The Holy Spirit Forming Christ Within Us

The Holy Spirit forms Christ within us, not by human effort, but by indwelling us deeply and enabling Christ to live His life through us. He strengthens believers to be rooted in love, to grasp the vastness of Christ's love, and to grow daily toward being filled with all the fullness of God. This ongoing work of the Spirit makes it possible to live a Christ-like life in every area without striving in our strength.

It is a wonderful and deeply significant prayer that Paul offers in Ephesians 3:16-19 for the believers in Ephesus and for all believers who read the Epistle. Paul writes, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled w ith all the fullness of God”.

We have here an advance in the thought over that which we have just been studying in the preceding chapter. It is the carrying out of the former work to its completion. Here, the power of the Spirit manifests itself, not merely in giving us victory over sin but in four things: I. In Christ dwelling in our hearts, the word translated as “dwell” in this passage is very strong. It means literally, “to dwell down,” “to settle,” “to dwell deep.” It is the work of the Holy Spirit to form the living Christ within us, dwelling deep down in the deepest depths of our being. We have already seen that this was a part of the significance of the name sometimes used of the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of Christ.” In Christ on the cross of Calva ry, made an atoning sacrifice for sin, bearing the curse of the broken law in our place, we have Christ for us. But by the power of the Holy Spirit granted upon us by the risen Christ, we have Christ in us. Herein lies the secret of a Christ like life.

Chapter 12. The Holy Spirit Forming Christ within Us. We hear a great deal these days about doing as Jesus would do. Certainly, we ought as Christians to live like Christ. “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 Jo hn 2:6). But any attempt on our part to imitate Christ in our strength will only result in utter disappointment and despair. There is nothing more useless than we can attempt than to imitate Christ in the power of our own will. If we fancy that we succeed, it will be simply because we have a very incomplete knowledge of Christ. The more we study Him, and the more perfectly we understand His conduct, the more clearly will we see how far short we have come from imitating Him. But God does not demand of us the impossible; He does not demand of us that we imitate Christ in our strength. He offers us something infinitely better. He offers to form Christ in us by the power of His Holy Spirit.

And when Christ is thus formed in us by the Holy Spirit's power, all we have to do is to let this indwelling Christ live out His own life in us, and then we shall be like Christ without the struggle and effort of our own. A woman, who had a deep knowledge of the Word and a rare experience of the fullness that there is in Christ, stood one morning before a body of ministers as they plied her with questions. “Do you mean to say, Mrs. H——,” one of the ministers asked, “that you are holy?” Quickly but very meekly and gently, the elect lady replied, “Christ in me is holy.” No, we are not holy. To the end of the chapter in and of ourselves we are full of weakness and failure, but the Holy Spirit can form within us the Holy One of God, the indwelling Christ, and He will live out His life through us in all the humblest relations of life as well as in those relations of life that are considered greater. He will live out His life through the mother in the home, through the day-labourer in the pit, through the businessman in his office everywhere.

II. In our being rooted and grounded in love (verse 17). Paul multiplies figures here; the first figure is taken from the tree shooting its roots down deep into the earth and taking fast hold. The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit upon it. The second figure is taken from a great building with its foundations laid deep in the earth on the rock. Paul, therefore, tells us that by the strengthening of the Spirit in the inward man we send the roots of our life down deep into the soil of love and also that the foundations of the superstructure of our character are built upon the rock of love. Love is the sum of holiness, the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:10); love is what we all most need in our relations to God, to Jesus Christ, and to one another; and it is the work of the Holy Spirit to root and ground our lives in love.

There is the most intimate relation between Christ being formed within us, or made to dwell in us, and our being rooted and grounded in love, for Jesus Christ Himself is the perfect embodiment of divine love.

III. In our being made strong to perceive with all the saints what is the breadth, length, height, and depth, and to know the love of Christ which exceeds knowledge. It is not enough that we love; we must know the love of Christ, but that love exceeds knowledge. It is so broad, long, high, and deep that no one can comprehend it. But we can “apprehend” it, lay hold upon it, and make it our own; we can hold it before us as the object of our meditation, our wonder, and our joy. But it is only in the power of the Holy Spirit that we can thus apprehend it. The mind cannot grasp it in its native strength. A man untaught and unstrengthened by the Spirit of God may talk about the love of Christ, write poetry about it, and go into enthusiasms over it, but it is only words. There is no real apprehension. But the Spirit of God makes us strong to apprehend it in all its breadth, length, depth, and height.

IV. In our being “filled unto ALL the fullness of God.” There is a very important change between the Authorized and Revised Versions. Th e Authorized Version reads, “Filled with all the fullness of God.”

The Revised Version reads more exactly “filled unto all the fullness of God.” It is no wonder that the translators Chapter 12. The Holy Spirit Forming Christ within Us. The Authorized Version staggered at what Paul said and sought to tone down the full force of his words. To be filled with all the fullness of God would not be so wonderful, for it is an easy matter to fill a pint cup with all the fullness of the ocean, a single dip will do it. But it would be an impossibility indeed to fill a pint cup unto all the fullness of the ocean, until all the fullness that there is in the ocean is in that pint cup.

But it is seemingly a more impossible task that the Holy Spirit undertakes to do for u s, to fill us “to all the fullness” of the infinite God, to fill us until all the intellectual and moral fullness that there is in God is in us. But this is the believer's destiny, we are “heirs of God and joint - heirs with Jesus Christ” (Romans 8:17), I.e., we are heirs of God to the extent that Jesus Christ is a heir of God; that is, we are heirs to all God is and all God has. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to apply to us that which is already ours in Christ. It is His work to make ours experimentally all God has and all God is, until the work is consummated in our being “filled to all the fullness of God.” This is not the work of a moment, nor a day, nor a week, nor a month, nor a year, but the Holy Spirit day by day puts His hand, as it were, into the fullness of God and conveys to us what He has taken therefrom and puts it into us, and then again He puts His hand into the fullness that there is in God and conveys to us what is taken therefrom, and puts it into us, and this wonderful process goes on day after day and week after week and month after month, and year after year, and never ends until we are “filled to all the fullness of God.”