Scripture Reading: Gal. 2:20; 3:14
Ⅰ
Galatians reveals that God's plan according His good pleasure is to work Christ Himself into us; the most evil thing, according to Galatians, is to distract people from Christ—1:4-17; 2:4, 20; 4:19; Jer. 2:13; cf. Isa. 57:20; Hab. 1:1 and footnote.
Ⅱ
Christ is the One who has given Himself up for the believers and who lives in them—Gal. 2:20:
A
If we see that we have already been crucified with Christ and that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us, and if we praise the Lord for this fact, then He will have more ground in us, and He will be expressed through us.
B
No longer I in 2:20 does not indicate an exchanged life, a life in which Christ comes in and we go out, for later in this verse Paul says, "I live."
C
As regenerated people, we have both the old "I," which has been crucified (Rom. 6:6), concerning which Paul says, "No longer I," and a new "I," concerning which Paul says, "I live."
D
The old, terminated "I" was without divinity; the new "I" has God as life added to it; the new "I" came into being when the old "I" was resurrected and God was added to it.
E
On the one hand, Paul had been terminated, but on the other hand, a resurrected Paul, one who was regenerated with God as his life, still lived.
F
Furthermore, although Paul says, "No longer I," he also says, "It is Christ who lives in me," for it was Christ who lived, but it was in Paul that He lived; the two, Christ and Paul, had one life and one living.
G
On the one hand, we the Gentiles, who were the wild olive branches, have been cut off from a wild olive tree—fallen Adam; on the other hand, we have been grafted into a cultivated olive tree—the resurrected Christ—11:17, 24:
１
Because we have been grafted into Christ, we have an organic union with Him, and His experience has become our history.
２
By the all-inclusive cutting of Christ's all-inclusive death on the cross, we are dead to everything other than God.
３
When Christ died on the cross, we died in Him; when He was crucified, we were cut off from the wild olive tree, that is, cut off from the self, the flesh, the world, religion, and the law with its ordinances—Gal. 2:19.
４
Furthermore, because we have been grafted into Christ, His resurrection has be-come our history; therefore, we can strongly declare that with Christ we have been crucified, buried, and resurrected—Rom. 6:3-4; Eph. 2:6.
５
It is by faith in Christ that we enter into such an organic union:
ａ
The faith of the believers is actually not their own faith but Christ entering into them to be their faith—Rom. 1:12; 3:22 and footnote 1; Gal. 2:16 and footnote 1.
ｂ
Our believing into Christ is our appreciation of Him as a reaction to His attrac-tion—v. 20b; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Rom. 10:17; Heb. 12:1-2a; cf. Acts 14:27.
ｃ
Faith comes out of the hearing of the word; when we come to the living Word (Christ) in the written word (the Bible), He becomes the applied word (the Spirit) of faith to us—Rom. 10:8, 17; Gal. 3:2; John 5:39-40; cf. Heb. 3:12.
ｄ
When man hears Christ, knows Him, appreciates Him, and treasures Him, He causes faith to be generated in man, becoming the faith in man that enables man to believe in Him—12:2; Rom. 10:17; Gal. 3:2, 5; 5:6.
ｅ
Faith is to believe that God is; He must be the only One, the unique One, in everything, and we must be nothing in everything—Heb. 11:1, 5-6.
ｆ
We believers live by faith and infuse Christ as faith into others by exercising our spirit of faith to infuse them with faith (2 Cor. 4:13; Rom. 10:14-17) so that they may be brought into the following organic relationships with Christ for His purpose:
⑴
Christ is the cultivated olive tree and the vine, and we are His branches— 11:17, 24; John 15:1-8.
⑵
Christ is the Head, and we are His members—1 Cor. 12:12, 27.
⑶
Christ is the breath of life, the water of life, and the bread of life, and we are His breathers, drinkers, and eaters—John 20:22; 4:10, 14; 7:37-39a; 6:35, 51-63, 68.
⑷
Christ is the Bridegroom, and we are His bride—3:29-30; 2 Cor. 11:2-3.
ｇ
Faith is the subjective God applied to our being; thus, just as nothing is impos-sible to God, nothing is impossible to faith—Matt. 17:20; 19:26.
ｈ
Christ as the seed of Abraham is for the blessing to all the families of the earth; the unique seed of Abraham as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit— Gen. 12:2-3, 7; 17:7-8; Gal. 3:14, 16, 29; 1 Cor. 15:45b; John 12:24.
H
The resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit is the transfigured descendant of Abraham, the seed of Abraham, dispensed into us to make us the sons of Abraham, the corporate seed of Abraham, those who can receive and inherit the consummated Spirit as the blessing of Abraham—Gal. 3:7, 14; 4:28:
１
The physical aspect of the blessing that God promised to Abraham was the good land (Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 17:8), which is a type of the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17).
２
Christ as the life-giving Spirit is the blessing of Abraham (Gal. 3:14), the reality of both the seed of Abraham and the good land promised to Abraham; our blessing today is God Himself, who is embodied in Christ and realized as the Spirit to be dispensed into us for our enjoyment.
I
We can continually receive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit for His growth in us as the seed of Abraham and for our enjoyment of Him as the land promised to Abraham by the hearing of faith—vv. 2, 5; 2 Cor. 4:13:
１
To receive the Spirit, we need to have an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the churches (Rev. 2:7; cf. Heb. 5:11-14); the measure of the Spirit that can be dispensed into our inward parts depends on the measure of our hearing (Mark 4:23-25; Matt. 13:14-16; 5:3, 8; Luke 10:38-42).
２
We need to be one with Christ as the Slave-Savior by loving Him to the uttermost and taking Him as our absolute consecration, giving Him the way to open our ear to hear His divine instructions, His fresh messages, which dispense the divine Spirit into us for our service to God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son—Exo. 21:1-6; Isa. 50:4-5; Phil. 3:3; John 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6; Rom. 1:9.
Ⅲ
Galatians reveals the way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit—the aggregate of the all-embracing blessing of the full gospel of God—3:14:
A
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by God's revealing of Christ in us; we live the Christian life accord-ing to the Christ whom we have seen—1:16a; Eph. 1:17; Gen. 13:14-18.
B
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by our receiving of Christ out of the hearing of faith—Gal. 3:2.
C
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by being born according to the Spirit and by being given the Spirit of God's Son into our hearts—4:29b, 6.
D
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by putting on Christ through the baptism that puts us into Christ— 3:27.
E
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by being identified with Him in His death so that it may be no longer we who live but He who lives in us; and the life that we now live in the flesh, we live by the faith of Christ—2:20:
１
To be identified with Christ means to be one spirit with Him and even to be one entity with Him—1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17; Phil. 1:20-21a.
２
We are identified with Christ in His death in order that it may be no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us—Rom. 6:3-4; Gal. 2:20.
F
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by living and walking by the Spirit—5:16, 25.
G
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by having Christ formed in us through travail—4:19:
１
Christ's being formed in us depends on our being transformed; our being transformed and His being formed in us cause us to be conformed to His image—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 8:29.
２
To have Christ formed in us is to have the three parts of our soul (our mind, emo-tion, and will) renewed—12:2; 2 Cor. 4:16.
H
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by sowing unto the Spirit with the desire and aim of the Spirit in view, to accomplish what the Spirit desires—Gal. 6:7-8.
I
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by boasting in the cross of Christ and living a new creation—vv. 14-15.
J
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with our spirit—vv. 17-18.