HOW TO BE IN CHRIST
(1) He who believes into Christ is in Christ. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life." This is a union. When you believe into Him (Christ), your sin becomes His, and He becomes one with you.
(2) Having believed into Christ, we should be baptized into Christ. Baptism is to be immersed into Christ. Romans 6:3 says, "Or are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?" The way we are immersed into the water when we are baptized is the way we are immersed into Christ. If a copper coin is put into a bottle of sulfuric acid, the copper coin will melt, and we will not see the copper coin anymore. When we are immersed into Christ, we are melted into Christ and become one with Him. This is faith.
(3) "But of Him you are in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1:30). God has immersed us into Christ. Inwardly, we believe into Him; outwardly by baptism, we are immersed into Him. God joins us to Christ. God has done this for us. Therefore, we have righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. It is wonderful; we have it all. We have no righteousness in ourselves; Christ is our righteousness. We have no sanctification in ourselves; Christ is our sanctification. We have no redemption in ourselves; Christ is our redemption. Our eyes must be fixed on Christ. May God remove our veils, so that we would see how complete God’s accomplishment is.
Mr. Hudson Taylor once tried hard to overcome. He said, "I am always asking, but God never gives it to me; one day when I read John 15:5, `I am the vine; you are the branches,’ I immediately received the light." Later he knelt down and prayed, saying, "I am the most foolish person in the whole world; the overcoming life that I am looking for, I already have." You are a branch; it is not that you want to be a branch. You are a branch; the life is yours already. For many years Mr. Taylor asked to be joined to the tree like a branch. Little did he realize that he was already a branch and already joined to the tree. It was not until the day he received the revelation from God and had genuine faith that he had the victory. Later he was able to accomplish great things for the Lord. Once he was asked to speak at the Keswick Convention, and he related this story. He said, "After I failed, I sought for the overcoming life, only to find that I could never obtain it. But the day I believed, I received it."
Brothers and sisters, we are not hoping to draw out some sap from the root to nourish us. We are branches of the tree. We do not have to care for anything as long as we are the branches. We do not need to take something from the tree to cultivate ourselves. All we have to do is believe that we are the branches. God has joined us to Christ. Everything that Christ has now belongs to us. If we believe, we will overcome.
On the one hand, we are baptized into Christ; on the other hand, by means of the bread and the cup, we contact Him. This is the way for His life to freely flow.
(Collected Works of Watchman Nee, The (Set 1) Vol. 10: The Present Testimony (3), Chapter 5, by Watchman Nee)
