of God but also the life-giving Spirit. As the Lord of all (Acts 10:36), He is in the heavens, but as the life-giving Spirit, He is in us. Thus, He is at the right hand of God (Rom. 8:34), and He is also in us (v. 10). Christ is both in the heavens and in us, just as electricity is both in a distant power plant and simultaneously in many buildings. We worship Christ as the Lord of all, and we enjoy and experience Him as the Spirit. Because Christ is the Spirit, He is able to be in us as our life (Col. 3:4). Christ being in us is the mystery that is the heart of the Bible.
As Christians, we are not disciples of a philosopher but receivers of Christ. Light bulbs shine because they are receivers of electricity. When they receive electricity, they spontaneously shine. The Christian life is the shining of Christ from within. Christ is within us as our life, life-supply, power, strength, wisdom, patience, kindness, love, and everything. When we live Him, He expresses Himself through us. Then when we come together, we are the church, the Body of Christ, for Christ’s expression. Christ is not a religion but a living person. We do not care for outward regulations. Instead, we have Christ in us, which is the mystery that has been hidden from the ages and from the generations but now has been manifested to us and has become our experience. Because we daily experience this mystery, we are living members of the Body of Christ.