What I mean is this: I had always known that Christ was my Saviour; but I had looked upon Him as an external Saviour, one who did a saving work for me from outside, as it were; one who was ready to come close alongside and stay by me, helping me in all that I needed, giving me power and strength and salvation.
But now I know something better than that. At last I realized that Jesus Christ was actually and literally within me; and even more than that, that He had constituted Himself my very life, taking me into union with Himself — my body, mind, and spirit — while I still had my own identity and free will and full moral responsibility.
Was not this better than having Him as a helper, or even then having Him as an external Saviour, to have Him, Jesus Christ, the Son of God as my own very life?
It meant that I need never again ask Him to help me as though He were one and I another, but rather simply to do His work, His will, in me, and with me, and through me. My body was His, my mind His, my will His, my spirit His; and not merely His, but literally part of His; what He asked me to recognize was:
"I have been crucified with Christ and It Is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth In me."
Jesus Christ had constituted Himself my life — not as a figure of speech, remember, but as a literal, actual fact, as literal as the fact that a certain tree has been made into this desk on which my hand rests. For "your bodies are members of Christ," and "ye are the body of Christ."--- Charles G Trumbull
