Divine Mystery . . . Christ in you

God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which Is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:27

Ah, and so the riches of the mystery unfolds ladies: Christ in you, the hope of glory! God can be God, Jesus divine; but if you don’t personally unwrap the clues of the incarnation, a perfect life, brutal suffering, death on the cross, the resurrection, think of what richness you will miss out on.

In Christ is a very big mystery to me; but then God’s thoughts are not (my) thoughts, neither are (my) ways (His) ways—they are much higher (Isaiah 55:8-9)! As Paul tells the Colossians: in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ (Colossians 2:9-10).

Jesus Himself took this stance: “I (Jesus) in them (us)” (John 17:23), “just as you (God) are in me (Jesus) and I (Jesus) am in you (God)” (John 17:21). Add to God in us, and Jesus in us, the promised Holy Spirit sent at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4) to live in all who have Christ in us (Romans 8:9).

In you is considered a “fixed position”—never to leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5), just as God told Moses to tell His chosen as they entered the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 31:6). Thank goodness God did not limit His plan to the Jewish nation. Peter said that as soon as we acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior we are participants in the “divine nature”, that (God’s) divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness (1 Peter 1:3-4).

In his book The Reason for God, p.220, Timothy Keller asks this provocative question: “Why did Jesus die for us? What was Jesus getting out of it? Remember, he already had a community of joy, glory, and love (within His Triune nature). He didn’t need us.” Yet He persisted, inviting us into His circle of love wherein we have a taste of divine glory now—a foretaste of forever.

Nancy P