This incarnated, crucified, and resurrected Christ has become a seed sown into us. The Christ we have received is not a natural Christ, but a resurrected and transformed Christ. Peter knew Christ in the flesh, when He was still in the old creation body. But the Christ we experience today is a Christ altogether in the new creation. Are you still envious of the disciples who knew the Lord Jesus in the flesh? Do you still desire, like John, to lean upon His bosom? Deep within, perhaps subconsciously, we may secretly wish that we had lived at the time of Peter, John, and James, for they were with the Lord in the flesh. However, it is far better to know Christ in the power, sphere, and element of His resurrection and in the fellowship of His sufferings.
We may despise the old creation and want to be free from it. But the more we loathe it, the more it clings to us. Only in the Body can we be free from the old creation. Only when we are occupied with the Body and by the Body are we able to be free from spending so much time thinking about ourselves. Paul was so occupied with the Body that in his being there was no capacity for him to consider his own things. Because Paul was so concerned for the Body, he shared in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. In this way he was conformed to the death of Christ.
There are four important matters in verse 10: to know Christ, to know the power of His resurrection, to know the fellowship of His sufferings, and to be conformed to His death. Actually, being conformed to Christ’s death is related to knowing both the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. The words being conformed indicate how we may know the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.
We have indicated that Christ’s death took place throughout His life on earth. As He was living, He was also dying, dying to the old creation in order to live a life in the new creation. This is the meaning of His death in verse 10. We need to be conformed to Christ’s death both in the church life and in our family life, dying to the old creation that we may live the new creation.
Paul’s use of the word conformed in 3:10 implies that Christ’s death is a mold. Often when sisters bake a cake they use a mold. Dough is placed into the mold and conformed to its shape. On the day we began to live the Christian life, we, like a piece of dough, were put into the mold of Christ’s death. When we suffer for the Body, we are shaped into the form of the death of Christ. This is what it means to be conformed to His death.
By being conformed to the death of Christ, we experience the power of His resurrection and enter into the fellowship of His sufferings. It is in this way that we attain to the out-resurrection and reach the goal of being fully out of the old creation and wholly resurrected into the new creation.
If a brother attains to the out-resurrection in his experience, even his love for his wife will be in the new creation. No longer will it be a natural love, a love in the old creation. A brother may love his wife very much, but his love may have nothing to do with the out-resurrection. Likewise, a wife may be submissive to her husband according to her ethics and cultural background, but her submission may also be altogether in the natural realm, in the old creation, not at all in the new creation. Suppose a sister makes herself submit to her husband. She does not want to submit, but, perhaps with tears, she forces herself to do so. This submission is in the old creation. God does not want a natural love or a natural submission, a love and submission which are not in the out-resurrection. Instead, He wants us to live the kind of life revealed in Philippians 3. For this, we need to gain Christ and be found in Him to know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, that we may attain to the out-resurrection.
As Paul was writing the Epistle to the Philippians, he did not regard himself as having attained to the out-resurrection. Therefore, he could say, “Not that I have already obtained or am already perfected, but I pursue, if also I may lay hold of that for which I also have been laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” Paul cared for one thing—forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, he pursued toward the goal for the prize of God’s high calling in Christ Jesus. All the things behind are of the old creation, but the things before are of the new creation. God has rescued us from the old creation and put us in a race toward the goal for the prize. Now we must run this race to attain to the out-resurrection from the dead and all the things of the new creation.