From the book, "Jesus Lost in the Church", Copyright
© 1988
Christ-life Fellowship
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The In-Christ Revolution
by Warren Litzman
The revolution is on and we are a part of it. Wonderfully and gloriously, the Father has let us be a part of it. This revolution centers on the greatest truth recorded in the Bible -- the truth that we are "in Christ." It would seem that there would never need to be a revolution on such a subject especially a revolution led by God, the Holy Spirit but that is exactly what is happening today. It is a revolution in that the entire course of Reformation theology is destined for a radical advance into the fullness of Christ and a deeper understanding of God's eternal plan than ever before experienced.
The in-Christ truth is certainly not new. Neither is it some hidden and obscure truth. It is the most visible and oft-written truth in the entire New Testament, not to mention its vivid presence in the Old Testament. In fact, the in-Christ truth is mentioned over 200 times in the New Testament, with at least 146 of those times referring directly to the foremost doctrinal truth to be found in the entire Bible.
It may seem strange that the one truth that is the center and the circumference of the plan of God should have to be proclaimed by anyone. It should be the best known and most practised truth of any Bible-believing saint. Yet the very opposite has been true, and this is the reason the Father has provoked a revolution. I believe He does this so He might direct our attention to what He is doing in the universe, as well as to what He is saying in the Word.
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It must be noted that without this truth being made known to the believer, there will never be a church pleasing to the Father. Satan' s primary intent is to keep the believer from this truth. Satan knows that the entire plan of the Father is centered in Christ, so to confuse modern believers, he keeps them majoring in the minor issues. How ironic that this truth in Christ is mentioned more often as a doctrine than any other in the Scripture, yet many fail to see it.
Perhaps that happens because many think, as I once did, that this wording alludes to Old English or to a special vernacular that was common to Paul. For whatever reason, the believer is denied an understanding of this truth. Without it, neither the Bible as a whole nor Christ as a Savior can be fully known or understood. It is a growing fact among the hungry believers of this world that, without a Spirit revelation of the in-Christ truth, the believer will never become all that the Father planned for him to be.
Now the Father, after waiting for centuries for men to turn to Him in hunger, has heard the cry of those searching ones and has provoked a move of the Spirit to reveal His liberating secret. It is called a secret because three times Paul spoke of it as being hidden in God. It was hidden from the Old Testament writers; it was not made clear in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, though He often spoke of it; and it was not until Paul had his revelation of Christ in Galatians 1 that the truth was made public. By this, one can see that the Father has a will to reveal His greatest truth when, and only when, He chooses.
It is my feeling that the Father has once again accelerated among hungry believers the knowing of the one truth that runs the plan of God and is the only reason for the universe itself. So you can see why I call this a revolution. Praise God, the revolution is on as we see the Father alerting and teaching believers all over the earth His liberating secret. This move of the Spirit is not doctrinal except in the light that it is the main doctrine in the Word. This move of the Spirit is not denominational, yet people from every denomination are involved. It is not of man nor is it a truth held by "a man," for it is God's will for all men to come to its knowing. It will be a truth that will revolutionize modern theology and be the ultimate fulfillment to the Reformation church
The one important thing about this truth is, it has always been in the Scriptures. We certainly are not plucking out and promoting some obscure truth. It is as well known as any biblical truth. That is probably the reason that its greater essence has been so overlooked by the modern church. This is where Satan has tricked us. Because the in-Christ truth is so prevalent in the Word, many have not taken it seriously. There is a spiritual pride in most believers that surfaces when someone comes saying a thing differently than they understood it, or when someone says that emphasis should be placed in another area. This, of course, causes a revolution among believers, but as I see it, it is the only way the Father can ever bring His plan to its ultimate conclusion.
To have a clear picture of what God is doing in His eternal plan, we must see how the in-Christ truth is the catalyst for everything He does. The incorporation of all believers in Christ is the prime work of God to correct the self-independence resident in all creatures since Satan was in the Father's house. Notably lacking was any feeling that Lucifer and the Father were one. Thus, when the Father drew up the plan for us, He in essence had to devise some way His sons could be one with Him. He is love and has always wanted love from His sons. What He wants is a union of all men with Himself, and further, a union of all men with themselves. This is His greatest desire, for one of the most singular truths in the Scriptures, in Christ, is translated 146 times to read union with God. It is further proven in that this most-often-stated truth is not just a prepositional phrase but a doctrinal truth. As a doctrinal truth, it is stated more often than any other doctrinal truth in the Word -- more than faith, or power, or love, or baptism, or church. All of these doctrines are genuine, but none of them hold the importance or weight of Scripture as does the in-Christ truth.
To really get a clear picture of this truth, we need to see the truth in the Old Testament. To do this properly, we will rely upon the New Testament to explain the Old. As theologians say, "The New is hidden in the Old; the Old is revealed in the New." As I have often taught students, the Epistles explain the Gospels, and the Gospels explain the Old Testament. Therefore, to understand this great truth in the Old Testament, we must call upon Paul. For example, all creation in and before Genesis 1 is to Paul an overwhelming fact, that God's purpose is to bring the creature to a union with Him by placing the creature in Christ. This is evidenced by Paul's words in Ephesians 1:4, "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.... " Here at the foundation of the world is also stated the foundation of the greatest truth, "chosen in Him." For Paul, all of creation deals with the in-Christ truth. In Colossians 1 :15-19, he states, "[Christ] the firstborn of every creature...by Him were all things created... all things were created by Him, and for Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist... that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell."
To further seal the idea of Christ's union with the creature being the purpose of all creation, we parallel the two verses in the Word which speak the most loudly concerning the beginning. Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word...." Adding these two ideas together shows that the whole creation is inseparable from Christ. But more than that, it is not just Christ born of a virgin, but Christ the Word. This is significant because the use of the term "Word" means that Christ is not only the object of the union but also that seeing Him in the Scriptures is God's means of our knowing this union. Christ is the supernatural unity of all creation and He is the unity of the supernatural work, which was God's purpose in creation.
So, as the truth of the liberating secret begins in the Old Testament -- that Christ is inseparable from creation itself all the way through the Scriptures -- the same theme is predominant right up to where John, in the Apocalypse, sees the New Jerusalem coming down from Heaven, adorned as a bride. Our union with Christ is the theme of it all -- not just a part of it, not just some of it, but the whole of it.
Adam forfeited this union with God, both for him and for us. But this defection had been foreseen by the Father and God's plan of our oneness with Him continued to unfold. Especially was the plan of God's oneness with the creature made evident in God's dealings with Abraham. Once again, however, we must go to the New Testament and Paul to understand what happened with Abraham. The explanation is in the Epistle to the Galatians (3:8-16). Certain Jews had come into the young church and were sowing seeds of discord. They maintained that the promises made by God in the Old Testament were for Jews alone and Christians were excluded unless they submitted to circumcision.
Their error is the same error being made now by some in the modern church. They are saying that, if you do not keep certain parts of the law, the promises of the covenants are nullified. Thus, some are attempting to "become Jews" by their self-efforts. They are singing Jewish songs, doing Jewish dances, wearing Jewish outfits, and promoting a Jewish type of worship. As is the Father's custom, He allows some to go the opposite way, that all might come to His more perfect way. This is also proof of the need of the in-Christ revolution. If there is any great truth given by the Scriptures in the in-Christ message, it is that in Christ there is neither Jew, nor Gentile, nor anything out of their past, for old things are passed away.
To these Jews Paul says that the Father had Jesus in mind when He made the promises to Abraham. Paul assures them that the believer in Christ is plainly in focus when he says that the promise is not made to seeds, but to one seed, which is Christ. He goes on to say, in verse 17 of Galatians 3, that "..the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ.... " The actual meaning of all this is, the Father made the covenant with Christ. It also means that if the sole heir of the promises to Abraham is Christ, then we are a sole heir also, for we are in Christ. We must see by this that the whole of what the Father did in the Old Testament is taken up with Christ. The Old Testament is concerned with Christ and with us in Christ. How we pray that those who are seeking to know God in a fuller way will not be trapped into placing anything -- not even Judaism -- above Christ, who is the only means by which believers become one with God.
What was present in the Old Testament in only embryonic form is fully developed in the New. It is an awesome thing that God could keep this liberating knowledge a secret for over four thousand years (Romans 16:25). But the fact is that almost exclusively, the Father first gave the great truth to Paul and John. It is Paul alone who tells us first that he has received the great revelation of his union with Christ. John later on closes the Scriptures trumpeting the same truth. Thus we are able to say that the knowledge of our union with the Father and the knowledge of our in-Christ position are the same when the believer can witness to a revelation of Christ as his only life. In other words, a revelation of the Christ-life is tantamount to union.
This is what is actually completed in the New Testament. The whole truth of God in us and eventually working out of us is a progression in the Scriptures Although there is little said outright in the four Gospels concerning this truth, Christ does speak again and again in shrouded words, and sometimes in plain words, as in John 15, of the secret. It was to be the work of the Holy Spirit to make known the secret hidden from generations that Christ in the creature was to be the only life of the creature (John 14-16).
One of the great functions seen in the four Gospels is the Person of Christ doing the will of the Father. The one great difference between the science of theology and all the other sciences is that all of its doctrines deal with a Person, not just a set of facts. It is for this reason that truth can never be derived in Christianity from the accumulation of certain facts. Facts can be translated according to any fancy. This is what great numbers of religious groups have done, with Satan's help, and have been denied the fullness of God in Christ. You can prove anything by the Scriptures, but to know Him who is the Word is to know truth. That is why the Christ-life can be revealed only by the Holy Spirit. Revelation that the believer is in Christ is the essence of the union. This Person, who is the Word, is vividly portrayed in the Gospels. It is a glorious presentation of the Word made flesh. This is Christianity alive -- not just a set of doctrines, or a special set of verses from Scripture, or a fulfillment of special promises, but a life into which we have been placed (I Corinthians 12:13).
Now it is important that we see in the Gospels that the life of Jesus of Nazareth cannot be our life, for that was the Jesus who lived in a body given to Him by Mary. But we see in that Christ who lives in our body or our clay pot (II Corinthians 4:7). The intention of the Father is not that we be Jesus of Nazareth, but that by the example of that Jesus, we would come to union with the Father (John 17). Furthermore, it is the purpose of the Gospels to show how that union comes about.
The true understanding of the Christ-life is locked up in the Christ-death. From the beginning of the Gospels, we see Christ on His way to death. In fact, all of the Scriptures previous to His death clearly point to His death. But that is not all. If Christ has come into us and if He also has come to die, then it is the life of the cross that He has come to implant in our souls. Paul explained this in II Corinthians 4:10 as he says that the dying of Christ works in us that we might manifest His life in our body. This is the strange idea that prompts Paul to call the whole truth of being in Christ the "mystery of godliness." The method by which God will work it all out is that death will bring forth life.
It is with this subject of death that we must see the overwhelming truth of God's oneness with His creatures, and further, the fact that all creatures are dependent upon another for their nature. When Jesus died, every soul died in Him. The believer's identification must begin with His death. We were all in Him when He died, and He, having no sin of His own to kill Him, literally died as us. He died as us, was buried as us, was resurrected as us, and ascended as us. This union is essential to understanding the plan of God.
This is also shown by Paul in his sermon on Mars Hill, directed to sinners -- that even they lived and moved and had their being in Christ. This shows all the more the fact that oneness in the creature is immanent in the plan of God. On the other hand, we must not ignore the fact that Jesus said sinners were one with Satan, as in their unbelief Satan was their father (John 8).
All of this is scriptural proof that the Father, whose whole purpose in the universe is to get sons to live in His house, has chosen a plan a method by which He shall accomplish it. He will do it by placing the only Son who pleases Him, God the Son, in every believing creature. Then He will depend upon that Son, and only on that Son, to be His love and to do His will. To bring all this about, He will cause a birthing. This is announced by Jesus in John 3 as He speaks to Nicodemus, "You must be born again."
In our day, there are many writers and commentators who would substitute other terminology for in Christ because they do not have the revelation of Christ planted in them by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will never confuse the original language, but will, in fact, more purely describe it. We must believe that Paul, by the revelation of Christ, was able to base his entire theology on the original wisdom of God. This means that the wonderful truths presented in the Old Testament could point only to Christ. Finally, knowing Christ as the life of the believer must hinge on a special revelation. That is why Paul prayed for believers to receive a "revelation in the knowledge of Him" (Ephesians 1:17). Without this knowledge, no believer can ever go beyond his Old Testament knowledge or his head knowledge.
Today, many of the new translations of the Bible are so full of sense knowledge that the believer is left without a spirit to know God. Religion is a "thing of the head" rather than a revelation. In fact, many of the newer translations cut out numerous statements of the in-Christ message, supposing that they were redundant, or cliche, or unnecessary. This not only denies the Father the making of a son in the believer, but denies the believer a work of the Holy Spirit necessary to his fitting into God's plan and Christ's world.
We must be careful not to substitute other wording for the in-Christ truth. Some say that we are "within Christ." Some say that Christ is "for" us rather than in us. These changes and many others which are being made show that Satan's major work is to blind the believer to who he is in Christ by deceitfully and minutely changing Spirit-language into carnal language.
True believers will not be tricked by this change. Many believers are buying good Greek lexicons and learning to use them, realizing that they can no longer depend on even the most godly-appearing writers for their Word. It is obvious that depending upon man has brought about thousands of different gospel beliefs, all of which disagree with each other. Praise God, the revelation of Jesus Christ in believers is making a true fellowship of the mystery -- a fellowship that will be soundly rejected by those whose interpretation of the Scriptures is based on sense knowledge.
One important reason for the modern church's rejection of Paul's revelation of the Christ-life is that the revelation denotes and requires a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. In every place in the Scriptures where the revelation is alluded to, the Holy Spirit is at His basic work. His main office is to reveal Christ as the Son in the believer. Any work of the Holy Spirit is supernatural. Sad to say, some believers have so fought modern-day miracles that they have denied the miraculous work of the Spirit also. It is a supernatural work of the Spirit when one is saved, is filled with the Spirit, or receives a revelation of Christ.
If you reject the supernatural, you limit yourself to head knowledge. That is where the modern church is today. Believers are forced to go about looking for "another Christ" rather than the one they are. How sad! Christ is already in them, and they don't know it and cannot live like it. How limited they are! Finally, this believer must turn to the outer things such as health and wealth messages to feel like God is working at all. The treasure within him, Christ, is locked up by his religion and he lives, as Paul said, like the other Gentiles, as if he were not in Christ.
This miracle of the revelation of Christ is accessible to all who hunger. Paul said that when he wanted to know Christ, he did not go to the other brethren, he went into the desert. This is real hunger. Paul said in Philippians 3 that when he wanted to know Christ, he was willing to suffer the loss of all things that made him what he was for the "excellency of the knowledge" (v. 8). This is real hunger! Some may see this kind of "seeking after God" as self-effort. I must give a warning here. When I seek after God, it is not my seeking, but He in me. I, within myself, can do nothing; I cannot even desire God within myself.
That is the reason the Father put another in us. It is Christ in me who seeks to please the Father. It is Christ in me who wants to do only the will of the Father. This is truly me as Him, and Him as me. This is not human effort, but self-effort with Christ as my only self. Christ in me needs my mind -- "Let this mind be in you..." (Philippians 2:5). The mind of Christ wants only the things of the Father. Thus it was with Paul. Christ, as me, seeks after the Father and wants to know Him and to be only His.
The modern Church and its preachers will have to seek after God to know the mystery. It will not fall on them. They will not pick it up from some book. It will not come out of the present seminaries or Bible colleges. It will not come by great efforts in soul-winning or miracles. It will not come through seminars or conferences. It can come only when a Christ-created hunger comes and the believer cannot continue without it. It will come when the believer shuts himself up with God, as did Paul, who went into the Arabian desert. It will come only when a believer has gotten sick and tired of being sick and tired of religion. It will happen only when the believer shuts off all other attachments, as did Paul, who would not go to the brethren at Jerusalem for help. It will happen only when all the believer wants to know is Christ and when he is willing to pay the price of the desert, of the loneliness, of the loss of self-independence, and of being separated from all the past and all that makes him a person. When these ideas begin to work in the believer, the miracle has begun.
Finally, once the believer sees Christ as his all, the union is in effect. From then on he grows in Christ until all he does is Christ. It is Paul saying that the life he now lives is Christ -- not like His but literally His. This is where the revolution is. It is here that carnal religion and the in-Christ message part. It is here that the knowing believer and those who reject the Christ-life differ. This is the heart of the revolution. God could not bring about His ultimate plan without there being confusion and strife among those already giving their lives to religion. They will fight, they will ridicule, they will become embittered, and they will, unto death, seek to defend their message. But in the end, this is the "negative" of God working in them that will, in time, bring many of them to fullness. Already we see this; many who fiercely fought the Christ-life have, by that fighting, come to see Christ.
Seeing that there is no other Christ to the believer, other than the Christ in him and in his brother, is the essence of the mystery. It is seeing that he has no other life -- no more Satan life, for Satan is out at Calvary; no more life of his own, for he is crucified with Christ; no more nature of his own, for he never had a human nature. Our nature is the nature of the one lives in us. First we had by Adam a sin (Satan) nature (Ephesians 2:3, John 8:41-44). Now by Christ we have a God nature (II Peter 1:4). Believing this and all the other things the Spirit has yet to teach us will undoubtedly provoke the greatest revolution ever known to the Reformation church. But, praise be to God, it is happening! This move of the Spirit cannot and will not be stopped and will continue throughout eternity. It is God, Himself, at His best. It is God above religion. It is God over all man-made truth. It is God as all and in all. We welcome you to the fellowship of the mystery!
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Copyright © 1988 Christ-life Fellowship. The Bible text in this publication, except where otherwise indicated, is from the King James Version. This article appears on the site: http://www.peterwade.com/.
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