“That I May Know Him”

By Tammy Lacock

“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” (Philippians 3:10)

Warren Litzman digs deeper into Apostle Paul’s words, “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (in Philippians 3:8). Paul makes it clear Christ is very literally his life now. His old life doesn’t matter anymore. In fact, he counted his old life but “dung,” worthless, compared to knowing Christ. All he wants now is to be found in Him, not having his own life anymore, but living by the life of the One who is Life.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 KJV)

Paul says many times in his 14 letters that he no longer lives by his own righteousness or even by his own faith (Romans 3:22; Galatians 2:16, 20; Galatians 3:21, to name a few). It’s the righteousness and faith of Christ that lives in and through him.

There’s nothing we can do or not do to make us more pleasing to God. Christ did the work on the cross and Christ is our redemption. He is our new life and knowing Him in this way was all that Paul wanted.

Paul goes on even deeper to say in Philippians 3:10 that he wants to know Christ in all ways, in His sufferings, His death, and His resurrection. For he knew that when Christ died, we died too, our old lives buried with Him. In His resurrection, we arose with Him to our new life in Him. He wanted to know all about this, and Paul knew the only way was by getting to know Christ, the very life that now lives in him.

He knew that this knowledge of Christ in Him would require a radical mind change. Indeed, Christ revealed this to Paul first and Paul turned around and revealed it to us. He was the first human to know the inward life of Christ. No doubt, Paul’s in-Christ teaching in Antioch lead to the first time believers were called Christians (Christ-persons). In his epistles, Paul emphasizes knowing and living Christ. This most excellent knowledge is given by the power of the Holy Spirit; our minds can be renewed as we continue to understand and know Christ, the Christ that now occupies our very spirits.

“But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” (1 Corinthians 5:16 KJV)

Warren reminds us, through Paul’s epistles, that we will never really know who we are until we know Christ. If we don’t know the One who now lives in us, then we will never know ourselves. Christ came to complete us. We were chosen in him before the foundation of the world.

“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” (Ephesians 1:4 KJV)

In 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul urges Christians, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

So that we, too, may know Christ as Paul did, here and now.