Eph 5:27 That He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things... Col 1:27 ...the riches of the glory...which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,
We need to consider how Christ will present the church to Himself as a glorious church. When I was young, I thought that Christ was merely in the heavens and that the church was on earth. According to this concept, Christ is far away in the heavens, and we on earth are making ourselves ready to be presented to Him. I realized later, however, that this is a natural concept that makes Christ too objective.... In His economy, God is working Christ into us. Eventually, Christ will present the glorious church to Himself not by coming merely in an objective way, but by expanding within us and then by coming out of us. Contrary to the religious concept, our glorification will not be a sudden event. Rather, it will take place gradually as Christ expands within us and saturates us with Himself. Christ glorifies us as He "eats us up" little by little. We all need to be eaten, devoured, swallowed up, by Christ as the glory within us. Within us we have Christ not only as our life and our person, but also as the very glory of God. We may use the metamorphosis of an ugly caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly as an illustration of glorification. A caterpillar is not instantaneously transformed into a butterfly by a beauty that suddenly descends upon it and envelops it. No, the beauty of the butterfly is contained within the life of the caterpillar. As the law of this life functions within the caterpillar, the caterpillar is gradually transformed into a butterfly. As this process takes place, the beauty of the butterfly swallows up the ugliness of the caterpillar.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 479-481. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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