He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him. (2 Corinthians 5:15 NIV)
We can only
know Christ after the Spirit, so that Christ for us in this dispensation is
spiritual in the sense that all that we know of Him or can have to do with Him
can only be in the Spirit. “Therefore
from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have
known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.”
(2 Cor. 5:16). He is known after the Spirit. Our resources are spiritual. The
weapons of our warfare are spiritual. Everything has got to come to us from
above. The one great effort of the enemy, which is again and again successful
through this dispensation, has been to bring the things of God down to the
attachment with this world, attachment to this earth, to make them something
here....
You only need to read John to see how unattached
everything is, how everything is lifted clean out of this world, and everything
is bound up with the fact that Christ is in heaven, and that the Lord’s people
are here, but not here; here, but not known; in the world, but not of it; a mystery
people in this world so far as the world is concerned... unrecognized, unknown.
And yet by that very means and for that very reason, the most potent force that
this universe knows: the spiritual, hidden, secret people of God in this earth.
To take hold of Christianity and mold it, and shape it, and systematize it, and
crystallize it, and make it some mighty movement here; with its roots here, with
all its associations such as man can see, appreciate and approve; to register
itself upon the ordinary consciousness of this world as being something; all of
that is contrary to the Word of God and is contrary to spiritual life and
spiritual power. Christ is in heaven, and we are lifted out, translated, seated
together with Him in the heavenlies. Our present purpose in this world is
testimony only, by which others will be taken out of the nations, a people for
His name.