Hallelujah for such a wonderful person! Don’t you love Him? I love Him. Since I was a little boy, I learned to sing that little hymn, “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, For the Bible Tells Me So.” At that time I was taught to love Him because He died for me. That is good, but we must not merely love Him because He died for us. That is not sufficient. Oh, we love Him because He is so lovable! If He would throw me into hell, I would still love Him, because He is altogether lovely. I care more for what He is! I just love this person.
If we love Jesus merely because He has done so many things for us, our love is imperfect. I have heard many stories of wives loving their husbands because they had money. But once their husbands lost their money, the love was gone. Why do we love Jesus? It is not only because of what He has done, but more because of what He is. Hallelujah! He is wonderful! He is far, far beyond our description.
I hope that you will pray-read all the above verses that you may see all the things He is. He is the seed of the woman that bruised the head of the serpent. He is the seed of Abraham that all the nations may obtain the blessing. And He is the branch, branching out God into us. This branch, then, even mingles with us to produce the fruit. He is in us, and we are in Him. He and we become one people. Where I am, there He is. I simply cannot get away from Him. He is such a wonderful person. Then when we all come together, He is there; and we become the church with Him. It is really wonderful.
Eventually it is difficult to say who we are. We are parts of this wonderful person. And this wonderful person is not only within us, but growing in us, branching in us, bearing fruit in us, and causing us all to be the church. Isn’t this wonderful!
And He is our righteousness. It is not a matter of behavior, because it is not our righteousness. He Himself as such a subjective One in us becomes our righteousness. Martin Luther fought for the doctrine of justification by faith, but today we do not need to fight for the doctrines. Jesus is the reality of all the doctrines. When we have Him, we have everything, including righteousness.
Therefore, if you would ask me who I am, I would at least say that I am part of Christ. In Philippians 1:21, Paul said, “For to me to live is Christ!” And he said in Galatians 2:20, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Hallelujah! We are the corporate Christ. Any seed is not only for that seed itself. It is for multiplication and reproduction. Now Jesus is no longer just a seed. We are now His reproduction and multiplication. So we are the corporate Christ.