Christ as the Mystery of God is Everything to the Believers for their Enjoyment

All the genuine and seeking believers in Christ today need to see Paul’s completing ministry, and in our daily life we need to complete the word of God.

This means, first of all, that we realize we are vessels to contain God as the content. Christ was the individual expression of God, but now the mystery of godliness continues – we are the corporate manifestation of God in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16)!

We express God in our living by being those who are open to the Lord to be continually filled with Him as our content. It is not by our striving, trying, and doing our best that we can express God, but it is by opening to the Lord and allowing Him to fill us.

To complete the word of God is also to see Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ, and to have them made real and practical in our daily living. Christ as the mystery of God expressed God and manifested God in a human form, and He today is the Spirit dwelling in our spirit to be everything we need.

Christ is really a mystery, but He’s so real, so practical, so near, and so enjoyable! By enjoying Christ as the mystery of God we also become “mysterious Christians”, those who live a life in Christ and not in their natural being.

The Mystery of Godliness: God Manifested in the Flesh

The church is the house of the living God (1 Tim. 3:15) and the corporate manifestation of God in the flesh (v. 16). God as life wants to fill man and be lived out in man corporately to be expressed through the church – this is godliness, a great mystery. We need to exercise ourselves unto godliness (2 Tim. 4:7) by exercising our spirit unto God as life being lived out in the church.

How can we express God and manifest Him? It is by taking God in as life and by being filled with God. Our God today is in Christ, and as the Spirit He is receivable, contactable, and enjoyable.

We don’t need to “practice living in God’s presence” as if we need to be constantly conscious of God over us seeing us…. – this is an Old Testament concept. We need to simply live one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17).

Instead of “practicing the presence of God” we need to see that we are joined to the Lord as one spirit, and He lives in us as the Spirit. We can now simply walk in spirit (Rom. 8:4) and walk by the spirit (Gal. 5:16).

Just as Christ was the individual manifestation of God in the flesh, so the church as the Body of Christ expresses Him corporately in the flesh by all the members of Christ living one spirit with the Lord.

Forget about anything else, and focus on being a vessel receiving God, being one spirit with the Lord, and being filled with Him, and whatever you will do will be an expression of the Christ who fills you (see 1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17; Rom. 8:2, 4, 6, 9-11; John 14:23, 16-17; 2 Cor. 4:7).

Christ is Everything to the Believers

The second aspect of the completing ministry of Paul is Christ as the mystery of God. The mystery of God is Christ as the embodiment and manifestation of God, making God so real and so enjoyable to us, His believers (see Col. 2:2, 9; Rom. 9:5). Christ is the reality of all the positive things in the universe, and He makes the invisible and untouchable God real to us.

The Lord Jesus told the Jews, Before Abraham came into existence, I AM (John 8:58). He is like a “blank check” – everything we need, He is. Christ is the bread of life (John 6:35), the light of the world (8:12), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the way, the truth, the life (14:6), and He is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, mercy, peace, grace, rest, salvation, power, strength, refuge, hiding place, living water, sunshine, the air we breathe, and everything.

We have been allotted a portion of Christ – as the saints in the light, we enjoy Christ as our God-given portion (Col. 1:12; 2:6)! We are the saints of God called to call on the name of the Lord to enjoy Him as our portion (1 Cor. 1:2).

Christ is our life, and whenever we set our mind on the spirit, we have a sense of life and peace (Rom. 8:6). When we turn to our spirit and set our wondering mind on the spirit, we have a sense of satisfaction, refreshment, strengthening, watering, enlightenment, and anointing.

Christ is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27) – He is the divine life within us, filling us with hope that our spirit, our soul, and our body will be saturated with God’s life and will even be transfigured with His glory (Eph. 1:18b; 4:4b; Rom. 8:19, 23-25).

Christ is our necessities and our satisfaction. He is our enjoyment. He is the light of life (John 8:12), the living bread (6:51) which we can eat and live by (v. 57), the living water for us to drink (1 Cor. 10:4), the the breath of life (John 20:22), our clothing to put on (Gal. 3:27), our dwelling place (John 15:7a), and our rest and satisfaction from toil and labor (Matt. 11:28).

Christ is also the reality of the eating and drinking (we daily eat Christ), the reality of the Sabbath (weekly enjoying Christ), the reality of the new moon (monthly enjoying Christ), and the reality of all the feasts (yearly enjoyment of Christ) as we see in Col. 2:16-17. Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly Christ is our enjoyment. Everything positive in the universe points to Christ as everything to us for us to enjoy Him, be filled with Him, and express Him corporately!

Hallelujah, what a Christ as everything to the believers!

Lord, keep us open to You as vessels to be filled with You and express You. We want to fulfill the purpose of our human existence by opening to You and letting You fill us and be expressed through us. May we turn away from any outer practices, religious traditions, and other things that replace You in our life. We come to You to enjoy You as Christ, the mystery of God! You are everything to us. Keep us taking You as our life, our peace, our grace, our joy, our hope, our food, our drink, our enjoyment, and our satisfaction! Lord Jesus, You are so real to us, and You are so enjoyable!

References and Further Reading

• Inspiration: brother Ed Marks’ sharing in this message and portions in, The Completing Ministry of Paul (pp. 82-83), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, “The Completing Ministry of Paul“, week 2 entitled, The Central Vision.
• Further reading:
  # Messages to the Trainees in Fall 1990, ch. 18 (by Witness Lee).
  # 1 Tim. 4:7 footnote 4 (exercise); 1 Cor. 6:17 note 1 (joined to the Lord).
  # 1 Cor. 1:2 note 9 (Christ is Theirs and Ours); Col. 1:12 note 2 (allotted portion); 1 Cor. 1:9 note 2 (called INTO the fellowship).
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Christ is the one reality of all, / Of Godhead and of man and all things else; / No man without Him ever findeth God, / Without Him man and everything is false.
  # We have seen Christ is reality: / But it’s not sufficient just to see: / He in our experience must be / Everything to us. / We in prayer behold Him face to face, / In the Word and meetings know His grace; / But in daily life, in every place, / What is He to us?
  # Godliness is a living that expresses / The divine reality, / An expression of God in all His riches; / His Body corporately.