The process of the Christian life could be summed up in the phrase ‘abiding in Christ’? Examine the diagram on the previous page as a description of this cycle.

Question 32: What is abiding in Christ?
Abiding is the experience of knowing and loving God as we live in His presence.

Question 33: How does abiding work?
Abiding is knowing, experiencing and delighting in the glory of the Triune God, directly and indirectly, in the face of Jesus Christ, as the Holy Spirit illuminates our hearts with truth. (2 Cor 3:18, 4:4)

Question 34: What is God’s glory?
God’s glory is His beautiful self­revelation of Himself.

Question 35: Why is Jesus the revelation of God’s glory?
The Son is the Word, the image of God and the expression of God’s glory.
Heb 1:3, John 14:9, Col 1:15, 2 Cor 4:6

Question 36: Why is the Spirit the means of beholding and enjoying God?
The Spirit is Himself the communion between Father and Son, and He is the means of union with Christ. (John 15:26).

Question 37: How does the Spirit enable this?
The Spirit who inspired the Scriptures, indwells believers, convicts us of sin and then illuminates our hearts to understand God’s mind in Christ. 2 Pet 1:21; 2 Tim 3:16; 1 Cor 6:19; John 16:8­11, 1 Cor 2:1­14

Question 38: What is illumination?
Illumination is the Holy Spirit’s work of communicating God’s glory in Christ to our spiritual eyes, by opening the eyes of our affections to recognise and experience the reality and beauty of truth about God.
Eph 1:18

Question 39: What does it mean to commune with God?
Communing with God is seeking, seeing and savouring the Person of God as the Spirit teaches it to you through the Word of God.
Col 3:10; Rom 12:2

As you imbibe truth about God, see it by the Spirit’s illumination and trust in them, you are gaining Christ’s mind on all things. As your mind is being renewed, you are growing to see life in these same ways. You value what He values. You love what He loves. You hate what He hates. You want to be pleasing to Him. You want the same things He does. His priorities are your priorities. His will is becoming yours. You are resting the weight of your life not on self or the world’s philosophy, but on Christ’s promises.

Question 40: What is our responsibility?
We are to lovingly seek the glory of God in the face of Christ by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Heb 11:6

God does not reveal His heart and mind to those who want to use it for other ends. It is the natural result of a close relationship with God. The Spirit gives illumination, but He gives it to a diligently seeking heart.

We must seek Him personally – seek Him not as an ideal, or as a means to an end, but as the Person we wish to know more than anything else.

We must seek Him purposefully – not aimlessly, apathetically or lazily. We should seek with the intention of finding (Proverbs 2:1­).

Memory Verse
John 15:4

Introduction