OUR NEED FOR GOD TO BUILD UP
CHRIST INTO OUR INTRINSIC CONSTITUTION
SO THAT WE MAY BE RECONSTITUTED
In 2 Samuel 7 David wanted to build God’s house, but in this chapter God wanted David to realize that he needed God to build Christ into him. Thus, 2 Samuel 7 is the unveiling of a prophecy through typology showing us there is no need for us to build something for God. We simply are not able to do this. We cannot build something for God with ourselves or with our knowledge of the Bible and theology. We need God to build up Christ into our intrinsic constitution so that our entire being will be reconstituted with Christ. As a result, we are not only changed, but we are transformed from one kind of person into another.
Perhaps now we can see that 2 Samuel 7 simply indicates that God does not need us to build anything for Him. We are nothing, we have nothing, and we can do nothing. Therefore, we need Christ to be wrought into our being.
GOD’S ECONOMY BEING TO WORK HIMSELF INTO US
IN CHRIST AS HIS EMBODIMENT
At this point we need to consider once again what God’s economy is. God’s economy is to work Himself into us in Christ as His embodiment. Through death and resurrection Christ has become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Now we need to let God work Christ as the Spirit into every part of our being. The more God does this, the more we will be able to declare, "To me, to live is Christ," and "I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me" (Phil. 1:21; Gal. 2:20).
CHRIST MAKING HIS HOME IN OUR HEARTS
The New Testament verse that best indicates that Christ is building Himself into us is Ephesians 3:17. Here Paul says that Christ is making His home in our hearts. This is building. What is of crucial importance today is the question concerning how much of Christ has been built into us. How much has Christ been built not only into your spirit but into your heart in order to make His home there?
Our spirit, the central part of our being, is surrounded by our heart, which is composed mainly of our mind, emotion, and will. Christ is in our spirit, but how much has Christ made His home in our heart? Most of our hearts are still vacant, not occupied, saturated, and soaked with Christ. Every day our hearts are filled with other things. As a result, Christ is imprisoned in our spirit.
Ephesians 3 indicates strongly that the Triune God is building Himself into us in Christ’s making us His home. Paul bowed his knees to the Father and prayed that He would grant us, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man (vv. 14, 16) so that Christ may make His home in our hearts. Here we have the Divine Trinity: the Father is the One to whom Paul prayed; the Spirit is the One who carries out the strengthening; and Christ the Son is the One who is making His home in our heart. By building Himself into our being, He makes our heart, our intrinsic constitution, His home.
(Life-Study of 1 & 2 Samuel, Chapter 24, by Witness Lee)
