John 14 tells us that the Spirit of reality is coming, not only to be with us but to be in us (vv. 16-17). In that day, that is, the day of resurrection, “you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (v. 20). Here is mingling. We are in Christ, and He is in us. This is not the realm of ethics or morality. Verse 23 has the same thought: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” To have the Father and the Son in us is not a doctrinal matter. It must be our daily realization and practice.
The next chapter (John 15) says that we are to abide in Him and He in us, “for apart from Me you can do nothing” (vv. 4-5). That we can abide in Christ and have Him abide in us indicates that we and He, the very God, are one. This is God’s eternal intention. In all we do we must check to see that we are abiding in Him. It is not simply a remembering of the fact. We must keep asking ourselves whether what we are doing at any given time is being done by our abiding in Him. If it is being done apart from Him, we must condemn it. In the eyes of the world what we are doing may be good, but if it is done apart from Christ, it is to be condemned. It is good for a wife to submit to her husband; but her submission must be by Christ’s abiding in her and her abiding in Him. Her submission, in other words, must be Christ. It must be the expression of Him.
If we see this, we shall confess, “Lord, forgive me. In this whole day I have spent very little time to live You. I have not done wrong. I have been careful to do what is right and what is helpful to others. But my living has not been by abiding in You and having You abide in me.” To see this is to see the central vision of the Apostle Paul’s completing ministry. His completing word is the mystery of God, which is Christ in you (Col. 1:25-27). Our life must be filled and saturated with Christ. Our living must be Christ Himself.
Romans 8:9-11 tells us that the Spirit dwells in us. “But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him. And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from among the dead dwells in you, He Who raised Christ Jesus from among the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit Who indwells you.”
First Corinthians 6:17 says, “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” First Romans tells us that the Spirit dwells in us. Then this verse tells us that we are one spirit with the Lord. Do we live a life that is one spirit with Him? Many times we must confess that we do not. To live one spirit with Him is far higher than to live ethically, to love others, or to be humble. It is Christ Himself lived out of us.
“That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith…that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17, 19). For Christ to make His home in our hearts that we might be filled unto all the fullness of God is other than devotion, piety, religion. It is not even spirituality. It is God, the Triune God, making home in our hearts and filling us. This “one God and Father of all…is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:6). He is not only above us and through us but also in us.
(God's Eternal Intention and Satan's Counterplot, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)