LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Three Phrases
In Colossians there are three very significant phrases, which point to an ascent in the experience with Christ. They are: "Christ in us" (1:27); "Christ is our life" (3:4), and "Christ is all" (3:11).
"Christ in us" is the happy experience of one who has been born again, and knows that he has been constituted by God as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). Christ is not only a reality outside of me, but within. Not only does he live at the right hand of God to intercede as High Priest and Advocate, but he dwells in me, through the Holy Spirit. His presence within us revolutionizes our lives.
The second point is even more glorious: "Christ, our life". Christ not only lives in me, as independent of me, but he gradually transforms himself into my life itself. He is not only in me to help me. He himself is the sum of all my resources, he is my strength, my nourishment, my walk and my rest; even my breath. Christ himself is my life. Nothing is outside of him, not my plans, not my family, not my struggles; he is in everything.
Third: "Christ is all". Christ is not only my life. He is even beyond my present life. He is present in my past history and in my future life. And not only in my life, but in the lives of all the saints. Present in history, as the center of God's purpose, Christ is the all beyond myself, beyond this present time and beyond all time. To go out of ourselves to enter into the mind of God; to go out of the narrow ways of our heart to enter into the wide and generous heart of God. All this, and more, is to see Christ as the whole.
This is a progressive path, because it is not given to man, subject to time and space, to understand the ways of God overnight. It is only after walking for a time, step by step with Christ, in failure and triumph, that light is made in our darkened mind.
Three little phrases, but they open up a tremendous perspective of what Christ is. And they are in Colossians, this epistle of fullness, of perfect things, where the horizon opens to see some glimpses of the revealed Christ.