Christ’s living in us also causes us to be conformed to His death. In Philippians 3:10 Paul said, “To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” This word indicates that Paul desired to take Christ’s death as the mold of his life. Paul lived a crucified life continually, a life under the cross, just as Christ did in His human living. Through such a life, Paul was able to experience and express the resurrection power of Christ. The mold of Christ’s death refers to Christ’s experience of continually putting to death His human life that He might live by the life of God (John 6:57). Our life should be conformed to such a mold by our dying to our human life to live the divine life.
Christ’s death occurred 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 Philippians 3:10. By living such a crucified life, He continually put His human life to death and lived to God, even lived God. When we are willing to suffer for Christ and His Body, we also need to live only to Him and put to death our natural life, so that the inner divine life may be released. Then in our experience we will be conformed to Christ’s death.
We need to be conformed to Christ’s death because we are natural and belong to the old man and the self. In the death of Christ, man’s natural life has been slain, and the old man has been crucified and annulled. The form of Christ’s death does not bear the mark of the natural man, the old man, or the self. In other words, when we participate in the death of Christ, we will be molded by His death, being conformed to His death. To be thus molded by Christ’s death will cause our natural life, our old man, and our self to be dealt with. Hence, in Christ’s death we do not have our natural life, our old man, or the activities of our self. Since all these have been gotten rid of by the mold of Christ’s death, we can be conformed to Christ’s death.
Because Christ lives in us, we can also be delivered from every evil work. In 2 Timothy 4:18 Paul said, “The Lord will deliver me from every evil work and will save me into His heavenly kingdom.” Every evil work here refers mainly to man’s persecution, which usually comes from Satan’s evilness (Matt. 6:13). Paul suffered a great deal of persecution, yet he was confident that the Lord would deliver him from every evil work.
Paul’s being delivered from every evil work included even his final martyrdom. Since martyrdom ushered Paul into the heavenly kingdom, such an ushering was a deliverance to him. There is no other time that the Lord dispenses Himself in so great a measure into the believers as in the time of their suffering of martyrdom. Whenever the believers suffer persecution, encounter afflictions, and even suffer martyrdom because of their loving the Lord, the Lord infuses and dispenses all His riches into them that they may be strengthened to overcome and be delivered from every evil work. Such a deliverance is what we believers should believe in, hope for, and experience, and it is also what the Lord is pleased to give us.
Christ lives in us that we may enjoy His sufficient grace and His overshadowing power. This is the experience of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul suffered because of a thorn in his flesh, and concerning this, he entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from him. Nevertheless, the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Because he accepted the Lord’s word, he could say, “Most gladly therefore I will rather boast in my weaknesses that the power of Christ might tabernacle over me” (vv. 7-9). The Lord did not remove the thorn from Paul, but He supplied him with sufficient grace so that he might be able to bear the suffering. Then, in his experience, this grace became the overshadowing power which was perfected in his weaknesses.
The grace mentioned here is not what the Lord has done or what He has given; it is the Lord Himself as our supply and enjoyment, sustaining and strengthening us from within that we may meet all kinds of circumstances. This is the living and genuine grace. This grace is nothing less than Christ Himself, the embodiment of the processed Triune God, dispensed into our entire being to be enjoyed by us in our experience. Therefore, we need to learn not to expect something from outside or to ask the Lord to do something for us. Rather, we should simply enjoy the Lord Himself as the true grace.
The Greek word translated tabernacle over in verse 9 is a compound verb composed of two words. The first word means upon, and the second, to dwell in a tent. The compound verb here means to fix a tent or a habitation upon. It portrays how the power of Christ, even Christ Himself, dwells upon us as a tent spread over us, overshadowing us in our weaknesses. To magnify the sufficiency of the Lord’s grace, we cannot avoid sufferings. To show forth the perfectness of the Lord’s power, we need weaknesses. Hence, Paul would most gladly boast in his weaknesses that the power of Christ might tabernacle over him. Grace is the supply, and power is the strength, the ability, of grace. Both are the resurrected Christ, who is now the life-giving Spirit dwelling in us (1 Cor. 15:45; Gal. 2:20) for our enjoyment.
Home | First | Prev | Next