We have seen that by including us in Christ, God accomplished redemption. This identification with Christ is purely the work of God. The present question is: How can Christ be worked into us? In other words, how can He be related to us personally and subjectively?
Having Christ worked into us and having a vital life relationship between Him and us is the essence of the Christian life. In the Gospel of John, Christ repeated over and over again the phrase, "You in Me, and I in you." Being mutually within one another is the reality and essence of union. Only in this union can God accomplish what He has purposed for us.
God has already included us in Christ. Now we have to see how Christ can be wrought into us. Only when Christ is in us can our union be real and complete, and only then will everything He has be worked into us. This relationship with Christ is union in its ultimate and fullest sense.
One day I was watching a blacksmith at work. As he threw a big piece of iron into the fire, he kindled the flame and began to hammer on the red hot metal. An apprentice standing next to him was trying to get some fire. He rolled up a piece of paper, and instead of thrusting it into the fire, he touched the red hot iron with the end of the paper. In an instant, it caught on fire. I was exceedingly surprised at seeing the fire coming out from the iron. This piece of iron was now different from all other iron. You could say that it was iron, yet you could also consider it as a ball of fire. The fire was within the iron and the iron within the fire. It had the nature of iron and the appearance of fire. When you put a piece of paper on it, the paper burned up. God intends that our union with Christ be as intimate as that of the iron and fire. God has forgiven our sins and terminated our old man in Christ. But He did not stop there. He wants us to be completely one with Christ in the way that the iron was one with the fire. Every molecule of iron was mingled with the fire, and every trait of the fire was manifested in the iron. This is the degree that God wants to work Christ into us.
We still have to look at God's side of the work. For the moment, we will not say what we have to do on our part. We want to see how God has wrought us and Christ into one piece. What we saw hitherto was God's work of putting us in Christ and His work of redemption. In order for Christ to be wrought into us in a union that resembles that between the iron and fire, God had to take one very important step in Christ. This step is what we are about to explain in this chapter.