Christ is our all-inclusive portion. The Bible reveals that He possesses both divinity and humanity. He is the mystery of God, and God’s fullness dwells in Him bodily. Thus, Christ is the embodiment of God. In Him we have all the riches and all the fullness of what God is. Furthermore, in Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and He is the reality of every positive thing in the universe. Because of the processes Christ passed through, the elements of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension have been compounded into Him. Christ embodies not only God but also incarnation, His wonderful all-inclusive, all-accomplishing death, His powerful, unlimited resurrection, and His ascension.
This wonderful all-inclusive Christ is the content of the church. Colossians 3:11 says that in the new man “there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all.” The content of the new man, the church, is not the believers but Christ. Because Christ is the unique person in the new man, Paul said, “To me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). Instead of living our old person, we need to live Christ, taking Christ as our person. As the unique constituent of the church, Christ should saturate our entire being as our life, nature, and person.
Christ being our life is not a mere doctrine but a reality. However, it is difficult to understand how Christ can be real to us. We may use electricity to illustrate. Although we do not see the current of electricity, we have no doubt that electricity is real, because we see its operation in the lights and appliances in our homes and offices. Through wires electricity is transmitted from the power plant into buildings that may be hundreds of miles away. A switch also is needed. The wires transmit the electricity, and the switch causes it to be applied. When the switch is on, the electricity is on.
Like electricity, Christ is mysterious and abstract yet real. We may be likened to buildings that depend on electricity. Our spiritual life depends entirely upon Christ. Christ is the heavenly electricity, and He is transmitted to us through two “wires”—the word and the Spirit. The word which is in the Bible may be called the ground wire or the earthly wire, and the Spirit may be called the antenna or the heavenly wire. Through the word and the Spirit, the heavenly Christ is continually transmitted into our being. Just as electricity is in the wires, Christ today is in the word and the Spirit. Objectively, Christ is in the heavens, and subjectively, He is in us. But practically, He is in the word and the Spirit. In order to practically experience Christ, we need the “wires” of the word and the Spirit. The switch that causes Christ as the heavenly electricity to be applied is our human spirit.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We know that the Word here is Christ, because verse 14 says that the Word became flesh. Thus, the Word, who is Christ, is God. Verse 4 says, “In Him was life.” Lastly, in 6:63 the Lord said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” God, Christ, the Spirit, and life are all invisible and abstract. However, God’s word in the Bible is solid. We can hold and read the Bible. Electricity is invisible, but a wire is solid. God, Christ, the Spirit, and life are all embodied in the word. Therefore, the word is the key to the Christian life. Without this key we do not have God, Christ, the Spirit, or life. The word is crucial to us.
The burden in this message is that we would gain an appreciation for the word. The Bible is not an ordinary book, for the word in the Bible is the embodiment of God, Christ, the Spirit, and life. This fact is proved in our experience. When we come to the Word, we sense that we come into the presence of God. As we read, we have a deep sense that we are in God. We never have the same sense when reading a secular magazine. The more we read the Bible, the more we sense that we are bathing in the presence of God. The word refreshes, releases, soothes, and comforts us because it is the embodiment of God. In order to find God, we must come to the Bible. When we contact the word in the Bible, we touch God, for the word conveys God, Christ, the Spirit, and life.