"To me to live is Christ." These words throw immense light on what was the spring of everything in the mind of the Apostle Paul. He wanted people to see not himself but Christ, that Christ might "be magnified" (made more apparent).
To him to live was Christ. The living water flowed through and out of him. After his conversion, all his life was the flowing out of the living water fresh from Christ, the Rock of Ages. And was not Christ magnified in such an one?
He took all his trials from Christ. He not only desired to believe, but to suffer for His name's sake. What Paul was given was awareness of a new light, a certain glory, and the doctrine coming out through it with double effect. Paul had learned the truth of a risen Christ by a direct interview with the Lord Himself. He had said, "Saul, Saul" (Acts 9:4). It was not only the gospel. It was a certain living Person in glory whom Paul knew and with whom he occupied himself.
And Christ must be known to every believer before "to me to live is Christ" can be taken up. If you and I know Christ as our accepted sacrifice who has perfected us forever by His work, should it again be with us a question of our sins? No, it is now a question of His glory. It is not only a doctrine, but a reality, that He Himself is the life of the believer (Heb. 10:14; Col. 3:4).
And what was that life? What were His thoughts? One can say with reverence that He was a Man of one idea; "Lo, I come to do Thy will, 0 God" (Heb. 10:9). He was always setting forth the Father down here; and now that He was here no longer, He thought to have Paul to be a disciple of Himself, to "live... Christ." As Christ had shown out the Father, so Paul was to show out Christ, and nothing but Christ, as one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). Christ, the Man in glory, is revealing Himself to believers, giving them to know Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and then saying, Now I look for you to let the light shine out.
Have you Christ dwelling in your heart "by faith," that you may be filled? If He dwells in your heart "by faith," have you got a fullness that passes knowledge? He up there, in a brilliance of glory, is calling on you to know His love, love that passes all understanding (Eph. 3:19).
That was the Christ of whom Paul spoke with such ecstasy. It was his one object in life or death to glorify Him. And could he miss his object? His one object being to please Christ, his life became the manifestation of vital union with Him.
Can you say that one thing, I am for Christ? Do not shirk the question. Let it go right into your soul. Paul was entirely and completely for Christ here. Ah! he was a blessed man. He had put down all selfishness. He would only live to Christ in the life He had given him. And if you could say, "To me to live is Christ," would you not be more than a conqueror in all things? Let the trials or difficulties be what they may, having Christ in them, would they be loss? No; no loss, but all gain.
It was the purpose of God to present to us in Paul a man of like passions with ourselves, to show how such a man could walk with Christ so as to say, "To me to live is Christ." He was a man of the strongest passions and character, but he mastered all that, and brought everything into subjection to Christ; in everything he dropped into "the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16).
We see the vital perception he had of that for which Christ had apprehended him. The Lord in glory was before him, and he could never rest until he reached Him: "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3:13, 14.
It is immense strength to get before the soul the reality of a certain Person, a living Man up there in glory, as the prize I am to attain. I may have to go through a dark passage here, but never mind; there is that One in glory, and I am pressing on to win Him, to reach Him. It was not merely a doctrine with Paul; it was the working of his heart's affections about a Person he was going to be like and to be with.
We are to be molded into the same image (Phil. 3:21). Yet, how little are the saints exhibitors of Christ! Do you think of Christ up there, and what His thoughts are while looking at you? Not the working of your mind going up to Him, but His working toward you, as a Shepherd on the top rock, looking down on a certain people for all of whom He laid down His life. Do you ever think of seeing Christ with those eyes of yours-of hearing His voice with those ears? Yes, of soon seeing Him at the goal, and of being made like Him (1 John 3:2)? No more for you to do then; only to enter into all the seen and felt reality of fellowship with Him which faith even now enjoys.
Ah! we need exceedingly to have our hearts now occupied with the Lord Jesus up there. Nothing can give such brightness of face and heart as being able to say, "To me to live is Christ."