In Colossians we see a high revelation of Christ as our life and our everything. In his completing ministry, Paul shows us an all-inclusive Christ as the reality of all the positive things, and especially in Colossians we see that this Christ is our life.
Somehow, the Christ who fills all in all, the one in whom the fullness was pleased to dwell, is now our very life (Col. 3:4).
Christ is now in us as the hope of glory (Col. 1:27), which means not only that one day we will be glorified with Him, but also that daily glory is being wrought into us and we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another degree of glory! Hallelujah for such a Christ!
This One is really our life today, so personal and subjective to us, waiting for us to give Him our cooperation that He may spread into every part of our inner being and saturate us with Himself.
As Christians, we live on “the Christ-planet”, where everything is Christ and Christ is everything. All we need is Christ. Our food, our drink, our air, our daily necessities, and everything is Christ! Hallelujah! We are eating Christ, enjoying Christ, drinking Christ, breathing Christ, and we are becoming Christ! As the Body of Christ, we are becoming Christ!
We Worship the Enthroned Christ but we Enjoy the Indwelling Christ
In Christ, God became a man, passed through a long process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, and now in ascension Christ is at the right hand of God in glory accomplishing God’s economy, and He is the High Priest interceding for us before God and ministering to our needs. Christ is on the throne in the heavens as the Man in the Glory! As such a One, we worship Him and we give Him glory.
But at the same time, Christ is in our spirit and we are joined to Him as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). We worship the enthroned Christ in the heavens, but we experience, enjoy, and partake of the indwelling Christ in our spirit, who is our life (Col. 1:27; 3:1).
Christ is both objective (in the heavens) and subjective (in our spirit) to us – He is subjectively objective. He is so subjective to us that we and He, He and we, have become one spirit. This is the greatest miracle: God is one with man, and man is one with God!
Yes, Christ is on the throne, but we can come forward to the throne of grace because this throne is in our spirit (Heb. 4:16 and footnote). While Christ is in the heavens, we can still come to Him, enjoy Him, and partake of Him.
There’s a ladder set up in our spirit through regeneration, bringing God to man and man to God. Christ is so subjective, so enjoyable, so partakable, and so experientiable!
The Indwelling Christ is the Hope of Glory
Christ in us is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27). This means that right now Christ is in our spirit to be our life (Col. 3:1) and He is spreading into every part of our inner being to fill our entire being with His divine life! Christ is our subjective hope of glory – not merely something in the future, but right now, He is our hope.
Just as a pregnant woman hopes that the baby will one day be delivered, so we hope that the indwelling Christ in us will one day be manifested and He will glorify us! We are “impregnated with Christ”, we have Christ in us as the divine seed, the divine gene, and He is growing in us, spreading in us, and saturating us with His element daily.
As we behold His face and do everything according to the index of His eyes, we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another degree of glory (2 Cor. 3:18). Glory is simply God expressed, God manifested. Christ in us is the hope that one day we will fully express God corporately.
This indwelling Christ is daily saturating our being, and one day even our physical body will be transfigured and conformed to the body of His glory (Col. 3:4; Phil. 3:21). Hallelujah, what a living hope we have!
The All-Inclusive Christ is Everything to us
Little by little, day by day, hour by hour, and even moment by moment the indwelling Christ is infusing us, saturating us, and permeating us with God until in our experience He becomes everything to us. This Christ is not a small, limited Christ, but He is the all-inclusive, all-extensive, preeminent Christ.
Christ is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation, and in Him all things were created, exist, and subsist (Col. 1:15-16). Everything in the old creation was created through Christ and is unto Christ.
In the new creation, Christ is the Head of the Body, the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, and He has the first place in all things (Col. 1:18-19). In Christ all the fullness was pleased to dwell (v. 19). Christ is the First, the Head, and He is the reality of all the positive things in the universe.
How can this great One live in us? The all-inclusive and extensive Christ lives in us to be our life. The divine life of God with all the unsearchable riches of Christ is in us, and He desires to infuse us, saturate us, and permeate us with Himself as the all-inclusive Christ until in our experience He is everything to us (see Col. 2:16-17; 3:4, 10-11).
Universally, Christ is extensive and all-inclusive, but in our experience, Christ is our life, our very being! Hallelujah for such an all-inclusive Christ becoming everything to us!
Just as we live, eat, drink, breathe, move, and do things in the country we live in, and we are constituted with that country, so through our regeneration we have been transferred on “planet Christ”, where Christ is everything to us. The air we breathe is Christ. The food we eat is Christ. The transportation and the roads are Christ.
We have been rooted and grounded in Him. We live in Christ. Everything here is “made in Christ”. Christ is all and in all, and He is specifically living in us to be our everything. Until we know Christ is everything, we don’t know how to live in the spirit.
He’s not just our Savior, our friend, our wisdom, etc, but He is everything. This is why as Christians we need to eat Christ, drink Christ, breathe in Christ, and be filled with Christ, because Christ is our everything!
Lord Jesus, thank You for being so available, so real, and so near to us. The all-inclusive and all-extensive Christ dwells in us right now to be our very life and person! Lord, we want to enjoy You until You become everything to us. We give ourselves to You today to be infused with You and filled with You. Lord, saturate us. Permeate us. Fill us with Yourself. In little things and big things, Lord, become everything to us!
References and Further Reading
- Inspiration: A sharing by brother James Lee and portions in, Life-study of Colossians (msgs. 36, 45, 51), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, “The Completing Ministry of Paul“, week 3 entitled, The Indwelling Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Once I hoped in Jesus, / Now I know He’s mine; / Once my lamps were dying, / Now they brightly shine; / Once for death I waited, / Now His coming hail; / And my hopes are anchored / Safe within the veil.
# We treasure Thee, Lord Jesus, / As God’s reality. / Whate’er our God possesses / Is surely found in Thee. / His very life and essence / Within Thy Being dwells. / His glory and expression / Thy Person fully tells.
# God intends in everything / Christ should have preeminence, / And that such a Christ of all / We should now experience.
About aGodMan
Lord Jesus, You are all the members of Your Body, & in
all the members! We are one spirit with You! You are this glorious one new man!
Col. 3:4 When Christ or life is manifested, then you also
will be manifested with Him in glory.
10-11 And have put on the new man, which is being renewed
unto full knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there
cannot be Greek, & Jew, circumcision & uncircumcision, barbarian,
Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all & in all.
PTL!!!
Amen, Christ is all and in all – and He becomes our all by us living one spirit with Him in this wonderful organic union!
How good it is to see that Christ slowly becomes us and He makes us Him – we become the same as He is! We become the Body of Christ, which is Christ Himself!
Universally,Christ is all extensive and inclusive,but in our experience,Christ is our life, our very being,such as we need in our daily life.Christ is everything for us.