Christ in You!

 Christ in You! Colossians 1:27

"For ages and ages this message was kept secret from everyone, but now it has been explained to God’s people. God did this because he wanted you Gentiles to understand his wonderful and glorious mystery. And the mystery is that Christ lives in you, and he is your hope of sharing in God’s glory." - Colossians 1:26-27

 In these two verses of scripture the Apostle Paul tells us that Christ lives in us and that this has been kept a secret and mystery from everyone for generations and ages. 

Christ lives in us? Is that before or after we get saved? I was initially taught as a new believer that in order to be saved I needed to confess that I was a sinner, ask God to forgive my sins, which I was told were already  forgiven, past, present and future, then ask Jesus to be my Lord and ask Him to come into my heart. When I did that by faith I was told that the Holy Spirit would come into me, Jesus Himself, His Holy Spirit would  indwell me permanently. Of course Ephesians 1:13 does seem to bear this out,

"It is the same with you. You heard the true message, the Good News about the way God saves you. When you heard that Good News, you believed in Christ. And in Christ, God put his special mark on you by giving you the Holy Spirit that he promised." - CEV

 

 Yet a little more than a year ago I started to see that maybe Christ's seed, as I explain in my Post titled The Seed, already resides in every human being but in a dead or dormant state since the Fall of Adam and Eve in the garden. Then shortly after that I made mention of it to my Church home group leader and others at an a outdoor gathering of other believers and was immediately told that wasn't true and was shut down given there was an unbeliever among us and of course we wanted to see that person saved. He did come to Christ by the way. 

Yet it was not too long after that incidence that a verse of scripture I have probably read hundreds of times over the past 18 years jumped off the page at me in the book of Galatians when Paul stated this, 

"But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, was pleased to unveil his son in me, so that I might announce the good news about him among the nations – immediately I did not confer with flesh and blood." - Galatians 1:15-16

Notice that Paul says that God was pleased to unveil His Son in me, some translation read to me, but that is not a proper translation in my opinion and it makes all the difference in the world. The simple word in here is the Greek word en, which The Complete Word Study Dictionary defines as, ; In, on, at, by any place or thing, with the primary idea of rest. As compared with eis (G1519), into or unto, and ek (G1537), out of or from, it stands between the two; eis implies motion into, and ek motion out of, while en, in, means remaining in place.

 In other words if Christ comes into us then Paul would have or should have used the Greek word eis not en. It wasn't too long after that that I started to see other verses such as the opening verse of this post from Colossians 1:27 where Paul again states that the mystery long hidden from man is that, "Christ lives in us." But in a dormant or dead state, hence why we say people are spiritually dead until they receive the life God has offered us by faith when we choose to believe that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead. Romans 10:9-10 When we do, that is the catalyst the dead or dormant seed needs to sprout and come alive as I point out in my post called The Seed.

When we feed His seed planted within versus the seed of the serpent, the accuser of the brethren we become new creatures according to 2 Cor. 5:17, 

"Now, if anyone is enfolded into Christ, he has become an entirely new person. All that is related to the old order has vanished.[a] Behold, everything is fresh and new.[b]" The Passion Translation

The footnote for [a] reads; This would include our old identity, our life of sin, the power of Satan, the religious works of trying to please God, our old relationship with the world, and our old mind-sets. We are not reformed or simply refurbished, we are made completely new by our union with Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
While [b] reads; Or “Behold, a new order has come!”


And isn't that in essence what Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3:3,


"Jesus answered, “Nicodemus, listen to this eternal truth: Before a person can even perceive God’s kingdom, they must first experience a rebirth.”[b]" - The Passion Translation

Here again we look the the footnote [b] and read; The Greek word can be translated “born from above.” However, in the context Nicodemus understood it as a rebirth. The Aramaic word is clearly “born from the origin.” Nicodemus came seeking knowledge; Jesus offered him life.


The Greek words born again are the words, gennaō anōthen, with the first word metaphorically defined by Thayer's dictionary as; to engender, cause to arise, excite and the second word as; from above, from a higher place, of things which come from heaven or God, from the first, from the beginning, from the very first, anew, over again. 

In other words I believe what Jesus is saying is that we need to reborn to that original state in the garden before man bowed down to the god of this world Satan thereby becoming spiritually dead to God or the seed within.

Likewise I have always been led to believe the Kingdom of God is somewhere out there. But that is completely contrary to what Jesus says.

"The kingdom is not discovered in one place or another, for God’s kingdom realm is already expanding within some of you." - 17:21 The Passion Translation

The footnote for this verse reads,

Translated from the Aramaic text. The implication is that God’s kingdom realm is a person, Jesus Christ. The reality of God’s kingdom appears when Jesus lives within us by faith. Let me say that a little different, yes Jesus is still a person today, but that person can't be seen or heard physically as He was when He walked the earth 2,000 years ago. Our only source to see Him or hear from Him is through His Word, our Bible and as we feed on Him as our source of light, water and food, we grow and expand within spiritually, just as a plant or animal does in the natural. 

1John 3:9 reads, 

"Everyone who is truly God’s child will refuse to keep sinning[a] because God’s seed[b] remains within him, and he is unable to continue sinning because he has been fathered by God himself.[c]"  - The Passions Translation

The footnotes read, [a] The Aramaic can be translated, "never serves sin". [b] This is the Greek word sperma, "male seed". [c] or "born of God". We have been fathered by God Himself and we carry His DNA, His genes,

 It's when the Spirit reveals things like these in scripture that my eyes are opened to see and realize that the Bible is so much more than many give it credit for. So many just see it as Book of stories or fables, but there is a lot to be said about the significance and power of stories. Joseph Campbell spent a lifetime exploring and discovering this. There is nothing random about the deeper meanings being shown here for kings that are willing to search them out Proverbs 25:2, and according to 1 Peter 2:9 we are are a chosen treasure, priests who are kings. The words in the Bible are more than just mere words.

 According to Hebrew 4:12, the Word of God is living and active and Jesus is that Word manifested in the flesh John 1:14 and He also said in John 6:63 that the flesh profits nothing, it's the Spirit that gives life and My Words are Spirit and they are life.