Subjectively Knowing Christ as the Indwelling One, the Life-Giving Spirit

The central element of Paul’s ministry, the most important matter in our Christian life, and the most missed thing in Christianity today is the indwelling Christ, Christ living in us (Col. 1:27; Gal. 2:20).

The Lord Jesus spoke about it before He went to the cross and the apostles emphasized it very much in the epistles and in Acts, but many Christians miss this today and live as if God is in the heavens and we’re down here on earth doing our best to please Him and improve ourselves.

Christianity as a religion has missed the mark of God’s central revelation in His economy, which is for God to work Himself into His chosen people to be their life and everything.

God doesn’t want “good people” or “well-behaved and proper Christians”, neither does He want us to do the right things, be religious and pious, or be “spiritual”. God wants that Christ would be wrought into our being and He would be lived out of us as our virtues to become the church, the organism of the Triune God for His corporate expression.

To accomplish God’s purpose we need to know Christ as the indwelling One, the life-giving Spirit in our spirit. May we not miss the mark of God’s economy but rather be those who subjectively know Christ, enjoy Christ, and live Christ for God’s expression!

Do You Know Christ as the Living Person Dwelling in You?

We may know from the Bible that Christ lives in us and we may mentally understand and apprehend such a concept, but do we know Christ as a living Person dwelling in us? Do we know Christ as the indwelling One?

We need the Lord to shine on us and speak to us in a fresh way so that we may have a deep realization of the indwelling Christ. What about our reaction to things? If things are good, we are happy and “praise the Lord”; but if things are not that good, how do we react? How do we react when others offend us?

Does Christ as the indwelling One matter in all the situations we’re going through? Are we keen to Christ as a living Person inside of us? Do we honor Christ’s presence and do we treasure His indwelling in our daily life with its daily activities?

We need to know and experience Christ as the indwelling One. Without the vision and experience of the indwelling Christ, our whole Christian life is just a facade, a show, a game.

It is by the vision and the experience of the all-inclusive Christ who dwells in us that we realize and enjoy all that He is and has. Oh, how we need to know and experience Christ as the living Person dwelling in our spirit!

The Most Precious Result of Believing in Christ is Receiving Christ into us!

When we were regenerated by believing in Christ we didn’t only receive forgiveness of sins, peace toward God, and the cleansing of our offenses. The most precious result of our faith in the Lord Jesus is that we received Christ as a living Person into us!

To all those who believe into Him and receive Him, God gave them the authority to become children of God (John 1:12-13)! We didn’t just believe in an objective fact or a historical Person, but we received a wonderful Person into us. As Rom. 8:10 and 2 Cor. 5:10 tell us, Christ is in us! Christ in us is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27).

This truth has been neglected by most Christians today, even though the Lord Jesus spoke about this and Paul especially emphasized it.

Yes, Christ is in the heavens on the throne, and He is interceding for us before God, taking care of God’s administration. But at the same time, Christ lives in us, dwelling in our spirit! This can be roughly illustrated by the electricity, which is at the same time at the power plant and in the lights in the room. We don’t need to go somewhere to find God: He is right inside of us!

The pure and unadulterated word of God says clearly that Christ dwells in us, but this has been neglected by most Christians, because it is very mystical. Hallelujah, Christ dwells in us! Mysteriously, mystically, and at the same time very practically, Christ lives in us!

The most precious result of our believing into Christ was that we received Christ in us and now He lives in us!

Christ Dwells in us as the Life-Giving Spirit

How does Christ dwell in us? Can a man of flesh and bones come and live inside another man of flesh and bones? Can a historical figure come and live in us today?

If we read the Gospels carefully, especially John 14-15, we see that Christ was on earth as a Comforter with His disciples, but He told them He’s going away to prepare a place for them, and He is returning to them as “another Comforter”, the Spirit of reality.

Christ went to the Father through death and resurrection, and in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit to come to be not only with the believers but also in the believers (see John 14:16-20). Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), just like the air that surrounds us and we breathe in.

Through His death and resurrection Christ went through a process in which He became the life-giving Spirit to be received by us, to live in us, and to dwell in us. How can Christ come to dwell in us? He became the Spirit and came into us to live in us and be everything to us.

Today Christ is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) with our spirit to guide us into all the reality of what Christ is. Christ as the Spirit dwells in us to be the Comforter, the Advocate, taking care of all our complicated cases, and at the same time He supplies us with life and life-supply to meet all our needs!

As the Comforter, Christ lives in us as the Spirit of reality to be our life, our supply, and our person (see Col. 3:4; Eph. 3:17).

Lord Jesus, we open to Your continually life-dispensing and life-supply as the indwelling Christ, the life-giving Spirit. Thank You for being in us from the time we called on Your name and were born again. Lord, we want to know You and experience You daily as the indwelling Christ. Save us from missing the mark in God’s economy, the indwelling Christ. Save us from neglecting this living Person inside of us. Keep us turning to You, Lord, and enjoying You as the indwelling Christ all day long!

References and Further Reading

• Inspiration: A sharing by brother James Lee and portions in, The Subjective Experience of the Indwelling Christ (chs. 3-4), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, “The Completing Ministry of Paul“, week 3 entitled, The Indwelling Christ.
• Similar sharing online:
  # Where Is Jesus Christ—the Grave, Heaven or in You? (via holdingtotruth.com)
  # Living Christ by Speaking with Him (via achristianoncampus).
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Everybody ought to know; / Where Jesus dwells. / He is dwelling in our spirit; / He is Breath and Life to us; / We are one with Him in spirit. / Everybody ought to know.
  # God’s intention is for Christ / To be wrought into His chosen people / That they may become the sons of God / For His corporate expression.
  # We have the triune God indwelling us, / Living and acting, working all the time, / That by the inner sense we have of Him / God we may know in magnitude sublime.