The Gospels show us how Christ became a man that we could be put into Him, and how He became the Spirit so that He could come into us. Firstly, we have been put into Him. Then secondly, He comes into us and lives within. This is the main aspect of the Gospels.
Following this, the Acts show us a group of people who have been baptized into the Triune God, and now He is indwelling them as their life and they become His expression. So Acts, strictly speaking, is not a book of preaching, work or ministry. It is a record of a corporate people who have been put into the Triune God, and who have the Triune God living within them. They are such an extraordinary kind of human being. They are a kind that are mingled with God by being in God and having God living in them. Acts is not a book of activities, but a biography of such an extraordinary kind of being.
After Acts, there are the Epistles. We really must thank the Lord for the arrangement of the Scriptures. There is firstly the Gospels, then the Acts, and then the Epistle to the Romans. To understand the indwelling Christ, we need two things. We need the vision and we need the experiences. The experiences always come out of the vision. The four Gospels and the Acts give us the vision, and the Epistles tell us how to experience the indwelling Christ.
The book of Romans is considered by most Christians to be a book of justification by faith. A great section in this book covers the matter of justification by faith. But we all must realize that justification by faith is not the ultimate goal of this book. The ultimate goal is the Body of Christ. The beginning of the book speaks of justification by faith, but at the end, the book reaches the final goal of the Body of Christ. Between these two ends, we have the indwelling Christ. Romans starts with justification by faith and ends with the Body of Christ, but the central section speaks of the indwelling of Christ.
If we have only seen justification by faith, we have only seen the first part of the book of Romans. We appreciate the fact that the Lord used Martin Luther to recover the matter of justification by faith, but that is just the beginning of the book of Romans. We have to go on to reach the goal. The goal is the Body of Christ, and the way from justification by faith to the Body of Christ is the indwelling of Christ. Therefore, we can see that the indwelling of Christ is quite crucial and strategic. If we would reach God’s goal from God’s start, we must take God’s way. This way is the indwelling Christ.
We need to see some of the more important verses on the indwelling of Christ in the book of Romans. The first is Romans 5:10, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” This verse covers two main points. The first is that when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of Christ. We were not only sinners in the eyes of God, but also enemies. We were God’s enemies, but, Hallelujah, we were reconciled! If we were only sinners we would only need forgiveness, but as enemies we needed reconciliation. Praise the Lord that we have not only been forgiven, but also reconciled. We were reconciled to God by the death of Christ. This is the ultimate consummation of justification by faith. There are no more problems between us and God. Isn’t this wonderful? All the problems have been solved. We have been reconciled to God by the redeeming death of Christ.
But this verse covers something more. And it is not only something more, but much more. “Much more we shall be saved by His life.” We have been reconciled, yet we still need some saving. Have you been saved? Are you sure that you have been saved? If you have been saved, why does this verse say that we shall be saved? What does this mean? Well, on one hand, we have been saved from God’s condemnation, and we have been reconciled to God. Praise the Lord, we have been saved! But on the other hand there are still many negative things in our lives from which we need to be saved. I am afraid that as a wife you are not so happy with your husband, and as a husband, you are not so much at peace with your wife. I don’t know what it is, but I am sure that it is something that you need to be saved from. Furthermore, we all have our temper and all our shortcomings from which we must be saved. The flesh, the old man, the self, the natural life all need a daily salvation.
We have been saved from so many things, yet we still need to be saved from more things. So, being reconciled, much more shall we be saved by His life. This saving is not by His death, but by His life. Here we must consider something. If Christ does not live within us, if He does not indwell us, how could we be saved by His life? If He is just in heaven sitting at the right hand of God, how could we be saved by His life? But, Hallelujah, Christ today is not only sitting at the right hand of God (Rom. 8:34), but also moving within us (Rom. 8:10). As He lives within us, we can enjoy His saving life. And the life of Jesus is simply Jesus Himself living in us. We should not consider that the life of Jesus is one thing, and Jesus Himself is another. The life of Jesus is Jesus Himself living within us.