As believers in Christ, we firmly believe that Christ was resurrected from the dead by God, and now He is at the right hand of God in the heavenlies; our Christ is a Man (yet God) who is now in the heavens on the throne of glory! Hallelujah!
The matter of resurrection is foundational to our Christian life and faith. We were regenerated in Christ’s resurrection, Christ came into us as resurrection life, and all throughout our Christian life Christ’s resurrection life operates in our being to spread from our spirit (the beachhead) to our mind, emotion, will, and eventually into our mortal body until our entire being is filled with God’s life, the resurrection life.
Today in our Christian life we need to live in resurrection, and for this we need to know, experience, and gain the God of resurrection (2 Cor. 1:8-9). God may be to us the saving God (He saves us from sin and from so many things daily), the loving God (He loves us, cares for us, and shepherds us), and the living God (He does things for us and He’s living in our experience), but do we know Him as the God of resurrection?
Most Christians know God as a living God, a God who is real and living to them, a God who does things for them and in them, and a God who sometimes even does miraculous things for them. However, we need to know God as the God of resurrection as the Apostle Paul did in 2 Cor. 1:8-9; he was constrained beyond measure even to the point of despair, and he got to know God as the One who raises the dead.
God is working through the cross to terminate us, bring us to an end so that we no longer trust in ourselves but trust in the God of resurrection. God doesn’t just want to DO things for us outwardly, and His main concern is not our physical or psychological prosperity; what God desires is to work Himself with His life and nature into our being, and for this He uses the environment to break us, open us, and impart Himself into us day by day.
The God of resurrection operates through all matters, persons, and things to work out all things for good to those who love God, so that they may gain God and God may gain them with the result of being conformed to the image of Christ. Oh, may we be those who know, experience, and gain God as the God of resurrection!
Living in Resurrection by Knowing, Experiencing, and Gaining the God of Resurrection
Many times we experience God as the living God: He saves us out of trouble, He heals us, and He blesses us; however, the living God can only perform acts on man’s behalf, yet the nature and life of God may not be worked into us as we see His acts.
We need to know God as the God of resurrection; as such a One, His main purpose and desire is to work Himself into us with His life and nature to be one with us, live in us, and conform us to the image of Christ, God’s firstborn Son.
The apostle Paul knew God as the living God, but in 1 Cor. 1:8-9 he testified that in his extreme sufferings and pressure, when he despaired even of living, he got to know God as the One who raises the dead. In our Christian life God is working through the cross to terminate us and bring us to an end so that we will NO LONGER trust in ourselves but in the God of resurrection.
Although we may know God as the living God performing things for us and helping us, we may not have much of the life and nature of God wrought into us; but when we know God as the God of resurrection, His life and nature are blended with us and worked into our being.
God is not working to make His might known in external acts – everyone already knows He’s almighty and all-powerful; what God wants is to impart and work Himself into man. It pleases God to reveal His Son in us (Gal. 1:15-16), Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20), and He is formed in us (Gal. 4:19).
We need to not only know the doctrine of resurrection but know, experience, and gain the God of resurrection so that He may work Himself into our being. We need to not only possess the life of God but have God live in us. We need to not just have many efforts to please God but know God and love God.
Many times in our experience God will allow us to fail and suffer so that we may open to Him and know Him as the God of resurrection; He may not do things for us outwardly to save us from the suffering or the troublesome environment, but He will work Himself into us more.
He wants to gain us as a new creation in resurrection, but we are still so natural, selfish, and independent. How can He make us His sons in full, those conformed to the image of Christ? God sovereignly arranges some seemingly impossible situations in our life in which we may know Him, experience Him, and gain Him as the God of resurrection.
What is impossible with man is possible with God (Luke 18:27)! With man it is impossible but with God all things are possible (Mark 10:27); with us it is impossible to be an overcomer, but with God it is possible – we have Him as the sevenfold intensified life-giving, raising-up, designating Spirit with our spirit, and we can be a normal Christian and an overcomer because we have the Overcomer in our spirit!
Lord, bring us on with You to experience You not only as the living God but as the God of resurrection. Save us from merely asking You to do things for us or perform acts on our behalf, and increase our prayers for knowing, experiencing, and gaining You as the God of resurrection. Lord, work Yourself into us. Keep us open to You as we go through things and situations so that You may blend Your life with our life and Your nature with our nature. Oh Lord, may there be more impartation of Your life and nature into our being today!
We’re Conformed to Christ’s Image by being Renewed as all Things work Together for Good
In His wisdom and sovereignty, God uses our environment in order to work His life and nature into us (see 2 Cor. 4:7-12; 1 Thes. 3:3). He allows suffering in our life so that the old creation would decay and be devastated, thus providing an opportunity for the God of resurrection to impart Himself into us and we would gain more of the divine element. I was encouraged by this wonderful statement,
The primary purpose of suffering in this universe, particularly as it relates to the children of God, is that through it the very nature of God may be wrought into the nature of man so that man may gain God to the fullest extent (2 Cor. 4:16). (Witness Lee, The God of Resurrection)
As our outer man is decaying, inwardly we’re going through the process of being renewed day by day, and the new element of God is added to us. The question is, Are we being renewed day by day, or are we remaining the same day by day and year after year? It would be tragic for us to pass through many sufferings, remain in the church life, and yet remain the same!
God HAS to become our inward constitution, our life and nature. He wants to work Himself into us, and for this He sovereignly arranges things, people, and situations that would help us be renewed and transformed. God uses our environment in order to work His life and nature into us.
In order to live in resurrection and be constituted with the God of resurrection, we must be conformed to the image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God through the “all things” that God sovereignly arranges for us (see Rom. 8:28-29; Heb. 12:10). All things, all matters, all persons, all circumstances, and all situations work together with God to help us be conformed to the image of Christ, God’s firstborn Son, as we love Him in the midst of all things.
May we not be like Moab, who remained the same and his taste and scent did not change (Jer. 48:11). As we pass through afflictions, a continual renewing needs to take place in us day by day so that God can accomplish His heart’s desire to make us the New Jerusalem (2 Cor. 5:17; Rev. 21:2)!
God gave us a new heart to love Him and a new spirit to contact Him and receive Him (Ezek. 36:26), and we need to daily keep our heart new and fresh by keeping it turned to the Lord, and keep our spirit in newness by exercising our spirit to contact God. In the midst of all things, situations, sufferings, and afflictions, may we be renewed by having God’s element wrought into us so that we may know, experience, and gain God as the God of resurrection!
Lord Jesus, save us from the tragedy of remaining the same day after day and year after year! Oh Lord, work Yourself into us and cause us to gain You more as we go through sufferings, difficulties, and circumstances in our daily life! May all things work together for good as we love You, keep our heart turned to You, and exercise our spirit in our daily life. Lord Jesus, we want to be renewed day by day to be conformed to Your image as the firstborn Son of God. Work Yourself into us and renew us daily so that You may accomplish Your heart’s desire to make us the New Jerusalem!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The God of Resurrection (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection and Ascension, week 3 / msg 3, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection (3) – Living in Resurrection for the Reality of the Body of Christ.
- All verses are taken from, Recovery Version Bible.
- Hymns to strengthen the burden in this article:
# All things are possible to God; / To Christ, the power of God in man; / To me when I am all renewed, / In Christ am fully formed again, / And from the reign of sin set free, / All things are possible to me. (Hymns #535)
# All things also work together, / That in life we be transformed. / God will bring us into glory, / We will then be glorified; / Fully saturated with Him, / We’ll be wholly sanctified. (Hymns #970)
# Life is full of opportunities / Ordered by our Father’s hand: we see / Everything’s the best that it could be, / So let’s gain Christ! / Christ our content and reality / To shine out from us unceasingly: / He must have a way in you and me, / He must have a way. / Hallelujah! In the body we / Bear the death of Christ continually: / Thus His life comes forth for all to see as / The outer man is broken down, / The inner man is shining so that— / In these earthen vessels men can see / There’s the treasure of reality! (Hymns #1178)
About aGodMan
Christ is our life. We, the God-men, live a human life to express God, not by our own life, our natural life, but by the divine life of Christ in resurrection (Col. 3:4)….To live Christ by the divine life of Christ in resurrection is to have Christ grow in us that we may be formed inwardly and even conformed to the image of Christ as the Firstborn of God among many brothers (Gal. 4:19; Rom. 8:29b). (Witness Lee, The Practical Way to Live a Life according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures, pp. 44-45)