God’s heart’s desire as revealed in the Scriptures is for Christ to be our center, our life, our reality, and our everything so that we can be His corporate expression. We call this marvelous Christ the all-inclusive Christ because He includes and embodies all the riches of God for our experience and our enjoyment.
Ephesians 3:8 speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Once we receive Christ as our Savior and life, He comes into us with these unsearchable riches. In 1 Corinthians 1:9 Paul tells us that we were called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, that is, to participate in, experience, and enjoy Christ as everything to us. Then in Colossians 1:12 Paul tells us that the Father has qualified us for a share of Christ as our allotted portion. This again shows us that Christ is our portion for our experience and enjoyment. He is the all-inclusive One that we need to pursue and experience day by day. In Philippians the apostle Paul aspired to magnify such a Christ, to live Christ, to be found in Christ, to gain Christ, and to pursue Christ so that this Christ could be everything to him.
The Scriptures also reveal that as the all-inclusive One, Christ is the reality of all the necessities of our human life. John 20:22 says that Christ breathed Himself as the Spirit into the believers. He is our air for us to breathe. In John 6:35, Christ revealed Himself as the bread of life, and in verse 57 He tells us that we need to eat Him so that we can live because of Him. This shows us that Christ is our spiritual food. In John 4:10 and 14 and in John 7:37-39, we see that Christ is the living water for us to drink. In John 8:12, the Lord tells us that He is the light of the world, and if we follow Him, we will have the light of life. Galatians 3:27 says that we need to put on Christ, showing us that Christ is our clothing. In John 15, the Lord tells us that we need to abide in Him. This shows us that Christ is our dwelling place, our home. In Matthew 11:28 the Lord tells us to come unto Him and He will give us rest. All these verses show us that Christ is all-inclusive. He is our real air, food, water, light, clothing, home, and rest for our enjoyment.
Not only so, this all-inclusive Christ is the reality of all the shadows in the Old Testament for our enjoyment today (Col. 2:16, 17).
It is very significant that in John 8:58 the Lord Jesus reveals that He is the great I AM. He said, “Before Abraham came into being, I AM.” Christ is the very God as the great I AM, the One who was, the One who is, and the One who will be. We might say that after Christ came into us, it is as if He is a blank check within us. We can write that check out for whatever we need. In John 14:6, He says “I am the life,” so if we need life, He is our life. In John 8:12, He says “I am the light,” so if we need light, He is our light. Whatever we need, He is. He is everything to us for our enjoyment.
God wants us to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ with all His unsearchable riches. When we enjoy the riches of Christ day by day, this will make us corporately His fullness for His expression in this universe, so that God can be expressed in glory forever and ever, first as the Body of Christ, and consummately as the New Jerusalem for eternity.
For further reading on this subject, please see the footnotes for the above referenced verses in the New Testament Recovery Version and The All-Inclusive Christ by Witness Lee, published by Living Stream Ministry.
From Issue No. 18, October 1999