From the time God created us in His image and according to His likeness, we were ready to receive Him into us as life. We had a spirit to receive Him and a soul to express Him. Although we were ready, God was not yet ready. He was not yet qualified to come into man. In order to become qualified for this, He had to put on humanity; that is, He had to be incarnated. In Old Testament times, God could come upon the prophets, but He could not come into them. Many Christians today only know how God comes upon people, not how He enters into them. In a very real sense, they are Old Testament believers.
The New Testament reveals that through the incarnation of Christ, God came into humanity. He entered into mankind through a narrow gate, having been born of a virgin in a manger in Bethlehem. For thirty years He lived in the home of a carpenter. One day He came forth to begin His ministry. No one could recognize that this man was God Himself. Contacting some young fishermen in Galilee, He said, “Follow Me,” and they followed Him, although He seemingly had nothing. He had such drawing power that His followers were beside themselves with love for Him. They were drawn to Him because there was something magnetic about Him. They had a marvelous time the three and a half years they were with Him. However, one day He suddenly told His disciples that He was going to leave them by being crucified. This word deeply troubled them, especially Peter. Then the Lord told them that it was profitable for them that He go away. Otherwise, the Spirit of reality could not come to be in them (John 16:7). Up until that time, the Lord had only been among them; He had not yet come into them. After His resurrection, He could be in them, and they could be in Him (John 14:20). Nevertheless, Peter and the other disciples probably preferred to have the Lord remain among them rather than have Him go so that in resurrection He could come into them.
When I was a young Christian, I used to wish that I had been alive when the Lord Jesus was on earth. I wished that I could have seen Him, heard Him, and touched Him in the flesh. I even complained to the Lord about this and asked Him why He had not caused me to be alive during the time He was on earth so that I could have physically been in His presence. I did not yet realize that it is far better to have Christ in me than just to have Him with me. Do you prefer to have the Lord among you physically or in you as the Spirit? With your mouth you may claim that you prefer to have Him in you, but within you, you probably prefer to have Him with you, as He was with the early disciples. If the Lord Jesus would suddenly appear in a physical way, we would be amazed. This proves that we prefer a Christ among us to a Christ in us. However, if Christ were still just among us, His life could not be grafted together with ours, because He would not be in us. He could perform miracles among us, but we would remain the same, without change or transformation. We could embrace Him, but we could not be grafted into Him. Therefore, in order that we may be mingled with Him, Christ prefers to be in us. He wants us to abide in Him so that He may abide in us (John 15:4). This is the mingling that produces the grafted life. It is this life that transforms us and conforms us to the image of Christ.
In order to be qualified to enter into us, Christ had to pass through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Furthermore, as the Spirit, He had to descend upon us. Then the only thing remaining is for us to call upon Him in faith. When we say, “O Lord Jesus, I believe in You,” His qualified life enters into our prepared life, and the two lives are joined. In this way our life is grafted into His.
Perhaps you have been a Christian for many years without realizing that the Christian life is a grafted life, a mingling of the divine life with the human life. Both the divine life and the human life are complicated. The divine life is actually Christ Himself. As God, Christ is the Creator of all things. One day, He was incarnated and took on human nature. What a mystery that divinity and humanity could mingle together as one unit! Following incarnation, Christ passed through human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. All these elements are now included in the divine life. This life has power to kill all negative things; it also has the resurrection power to generate, germinate, transform, and conform. This complicated and qualified life is the very life we received when we believed in the Lord Jesus.
But what about the human life with which such a marvelous divine life is mingled? Our created life has become fallen, corrupted, darkened, worldly, and satanic. It is thus filled with evil, negative, demonic elements.
John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world. For years I could not understand why the Bible does not say that God loved mankind. In the eyes of God, fallen man has become the world. This means that the fallen, corrupted, worldly, and satanic mankind is the system of Satan. Before we were saved, we were part of this system. As evil as this system is, the Bible still declares that God loved the world. The reason God loves the world is that in it there is the life which He created in His image and according to His likeness to contain Himself as life.
Both the divine life and the human life are complicated. The divine life is complicated in a positive sense, whereas the human life is complicated in a negative sense. According to His economy, God desires to graft this human life that is complicated in a negative sense into His life that is complicated in a positive sense. When we believed into the Son of God and called on the name of the Lord, the life that is complicated positively entered into us, and our life that is complicated negatively was grafted into it.