Scripture Reading: John 14:23; 15:4-5; 1 John 2:27-28; 3:24; 4:13; Rev. 21:3, 22
Ⅰ
We who have believed into Christ (John 3:16), receiving Him as our Lord and Savior, are now in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30), and Christ is in us (Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 13:5):
A
"The Lord is the Spirit" (3:17), "the Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit" (Rom. 8:16), and "he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17).
B
This "one spirit" is the divine Spirit dwelling in our human spirit, and these two spirits are organically joined and mingled together to be one spirit.
C
Our organic union with the Lord is illustrated by the branches with the vine tree, the tree of life, in John 15; we are the branches of Christ, the vine tree of life.
D
Just as the vine's life is in the branches, and the vine lives through the branches, so Christ is our life, and we are His living.
E
In order to maintain our organic union, our life union, with the Lord, we must abide in Him so that He may abide in us—vv. 4-5.
Ⅱ
To abide in Christ is to dwell in Him, to stay in Him, to remain in fellowship with Him, that we may experience and enjoy His abiding in us—1 John 2:27:
A
To abide in Christ is to live in the Divine Trinity—taking Christ as our dwelling place— vv. 6, 24, 27-28; 3:6, 24; 4:13:
１
To abide in Christ is to abide in the Son and in the Father (2:24); this is to remain and dwell in the Lord (John 15:4-5).
２
To abide in Christ is to abide in the fellowship of the divine life and to walk in the divine light, that is, to abide in the divine light—1 John 1:2-3, 6-7; 2:10.
B
To have Christ abiding in us is to live with the Divine Trinity—having Christ's pres-ence as our enjoyment for Him to be one with us and to be with every part of our being and every aspect of our living—Matt. 1:23; 18:20; 28:20; 2 Tim. 4:22; 2 Cor. 2:10; Exo. 33:11, 14; 1 Cor. 7:24:
１
To have Christ abiding in us is to have the words of Christ abiding in us for the bearing of remaining fruit to glorify the Father—John 15:7-8, 16.
２
To have Christ abiding in us is to have the Spirit of reality as the presence of the Triune God abiding in us—14:17.
Ⅲ
In order to abide in Christ so that He may abide in us, the Gospel of John reveals that we must take Him as our necessities:
A
Christ is our life—v. 6; 10:10.
B
Christ is our breath of life—20:22.
C
Christ is our water of life—4:10, 14; 7:37-39.
D
Christ is our bread of life—6:35, 57.
E
Christ is our light of life—8:12.
F
Christ is our abode in life—14:2, 23; 15:4-5.
Ⅳ
We need to abide in Christ as our King and as our royal abode so that He can abide in us to make us His queen and His royal palace, His glorious church—Psa. 45:13, 8; John 15:4-5; Eph. 5:27; Rev. 22:5; Rom. 5:17; cf. S. S. 6:4:
A
To abide in Christ is to dwell in Him, the eternal God, as our Lord, having our living in Him and taking Him as our everything—John 15:4-5; 1 John 4:15-16; Rev. 21:22; Deut. 33:27a; Psa. 90:1.
B
We need to dwell in God, living in Him every minute, for outside of Him there are sins and afflictions—vv. 3-11; John 16:33.
C
To take God as our habitation, our eternal dwelling place, is the highest and fullest expe-rience of God—Psa. 91.
Ⅴ
We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by our loving Him—John 14:21, 23:
A
When we love the Lord Jesus, He manifests Himself to us, and the Father comes with Him to make an abode with us for our enjoyment; this abode is a mutual abode, in which the Triune God abides in us and we abide in Him—v. 23.
B
The more we love the Lord, the more we will have His presence, and the more we are in His presence, the more we will enjoy all that He is to us; the Lord's recovery is a recovery of loving the Lord Jesus—1 Cor. 2:9-10; Eph. 6:24.
Ⅵ
We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by our caring for the inward teaching of the all-inclusive anointing—1 John 2:27:
A
We abide in the divine fellowship with Christ by experiencing the cleansing of the Lord's blood and the application of the anointing Spirit to our inner being—John 15:4-5; 1 John 1:5, 7; 2:20, 27.
B
Christ as the Head is the anointed One and the anointing One, and we are His mem-bers enjoying Him as the inner anointing for the fulfillment of His purpose—Heb. 1:9; 3:14; 2 Cor. 1:21-22.
C
The anointing, as the moving and working of the compound Spirit within us, anoints God into us so that we may be saturated with God, possess God, and understand the mind of God; the anointing communicates the mind of Christ as the Head of the Body to His members by the inner sense, the inner consciousness, of life—Psa. 133; 1 Cor. 2:16; Rom. 8:6, 27.
D
When the Head wants a member of the Body to move, He intimates it through the inner anointing, and as we yield to the anointing, life flows freely from the Head to us; if we resist the anointing, our relationship with the Head is interfered with, and the flow of life within us is stopped—Col. 2:19; Acts 16:6-7; 2 Cor. 2:13.
Ⅶ
We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by our dealing with the constant word in the Scriptures, which is outside of us, and the present word as the Spirit, which is within us—John 5:39-40; 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6; Rev. 2:7:
A
By the outward, written word, we have the explanation, definition, and expression of the mysterious Lord, and by the inward, living word, we have the experience of the abiding Christ and the presence of the practical Lord—Eph. 5:26; 6:17-18.
B
If we abide in the Lord's constant and written word, His instant and living words will abide in us—John 8:31; 15:7; 1 John 2:14.
C
We abide in Him and His words abide in us so that we may speak in Him and He may speak in us for the building of God into man and man into God—John 15:7; 2 Cor. 2:17; 13:3; 1 Cor. 14:4b.
Ⅷ
We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by our "switching on" the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit—Rom. 8:2, 4:
A
The Lord's abiding in us and our abiding in Him are altogether a matter of His being the life-giving Spirit in our spirit; by the bountiful, immeasurable Spirit in our spirit, we know with full assurance that we and God are one and that we abide in each other— 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17; Phil. 1:19; John 3:34; 1 John 3:24; 4:13.
B
The way to abide in Christ as the empowering One so that He may be activated within us as the inner operating God, the law of the Spirit of life, is by rejoicing always, pray-ing unceasingly, and giving thanks in everything—Phil. 4:13; 2:13; 1 Thes. 5:16-18; Col. 3:17; 4:2.
Ⅸ
We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by our taking Him in His ascension as our secret place to be our inner refuge, our hiding place, our high tower, our fortress, and our high retreat in our spirit to protect us from all the attacks of the evil one—Psa. 91:1-4; 31:20; 18:1-2; 36:7; John 14:30.
Ⅹ
We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by our rejoicing always, praying unceasingly, and giving thanks in everything; this is the will of God concerning us, and this is the way that we do not quench the Spirit (1 Thes. 5:16-19; cf. 2 Tim. 1:6-7); in addition to not quenching the Spirit, we should not grieve the Spirit in our daily living (Eph. 4:30; Psa. 42:5, 8, 11).
Ⅺ
We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by our abiding in His love—John 21:15-17; 15:10:
A
All the commandments are summarized in two: to believe in the name of God's Son Jesus Christ and to love one another—1 John 3:23-24; John 13:34-35.
B
The commandment regarding brotherly love is both old and new: old, because the believers have had it from the beginning of their Christian life; new, because in their Christian walk it dawns with new light and shines with new enlightenment and fresh power again and again—1 John 2:7-8.
C
"We know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him. In this has love been perfected with us, that we may have boldness in the day of the judgment because even as He is, so also are we in this world"—4:16-17:
１
To abide in love is to love others habitually with the love that is God Himself so that He may be expressed in us.
２
Boldness here is for us to face the judgment at the judgment seat of Christ—2 Cor. 5:10.
３
Christ lived in this world a life of God as love, and He is now our life that we may live the same life of love in this world and be the same as He is.
Ⅻ
To abide in Christ, taking Him as our dwelling place, and to allow Him to abide in us, taking us as His dwelling place, are to live in the reality of the universal incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with the redeemed and regenerated believers—John 14:2, 10-11, 17, 20, 23:
A
The New Jerusalem is the ultimate incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with the regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glo-rified tripartite church—Rev. 21:3, 22.
B
The New Jerusalem is the tabernacle of God, and the center of the tabernacle is Christ as the hidden manna; the way to be incorporated into this universal, divine-human incor-poration, the mutual abode of God and man, is to eat Christ as the hidden manna— v. 3; Exo. 16:32-34; Heb. 9:4; Rev. 2:17.