How Christ in You Becomes Your Hope of Glory
If you’re a believer, Christ is in you! But do you know that He is in you as your hope of glory?
In Colossians 1:27 Paul says, “To whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
What does it mean for Christ in you to be your hope of glory? It’s definitely a mystery. But it’s a mystery that God wills to make know…and not just to a select few, but to every believer in Christ.
Why should you care? If your hope is elsewhere—for a better hereafter, you may find yourself waiting for years and missing out on what Christ wants to do in you today.
But if you realize that He is such a hope that is now within you—a seed of divine glory—you might be encouraged to cooperate with Him for the growth and development of this divine seed.
So in this post, I’ll consider this mysterious hope and discover how Christ in you is your hope of glory in three stages. I’ll also consider how you can experience this hope today.
First, Christ becomes your inner hope of glory by regenerating your spirit
In 1 Peter 1:3 Peter says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
What does it mean by “regenerated us unto a living hope?”
Footnote 4 on this verse in the Recovery Version says,
Regeneration, like redemption and justification, is an aspect of God’s full salvation. Redemption and justification solve our problem with God and reconcile us to God; regeneration enlivens us with God’s life, bringing us into a relationship of life, an organic union, with God. Hence, regeneration issues and results in a living hope. Such regeneration is accomplished through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. “The resurrection of Christ, bringing in life and the gift of the life-giving Spirit, is that which potentiates the new birth unto a living hope” (Alford).
So the first question you should ask yourself: “Is Christ in me?” If you believe into His name and confess that He is your Lord, He will immediately come into you as the divine seed to be your hope of glory. If you haven’t done so already, simply pray,
“Lord Jesus, I believe that You are God’s eternal Son who became a sinless man, died on the cross for my sins, and rose from the dead to become a life-giving Spirit. Lord, I receive You as my Savior and life. Come into my spirit, regenerate me with Your divine life. Become my indwelling hope of glory. Lord, I love You.”
If you’ve prayed to receive the Lord Jesus, He, as the seed of the divine life, has come into your spirit as the life of glory, a life full of hope. This hope is similar to the hope parents have for their newborn children. Their hope is that their child will grow normally, develop and mature.
Now that you’ve receive the life of glory, Christ in you, you simply need to let Him grow!
Second, Christ gradually spreads His life of glory by transforming your soul
After being regenerated by receiving the Lord Jesus, you need to cooperate with His continual transforming work.
In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul said, “But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.”
Note 7 on this verse says,
“When we with unveiled face are beholding and reflecting the glory of the Lord, He infuses us with the elements of what He is and what He has done. Thus we are being transformed metabolically to have His life shape by His life power with His life essence; that is, we are being transfigured, mainly by the renewing of our mind (Rom. 12:2), into His image. Being transformed indicates that we are in the process of transformation.”
This transforming process is a life-long operation of Christ as the divine seed spreading throughout your entire soul. As you behold Him day by day, hour by hour and even moment by moment, Christ will transform you to His image from one degree of glory to another.
One of my favorite hymns speaks of coming to the Lord to behold Him. It’s good to practice coming to the Lord each day, especially in the morning, just to behold Him in His word by means of prayer.
For more appreciation of transformation and how to experience it you may enjoy reading, “The Amazing Process of Transformation as Revealed in the Bible.”
Finally, Christ will be the glory expressed from within you at the transfiguration of your body
In Philippians. 3:21 Paul says, “Who will transfigure the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of His glory, according to His operation by which He is able even to subject all things to Himself.”
Note 1 on this verse says, “The transfiguration of our body is the ultimate consummation of God’s salvation. In His salvation God first regenerated our spirit (John 3:6), now is transforming our soul (Rom. 12:2), and consummately will transfigure our body, making us the same as Christ in all three parts of our being.”
To review the point of this post, I’ll leave you with a couple stanzas and the chorus of a hymn that I’ve enjoyed on Christ as the hope of glory,
1 Myst’ry hid from ages now revealed to me, ’Tis the Christ of God’s reality. He embodies God, and He is life to me, And the glory of my hope He’ll be. Chorus Glory, glory, Christ is life in me! Glory, glory, what a hope is He! Now within my spirit He’s the mystery! Then the glory He will be to me. 2 In my spirit He regenerated me, In my soul He’s now transforming me. He will change my body like unto His own, Wholly making me the same as He.
From this post I hope that you’ll be impressed to pursue a progressive experience of Christ as your indwelling hope of glory, focus on Him as the seed of glory within you and let Him grow every day until you meet Him at His coming back. Then your entire being spirit, soul and body will be glorified to express Him.
Have you enjoyed Christ as your indwelling hope of glory? If so, please share your enjoyment in a brief comment to this post.
References and Further Resources:
- This post was inspired by my reading of the Life-study of Colossians on Christ in You the Hope of Glory.
- Hymns that enrich this post:
- The author of hymns: Mystery Hid from Ages and I Come to Thee Dear Lord is Witness Lee, © 2001. Living Stream Ministry. All Rights Reserved.
- Here is related post you may enjoy reading: Our Hope is the Glorious New Jerusalem
About Tom Smith
Hi. My name is Tom Smith. I'm the writer behind Holding to Truth in Love, and I love the Lord Jesus and His life-giving Word. Please feel free to send me an e-mail through the contact page if you have any questions. I hope you'd take a moment to subscribe to the Holding to Truth blog. Then you'll be sure not to miss a post. Thanks!
My beloved brother Smith, there is an insight to the revelation of the regeneration of my spirit, as Christ in me the hope of glory. Christ being the express image of His Father lives in me by His spirit. The Holy Spirit indwelling in me fused with my spirit transforming my life daily and my spirit being regenerated to make a reflection of the image of Christ is glorious and pray that God help us to make to the end.
Amen. Christ in us, the hope of glory, is a revolutionizing vision for our Christian life. Christ is in our spirit as a seed of life, full of hope. Everything we need is in this seed. We need only to give this seed the ample opportunity to grow. By its growing we will be transformed metabolically to the image of Christ, God’s firstborn Son. May we daily learn to live in this one Spirit with the Lord that His life of glory can be released and expressed through us personally and corporately as His Body, the church.
yes Christ in us the hope of glory…means…if the word of God in us we have the hope of glory, because Christ is the word of God. Amen this is the reason why we were told to let the word of God be in us richly. Colosian 3:16
How wonderful that through our believing into Him, Christ has come into our spirit to be planted in us as the divine seed. As the Seed, Christ in us becomes our hope of glory. Eventually, this seed of life, will spread from our regenerated spirit, saturating our entire soul and ultimately glorify our body. We have such a hope that for eternity we will be conformed to the image of Christ as God’s firstborn Son (Rom. 8:29-30). BY letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly we cooperate with Christ as the hope of glory so that He has the free way to spread in our being. Thanks for the comment.
I am blessed
Glad you were blessed by this post How Christ in You becomes your hope of glory. Many Christians don’t understand that when they believe in Jesus they receive a divine seed, the gene of the divine life (1 Pet. 1:23). A gene, has a life capacity with a hope that everything that is in the seed will fully develop and be expressed. We have such a hope for our physical children. Hope much more is the divine life in us a glorious hope. May we cooperate with this divine seed by contacting the Lord every day to be under His shining and receive His rich supply (Phil. 1:19). Keep enjoying the Lord daily. Thank you for leaving a comment.
I am so blessed with the insight you shared here. Years ago, I went through diverse challenges, but refuse to loose hope in God, because of the revelation of the force of hope, I believe there is no hopeless situation with God. Indeed, Christ in me is a hope of glory. This is the Word of hope that I held tenaciously to- Jeremiah 31:16-17 NKJV.
Amen. Christ living in us fills us with hope not only for eternity but for today. May we learn to know Christ as the indwelling one by Him as the life-giving Spirit in our spirit. Whenever we call on His name, “Lord Jesus!” we’re filled with Him as our hope. His word is also the word of hope to us. We need to daily feed on the exceedingly great and precious promises in His word (2 Pet. 1:4) to be filled with Him as our hope. Thanks for the encouraging comment.
I claim this promise of Jesus Christ living inside of me as my hope of glory, every moment of my life and confess it loudly as often as possible and encourage my children, husband, family members and students whom I teach at school also to do the same. Thus I nullify the efforts of the devil to distract me from my focus on Jesus Christ and emerge victorious in all trials and temptations with the Power of The Lord Almighty in dwelling in me as my hope of Glory!
Glad you’ve discovered the preciousness of having Christ in you as your hope of glory! Share this reality with every one you can. Knowing and experiencing such a Christ living in us is the secret to a normal Christian life. Here is the link to a wonderful hymn by Witness Lee that will uplift your appreciation for Christ in you as the hope of glory: Christ is the hope of glory: lyrics and tune
Thank you so much for analyzing the 3 stages of hope and explaining Col 1:27 which is often quoted but hardly understood.
Christ in us is the indwelling of Christ where Christ makes his abode in us through believing and growing in His Word. (Eph 3:17) . I pray we will keep on being more and more like Christ.
Thank you once again.
God’s goal is a glorious expression of Himself! The New Jerusalem for eternity will have the glory of God (Rev. 21:11). But God wants us to be in the process today of becoming the New Jerusalem by the expanding of the glory of His life–from the regeneration of our spirit, through the transformation of our soul, unto the transfiguration of our body in glory. We need to daily behold the glory of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:16-18) by calling on His name, praying, and Coming to Him in His word. Yes, in this way, the indwelling Christ is making us His abode in us (John 14:23). Every day may we tell the Lord Jesus we love Him and invite Him to make home in our heart. Thanks for the comment.
yes I believe that Christ in me the hope of glory
I am so glad that you found Christ in you as the hope of glory. Through our faith in Christ by believing the word of the gospel, the seed of the divine life (1 Pet. 1:23) was planted within us. Now as we feed on the Lord in His word this divine seed within us grows unto full salvation (1 Pet. 2:2-3). Ultimately this life within us will be manifested from within us (Col. 3:4). Thank you for your comment.
My soul is lifted after reading this master piece.
Tnx bro Tom.
Looking forward to reading more from your write up.
Glad you enjoyed the post! Thanks for leaving a comment.
Awesome mystery, this rheuma is more than an ordinary mind can conceive. Thanks for explaining this scripture at this level. Quite insightful and I will teach it.
Christ is in us as the hope of glory! This is really a mystery since it is a matter of the divine life in us. Physically we know that within any life there is a nature that brings forth after its kind. In the same way, the divine life we received when we were reborn has entered into us, full of hope that this mysterious life with grow in us and be manifested. This is glory, God expressed. We need to see that Christ in us is such a hope. We need to love Him, enjoy Him day by day, allowing Him the freedom to make home in all our heart until His life of glory pervades our entire being. Then at His coming we will appear with Him in glory. What a hope this is!
Yes I love the Lord, Christ in me the confident expectation of glory. Amen.
Amen. How wonderful that the Christ of glory dwells in our spirit, is spreading into our soul to transform us into His image from glory to glory, One day He will transfigure our body of humiliation, conforming it to the body of His glory. What a glorious hope! Here one of my favorite hymns on this topic “Myst’ry hid from ages now revealed to me” you can listen to the tune here.
Thanks for the comment.
Am so so blessed with this write up. Christ in me, the hope of my glorious living in Him daily.
I’m glad you were blessed by this post. It is by Christ coming into us to be our inner life that we have Him as the hope of glory. His life of glory is now in every believer’s spirit. He is spreading from our spirit, through all the parts of our soul and will ultimately transfigure our body. This is our glorious hope. Here is a hymn that confirms this point. Thanks for sharing your appreciation in a comment.
Thanks for the post, even when we go through hard times and and it seems all hope is lost, when we read his word, listen to the spiritual songs and messages, it lift up our spirits and we know that those things HE has said and promises will come to pass, even though it tarries it will come to pass. Christ in us the HOPE of our glory.
Glad you enjoyed the post. It is so true, in all the hard times we have Christ as our inner hope of glory. He lives in us and wants to grow in every environment in our life. When we read His word, listen to songs and messages, we are filled with faith, we are strengthened to live in and walk according to the spirit. We are assured that His promises are true and will come to pass. Keep feeding on His word, listening to life-giving speaking, and speaking forth His promises. This fills us with hope. Thanks for your comment.
To God be all the glory, and I really appreciate the Almighty God for ur life Tom Smith for this awesome revelation, I prayed God that he may realises exceeding in Jesus name Amen
It is really good to realize that Christ in us as our hope of glory is not just for a future time. He is the divine seed in us through regeneration (1 Pet. 1:3, 23). But for the glory of His life to be expressed, we need to cooperate with His life to grow and be transformed every day (2 Cor. 3:18). Then at the time of our transfiguration, we will experience this glory being manifested. Thank you for sharing your appreciation in a comment.