I’ve found the One of peerless worth

We may illustrate the way to begin a meeting with playing basketball. All basketball players know that they need a good start. If they start wrongly, they will lose the game; it is very hard to adjust a wrong start. At the start of a meeting, someone may call Hymn #127 in Hymns, that starts, "Hark! ten thousand voices crying." This hymn may be too high, so to adjust the meeting to a lower level, another brother may call Hymn #510, that begins, "I've found the One of peerless worth." These two hymns are two different "balls." One hymn is about the "air force," and the other is about the "marines"; after being "in the air," we immediately dive "under the sea." This is disgusting.

Revised version (stanzas 9 and 14 are inserted):

9. Christ's my Commander, Pioneer;
He leads, fights, cuts the way;
My Watch, Escort, Attendant, He
Protects, guides, cares alway.
...

14. Christ is my rich and fertile soil,
Spring rain, sweet morning dew;
In Him I as a branch abide;
He is my vine most true.

The sixth crucial item of Ephesians 3 is the breadth and length and height and depth in verse 18. Once Christ makes His home in our hearts, we discover His boundlessness. He is the One who is wide, long, high, and deep. He is the breadth of the universe, the length of the universe, the height of the universe, and the depth of the universe. His breadth, length, height, and depth are immeasurable; this is Christ. The more we experience Him, the more we know His boundlessness; He is inexhaustible. There is a hymn that simply states, "Oh, what a Christ have I!" (Hymns, #510).

In 1966, I wrote many hymns in Taiwan, one of which was Hymns, #510: "I've found the One of peerless worth,/My heart doth sing for joy;/And sing I must, for Christ I have:/Oh, what a Christ have I!" In this hymn, I pointed out over thirty items of what Christ is. Our Christ is all-inclusive! The last part of this hymn says, "My Christ, the all-inclusive One,/My Christ what shall I call?/He is the first, He is the last,/My Christ is All in all." This is our Christ, who is the mystery of God.

Today our gospel preaching is the preaching of Christ. To preach Christ is to tell people who and what Christ is. From stanzas 2 and 3 of the Chinese Hymns, #403, we can find at least fourteen items of the riches of Christ. [The English version of this hymn, Hymns, #542, contains twelve items.] First it says, "O the riches of my Savior, / All-embracing ." Then it goes on to list these riches: life, light, wisdom, power, healing, peace, joy, complete redemption, full salvation, justification, sanctification, release, resurrection power, and transcendence, for a total of fourteen items. The Chinese Hymns, #388 [an abridged version of the English Hymns, #510] speaks even more of Christ's riches. Christ is the Lamb of God, the Sun of Righteousness, the tree of life, the fountain of life, the Priest, the Prophet, the King, the Savior, the Mediator, the Physician, the Shepherd, the Counselor, the Head, our Brother, our Father, our God, our Lord, our Teacher, our Beloved, our Friend, life, power, wisdom, righteousness, holiness, redemption, peace, joy, hope, comfort, glory, light, and way, for a total of thirty-three items. Never think that this Jesus Christ whom you have heard, believed in, and received is that simple. He is too marvelous and very rich. His riches are the reality and contents of the gospel.

Today Christ is in us. In Romans 8:10 we find the expression Christ is in you. This short expression is of great importance. The very Christ who is in us is life. Hence, the divine life is a wonderful, living person (John 11:25; 14:6a). This wonderful person is unsearchably rich. Hymns, #510 alone contains more than sixty items of Christ's riches. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 22:13) and all the letters of the alphabet in between, and He is also all the words formed with those letters. We can never exhaust telling who Christ is. However, it is not enough that Christ is inexhaustible in Himself; Christ must be everything to us in our experience. My desire is that we all learn how to experience the exhaustless, unlimited, peerless Christ who is in us. Christ's being in us is not merely a doctrine; it is a fact. Although we are very small, in a sense Christ humbled Himself to be smaller than we are. In Himself He is much greater than we are, yet He humbled Himself to be a small piece of bread so that we can eat Him as our spiritual food and receive Him into us (Matt. 15:27; John 6:35, 51, 57). Although He is small enough for us to eat, He is the unlimited One who is living in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22).

One of the hymns we have composed concerning the experience of Christ as everything to us has fifteen stanzas and lists more than sixty-five items of what Christ is to us (Hymns, #510). Nevertheless, there are still many more items of what Christ is to us. For example, consider the full salvation of God typified by the history of the people of Israel. First, they were in Egypt, then they were delivered from Egypt and wandered in the wilderness, and eventually they were brought into the good land, the land of Canaan. Their history in these places signifies the three stages of our participation in God's full salvation. In each stage the people of Israel enjoyed certain items. In Egypt they enjoyed the passover lamb with its blood and its meat, and they also enjoyed the unleavened bread with bitter herbs (Exo. 12:3-8). Moreover, they had their loins girded and had sandals on their feet and a staff in their hand (v. 11). Later, when they were in the wilderness, at a certain point in their journey there was no fresh water but only waters of bitterness. Those waters were healed when Moses cast a tree into them (15:22-25). The tree that healed the bitter waters signifies the cross of Christ, which is a healing cross (1 Pet. 2:24). After this, the people of Israel enjoyed the heavenly manna (Exo. 16), which is a type of Christ as the bread of life (John 6:32-35), and the living water from the smitten rock (Exo. 17:1-7). The rock typifies Christ (1 Cor. 10:4), and the living water typifies the Spirit, who flowed out of the crucified and resurrected Christ to be our all-inclusive drink (John 7:37-39; 19:34; 1 Cor. 12:13). In the wilderness the people of Israel also enjoyed the tabernacle with all its utensils and the priesthood with all the different offerings. Finally, when they entered into the land of Canaan, they enjoyed the produce of the land, a land flowing with milk and honey (Josh. 5:11-12). The riches of the good land signify different aspects of the unsearchable riches of Christ (Deut. 8:7-10; Col. 1:12; Eph. 3:8).

Our knowledge and experience of the Lord should not be merely doctrinal. For example, both Hymns, #78 and #510 speak of various items of the riches of Christ, but if we commit these items only to our memory, we are increasing only our mental knowledge, not our experience of Christ. Christ can never be experienced in our mind through doctrines. We must touch the Spirit in our spirit and allow the word of God, the living word of God, to enlighten us. This is the way to genuinely touch the riches of Christ. We need to know the riches of Christ in reality. Every real experience of Christ depends on touching the Spirit in our spirit, not on doctrines.