CHRIST IN US

^[p. 100] CHRIST IN US

As to the expression, “Christ in you” — in Colossians 1: 27 we find it definitely stated, and in Galatians 2: 20, “Christ liveth in me”. It is evident from Colossians that the great point there is, that Christ may altogether supersede the Adam man, for we find the result of the teaching in Colossians 3: 11 — there is no other man of any kind, but “Christ is everything, and in all”. This, to my mind, is the meaning of Christ in you. He gives you the hope of glory. Now accepting this, which cannot be denied, let us see the effects. It is plain that in Colossians we have not left the earth, and hence all the practice there refers to this present time, whether in the home circle, or in the assembly. This is important, because it determines the measure which Christ works in me. It is never said that eternal life lives in me, but that Christ, who is the eternal life, lives in me; He is my life — a life not independent like my natural life. The life I have is in Christ, and He lives in me for heaven as well as for earth; but in the one I know Him as the old corn of the land, and in the other as the manna. The church (Jew and Gentile) is the one new man in Himself, and the Holy Ghost is given that we may express Him in the place where He is not, but in which we are. As you walk in the Spirit He enables you to walk here as Christ walked, and this many call eternal life, which is not true, though it is quite true that it was the walk of His Son (who is the Eternal life) while down here on this earth in the days of His humiliation. That is the manna, but it has ceased, though it is stored up in Christ for us, and supplied by Him to us now; but as we are in communion with Christ in glory, where He is, and where we are united to Him, we know Him there, and in company we feed on Him as the old corn of the land, where (laying aside the type) the eternal life is in its own sphere, and where we have communion with the Father and the Son. The difficulty in apprehending this great truth lies in not distinguishing the two. He lives in me for heaven as well as for earth; but He is the corn of the land in the one and the manna in the other.