«　WEEK 3　DAY 1　»

　　Eph. 4:20-21 But you did not so learn Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus.

　　1 Pet. 2:21 …Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving you a model so that you may follow in His steps.

　　Rom. 8:29 …He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.

　　The New Testament strongly indicates that we should live Christ…Paul declares, “To me, to live is Christ” [Phil. 1:21]…In Ephesians 4:20 we are told that we have learned Christ.

　　Christ is not only life to us but also an example (John 13:15; 1 Pet. 2:21). We learn from Him (Matt. 11:29) according to His example, not by our natural life but by Him as our life…The Lord Jesus did not come into us as life directly. Rather, after living on earth for thirty years, He ministered for another three and a half years. During the thirty-three and a half years of His life on earth, He set up a pattern, a mold, a model…One reason the four Gospels were written was to show the pattern of the life that God desires, the mold of the life that can satisfy God and fulfill His purpose. For this reason the New Testament gives us a unique biography, the biography of the Lord Jesus, written from four directions. After the Lord Jesus set up the pattern revealed in the Gospels, He was crucified on the cross, and then He entered into resurrection. It is in resurrection that He comes into us to be our life. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 380-381)

　　To be saved is to be put by God into Christ. First Corinthians 1:30 says, “Of Him you are in Christ Jesus.” When God put us into Christ, He put us into the mold…Romans 8:29 indicates that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, the Firstborn among many brothers. To be conformed is to be molded…To learn Christ is simply to be molded into the pattern of Christ, that is, to be conformed to the image of Christ.

　　By means of baptism God has put us into Christ, who is the pattern. To be baptized is to be placed into Christ as the mold…To be baptized into Christ [Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27] is to be buried into Him. The tomb of this baptism is the pattern, the mold. In God’s eyes, we were put into this mold when we were baptized. Through being placed into the mold, we have put off the old man and have put on the new man. By being buried into Christ, we have been brought out of Adam and the old creation. By baptism we have been put into Christ, who is both our life and our pattern. This explains why Paul uses the past tense in speaking about learning Christ. We learned Christ when we were buried into Him in baptism. This means that to learn Christ is to be put into Christ as the mold. It is to be molded into the pattern set up by Him during His years on earth.

　　After Christ established the pattern, He was crucified, and then He entered into resurrection, becoming in resurrection the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). It is as the Spirit that He comes into us to be our life…At the time we believed in Christ and were baptized in Him, God put us into Him as the pattern, the mold. Therefore, Paul could tell the Ephesians that they “did… learn Christ.” According to the light of the New Testament and according to our experience, to learn Christ is to be placed into Christ by God. On God’s side, He has put us into Christ. On our side, we have learned Christ by being put into Him.

　　After a person is saved, deep within him he desires to live a life in the pattern established by the Lord Jesus. However, many either ignore this desire or cultivate it in a mistaken way, thinking that by self-effort they can succeed in imitating Him. It is a mistake to think that we can imitate Christ by the exercise of our natural life. The believers in Christ should imitate Him, but they should not do so according to their natural life. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 381-382)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Ephesians, msgs. 46, 49; CWWL, 1984, vol. 2, “Elders’ Training, Book 2: The Vision of the Lord’s Recovery,” ch. 4

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