In the previous message we pointed out that in 4:19 Paul says, “My children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ is formed in you.” If we consider this verse in its context, we see that it is necessary for the heirs of the promise to have Christ formed in them. Those who are sons of Abraham through faith are the heirs of the promise, those who inherit the blessing. These heirs need to be filled, occupied, and saturated with Christ. They need to have Christ formed in them.
If we would know what it means for Christ to be formed in us, we need to consider not only the entire book of Galatians, but also the books of Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. The book of Galatians indicates that God’s intention is for Christ to be wrought into His chosen people that they may become sons of God. In order to be God’s sons, we need to be permeated and saturated with Christ. Christ must occupy our entire being. The Galatians, however, were distracted from Christ to the law. Hence, Paul told them repeatedly that it was altogether wrong to leave Christ and return to the law. The believers should come back to Christ, who is both the seed who fulfills God’s promise to Abraham and also the good land, the all-inclusive Spirit to be our enjoyment. As believers, we need the full enjoyment of this blessing, the full enjoyment of the life-giving Spirit. We need to be permeated, saturated, possessed, and fully taken over by this Spirit and with this Spirit. According to the context of the book of Galatians, to have Christ formed in us is to allow Him to permeate our being and to saturate our inward parts. When Christ occupies our inner being in this way, He is formed in us.
In order to have Christ formed in us, we need to drop everything other than Christ Himself, no matter how good these things may be. Even things which come from God and are scriptural may not be Christ Himself. Although the law was given by God, it must be set aside so that all the ground in our being may be given over to Christ. We need to allow Him to saturate every part of our inner being. He must occupy us and saturate our mind, emotion, and will. To have Christ possess our entire being is to have Him formed in us.
In Ephesians 3:17 we see that Paul prayed that “Christ may make His home in your hearts.” We know that the heart includes the mind, the will, the emotion, and the conscience. To let Christ make His home in our hearts means that He makes His home in all these parts of our inner being. If Christ is to make home in our hearts, He needs to be able to settle down within us. Once again, this is to have Christ formed in us.
To have Christ formed in us is to allow the all-inclusive Spirit to occupy every part of our inner being. The law should not have any room in our mind, emotion, or will. All the ground within us must be for Christ. We need to allow Christ to occupy us fully. He should not only spread into our mind, emotion, and will; He should actually become our mind, emotion, and will. Let Christ be your thought, decision, and love. Let Him be everything to you. This is to have Christ formed in you. Everything other than Christ must diminish, and Christ must become everything to us in our experience.
Christ today is the life-giving Spirit as the blessing of the gospel, the blessing promised by God. To have the full enjoyment of this blessing is to let Christ be formed in us. This means that if we would have the full enjoyment of the blessing of the gospel, we need to have Christ formed in us. If Christ is not yet fully formed in us, then our enjoyment of the blessing of the New Testament is not yet full. Although we have enjoyed the blessing in part, we need to go on to allow Christ to occupy us wholly, to take us over and saturate every part of our being with Himself. To do this is to enjoy the blessing of the gospel to the uttermost. This was Paul’s goal in writing to the Galatian believers. As He appealed to their personal affection in 4:8-20, Paul had this goal clearly in mind. He appealed to the believers’ affection so that Christ might be formed in them for the fulfillment of God’s goal.
Galatians 4:21 says, “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?” The book of Galatians deals strongly with deviation from Christ by coming back under the law. Such deviation shuts the believers out from the enjoyment of Christ as their life and their everything.