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PART OF CHRIST. THE SPIRIT OVERCOMING THE WORLD

We are not only of Christ’s nature, but we are united to Him by the Spirit. This is the great mystery. I can understand a believer who is going on in the world being afraid to accept the truth that he is verily a part of Christ.

^[p. 84] Thus the church, the body of Christ, is His complement. The bride is relationship, and the figure of marriage defines the relationship; but the body is participation. Thus we have — “Holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God” (Colossians 2: 19).

You are quite right in what you say about the Spirit. I receive Him consequent upon believing; the blood has done its work to my faith; and then comes the oil. Once I receive the Spirit, I have all that the Spirit imparts — sonship, earnest of the inheritance, and union with Christ and with one another. Then His formative work in me begins to bring me into the reality of these things, to make what is true of me true to me. But there is but the one giving of the Spirit, and now He does not visit, but He abides, and where He abides (as every one does ordinarily) He has a home and furniture, so to speak, suited to Himself.

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