For us to live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ for us to be imprisoned in Christ as a prisoner of Christ Jesus, a prisoner in the Lord, an ambassador in chain, a captive of Christ scattering His fragrance.
This is what Paul was, and this is is what we should be if we are to live Christ for the Body. We cannot live Christ if we are free men, that is, if we independent of the Lord, independent of the Body, and living in ourselves, by ourselves, and for ourselves.
First we need to see the vision of the church being a pure product out of Christ; such a vision will cause us not to add anything natural to the Body, for only Christ and the element of Christ can be part of Christ.
The clothes we wear are not part of our body, no matter how much we like them; they are not us. Nothing that is outside of Christ can be part of the Body of Christ; therefore, we need to be filled with Christ and saturated with Christ so that we may be imprisoned in Christ and live Christ, the One who lives in us and spreads in us.
Christ is the Head of the Body; Christ is the Body of the Head, and we as the church are “the Christ”, the corporate Christ.
Too much has the church been marred throughout the ages by well-meaning believers who use their natural zeal and strength to “build up the church”. We have lived too much in our natural man, and even in the meetings of the church we have expressed ourselves too much.
We need to let the Lord shine on us and show us that anything other than Christ is NOT the Body of Christ, no matter how good, spiritual, moral, and ethical it may be. Anything other than Christ is a foreign element in the Body of Christ, and the Body life does not accept or allow anything natural.
We need to be like the apostle Paul, desperate to live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ.
We may not be in a prison outwardly, but we need to take Christ as our prison and be imprisoned in Him, so that wherever we go we would scatter the fragrance of Christ, bringing others to know Him simply by our living and our words.
When we see and realise that only the element of Christ can be present in the Body of Christ, we will be “paralysed” from exercising anything of our natural man.
Even more, we will be imprisoned in the Lord, and He Himself becomes our prison; here, in Christ as our prison, we can live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ.
Being Imprisoned in Christ to Live Christ for the Reality of the Body of Christ
How can we live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ? To live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ is to be imprisoned in our spirit as a “prisoner of Christ Jesus,” a “prisoner in the Lord,” and an “ambassador in a chain” (Eph. 3:1; 4:1; 6:20; 2 Cor. 5:20, cf. vv. 4, 9, 14, 16).
The apostle Paul was our pattern in living Christ; he was not only outwardly in a Roman prison but he considered himself the prisoner of Christ (Eph. 3:1). Outwardly he was confined in a physical prison, but actually, he was imprisoned in Christ; as such a prisoner in Christ, he besought the saints (4:1).
Today we may not be in a prison outwardly, but we need to be imprisoned in Christ and take Christ as our prison. The more we love the Lord, the more He becomes our prison.
The very Christ we love becomes our prison, our very dwelling place. Sooner or later, all those who love the Lord faithfully, serve Him, and minister His riches, will be imprisoned by Christ and in Christ.
The more we love the Lord, the more we will be in Him; we will live in Him, have our being in Him, speak to Him, walk in Him, speak in Him, and do everything in Him – Christ becomes our prison.
Eventually, we will be in the Lord to such an extent that He becomes our prison, and once we get into this prison, we don’t want to get out, for here we enjoy Him to the uttermost, and here we live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ.
It was in prison that Paul received the highest revelation in the Bible, and he wrote it in the epistle to Ephesians; it was when Paul realised that he was imprisoned in Christ that he saw something heavenly and divine.
For us to see something of the high peak in God’s revelation and live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to be imprisoned in Christ.
The more freedom we have, the more we can do things and say things without taking Christ as our prison, the more blind we are; but if Christ is our prison, our eyes will be opened to see the heavenly vision, and we will receive the highest revelation!
When we are imprisoned in Christ we will see that Christ is unlimited, immeasurable, and unsearchable; He is the all-inclusive and all-extensive One who fills all and in all (Eph. 1:23).
He is so vast and immense that He is the very dimensions of the universe – Christ is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth (Eph. 3:18).
Furthermore, as seen in Ephesians, Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Eph. 5:25), He created the one new man in Himself, He heads up all things in Himself, He makes us as gifts and gives us as gifts to the Body, and He makes His home in our heart.
Our Christ is the church-loving Christ, the new-man-creating Christ, the all-things-heading-up Christ, the gift-making and gift-giving Christ, and the home-making Christ.
What a Christ we have! This is the Christ we enjoy by being imprisoned in Him, and as we enjoy and are saturated with such a One, we live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ.
Lord Jesus, we love You. We want to be imprisoned in You; we take You as our prison, and we want to be in You and never leave this wonderful place! You are everything to us. We love to be in You, live in You, speak in You, do things in You, and speak in You. You are our home and You are our prison. Amen, Lord, by being imprisoned in Christ we can see the all-inclusiveness and all-extensiveness of Christ, and here we can live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ. Hallelujah for Christ, our prison!
Living Christ as Ambassador of Christ, a Prisoner in Christ, a Captive of Christ
The more we love the Lord and pursue Him, the more He becomes our prison; the more we abide in the Lord, the more we are subdued by Him, occupied by Him, and captured by Him, so that we live Christ for the Body.
When we are fully occupied by the Lord, we no longer live ourselves, we no longer express our views, and no longer do our own acts; rather, we remain in Christ, and we are imprisoned in Christ.
A person who lives Christ as an ambassador of Christ no longer has his own freedom and can no longer do things according to his own convenience.
A person who is imprisoned in Christ and lives Christ as an ambassador in Christ goes where the Lord wants him to go, speaks what the Lord wants him to speak, and everything he does is under and according to the leading of the directing hand of God (see Ezek. 1:1-3; John 7:6, 8).
We do not glamorise “being imprisoned” – we do not take this matter lightly; rather, we simply state the fact of what happens when we love the Lord – we are imprisoned in Him and we become His ambassadors, that is, His ambassadors in a chain.
However, many times we consecrate ourselves to the Lord but we still have our own freedom, doing things according to our choice, living in and by ourselves, not as a prisoner in Christ.
We must first be a prisoner in Christ, so that He may lead us in His triumph and bear witness to His victory.
Ezekiel is a pattern in being one who is a prisoner in Christ; God’s hand led and directed Ezekiel as a person who spoke for him. Wherever he went, whatever he did, and how he acted and behaved were all due to God’s leading and directing hand.
Whether Ezekiel was bound or free, whether he mourned or rejoiced, whether he went there or stayed here, everything was under the leading and directing of God’s hand. This is what it means to be imprisoned in Christ.
When we are imprisoned in Christ, when we are His captives and ambassadors, we no longer have our own freedom, and we can no longer do things according to our own convenience. This requires that we pay a considerable price.
We see this in Paul; he was one who opposed Christ so much, but one day on the road to Damascus, he was conquered, subdued, and captured by Christ (Acts 9:1-9). From that day onward, Paul became a captive of Christ.
We may think that Christ was a powerful preacher and a great writer, but what he considered himself is a prisoner in the Lord, a prisoner of Christ, an ambassador in a chain, and a captive in the triumphal procession of Christ.
To live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ is to be a captive of Christ in His triumphal procession, doing everything in the person of Christ in our spirit for the celebration of His victory in the work of the ministry to speak in Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ (2 Cor. 2:13-17).
Our speaking and our work shouldn’t show our eloquence or knowledge but the fact that we are a captive of Christ, part of His triumphal procession.
Lord Jesus, we want to live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ by being a captive of Christ in His triumphal procession. Amen, Lord, we want to do everything in the person of Christ in our spirit for the celebration of the victory of Christ in the work and the ministry so that we may speak Christ and live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ. Lord, imprison us in Yourself until we have no freedom and can no longer do things according to our own convenience but according to the leading and directing hand of God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1967, vol. 2, “An Autobiography of a Person in the Spirit,” chs. 3, 6, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ by Keeping the Principles of the Body (2019 ICSC), week 5, Living Christ for the Reality of the Body of Christ.
Hymns on this topic:
# Lord, You are the General / Leading us triumphantly; / We Your little captives, Lord, / Showing forth Your victory. / Take me captive, Lord, / Never let me win; / Defeat me all the time / And conquer me within. (Song on, Lord, You are the General)
# Thy beautiful sweet will, my God, / Holds fast in its sublime embrace / My captive will, a gladsome bird, / Prisoned in such a realm of grace. (Hymns #617)
# Make me a captive, Lord. / And then I shall be free; / Force me to render up my sword, / And I shall conq’ror be. / I sink in life’s alarms / When by myself I stand, / Imprison me within Thine arms, / And strong shall be my hand. (Hymns #422)
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