Christ has been put into us, and we have also been put into Christ. In Colossians, as in other books, there is the little word in. Verse 27 of chapter one says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” In 2:10 we also have the phrase in Him: “You have been made full in Him.” This shows that not only is Christ in us, but we are also in Him, as verse 7 says, “Having been rooted and being built up in Him.” He is in us, and we are in Him. He is living in us, so we have to walk in Him. Eventually, who is in whom? In this way we are identified with Christ. We may use the term incorporated. This is a spiritual, heavenly incorporation.
To be incorporated with someone is to be entirely related to him. By incorporating with us Christ becomes us, sharing all our responsibilities, weaknesses, and all things. If someone is in debt and we incorporate with him, we have to bear his debts. You may be a millionaire, and I may be a poor person with many debts. If you incorporate with me, then legally and judicially you will bear my debts, but at the same time I will possess your wealth. Mine is the debt, and yours is the wealth, but now what is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine. This is why Christ needed to bear our sins. Christ needed to bear our sins because He is incorporated with us.
This is not merely an exchange. A key item of today’s Christian theology is that Christ and we have an exchange. Our experience, however, is not a matter of exchange but of incorporation. Christ incorporates with us, so He becomes one with us and even becomes us. At the same time, we are one with Christ, and we even become Christ. Whatever He is and whatever He has is ours. He is in us, and we are in Him. Because He is in us, He bears all our responsibilities, and because we are in Him, we have the ground, privilege, and right to enjoy what He is and what He has. This means that we are one with Christ, and Christ is one with us.
In Christ we have been buried (2:12). Someone may be dead but still be present. To be buried is the finality. We have been rooted in Him, and now we are being built up in Him, because we are not only buried with Him, but we are also raised, resurrected, with Him. Now He is living within us as our life for the present time and as our hope for the future. Therefore, Christ is everything.
I do not know why today’s Christianity misses this mark. People today pay attention to many other things, such as election, predestination, and rapture, yet they have neglected and still neglect the simple, important, and obvious matters. I have the strong feeling and the deep assurance that in these last days the Lord must recover these matters. All other things are just the “wrapper.” The more precious things in a department store or jewelry store have more wrappings. I have been to Japan several times. It is very interesting to see how the Japanese patiently wrap the items in their stores. Eventually, they exhaust your patience by taking so long to put on all the beautiful paper wrappings. When we bring an item home, however, the little children appreciate the wrapping more than the contents, which are the central item. The contents are nothing to them; they are not as good to play with as the box and the wrapping paper. Poor Christianity! So many people just like the “wrappings.” They do not appreciate the precious content, which is Christ Himself. The sixty-six books of the Bible are just the wrapping; Christ Himself is the precious content.
In these days we must see the very Christ revealed in the short books of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. In the future the Lord will give us the time and the burden to minister more and more of Christ from all these books. From Colossians we must remember eight points: seven related to Christ and one related to our experience of Christ, that is, that Christ is in us and we are in Him.
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