117. Know
John 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
The promise is this: You will know that Jesus is in you. This whole description of unity of relationship of the Father and Jesus and me is mysterious; it is hard to wrap our minds around the concept of Christ being in me and I am in Christ and the Son is in the Father. It is hard to understand the simple word “in.” How is Jesus in me and I in Him? What does He do and what do I do? When am I thinking and when is He thinking? Who gets credit for what I think, say and do?
Paul seems to have trouble understanding this also in Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.” This is not easy to understand, but it is as clear as human language is able to express it.
Although we may not be able to understand or describe the relationship completely, we can know it. “Know” does not signal complete understanding, but the word “know” does mean intimate relationship. Paul says in Ephesians (5:32): “This is mystery is profound.” He is referring to the one flesh relation between husband and wife, and then applies it to the greater mystery of Christ and the Church (me). It is a miracle of God’s Spirit that we can know the mystery of “He in me and I in Him.”
We take the promise as true and real even though the mind and tongue get tied up in knots when we (or Paul) try to explain it. In 1 Corinthians 2:7, 10, Paul says, “We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God…. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything even the depths of God.”
We simply know and enjoy the mystery: “Jesus in me.”