Christ is also the believers' way to the Father. In John 14:6 the Lord said, "I am the way...; no one comes to the Father except through Me." This clearly indicates that Christ is the way for man to enter into God. Since the way is the Lord, a living person, the place to which the Lord brings man must also be a person, God the Father Himself. The Lord Himself is the living way by which man is brought into God the Father, the living person.
To have Christ as our way to the Father means that when we take Christ, we get the Father. When we walk in Christ as the way, we arrive at the destination, which is the Father. Hence, we take Christ as the way and we enter into the Father. Christ is the living way for us to get into God the Father, the living person. The Father is holy and dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). We are sinful and are also involved with the world, Satan, and other negative things. Sin, the world, and Satan are three great obstacles that make it impossible for us to come to the Father. However, through His death on the cross Christ dealt with sin, the world, and Satan and cleared away all the negative things and obstacles between us and God. Thus He became our way into the Father. When we enter into Christ as the way, we arrive at the Father, because the Son is one with the Father. Therefore, to be in the Son is also to be in the Father. Once we are in Christ Jesus, there is no longer any distance between us and God. This is not a mere doctrine but a spiritual fact. When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, we are immediately in the Triune God in an experiential way and enjoy the riches of the Triune God through the divine dispensing.
In John 14:6 the Lord Jesus also said that He is the reality. Without Christ, the entire universe is empty, having no reality. Christ is the incarnated God, and in Him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col. 2:9) that He may become the reality of God and man (John 1:18, 51; 1 Tim. 2:5) and the reality of all the divine and spiritual things, such as the divine life and resurrection (John 11:25; 14:6), the divine light (8:12; 9:5), the divine way (14:6), wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30), for our possession and enjoyment.
In Colossians 1:27 Paul speaks of "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Christ not only dwells within us; He dwells within us as our hope of glory. Christ can be our hope of glory because He dwells in our spirit to be our life and our person. Colossians 3:4 says that when Christ is manifested, we also will be manifested with Him in glory. This indicates that the indwelling Christ will saturate our entire being and cause our body to be transfigured and conformed to the body of His glory (Rom. 8:23; Phil. 3:21). At that time Christ will be glorified in us. This is Christ in us as the hope of glory.
Glory is the expression of God. God has ordained that we should be brought into this glory (1 Cor. 2:7), and, as believers, we have been called into this glory (1 Thes. 2:12; 1 Pet. 5:10). When we were regenerated, Christ as the life of glory came into us as the divine seed that eventually will blossom into the full expression of God. Just as we hope for the blossoming of a seed that has been sown, so we hope for the full expression of the life of glory that is in us. Our hope of such a glory is the indwelling Christ Himself.
In Ephesians 1:18 Paul speaks of the hope of God's calling, which is related to Christ as the hope of glory. Before we were saved, we were "apart from Christ...having no hope and without God in the world" (2:12). But now that we are saved, we are no longer without hope; instead, we are full of hope. The hope of God's calling includes: (1) Christ Himself and the salvation He will bring to us when He comes back (Col. 1:27; 1 Pet. 1:5, 9); (2) the rapturous transfer from the earthly and physical realm to the heavenly and spiritual sphere, plus glorification (Rom. 8:23-25, 30; Phil. 3:21); (3) the kingly enjoyment with Christ in the millennium (Rev. 5:10; 2 Tim. 4:18); and (4) the consummate enjoyment of Christ in the New Jerusalem, with the universal and eternal blessings in the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:1-7; 22:1-5). These are the portions which Christ as the hope of glory will bring to us.