Philippians 1:19 through 21a says, “For I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 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. For to me, to live is Christ.” Verse 19 refers to the supply. In Greek this is a particular word, indicating a bountiful, all-inclusive supply. This supply is not of the Spirit of God, strictly speaking, but of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
In chapter two, verse 5 says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” and verse 13 says, “For it is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.”
Verse 3 of chapter three says, “For we are the circumcision, the ones who serve by the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.” Verses 7 through 14 continue, “But what things were gains to me, these I have counted as loss on account of Christ. But moreover I also count all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is out of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is out of God and based on faith, to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if perhaps I may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained or am already perfected, but I pursue, if even I may lay hold of that for which I also have been laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not account of myself to have laid hold; but one thing I do: Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I pursue toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called me upward.”
In chapter four, verses 12 and 13 say, “I know also how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to hunger, both to abound and to lack. I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me.”
In the previous two messages we saw that Christ is everything. Colossians shows us that He is God, and He is man; He is the Creator, and He is also the first item of creation. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead. Moreover, He is the reality of all positive things. All physical, material things are simply shadows; the reality of all these things is Christ Himself. Now Christ is life to us. According to 1 Corinthians 15:45b, Christ is the life-giving Spirit; He is in our spirit as our life today and also as our hope, aim, and goal for the future.
Now such a Christ, whom we have seen, must be wrought into us. This is the message of the book of Galatians. According to this book, Christ must be the indwelling One. He is subjective to us because He is revealed in us, He lives in us as our life, we have been put into Him, and He is being formed in us, that is, He is being mingled with us, wrought into us, and woven into every inward part of our being. Christ has come into our spirit, and now He is in our spirit in order to saturate us, to permeate all our inward parts by coming into our mind, emotion, and will. In this way He will saturate our entire being and mingle with us to be the indwelling Christ as our life. These are the main points from Colossians and Galatians.
Philippians gives us the secret to experiencing Christ. The first chapter speaks of Christ as our life and expression. For Christ to be magnified in our body (1:20) is for Christ to be expressed in us in a glorious way. In order for Christ to be magnified, to be expressed, through us and from within us, He must be life in us. That is why Paul says, “For to me, to live is Christ” (v. 21a). This means that Christ lives in us and lives Himself out of us. He is our life; He is living within us. Now He wants to live Himself out of us so that He can be magnified in us. Therefore, Philippians 1 speaks of Christ as our life and our expression.
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