◄ The Essential Christ ►

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit fruit that will last. (John 15:16 NIV)

The new creation is in Christ.It is not in you, and not in me, and never will be. All that itwill mean in time, and in eternity will be through our spiritualunion with Christ. All God's fullness is in Christ. We shallreceive all that fullness, and enjoy it in a practicalout-working. But this, while we are yet here in time, will everbe by faith's union. In eternity, where the reception of thatfullness will be unhindered, the work of faith, though not itsfruit, will have passed. But we shall never be absorbed in Christin the sense that we become so many Christs. It will still beHimself as distinct Who is to be glorified. We shall never beglorifying ourselves, neither shall we be glorified by others asthough we were Christ. Christ is not some great widespreadessence, which is going to become the constitution of a greatmultitude, so that that multitude becomes a Christ in essence. Itwill ever be true that Christ remains apart in His Person, thoughmanifested in His glory and in His excellence in the saints, andwe shall still, therefore, be worshiping Him as objective anddistinct in His own Person from ourselves.

Perhaps that hardly needssaying. But it is very important that we should recognize that foreverGod has bound up everything with His Son, and that nothingwill ever be had or enjoyed apart from Christ, while for thispresent life that is only by faith in the Lord Jesus. The objectof this present emphasis is to seek, as the Lord will enable,that there shall be an emancipation from ourselves; for thatoccupation, that consideration, is always taking fromHis glory. Let us ask the Lord to cut us really free fromourselves by an unveiling and presentation of His Son to us, asthe sum total of all that ever God desires and wills.