In 3:8 Paul says that he preached the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel. What Paul preached was not doctrine, gifts, knowledge, or power. He preached the riches of Christ. This means that Paul ministered these riches to others. The unsearchable riches of Christ include all the aspects of what Christ is to us. In a gradual way, Christ’s riches need to be wrought into us. For example, we are not the ones who should be patient, kind, gentle, or loving. Rather, Christ must be wrought into us to be our patience, kindness, gentleness, and love. This means that we need to participate in the riches of Christ and to have these riches daily, even hourly, wrought into us in a specific way. In our daily experience we should be able to itemize Christ’s riches. Christ must become our patience, our love, our everything.
Christ must be wrought into our being to such an extent that He makes His home in our hearts (3:17). I am concerned that for many of us the matter of Christ making His home in our hearts is simply a doctrine. Is Christ actually making His home in your heart? Who is presently at home in your heart—you or Christ? If you are honest, you will have to say that, for the most part, your heart is your home, not Christ’s home. You are the one living there, not Christ. We may hear a message about Christ making His home in us and shout that our heart is Christ’s home. But there may be no reality to support what we proclaim. In order for Christ to make His home in our heart, we need to take Him both as our person and as our life. In such a case, we shall be able to testify that the person living in our heart is no longer the self, but Christ.
The crucial issue is not whether we are humble or proud, weak or powerful, gifted or not gifted. The question concerns who is living in our heart. Who is the person taking up residence in your heart? You may be unusually gifted, but your heart may not yet be Christ’s home. Rather, it may be the home of the self, as long as you are still the person living in your heart.
Today’s Christianity is a religion of behavior, doctrine, work, power, gifts, and knowledge. However, it is virtually devoid of the reality of Christ. Most Christians are veiled by natural and religious concepts. This is the reason that we need a heavenly vision to know what is in God’s heart and to see what He planned in eternity.
God desires to have a people who care only for Christ. He wants a people who are not occupied with knowledge, work, behavior, or power, but who simply care for Christ in a very practical way. The experience of the riches of Christ and the reality of Christ making His home in our hearts should not be mere doctrines. They must be the reality of our daily Christian experience.
In the past, quite often husbands and wives have come to me with problems. Usually the husband would accuse the wife, and then the wife would accuse the husband. Then they would say, “Since you are a servant of the Lord and have spiritual understanding, you can discern who is right and render a fair judgment.” My practice was not to judge according to right and wrong. Instead, I would ask them whether or not Christ was making His home in their hearts. I would then go on to ask if Christ was living in them while they were accusing each other. Usually, they had nothing further to say, and eventually the word went out not to bring such problems to me.
Sometimes people come to me with the intention to argue about doctrine. But instead of answering them in a doctrinal way, I ask them to what extent Christ is making His home in their heart. What good does it do to be right in doctrine if we do not have Christ living in us? The Pharisees were apparently correct as far as doctrine was concerned. However, the Lord Jesus still rebuked them because they did not have any reality.
In a very practical way, our hearts need to become Christ’s home. He must be able to live in us and to settle down in us. He, not the self, must be the One who occupies our hearts. This is our need today.
Apart from this, it does not matter very much whether husbands love their wives or wives submit to their husbands. In the book of Ephesians the matter of Christ making His home in our hearts is more strategic than love for wives or submission to husbands. However, I am fully assured that if a brother allows Christ to make His home in his heart, he will certainly love his wife in a proper way. Moreover, if a wife allows Christ to dwell in her heart, she will no doubt be submissive to her husband.
What we need more than anything else is for Christ to make His home in our hearts. The Lord’s recovery is not a matter of doctrine, biblical interpretation, or conduct. Furthermore, it is not a matter of knowledge, gifts, power, or work. In contrast to all this, the Lord’s recovery is altogether a matter of Christ wrought into us and making His home in our hearts.
In 4:13 Paul says that we all need to arrive “at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” We need to become not only a perfect man, complete man, or whole man, but a full-grown man, one who has the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The fullness of Christ is the Body of Christ (1:23), which has the stature with the measure.
In 4:15 Paul goes on to say that we need to hold to truth in love so that we may grow up into Christ in all things. To grow up into Christ in all things is to have Christ increase in us in all things until we attain to a full-grown man.
In 5:30 Paul says that we are members of Christ’s Body. This indicates that we are members of Christ, parts of Christ. According to our natural constitution, we cannot be members of Christ’s Body. Christ Himself is the element, the factor, that makes us part of Him. Hence, in order to be parts of Christ as members of His Body, we must have Christ wrought into our very being.
In 5:32 Paul says that the great mystery is Christ and the church. In the Lord’s recovery we should devote our attention to the matter of Christ being wrought into us to make us a proper church for the expression of Christ. This is God’s economy.