HAVING CHRIST ABIDING IN US
To live in the Divine Trinity is to abide in Christ, and to live with the Divine Trinity is to have Christ abide in us (John 15:5). When we abide in Christ, Christ abides in us, and His abiding is His presence with us. When He abides in us, we have His presence. We have Him with us for our enjoyment.
Having the Words of Christ Abiding in Us
for the Bearing of Remaining Fruit
To have Christ abiding in us is to have the words of Christ abiding in us for the bearing of remaining fruit (John 15:7-8, 16). In John 15:7 the Lord said, "If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall come to pass to you." This kind of asking is related to fruit-bearing (v. 8) and surely will be fulfilled. If we are to be those who go forth to preach the gospel, we must be those who love the word of Christ. We must be those who have the living word, the word of life, abiding in us. If we are not such persons, our preaching of the gospel will not last long. The living word of Christ stirs us up to go forth and bear fruit. The word of Christ abiding in us brings us the enjoyment of all that the Triune God is. This encourages us, stirs us up, burdens us, and charges us to go forth to preach the gospel to people.
If we do not have the word of Christ abiding in us, we may go out to reach people, but what we do will be in a poor way. The content and the issue of what we do will be vain, empty. If we are going to do a rich work, a work full of the riches of the Triune God, we must have the word of Christ abiding in us. Then when we talk to people, we will not talk to them with our own opinion, our own thought, our own word, our own expression, or our own utterance. We will talk to people with the word of Christ. This is why Paul charges us in Colossians 3:16 to let the word of Christ abide in us richly. We need to have a storage of the word of Christ in us. Then what we speak will be the word of Christ, which expresses the very riches of Christ. To have the word of Christ abide in us is a rich enjoyment of the Triune God.
Having the Spirit of Reality Abiding in Us
To have Christ abiding in us is to have the Spirit of reality abiding in us (John 14:17). John 14—16 is a long message given by the Lord just before He was betrayed. In chapter fifteen the Lord mentions His words abiding in us, and in chapter fourteen He speaks of the Spirit of reality abiding in us. Actually, the words of Christ and the Spirit of reality are one. In John 6:63 the Lord told us that the words which He has spoken are spirit. God’s word and God the Spirit are both God’s breath. When this breath gets into us and remains in us, this breath is the Spirit. When this breath comes out of us through our speaking, it becomes the word. When we breathe in the word of the Bible, the word becomes the Spirit in us. We contact our Triune God through the Spirit and in the word. We enjoy Him through the Spirit in our spirit and in the word. As long as we have His words abiding in us, this issues in the Spirit abiding in us. The more His words abide in us, the more the Spirit abides in us. These are two aspects of the breath of our Triune God.
(Living In and With the Divine Trinity, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee)
