“No Longer I, but Christ”
Arthur Licursi
We know that the overcoming life is Christ’s life, and that the overcoming life for us is Christ living in us (Col 1:27). The question is how can we enter into the experience of this life. Christ wants to be our life and His life in us can make us victorious in our living. I have come to realize that victory for the Christian isn’t the elimination of life’s problems; rather it is the power to endure with the quiet and peaceful assurance that is ours by trusting His life and love. It is in this that He is glorified. But first, how is it that Christ can be our life?
We need to look at Galatians 2:20. Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. We’ll not consider the beginning or end of this verse. Consider the middle of the verse. Consider “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”. We can say that “it is no longer I but Christ.” But what does “no longer I but Christ” mean? These five words mean the victory by an overcoming life. They speak of the overcoming supernatural, eternal, resurrected, life of Christ resident in the believer’s spirit. The overcoming life is simply “no longer I” and “but Christ”. This is the overcoming life. So long as it’s “no longer I,” no longer my demand for having things my way, along with my dependence upon my self‑ability to control things around me; and as long as it is “but Christ” in whom I then place trust, there is victory, evidenced by peace and rest. “No longer I” plus “but Christ” is the victory, and all problems become okay situations
Our overcoming then is a miracle of Christ’s life. Philip. 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Then, whatever we work out is according to God's good pleasure. It is God who causes us to work out everything. God is operating in us to make us genuinely holy. We do not have to exert our own effort, because everything is accomplished through God working in us, as we trust “but Christ”. Such a holy and perfect life does not come about by our own effort; it is absolutely a work of God.
Nothing short of a miracle can deliver us from the wickedness of preferring and choosing the ego-centric things of self-love over the other-centeredness of the love flowing from God. Some people do not feel or see their failures; they do not realize how hopeless they are. Those who see the “Oh wretched man that I am” have given up on trying to control their temper, pride, or disposition. They realize that they will never overcome unless God performs a miracle. Is there anyone who can overcome sin in his or her self? No! Man's way is to try to suppress sin. God's way is to perform a miracle, by rendering the old man dead with Christ on the cross at the time of regeneration, making sin powerless; and then cleansing the heart altogether by His unseen hand at work in the details of our life’s circumstances and situations.
It does not matter whether your sins or problems are spiritual, relational, carnal, mental, physical, or dispositional. It does not matter whether you can or cannot obey God's will or whether or not you are consecrated, and it does not matter whether or not you have confessed your sins. The Lord can perform His miracle on you. If you cannot consecrate yourself, the Lord can cause you to consecrate you. If you cannot endure, the Lord can enable you to endure. He can overcome all the sins mentioned. God is able. When we let go to simply trust Him, in spite of appearances, everything becomes possible.
We may also then exalt of Christ in our living. Philip. 2:9‑11 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
We need to relate the exaltation of Christ to our spiritual experience. God has already exalted Christ, but have you and I exalted Him? Christ has been exalted in the universe, but has He been exalted in you? For a time, we as humans can still say “no” to Christ’s exaltation in our living. The problem is that Christ has been exalted everywhere except in us. This is the reason that I do not care to talk about the exaltation of Christ in an objective way, but rather to apply this to our subjective experience. Singing, praising and outwardly worshipping Him is not exalting Christ. No, Christ cannot be exalted in us unless we take Him as our crucified life, to be the pattern of our daily life.
We should not forget that Philippians is a book on the experience of Christ. Hence, even the exaltation of Christ in this book is related to our experience. I don’t see very much of Christ's exaltation in myself, or the lives of other believers. We need to experience Christ to such a high degree that in our life He is exalted. Don’t consider Christ's exaltation merely in an objective way, to be seen in signing or worship, outwardly. The “knee bowing” of verse 10 is symbolic of utter humility and only the inner humbling will do, forget the outer show of feigned humility. The “Lordship” of Christ is the issue here. Lord is from the Greek word kurious, meaning “governor”. Christ is not our Lord in practicality till He governs our life. Unlike lords who govern by outward constraint, our Lord governs us from within by His still small voice, still for us to either heed or deny His Lordship.
Just as we must experience the Christ in us who emptied Himself and humbled Himself unto death, so we need also to experience the Christ in us who has been exalted. God has already exalted Christ in the universe, but now it remains for us to exalt Him in our personal universe of our daily life. Paul's desire was that the saints in Philippi would exalt Christ in their daily living. His expectation was that the believers would experience Christ as the crucified life and then experience Christ in His exaltation. Christ's exaltation needs to be carried out in our daily living.
Philip. 2:12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed‑‑not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence‑‑continue to work out your salvation (Gk. soteria, rescue) with fear and trembling, Proof that Paul's concept was that Christ would be exalted not only objectively in the universe but also subjectively and experientially in our daily life is seen in verse 12. After speaking of the crucified life in verses 5 through 8 and the exalted life in verses 9 through 11, Paul says in verse 12, “therefore...” The word “therefore” indicates that what Paul speaks of in verse 12 is a consequence of taking Christ as the pattern of a crucified life in the preceding verses. These words indicate that Christ's crucified life should be our experience. It is also true that Christ's exalting life should be our experience. On the one hand, we may speak of Christ's exalted life, on the other hand, of His exalting life. No matter which expression we use, in 2:9‑11 we have a life of exaltation. Exaltation out of the flow of Christ’s life from our spirit is a matter of our soul’s expression of His life. Such a life should also be part of the soul’s salvation to be “worked out” by us. I’m not speaking about salvation from hell or perdition. I am speaking about our part in the practical salvation of our souls ‑ that comes by Him bringing us to a trusting faith in the Christ who, in us, is now our life. The main elements of the salvation mentioned in verse 12 are Christ as the crucified life and Christ in His exaltation. This should be the salvation we work out by cooperating with the working of God operating from within our spirit.
Surely the exaltation of Christ is the highest standard of our salvation. We should not simply be those who are saved, but we should be those who are exalted through Christ's resurrection power. It was not Paul's aim in speaking of the exaltation of Christ to teach doctrine objectively. Like all the other matters covered in this book Philippians, this point is related to the Christian experience. We need to experience Christ in His humiliation and suffering. This means we need to experience Him as the One who emptied Himself and humbled Himself (Philip 2:5‑8). Now that God has exalted Christ to the highest peak in the universe, we need to experience Him also in His exaltation, as He flows out of us in the radiance of His highest love and grace toward others.
Frankly, we mostly live far below His standard of salvation. The standard of the salvation worked out by us should ultimately be so high that it includes the exaltation of Christ. Christ's exaltation should be our consummate experience in salvation. This requires that Christ be not only our crucified life, but also our exalted life in the power of His resurrection life. The very power that has exalted Him in the universe is also the power that causes Him to be exalted in us. ‑ END