The Christian Life

Subject: The Christian Life Tue Sep 09, 2014 2:37 pm

The closeness of a believer’s walk to God will be mostly determined by what the Author of Scripture (Spirit of God - 2 Pet 1:21) teaches him (1 Cor 2:13). This along with, not the life of the Spirit but the life of the Lord Jesus (Col 3:4), will be the sole means by which the Spirit will “conform” every believer “to the image of God’s Son” (Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 3:18); and this all—in the works of the Father (Phl 2:13), will not be to the exclusion of any believer (Jhn 6:37).

The life of Christ within the believer will be manifested by that which glorifies Him—the fruit he bears (Jhn 15:8). Bears I say, not produce, for the believer cannot produce fruit any more than a branch can; because it is the vine that produces it, and it is the branch that bears it. Thus, the closer the walk, the more available the bearing.

Though it is said to be "your good works" (Mat 5:16), they are the Spirit's works, for the only fruit God accepts is that which is of the Spirit (Gal 5:22, 23; Eph 5:9), which means their origin is not from the believer but from the Spirit—through the believer. Hence Paul’s proclamation of Galatians 2:20, and if I may paraphrase, “It is not I who lives the life of Christ, but it is Christ Himself who is living His life in me.”

As the glove determines not its actions, but the hand, so God and not the believer determines his actions (Psa 37:23; Pro 3:6; Gal 5:17; Phl 2:13). Below is what I believe to be an insightful observation of the Christian life, which well exemplifies the maintaining of the preeminence of Christ (Col 1:18) within the believer. It is an excerpt from the book “None but the Hungry Heart,” by Miles J Stanford.

"Our Father is going to teach us, mainly through personal failure, that the life we live is the life of our Lord Jesus alone. The Christian life is not our living a life like Christ, or our trying to be Christ-like, nor is it Christ giving us the power to live a life like His; but it is Christ Himself living His own life through us; 'no longer I, but Christ.’”

"The end of Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection was to prepare and form a holy nature and frame for us in Him, to be communicated to us by union and fellowship with Him; and not to be able to produce in ourselves the first originals of such a holy nature by our own endeavors.”

Bible commentator John Gill explains that, "Nevertheless I live; which is to be understood, not of his natural, but of his spiritual life; the life of justification he lived, by faith, on the righteousness of Christ; and the life of sanctification which he had from Christ, by the quickening influences of His Spirit, by virtue of which he walked in newness of life. The believer is a mere paradox, he is dead to the law, and "yet lives" to God; he is crucified with Christ, and yet lives by Him; yea, a crucified Christ lives in him."