What the Bible Says about the Christian Life

What the Bible Says about the Christian Life

"For to me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1.21). Does this verse say like Christ? No. Does it say imitate Christ? Again, No. Does it say taking Christ as the model and following Him? No once again. It says that for me to live is Christ. It is absolutely impossible to imitate, and it is completely useless trying to be good. Even though we are able to read the Bible and pray and live a good life, if our life is wrong, our living will likewise be wrong. Nothing is wrong with our aspiring, weeping, and repenting before God and saying, "O God, I really want to obey You"—no, what is wrong with us is simply that our life is wrong.

God not only appoints Christ to die at Calvary for us but also makes Him our life. Do be very clear about this: God does not make you a Christian in the way a person teaches a monkey how to dress, eat, and move. To teach a monkey to live like a man would be such a burden to it that it would rather remain as it is than learn to be a man. No, God has not treated us in such a way.

We may read the Bible for five minutes and find it tasteless, yet in reading other books we have much more interest. We may pray and get nothing; and yet, if we do not pray, our conscience will accuse us. We cannot help ourselves from loving the world; nevertheless, in loving the world we do not have peace within. It is extremely difficult to be a Christian. How impossible it is to live a God-like life. We are truly most wretched! Let me add, though, that as long as we feel wretched there is still hope because such wretched feeling is proof that we are still on the way. If a person no longer feels wretched, I must feel wretched for him because he has already left the straight path.

Oftentimes we are left speechless as we witness the severity of the temptations of this world. How can we therefore blame other people when we too are moved within? Frequently we long to be like others who are so obedient to God in showing their back to the world and turning their face to Him. We ourselves have tried and have found how difficult it is. And how miserable we have become as we have sought to be a Christian like this! For who is able to achieve so high a standard? Is not such expectation much like asking a five-year-old child to carry 300 pounds? Oh how cruel! And it would obviously be extremely brutal to force such a child to carry 10,000 pounds. Yet to ask a Christian to live a God-like life is far more wretched than asking a five-year-old to carry 10,000 or even 300 pounds.

Very often, however, we do try to measure up to such a life. We admire such a walk and we are willing to suffer for it. But what happens is that before one sin is cleared up, another has appeared on the scene. Or else before we have finished our repentance for one thing, the very same thing has occurred once again. Before our repentant tears have even dried, the woeful thing has returned to haunt us.

Oh, let me say that if only we could truly believe that "we cannot"—how much better it would be! God does not want you to try. The life which He gives us is not a fall-and-repent type of life. He wants us to live as Christ lives; because it is Christ in us who wishes to live out His style of life.

Mary gave the Lord a body through which He could exhibit a God-like life. In like manner, if we give ourselves to the Lord and accept this Christ, God will cause us to live out the life which Christ himself once lived.

Please note carefully that to be holy and not follow your own will, to love the Lord with singleness of heart and obey Him entirely is not something you can try to do or to imitate. It depends completely on the Christ whom God has provided for us. And this is full salvation. God has provided Christ for two purposes: on the one hand Christ keeps the law for us, on the other hand He lives in us so that we too may keep the law of God. On the one hand He died for us, on the other hand He lives in us. At Calvary He accomplished salvation for us; now He implements that accomplishment in us. At Calvary He justified us; dwelling in us He now makes us righteous. Not only did He obey God, but by living in us He causes us to obey God too. He not only did everything for us; He also does all things in us.

Here we may perceive the significance of resurrection. "If Christ hath not been raised," declared Paul, "ye are yet in your sins" (1 Cor. 15.17). Do notice that the apostle does not say here that the matter of sin yet remains, since by the death of Christ the legal case of sin has been dismissed before God; but he does say that if Christ has not been raised from the dead, we are yet in our sins; and therefore we will only receive half the salvation of the Lord. In preaching the gospel we often use a parable such as this: we who have sinned are like people in debt, Christ is like a rich friend, and in His death as our friend He pays off our debt. Now no doubt this is good news, yet unfortunately this is but half a salvation. Yes indeed, the Lord Jesus has paid off all the debts we owed. But we would ask if He only pays our debts. If so, can such limited action guarantee us never again to incur debt hereafter? Will we not go into debt again if Christ has merely paid off the old debt? It is most true that our friend has paid off what we owed before; nevertheless, after a while we shall again contract a debt for which our friend will need to pay again. Does not all this betray the fact that if Christ has only died for our sins, what we have received is but half a salvation? Though any earthly friend may have paid a debt for us, we can still continue to incur debt later on. Though Christ our heavenly friend has died for us, we will yet be in sins. Can the salvation of God ever be like this?

God’s salvation causes the Lord Jesus to live in us as well as to die at Calvary for us. He not only pays all our debts but also lives in us so that we will never have to run into debt again. God does not save us merely to escape hell and to enter heaven: He saves us to the extent of Christ being our life. If you have only received half a salvation, you will doubtless be miserable and fail to experience the full joy of salvation. Jesus Christ is our life to do everything in us. God never demands Christians to do this or to do that. For Paul says, "For to me to live is Christ"—and having Christ living in him, Paul is able to endure beatings, persecutions, many perils, imprisonment in Jerusalem, and transference to Rome. It is not by his being like Christ nor imitating Christ, but by Christ living in him that he finds strength for all such things. As a monkey cannot be transformed into a man, so a Christian cannot imitate Christ.

". . . Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2.12b-13). Chapter 1 and verse 21 of Philippians speaks of Paul’s personal experience; these two verses from chapter 2 show what every Christian may experience.

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"—Many who read these words surmise that they must work out their own salvation. And so they decide to rise early, to read the Bible, and to witness with great zeal. Surprisingly they find they cannot do these things. This is because they overlook the words of the next clause which says: "for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work" (v.13). The very word "for" indicates this to be a "cause"; whereas, what verse 12 says about working out your own salvation is but an "effect".

What we ordinarily do in our daily life consists mainly of the following two things: (1) to will, which is an inward decision; and (2) to work, which is an outward act. Without question, these two things sum up our life. We plan within and act without. But both to will and to work are the results of God’s prior working in us. The Scripture here does not say that you should will and work; it says instead that it is God who works in you both to will and work. God first works in you, thus enabling you to will and to work. Because God has worked in, therefore you can work out. Without the first working, there cannot be the second.

Time and again we plead with God, saying: "O God, I wish to obey You wholly, but I find it is most difficult. 1 do not want to love the world, but how hard it is. I do not desire to follow myself, but it seems impossible not to do so." Yet here is the kind of salvation which is presented to us: that God is able to work in us and make us obey Him wholly, to not love the world and to not follow our own selves. Though in ourselves we cannot, God may so work in us that we can.

What is full salvation? It does not mean that a Christian gets rid of one sin today and another one tomorrow. A full salvation means accepting a full Christ. And having such a Christ, we have full salvation. The most difficult Christian to be helped is one whose eyes do not see Christ. What he sees is either his own good or his own bad. His attention is focused on a certain sin of his, or the harassment that may be inflicted upon him by certain people, or the attraction of a particular thing. For this he bemoans himself and hates himself, thinking of ways to overcome. This is a big mistake, however, for God has not called us to overcome one thing after another nor to perform one good act after another; instead, He asks us to accept a full Christ.

For example, a child loves fruit. Today he thinks of eating pears; so he goes to the orchard to buy some. Tomorrow he wishes to eat an apple or a peach, and so he will go again to buy some apples or peaches. Later on he finds out that his father is the owner of this orchard, and that he also gives this orchard to him. Thereafter, the whole situation is changed, since now all these fruits belong to him. Similarly, we Christians think of doing one thing today and another thing the next day. Today we need patience, tomorrow we need love. We are like this child who buys pears today and apples or peaches tomorrow. Yet God invites us to accept a full Christ: God’s entire "spiritual" orchard now belongs to us, even a full Christ. But in buying according to retail, one has to go buy again and again whenever he is in lack.

I do not say here that you and I do not need patience or love. We must certainly exhibit these virtues. Yet how impossible it is to do one thing after another. For if you try and try, you will find yourself loving the world more, becoming prouder, and increasingly following your own will as the days go by. You ought to know that the entire "orchard" is yours. God wants you to share one goal, which is, to possess a full Christ. Christ in you and me will enable us to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.

You may have heard the truth of Christ living His life in us before, but I want to ask you if you have possessed this truth in experience? How often we know, and though we try, we still fail.

"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, both righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor. 1.30 mg.). If we read this verse most carefully and slowly we can readily see that at the time we are saved God has made Christ to be our personal righteousness and our personal sanctification. The answer is Christ. What is victory? It is Christ. What are patience and humility? They are Christ. Anyone who is able to answer in this way has found the secret. My whole being is corrupt and fleshly; but Christ is my holiness. He is my sanctification. There is no one who is holy and victorious; even so, there is a way in which we can say to God, "O God, I accept your Son!" And that will be our holiness and that will be our victory.