“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
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The true Christian life, which begins with a supernatural transition, consists and continues in a supernatural transfusion. The very life and nature of Christ are transfused into the inner most being of the Christian believer by the Holy Spirit. Thus our Saviour’s word is fulfilled: “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). Paul not only says,”I live, yet not I”; he goes on to say, “but Christ liveth in me.” There is not only transition; there is transfusion. This is the most precious and sacred secret of the Christian life … The man of the world neither understands it nor even suspects it. Yet oh, how real it is to our Lord’s own!
Now just because of this supernatural transfusion, the New Testament ideal for our Christian life is that there shall be within us a continual displacement of the old self-life, and an ever-clearer enthronement of the new Christ-life. All of us, by nature, are egocentric, self-centered; but we are meant to become Christocentric, or Christ-centered. Christ is to be the new life within our life; the new mind within our mind; the new will within our will; the new love within our love; the new Person within our personality.
We cannot always be on the mountaintop of transfiguration, seeing always heavenly visions and hearing heavenly voices [Matt. 17:1-9]. We cannot be experiencing spiritual raptures and sensory ecstasies. A high frequency of these is neither necessary nor desirable in our present state; nor could our nervous system sustain too much of it. Often we must be down on the long-stretching plains of every day hum-drum realities; and sometimes we must needs be down in some grim valley, drawing the sword in fierce battle against Apollyon himself [Rev. 9:11].
Yet whether up on the mountain top, or down on the monotonous plain, or deep in some valley of trial, I am convinced of this, that we Christian believers need never lose an uninterrupted consciousness of our indwelling Saviour. Surely this is implied in the words, “Christ liveth in me.” To be Christocentric is to be all the while Christ-conscious.
[“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” Col. 3:1-4 NKJV, emphasis added].
The whole of our consciousness is meant to be interpenetrated with the consciousness of His indwelling life and mind and will and love, even as the air in Summer is transfused with sunshine.
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J. Sidlow Baxter (1903-1999) served as a pastor in England and Scotland and authored authored about thirty books. Quotations in this article, unless specified otherwise are from the KJV.
Article’s title and bracketed Scripture added – JBW.