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Witness Lee |
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O Glorious Christ, Savior Mine!
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This marvelous hymn, composed by Witness Lee, elegantly portrays God's purpose from eternity past and His wonderful economy in the New Testament. Witness Lee initially composed this hymn in 1961 and subsequently edited and reedited it more than a hundred times, eventually producing a genuine masterpiece. The eight stanzas of this hymn begin with the miraculous incarnation of Christ, progress through His perfect human living, His redemption and His transfiguration into the Spirit in resurrection, encompass the believers' regeneration and transformation, and consummate with the many believers built up together to express God's glory.
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Stanza 1:
O glorious Christ, Savior mine,
Thou art truly radiance divine;
God infinite, in eternity,
Yet man in time, finite to be.
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The first stanza speaks of Christ's incarnation, the first step taken by God for the fulfillment of His desire to indwell man. Beyond its importance as a procedure whereby Christ obtained a human body of flesh and blood for the accomplishment of redemption, the intrinsic spiritual significance of the incarnation is that in Christ the infinite God joined Himself to finite man, mingling divinity and humanity into one entity.
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Chorus:
Oh! Christ, expression of God, the Great,
Inexhaustible, rich, and sweet!
God mingled with humanity
Lives in me my all to be.
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Stanza 2:
The fullness of God dwells in Thee;
Thou dost manifest God's glory;
In flesh Thou hast redemption wrought;
As Spirit, oneness with me sought.
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In His dual status as the Son of God as well as the Son of Man, Christ was the prototypical God-man who manifested God's glory by expressing God's divine attributes through His human virtues. Yet God desires to be fully expressed—not only through Christ, but also through His millions of believers. It was for this purpose that Christ accomplished redemption in His flesh—in order that in resurrection, that as the Spirit, He might be one with mankind through their regeneration. Now the believers are truly one with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17) and, like Christ, possess God's divine life and nature, although not His unique Deity (1 John 5:12; 2 Pet. 1:4), within their humanity.
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Stanza 3:
All things of the Father are Thine;
All Thou art in Spirit is mine;
The Spirit makes Thee real to me,
That Thou experienced might be.
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Stanza 3 refers to John 16:15, where the Lord spoke of the Spirit coming to the believers after His resurrection: “All that the Father has is Mine; for this reason I have said that He [the Spirit of reality] receives of Mine and will declare it to you.” In the believers' experience, the Spirit conveys to them the reality of Christ, who is the embodiment of God (Col. 2:9). Therefore, through this marvelous all-inclusive Spirit, all of God—His attributes of love, life, light, righteousness, holiness; and all of Christ—His fine humanity, His glorious death, His overcoming resurrection, and His transcendent ascension—becomes available for the believers' experience and enjoyment.
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Stanza 4:
The Spirit of life causes Thee
By Thy Word to transfer to me.
Thy Spirit touched, Thy word received,
Thy life in me is thus conceived.
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This wonderful all-inclusive Spirit who is invisible and mysterious becomes substantial and tangible to the believers through God's Word. All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). “The Scripture is the embodiment of God as the Spirit. The Spirit is therefore the very essence, the substance, of the Scripture” (Lee Footnotes 1004). The Word thus “transfers” to the reader Christ Himself as the Spirit of life. Through the Word, the believer “touches,” or substantiates and receives, the Spirit as the very essence of God.
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Stanza 5:
In spirit while gazing on Thee,
As a glass reflecting Thy glory,
Like to Thyself transformed I'll be,
That Thou might be expressed thru me.
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This stanza is based on 2 Corinthians 3:18, which speaks of the believers' transformation into Christ's image as they behold Him in spirit. As they enjoy God's presence and gaze into the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6), the believers become increasingly like Him. They thus become mirrors of Christ reflecting and expressing His glory.
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Stanza 6:
In no other way could we be
Sanctified and share Thy vict'ry;
Thus only spiritual we'll be
And touch the life of glory.
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The path to spiritual progress consists solely of “touching,” or contacting and experiencing the glorious divine life. No gift, zeal, knowledge, works, or behavior can truly bring a believer into genuine spiritual sanctification and victory. Only by beholding the Lord in prayer and enjoying the Spirit in the Word can the Christian grow and mature in the divine life.
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Stanza 7:
Thy Spirit will me saturate,
Every part will God permeate,
Deliv'ring me from the old man,
With all saints building for His plan.
(Hymns #501)
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As the Spirit of reality, God permeates and saturates the believer by initially regenerating his human spirit, gradually spreading through his soul, and He eventually glorifying his mortal body. The believer is thus sanctified wholly and preserved complete, without blame unto the Lord's coming (1 Thes. 5:23). Further, the aggregate growth and transformation of the believers issues in God's building, which is ultimately the New Jerusalem, the complete union and mingling of the Triune God with His redeemed, perfected, and glorified believers, who will ever express God's glory in humanity for eternity (Rev. 21:10-11).
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Lee, Witness. Footnotes. Recovery Version of the New Testament. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry. 1991.
Hymns. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry. 1966, 1980.
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