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The excellency of the knowledge of Christ comes by revelation; without the revelation concerning Christ, we cannot know Christ—Matt. 16:17; 11:27; Gal. 1:15-16; John 17:3.
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If we would experience Christ, we first need to have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ—Phil. 3:7-10:
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We cannot experience Christ without knowing Him through a revelation of Him—Gal. 1:15-16; 2:20; 4:19.
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If we do not have a higher revelation of Christ, we cannot have a higher experience of Christ—1 John 5:20.
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Our experience of Christ cannot surpass the excellency of our knowledge of Christ—Eph. 1:17-21; 3:14-19.
Morning Nourishment
Matt. 16:17 ...Jesus...said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in the heavens.11:27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one fully knows the Son except the Father; neither does anyone fully know the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
[Philippians 3:8] speaks of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ....To experience Christ we first need the knowledge of Christ. We must know Him. This chapter stresses very much the knowledge of Christ. Verse 10 says, “To know Him and the power of His resurrection.” Therefore, to know Him is crucial to our experience of Him. We cannot experience Him without knowing Him. The knowledge of Christ is excellent, and this knowledge is even an excellency.... We must stress here the knowing of Christ. Christ Himself stressed that He would build His church not upon Himself as the rock but upon the revelation concerning Him. The revelation is for knowing. Without the revelation concerning Christ surely we could not know Him. We need this revelation to know Christ. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 3, “Elders' Training, Book 6: The Crucial Points of the Truth in Paul's Epistles,” pp. 524-525)
Today's Reading
In the four books that make up the heart of the divine revelation—Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians—Paul opens the veil to show us who Christ is and what Christ is. Christ is all-inclusive and all-extensive, the reality of every positive thing in the universe. He is the reality of God, man, eternity, light, and life. We simply do not have adequate words to declare who and what Christ is.Only recently have I been impressed with the extensiveness of Christ. One day as I was speaking on the Christ revealed in Colossians, I spontaneously used the term extensive and pointed out that the revelation in Colossians concerning Christ is extensive, even all-extensive, for Christ is more extensive than the whole universe. He is immeasurable, limitless. Hence, He is not only all-inclusive, but also all-extensive.
Colossians 2:16-17 says, “Let no one therefore judge you in eating and in drinking or in respect of a feast or of a new moon or of the Sabbath, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ.” These verses indicate that Christ is our eating, drinking, feast, new moon, and Sabbath. He is the body, the reality, the substance, of all the positive things in the universe. He is the reality of the air we breathe, of the food we eat, and of the sunshine we enjoy. Furthermore, He is the reality of both the Triune God and of man.
When we teach that Christ is all-inclusive, the reality of all positive things in the universe, some go so far as to accuse us of teaching pantheism.... We utterly repudiate pantheism and declare that it is a devilish teaching. We do not preach pantheism in any way. However, according to the Bible, we do teach that Christ is God, man, and the reality of all positive things. But this does not mean that the material things in the universe are God Himself. We are not God and we never shall become God. Nevertheless, Christ is in us and, in a very real sense, He is even becoming us. Colossians 3:10 and 11 say, “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 and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all.” These verses also point to the all-inclusiveness of Christ. In the new man, the Body, the church, there cannot be Greek and Jew. Likewise, there cannot be Chinese and American, German and French. In the new man Christ is all and in all. He is all the members and in all the members. This means that in the new man Christ is you and Christ is me. He truly is all-inclusive and all-extensive. (Life-study of Philippians, pp. 158-160)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1985, vol. 3, “Elders' Training, Book 6: The Crucial Points of the Truth in Paul's Epistles,” ch. 7; Life-study of Philippians, msgs. 19-21