We have seen the seven steps that God has taken in Christ to fulfill His purpose. The most mysterious step is the sixth, the indwelling. It is the most strategic step in accomplishing God’s project. God’s intention is to work Himself into us that we may have Him as our life, our person, and our content. Then, as His Body, we will be His expression.
To accomplish this, God first of all became incarnated. He mingled Himself with man. Then, as a man in the flesh, He was put on the cross. Satan’s thought was to put Him to death, but Satan did not realize that by the cross all the negative things in the universe were terminated. Sin, self, the old man, the soulish life, the human fallen nature, the world, Satan, the demons, and all negative things were ended on the cross of Christ.
After the Lord was crucified and buried, He rested on the Sabbath day (John 19:31). He had finished everything on the cross and declared, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Then He rested in the grave to keep the Sabbath. But on the first day of the next week (John 20:1) He arose from the dead. That was a new beginning. His death was a termination to the old creation, and His resurrection was the germination to the new creation. Then, by His ascension, He was inaugurated into His position of Lord of all. He was fully authorized to be the Savior (Acts 5:31), the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and the Head over all things. He was officially put into such a position.
After ten days, He descended as the Spirit to put all of God’s chosen people into Himself. This was the baptism. It was accomplished once and for all on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) for the Jews and at the house of Cornelius (Acts 10) for the Gentiles. We were all baptized then and made members of His Body (1 Cor. 12:13).
Now the Lord dwells in us. He has to indwell us in order to transform us. However, transformation is not a once for all matter. This is something that takes a life time. Every day the indwelling Christ is transforming us. His indwelling means His transforming. The purpose of the indwelling is to work Christ into our whole being. We need many messages to develop all the things related to the matter of the indwelling.
After His transforming work, the Lord will come back, and that will be the advent. At that time He will transfigure our body. We have a spirit, a soul, and a body. Our spirit is the organ by which we contact and receive God. Our soul is our very being, and our bodies are formed to contain our being. When we believe in the Lord, He comes into our spirit to regenerate our spirit. By this He starts His indwelling within our spirit. Then by His indwelling He spreads from our spirit to transform our being, which is our soul. This is the working of Christ into our being in order to transform every part of our soul (Rom. 12:2). Then the Lord will return to transfigure our body into His glorious form (Phil. 3:21). At that time all three parts of our entire being will be exactly the same as He is (1 John 3:2). Then we will express Him in a corporate way for eternity.
Most Christians know something of the incarnation of Christ. They also know something of the death, resurrection, ascension, and second coming of Christ. Many are confused about the baptism of Christ, but we cannot go into this matter at this time. We would suggest that you obtain a copy of the booklet, The Baptism in the Holy Spirit from the Living Stream Ministry. Some Christians are clear about this matter. But very, very few Christians know something in an experiential way of the indwelling of Christ. The indwelling of Christ is the inner life. Even some so-called deeper life Christians have never realized much of the indwelling of Christ. But if we do not realize and experience the indwelling of Christ, there is no way to enter into the deeper life. The deeper life is not speaking in tongues or some kind of manifestation of the gifts. It should be the indwelling of Christ. Christ comes into our spirit, and by His indwelling He is working every day to saturate every part of our being with Himself. This is the deeper life, and this is the inner life. It is indeed sad that today the most strategic matters of Christian experience are fully missed by most Christians.