I would like to impress you that Paul in Ephesians 3:8 says that the “unsearchable riches of Christ” have been shown to him. This verse begins with the phrase, “to me.” When I was young and read this, I would say, “I am not that ‘me.’ That is Paul. He is too great. ‘To him’ is okay but not ‘to me.’” But Paul says “to me.” This “me” is “less than the least of all the saints.” He was the “leastest,” yet this grace was given to him to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel.
Actually, you have to realize that “to preach as the gospel” in Greek is just one word. This word is not the ordinary word in Greek for preach. This is the word that means to preach something as the gospel, to preach something as the glad tidings or as the good news. Therefore, to Paul, his gospel is the all-inclusive Christ. In other words, his gospel is the unsearchable riches of Christ. In this sense the entire book of Ephesians is a gospel because the contents of the gospel preached by Paul are the unsearchable riches of Christ. His gospel is not just about sin. It is not just about going to hell. It is not just about repenting and believing for the forgiveness of sins that you may be reconciled to God, saved from eternal perdition, and have the eternal life. Even if you include eternal life in the contents of the gospel, still that does not compare with what Paul preached. He preached the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel.
In Ephesians Paul not only refers to the riches of Christ but also to the fullness of Him that fills all in all (1:23). What are the riches? And what is the fullness? The fullness is the issue of the enjoyment of the riches. The riches of Christ are the items of what He is, of what He has, of what He can do, and of what He is doing. But the fullness of Christ is the church produced by the believers’ enjoyment of the riches of Christ. We have illustrated this by the situation in America. In the supermarket we have the riches of the U.S.A. But a husky American is the fullness of the enjoyment of all the riches of the U.S.A. The riches of America are here, yet if we do not enjoy them, there will be no fullness of America. There will only be the riches. Some of the young people from the churches in Taiwan and Hong Kong were so short and skinny. But since they came to America, the riches of America have been digested and assimilated into their blood, becoming the tissues and elements of their being. Today, even though they are Chinese, they are the fullness of America. Today we Christians spiritually speaking are so skinny. We do not have the adequate weight. Why are the Christian meetings, whether big or small, mostly very skinny, very poor? Although Christians love the Lord and love to meet together, they have nothing to minister. We are so skinny in the meetings because we do not enjoy the riches of Christ. We do not experience the riches of Christ.
To enjoy, that is, to experience the riches of Christ, we have to realize who Christ is today, and where He is. This is something very practical in our daily life. Second Corinthians 1:21 says, “But He who firmly attaches us with you unto Christ and has anointed us is God.” Christ here in Greek means the anointed One. “Attaches us with you unto Christ” is connected with “anointed us.” You cannot separate these two things. The attaching actually is the anointing. God has attached us to Christ, and Christ means the anointed One. God has attached us to the anointed One. Psalm 133 says that the ointment upon the head of Aaron flowed down his beard, and even to the skirts of his long robe. The high priest, Aaron, was God’s anointed, full of the ointment. If you were to become attached to him, you would likewise become anointed. When we paint a house, we say that there is wet paint. If you attach yourself to the freshly painted wall you get painted. In the same way God has attached us to the anointed One, so spontaneously God has anointed us. Christ today possesses the ointment, the paint, with which God has painted us.
God has attached us unto the Anointed. Christ today is the very Anointed. This involves His location. Where is Christ today? To say that Christ is in our spirit may be too doctrinal. The entire New Testament shows us that economically our Christ today is in the heavens. Essentially He is in us. Romans 8:34 says that Christ is at the right hand of God. Yet in the same chapter verse 10 says that Christ is in you. Are these two Christs, one who is in the heavens, and one who is on the earth? Today the Christian teachings are too objective. Christians know that today our Lord is in the third heavens and they are waiting for Him to come back. Yet we have to know that the New Testament also tells us that this heavenly Christ is the Christ in resurrection. This Christ in resurrection is in us essentially. Let me use electricity as an illustration. In our meeting hall there is one electricity. Yet this one electricity is both here in this hall and there in the power plant many miles away. Even before my sentence has been finished, the current of electricity has already traveled between the two places. These are not two electricities but just one. Today the one Christ is both in the heavens and in us.
God has attached us to this anointed Christ who is right now in us. First Corinthians 6:17 is even stronger than this. It says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” Young sisters, do you all believe that as bona fide believers in Christ today you are one spirit with the Lord? Do you have such a verse in your Bible? Do you realize that this is a fact revealed in the Bible, that we, the believers in Christ, are one spirit with Him? I do not only believe, I have been practicing this for years. I must tell you the truth, every time I am going to speak, my prayer is, “Lord, make it so real in the speaking that I am one spirit with You. It should not be just me speaking. Lord, it has to be me as one spirit with You speaking.”