Have the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ to Experience Christ Subjectively

As believers in Christ, we aspire to know Christ in a subjective way, in the way of experience, for when we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, we are able to count all things as refuse on account of Christ that we may gain Him and experience Christ subjectively. Amen!

This week in our morning revival we come to the topic of, Knowing Christ and the Power of His Resurrection.

We need to be brought back to Christ, for the desire of God’s heart and His good pleasure is to have Christ as our center and our everything.

We are a people prone to be distracted; we may not be distracted by sinful and worldly things, but the Lord knows we have been distracted by many things other than Him.

We may have been distracted by our work for God, by our spirituality, and by our spiritual achievement.

These are not bad things in themselves, but they have been a distraction to us, distracting us from our unique goal and center, Jesus Christ.

May we be brought back to Christ and know Him not in a superficial way but in an experiential way, in the way of experience, so that we may know Him and experience Him subjectively.

We have to acknowledge that we are so shallow and superficial; sometimes we may think that if we understand something or can read a few verses and recite a few things, we actually have the reality of what we speak.

Just because we understand that Christ needs to be our subjective experience doesn’t mean that we actually have Christ as our subjective experience.

Just because we can recite what is the economy of God doesn’t mean that we have attained to what is on God’s heart.

It is easy to be contented with what we know yet the Lord knows that we are far from the goal and desire of God’s heart.

The Lord wants to bring us into the reality and experience of all the things that we have seen and learned.

We are the most blessed people on earth today because we can be in the high peak truth in God’s word and hear and see the marvellous things concerning God’s economy.

However, it is altogether of God’s mercy for us not only to hear but also to receive and live what we have heard.

We need the Lord’s mercy so that all the great and wonderful things in God’s economy will become our reality in our experience.

The Lord wants to gain His testimony, the testimony of the Triune God.

This testimony is not a set of doctrines or a system of theology; it is not even the highest peak in the divine revelation by itself, but a group of God-men who live out the testimony of Jesus for His corporate expression.

The testimony of Jesus is not about a gospel movement; it is nothing less than the declaration and expression of this living Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ.

God wants to gain such a testimony in this age today, a corporate body of His witnesses who testify of what they have seen and heard from Him.

May we be part of the Lord’s testimony in such a way today; may we not merely dwell on teachings, doctrines, knowledge, power, practices, or work, but be the living testimony of Jesus Christ Himself so that He may be declared and expressed through us.

We need to Aspire to Know Christ Subjectively – not just Knowing about Him but Experiencing Him

In Phil. 3:10 we see that Paul aspired to know Christ. Here was an elderly brother who spent many years knowing and experiencing Christ, yet his desire was still to know Christ subjectively.

To know Christ is not merely to have an intellectual knowledge of Him; it is to have a subjective knowledge of Christ, to know Christ subjectively.

We may know a lot of Bible verses, we may have memorized many chapters in the Bible, we may know the high peak truths, and we may know all the points, but we may not know Christ subjectively.

We may know how to pray read the Bible and do many things in the church life, but what about our subjective knowledge and experience of Christ.

We need to know the Lord in a subjective way, in our daily experience.

In the Amplified Bible this verse Phil. 3:10 says, And this, so that I may know Him experientially, becoming more thoroughly acquainted with Him, understanding the remarkable wonders of His Person more completely]…

We want to have such an experience and knowledge of Christ.

We want to have an intimate acquaintance with the Lord.

We want to have a perception and a recognizing and understanding of the wonders of His person more strongly and more clearly.

It is one thing to know about the Lord by reading the Bible and even by reading the ministry; it is another thing to know Christ subjectively in our experience.

It is one thing to discover the doctrine of sin or of justification by faith in Romans, and it is another thing to realize that this sin dwells in us and that justification is applied to our experience.

We want not only to have a head full of knowledge concerning Christ; we want to experience Him subjectively in our daily life.

The Lord wants to bring us to the real thing; He is not satisfied with us just quoting the words, even the best and most impressive words – He wants us to have an intimate contact with Him.

We need to have an intimate contact with the Lord and live Christ, experience Christ and know Christ subjectively.

The matter of knowing God, knowing Christ, has different levels.

Psa. 103:7 says that God made His ways known to Moses and His acts known to Israel.

The people of Israel knew God according to His acts, and the things that He did; when they were hungry, God gave them manna, and when they were thirsty, He gave them the water out of the rock.

But then when the water ceased, they complained, and when there was no meat, they murmured and thought that God ignored them and left them alone.

Moses, however, knew God not only according to His acts but also according to His ways; Moses knew God’s ways, His principles, the kind of person He was.

He knew that God was righteous, loving, and faithful, and he could pray and intercede for the people not merely according to what God did but according to what He was.

Because Moses knew God according to His ways, he told God that, if He was not going with them to the good land, they would not go.

He could even challenge God, for he knew God’s heart, and how He loved His people.

May we know God not only according to what He does for us and in us but even more, know Him in His person.

May we aspire to know Christ subjectively in our daily experience. We need to know God by His nature.

As Paul said in 2 Cor. 2, we can forgive someone in the index of Christ’s eyes, in the person of Christ.

Our whole being, our living, and our work needs to be in the person of Christ.

We need to know Christ subjectively and personally so that we may deeply know Him in experience.

When we know Christ subjectively, we will not have our own righteousness which is out of the law but the righteousness which is out of God and through faith in Christ.

The knowledge of Christ in Philippians 3 is not shallow; it is not something we acquire merely by going to a conference or a training, even to the full-time training.

We need many more years to experience Christ subjectively and deeply know Him.

May we have such an aspiration to know Christ subjectively in our daily experience.

Lord Jesus, we aspire to know Christ subjectively in our daily experience. Save us from merely having a mental knowledge about Christ. Save us from merely having doctrines concerning what and who Christ is. We want to know Christ more deeply, in the way of experience, in our daily life. We do not want to know only what Christ did for us but also know Christ Himself, His person, and His ways. Amen, Lord, we aspire to know Christ subjectively in our Christian experience day by day. We come to You, dear Lord, and we want to experience You. We want to have a deep and intimate acquaintance with the Lord. We want to have a perception and understanding of the wonders of His person. Amen, Lord, may we progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with You so that we may have a subjective knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Have the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ to Experience Christ Subjectively

In the book of Philippians, the central matter is the subjective knowledge and experience of Christ (Phil. 2:2, 5; 3:7-10; 4:10, 13).

On one hand, we need to have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (Phil. 3:8), which is by revelation; on the other hand, we need to know Christ subjectively (v. 10), which is by experience.

We need to have both; the more we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, the more we can experience Christ subjectively.

Actually, only when we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, our Lord, we can experience Him in a subjective way.

When we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, we will be willing to suffer the loss of all things and count them as refuse in order to gain Christ and be found in Him (Phil. 3:8).

This leads us to know Christ experientially and subjectively.

But if we do not have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we will not be found in Christ, for only this excellency can make us willing to suffer the loss of all things and count them as refuse in order to gain Christ and be found in Him.

There are many wonderful and tremendous aspects of Christ, and we need to know Him in His all-inclusiveness; when we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we can proceed to experience Him subjectively.

However, merely seeing what Christ is and who He is, is not enough; we need to proceed to knowing Him subjectively to experience Him.

There must be a cry in us, a yearning, an honest aspiration, that we may know Christ subjectively and experientially.

We are still short of the experience of Christ; we want to know Him by experience.

The excellency of the knowledge of Christ is the excellency of Christ being realized by us.

Christ is excellent and the knowledge of Christ is also excellent.

How is our knowledge of Christ – is it excellent, or is it just common and general?

Not only Christ is excellent but also the knowledge of Christ is excellent.

The excellency of the knowledge of Christ always exceeds our experience of Christ; we need to have a higher knowledge of Christ so that we may have a higher experience of Christ.

Many times our experience is not as high as our knowledge of Christ; however, our experience is uplifted by our knowledge of Christ.

May we not be limited in our knowledge of Christ but have the excellency of knowing Christ!

What is Christ to us? We may enjoy Christ as our peace and our joy, but He is much more than this.

We may enjoy Him as our rest and satisfaction, but He is much, much more than that.

May we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ so that we may be attracted and motivated to lay aside everything other than Him.

May we see the surpassing worth of Christ so that we may be willing to count as loss all things, not just the worldly and material things but even our culture, religion, and philosophy.

It is the excellency of the knowledge of Christ that causes us to drop everything else so that we may gain Christ and be found in Him.

How wonderful is Christ to you? We may not be able to say much concerning Christ because our knowledge of Him may not be so excellent.

When we speak of Christ, do we give others a sense of how excellent, precious, and wonderful He is?

How is Christ excellent to us? How is He precious and wonderful to us, and in what way?

We need to know Christ to such an extent that our knowledge of Him is excellent.

Paul first received the revelation of Christ and then he sought the experience of Christ; he wanted to know and enjoy Christ in an experiential way.

May we realize the excellency of Christ and may we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ so that we may subjectively know Christ and experience Him in our daily living.

May we not be limited by our past experience of Christ but stretch forward to enjoy and experience Christ in a fresh, new way in His unlimitedness and all-inclusiveness in our daily life.

Lord Jesus, we want to have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ so that we may experience Christ subjectively in our daily life. Amen, Lord, grant us to see a vision of Christ in all that He is. May we advance in our knowledge of Christ day by day, and may our knowledge of the all-inclusive Christ be excellent! Amen, Lord, may the excellency of the knowledge of Christ cause us to drop everything else so that we may gain Christ and be found in Him. Oh Lord, how much we need to realize the excellency of Christ so that we may have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and experience Christ subjectively! How much we need to see the surpassing worth of Christ so that we may be willing to count as loss all things on account of Christ and we may experience Him subjectively in our daily life!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Philippians, pp. 172-173, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Enjoying Christ as Revealed in Philippians (2023 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 4, entitled, Knowing Christ and the Power of His Resurrection.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Our need to know Christ subjectively, a portion from, The Centrality and Universality of Christ, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee.
  – How You Can Have the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – Seeking to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, a portion from, Life-Study of Philippians, Chapter 21.
  – The Crystallization – the Subjective God, article in Affirmation and Critique.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – It is God’s intent and pleasure / That His Christ be wrought in me; / Nothing outwardly performing, / But His Christ my all to be. / It is God’s intent and pleasure / That His Christ may live in me; / Nothing as an outward practise, / But Christ working inwardly. (Hymns #538 stanza 2 and chorus)
  – Christ to me is so subjective, / Life imparting all the way; / As the Spirit He revives me / And refreshes day by day. / Christ to me is so subjective, / All my being He transforms; / By the mind and will renewing / To His image He conforms. (Hymns #537 stanzas 2-3)
  – Lord, to know Thee as our Person, / Earnestly we seek and pray; / To experience Thy fulness / In a constant inner way. / Never longer only outward / Or with soulish thoughts obsessed, / But, O Lord, in realest contact / We by Thee would be possessed. / Lord, Thou art our Person, / In our inmost being, / May we constantly experience / This reality. (Hymns #1181 stanza 1 and chorus)