When the Bible first mentions man, it says that God made man in His image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26). This is a great thing. Man is the most beautiful and lovely creature because he was made according to God. We should not despise or look down on ourselves. We are a picture of God, God’s image and His likeness.
Man is a photo of God, but a photo has no life or reality of its own. Before we are saved, we do not have the life, nature, or reality of God. Romans 9:21 reveals that man was made as a vessel to contain God. A glove is made according to the form of a hand so that one day a hand may enter into the glove. The reality of the glove is the hand, for without the hand the glove is empty. Before we are saved, we are like an empty glove. When we are saved, Christ becomes our life, content, and reality, and we become His container and expression. Just as a glove moves only when the hand inside it moves, we move when Christ moves and stay when He stays. We are absolutely one with Him. We are no longer empty vessels but are vessels filled with Christ. A proper Christian is a God-man, a man filled with and expressing Christ. Many Christians who are truly saved do not live and express Christ because they are not filled with Christ. Some become worldly or even fall into sin, but most Christians live uprightly, according to religion, ethics, and morality.
As we have seen, man was made to contain God. However, after man fell away from God and lost God, men invented religion, ethics, and morality to preserve mankind. Without religion, ethics, and morality, human society could not be maintained. Religion is good because it teaches human beings that there is God and that they should fear and worship God, improve their behavior, and do good to glorify God. Ethics teaches that we should honor our parents, love our wife, submit to our husband, take care of our children, love our neighbors and our friends, and do good for society. Morality is also good and necessary for mankind. However, no matter how good these things are, they are not what God wants. God wants us to be filled with Him and to live Him. A glove may be washed, clean, and beautiful, but it will not fulfill its purpose unless it is filled with a hand. God does not want us merely to be a good person. Instead, God wants us to be a God-man, a person who is filled with God and who lives God.
As a young Christian, when I saw well-mannered persons, I thought that it would be good if they became Christians. I hoped that my denomination would gain such persons. When I saw naughty or rough ones, I thought that my denomination should not welcome this kind of person. I judged other Christians entirely according to religion, ethics, and morality. Newly saved ones often think this way. Not long after being saved, I became very religious. As soon as I stepped into the church building, I began to behave reverently—walking slowly, sitting in a proper seat, and not talking but closing my eyes and praying. However, most of the others came into the church building in a loose way. I inwardly criticized them, asking myself, “Do these people think that they are coming into a movie theater? Don’t they realize that they are in God’s house?” To be reverent is good, but it is not God. Rather, it is to be religious.
I am a quick person by nature. Before I was saved, I was bothered when I dealt with anyone who was slow. After being saved, I realized that I should be patient and sympathize with slower ones. I repented and prayed, “Lord, help me to be slow. Help me to go along with others.” I was mostly successful, and when I failed, I repented and tried to improve. This is ethics. From the time I was saved, whenever I made a mistake or did something wrong, I repented and asked the Lord for forgiveness. After being a Christian for many years, I disciplined and improved myself to the extent that I felt I did not have much need to repent. However, one day the Lord showed me that good behavior is not Christ any more than bad behavior is. Then I began to repent not only of my bad deeds but even more of my good deeds. God does not care for our good deeds; He only wants us to live Christ. I began to repent every day, praying, “Lord, forgive me for not living You from morning until evening. I have lived according to religion, morality, and ethics. The whole day I did not do anything wrong, but I was living You for only a few minutes.”
Because we were made in God’s image, we spontaneously like to do good. Moreover, we are taught to behave well by our parents and teachers. Therefore, we may live properly by habit, but we rarely live Christ. When we come into the church life, we learn to enjoy the Lord in the meetings, but outside of the meetings we may still habitually not live Christ. At the end of each day we may repent if we have lost our temper or done something sinful, but we need to repent for not living Christ.
We must forsake religion. Saul of Tarsus was a leading one in religion, but God did not want that. Instead, God wanted Christ to be revealed in Paul (Gal. 1:14-16). When Paul said in Galatians 2:20 that he had been crucified, he meant that his religious, ethical, habitual person had been terminated. Paul no longer lived religion, ethics, or habit; instead, he lived Christ. In Philippians 3:7 Paul said, “What things were gains to me, these I have counted as loss on account of Christ.” Paul counted religion, ethics, and morality as loss. He wrote, “I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ” (v. 8). Paul pursued Christ to gain Christ and be found in Him (vv. 14, 8-9). He said, “According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death” (1:20). He desired to magnify Christ in every kind of circumstance. Paul continued, “For to me, to live is Christ” (v. 21). Like Paul, we should not care for religion, ethics, or morality. We should care not for good things or bad things but only for Christ. Christ should be our life and our living; He should be our kindness, our gentleness, and everything that we express. For this, we must be filled with Christ and be in spirit. When we are in spirit, we are living Christ.