Grafting is one picture of this union between God and us. Another illustration is given in Romans 7, where we are considered a wife and the Lord Jesus the husband. “So that, my brothers, you also have been made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you might marry another, even Him Who has been raised from among the dead, that we might bear fruit to God” (v. 4). As the wife, we had a former husband, our old man. When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, our old husband was crucified with Him, thus making us a widow. Shortly thereafter, however, we remarried, this time to the Lord Jesus!
Let us consider further the matter of marriage as an example of our relationship with Christ. The first marriage was between Adam and Eve. Adam, you will remember, was created by God from the dust of the ground. Then God breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living soul (see Gen. 2:7). Eve, however, came into existence differently. God caused Adam to fall asleep, then took a rib out of his side and built a woman (Gen. 2:21-22). Adam and this woman became one. Their union was a union in life. Eve came out of Adam, and so did her life. Both of them shared one life.
The New Testament applies this example to Christ and the church (Eph. 5:31-32). We came out of Christ; His life becomes our life, and we and He become one. This again is a union in life.
In Romans 9 Paul likens us to vessels formed by God (vv. 21, 23). These vessels are to have God Himself as their content, thus making them vessels to honor, full of riches and glory. God is our inward content; we are His outward expression. The content and the container are one; here again is a union.
A further illustration is given in Romans 12, where we are depicted as the Body of Christ (v. 5). We are united to Him, just as the body and the head are one entity.
Notice that this grafted life, pictured for us in these different ways, is not an exchanged life. The inferior branch has not given up its poor life in order to get the richer life of the tree to which it is grafted. No! The branch still retains its same essential characteristics, but its life is uplifted and transformed by being grafted to the better life.
What are the results of the grafting? When the fatness of the better tree supplies the grafted branch, all the negative things are taken away. Then the original function of that branch is restored and strengthened. The fruit is still what it was before the grafting, but the problem factors have been overcome. We are the problem branches that God has grafted to Christ. The fatness of His life comes into us, carrying away all the poor elements in us. He uplifts the original function God had for us, strengthening and enriching it. Then naturally and spontaneously our whole being is saturated and transformed, and a marvelous fruit comes forth.
I have been concerned to share with the saints this matter of the grafted life, because it has been of great help to me. For many years I groped and searched for the way to experience what the Bible tells us. We followed others to teach that we must exchange our poor life for the good life of the Lord Jesus. We also tried to practice reckoning as the way to be free from sinning. We taught that since we are prone to sin, we have to see that we are already dead and then reckon on that fact. The result of reckoning was discouragement. Before we tried to reckon, we were dormant. But once we started to reckon, not only did we find that we were not dead; we were more alive than before.
Only gradually did we come to see that Romans is not talking about an exchanged life or a reckoning method. This grafted life means that whatever lack we have, as long as we are grafted into the precious tree of the Lord Jesus, His excellent life will come into us.
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