The purpose of the book of Galatians is to reveal that we need to experience Christ in the presence of God. Nothing can please God but Christ experienced by us. Christ must be not only righteousness but everything to us. According to Galatians, Christ must first be revealed in us. Then this Christ must live in us (2:20). We are familiar with these verses, but we may not pay attention to them. Do we really mean business that Christ has been revealed in us and is now living in us? Not only so, we have put on Christ, just as we put on a garment (3:27). That we have put on Christ means that we are put into Christ. Christ has been put into us, He is being revealed in us as our life, and we have been put into Christ. He is like a garment covering us.
In addition, Christ must be formed in us (4:19). We may use a glove to illustrate the matter of being formed. When we put our hand into a glove, the hand is in the glove but it is not formed in the glove until all the fingers are fixed in place. Gradually the thumb fits in place, and then the second, third, fourth, and fifth fingers; finally the entire hand is formed in the glove. Christ must be fully, thoroughly, wholly mingled with us in all our inward parts-in our mind, emotion, and will. We may have Christ in us only in a general way. We have Christ in our spirit as our life, but we may not have Christ in our mind as our thought. We also may not have Christ in our emotions as our love. Christ must even be our hate; we need to hate certain things by Christ and with Christ. We also must have Christ in our will as our decision and choice. Christ must be everything in our inward parts. He must be mingled with us in every part of our being. Then He will be formed in us, and we will be conformed to His image. This means that we will be absolutely one with Him, not only in life and nature but also in form, expression, and image.
Christ must be subjective to us. In more than one place, people have criticized our hymn that says, “Christ to me is so subjective” (Hymns, #537). Many people do not have the concept that Christ is subjective. Once when I had trouble with my car, a brother tried to explain the problem to me, but I could not understand all the mechanical terms. I simply took the car to a garage and let someone do the talking for me. Today too many Christians are like this concerning Christ. To speak about Christ being the life-giving Spirit causes havoc. They say, “Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior. This is good enough. Don’t say anything beyond this.” This is the poor situation today. Today I still do not drive a car, because in order to drive I must understand things about the car. In the same way, in order to be a good, normal Christian, we have to know the details of who Christ is. Christ must be revealed in us, He must live in us, we have to put Him on, and He must be formed in us.
In addition, we should bear the brands of Jesus and care for neither circumcision nor uncircumcision (6:17, 15). We do not care about being religious or unreligious. We care for only one thing: the new creation. Who or what is the new creation? It is Christ in our spirit to be experienced by us. This is the principle of the new creation.
We need to apply these things to ourselves. Are we persons like Paul? Many people in today’s Christianity pay attention to something other than Christ. I am afraid some of us are also this way. We may say that we do not pay attention to the gifts, but we may still pay attention to something else other than Christ. We need to be delivered from so many other things.
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