When He was about thirty, He came out among the people. He was like a great magnet, drawing others after Him. As He walked along the seashore of Galilee, He saw Peter and Andrew fishing, and John and James mending their nets. When He called, “Come, follow Me!” they dropped their nets, left what they were doing, and followed this One, a carpenter (Matt. 4:18-22). What attracted them? I do not know, but there must have been something unusual about this young Man for them to leave everything and follow Him.
They spent three and a half years together. As the disciples stayed with Him more and more they realized how wonderful, excellent, and precious He was. Then one day He told them He was going away. He would be crucified and raised again on the third day (Matt. 16:21; 17:22-23). They could not understand. Though they had the Old Testament, prophesying His death and resurrection, they did not have the light. Though they had the words right from His mouth, they did not have the light.
On the last night before His crucifixion He told them that He was going away. He would be gone a short time in order to prepare the way to bring them all into the Father. He went on to say, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him” (John 14:23). They could not understand. Surely they were the best representatives of today’s Christians. Yet they did not know or understand what the Lord was talking about.
In John 15 He went on to speak of Himself as the vine and the disciples as the branches. “Abide in Me and I in you,” He told them (John 15:4). If you had been there, would you have understood what He meant? What kind of a vine can He be? How could I be a branch? Abide in Him? How could I get into Him to abide in Him? He abide in me? How could He get into me?
Humankind had never heard such words. In human culture there had never been such language. But now there was coming into being a new culture. None of those there knew the language of the new culture. Crucified and resurrected after three days: here was something new in history. Then He would come back. The world would not see Him, but the disciples would. In that day they would know that He was in them (John 14:19-20). The Father would send the Spirit of reality who abode with them and would be in them (14:16-17). Did they not know that He was in the Father and the Father was in Him? To see Him was to see the Father. His words were not from Himself; His speaking was the Father’s working (14:9-11). What language was this? It was the language of a new culture being formed. Though the disciples had not experienced this culture, the language was there describing it.
What the Lord said happened. He went to the cross, died, and then was resurrected the third day. That very morning some of the women discovered something new in this culture. The One who had been buried was no longer in the tomb; it was empty. He talked with these women. Many exciting things happened that day. By evening when the disciples met together, they were afraid. Suddenly, with no knock on the door, this Jesus was there standing in their midst (John 20:19)! “Peace be to you,” He said. They must have been shocked. Then He breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Pneuma” (v. 22). He entered into them and never left. He was now one with them. When they went fishing, He was there.
After fifty days, Pentecost came. While the disciples were together, He poured Himself out upon them (Acts 2:1-4). Now He was not only within them; He was upon them as well. They were baptized into one Body. They acted in a crazy way, these people who were experiencing something pre-history. They had everything in common (2:44). When we are crazy, we do not care for our own things; others can take whatever they want of ours. When we are sober, we know what is ours. “This is my refrigerator. You have no right to open it. This is my bread. You may not help yourself to it.” At Pentecost the disciples were beside themselves. “Here, take whatever you like. Help yourself to whatever you would like to eat or drink.” But, such an attitude does not indicate that they were spiritual. Communal living is childish, although many Christians like to copy that. In China there was a group called The Jesus Family. Those who joined them had to sell everything and put every cent into the common account. This does not mean very much; it is not the Lord’s move. Before too long, quarreling arises. Some get too much food; others get too little. In a short time the communal life in the book of Acts was over. The Holy Spirit did not care for that.
Even the Apostle Peter was not clear about God’s ultimate move! I say this because in his writings and messages he gives no hint of it. He does not tell us that Christ lives in us. Perhaps his best phrase is that we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4).
Besides the Lord Himself in John 14:23 and 15:4-5, only Paul clearly and strongly tells us that Christ is our life, that He lives in us, and that He even makes His home in us. Colossians 1:25-27 says, “Of which I became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but now has been manifested to His saints; to whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Paul here says that he was commissioned to complete the word of God. This completion is the mystery that Christ lives in us.
In Ephesians Paul prays for the believers “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts...that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God (3:16-17, 19). What language is this? It is the language of the new culture, a culture never before heard of in the world’s history! In the first chapter Paul tells the saints that this dear One who will make home in them has been raised from the dead, uplifted to the heavens far above all, and made Head over all things to the church; all things have been subjected under His feet (1:20-22). He is Head not only for the church but to the church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all (vv. 22-23). Here is a new language. Even after more than 1900 years most Christians still do not understand it.
If you ask Christians about Christ making His home in their hearts or about the church as His Body being the fullness of Him who fills all in all, many will wonder what you are talking about. They have heard of hell and the heavenly mansions. They understand joy and peace. But the language of Paul is foreign to them. This is a heavenly, eternal language, describing something new in human history.
Home | First | Prev | Next