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Christ's Life Within You • Jul 01st 1987

The Fellowship of the Father and Son Comes to Earth (DCLC – July ’87, Part 3)

What is the deeper Christian life?

It is not striving.
It is not moral improvement.
It is not religious obligation.

It is fellowship — the fellowship of the Father and the Son.

In this profound 1987 message, Gene Edwards opens the Gospels and asks a radical question: What if the primary story of Jesus’ earthly life was not about ethics, miracles, or religious instruction — but about His internal fellowship with the Father?

Before Bethlehem, before creation, before time itself, the Father and Son shared unbroken fellowship. That fellowship did not begin in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. It came to earth already fully alive.

Jesus did not arrive merely to teach better behavior. He arrived living in two realms at once — fully present in time and space, yet continually conscious of eternity.

At twelve years old, He already knew His Father in another realm.
At Cana, He spoke of wine from eternity, not merely earthly drink.
At the well, He offered living water from beyond time.
On the Mount of Transfiguration, glory burst from within Him.

These were not isolated miracles. They were glimpses into an ongoing inner fellowship.

When Jesus spoke of worshiping “in spirit and in truth,” He was not describing emotional worship. He was pointing to another realm — a location not on Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem, but in the human spirit.

Man is unique. He belongs to two realms.
Body belongs to earth.
Spirit belongs to eternity.

Jesus Christ, the Son of David and the Son of God, stood uniquely positioned to inherit both realms. And He lived His earthly life drawing continuously from the Father within.

The deeper Christian life is simply this:

What was true in Him becomes true in us.

After the resurrection, the apostles no longer remembered merely miracles. They remembered fellowship. They remembered eating with Him, walking with Him, hearing Him speak. And then they discovered that fellowship moved within them.

“May the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”

The New Testament is saturated with language about spirit, life, and union — not as abstract theology, but as lived experience. Illiterate fishermen spoke of heavenly places, of being “in Christ,” of Christ dwelling within.

The gospel was delivered to the poor and the uneducated — not as philosophical complexity, but as daily fellowship.

Jesus warned of an “empty house” — a life cleaned up but not filled. The Christian life is not about self-improvement; it is about filling that inner room with Him.

To eat His flesh and drink His blood is not mere symbolism. It is spiritual participation — daily partaking of His Life.

The early believers understood this. Their vocabulary of “life,” “spirit,” “union,” and “fellowship” emerged from experience, not theory.

This message calls you to shift your focus:

Stop asking, “What does God demand of me?”
Start asking, “What was the Father saying to the Son?”

Look at Christ.
Look at His fellowship.
Look at His inner life.

And then discover that the same Spirit lives in you.

The fellowship of the Father and Son has come to earth — and it continues.

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Do you say that couldn’t be? If you take that ability of Jesus Christ away from Him and say He read that in the book, you have literally stolen from Him His divinity and His pre-existence. He was preexistent. He was in the bosom of the Father before the foundation of the world; He said He was. And He remembered Solomon. He remembered Solomon’s beautiful golden robes and his purple, and all of this. And He looked back at that lily, and he said, “The lily I made is prettier than the glory Solomon made for Himself.” He wasn’t telling you about something He read in the 1 and 2 Kings or 1 and 2 Chronicles. He was remembering an encounter with Him.

Why don’t we see the story of the lilies of the field from that viewpoint rather than from the viewpoint of God’s going to take care of you when you’re in big trouble? Why can we not shift back and begin to look at His life from the viewpoint of an indwelling Lord? Are you following me? That message to me is as pertinent as real and as present in that story as anything else involved in that story. He was on the mount of transfiguration, and two people stepped out of the other realm. If we’re to believe the story, two people stepped out of the other realm; neither one of them walked up to Him and shook His hand and said, “Glad to know you.” Amen. They already knew Him, and He knew them. Say something. Why don’t we look at this and realize, brothers, that God is simply hollering at us about other realms and spirit, and just take His words again and again and again and look at them. He’s saying to you, there’s a spirit in you. There’s another realm. God is in that other realm. I am in that other realm.

Jesus Christ spoke about being the Son of man come down from the heavenlies and then turned around and said, “And who is in the heavenlies.” You’re not going to say He had a split personality; He had a split being. He could be in the other realm. The Son of Man came down out of the heavenly places and was also now in the heavenly places. He was in both places at once. When we see Him glowing there on Mount Tabor, I have never seen, I don’t know about you, but I have never seen some glory fall on Him. The light that shines and brightens up that whole place is coming from within Him. If you could have seen Jesus Christ as He was seen by the Father and the angels, you would have seen one with brilliant incandescent light glowing within Him, and it burst forth that day in His fellowship with the Father. Burst out into our realm. That was light from a vast eternal realm piercing into His Spirit. Then coming out of the spirit into His soul and His body and out into our realm, visible. Through the door of the spirit where His Father, who is Spirit, lived. Why could I not look at that passage of scripture and see this? And why doesn’t someone tell me these things? It’s right there.

On the day He was baptized, we read the story of His baptism, draw our swords, and start cutting one of those heads off with our different doctrines about what happened on the day He was baptized. My brother’s standing right there in the middle of that story. And there was a voice out of the heavenlies. God the Father, watching His Son, came up to the door between that realm and this realm and just cried out for all to hear. “Behold, my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” But perhaps that voice came from deep within the Son of God; I don’t know, but why doesn’t someone tell me about that door and about the Father in that other realm who walked daily in, with, and about His Son, rather than telling me that I got to go outside, find some water, and be held down in that water until I bubble three times. Which more edifies me?

This is the story of the deeper Christian life being lived out right in our faces and these words before us. I would crack open your mind’s way of conceiving and seeing things, and just please believe it’s all over the story of the life of the Son of God, and it’s there for you and me. No, I’m not going to tell you that I was in spirit, and I saw the end of the world; it’s next Friday afternoon at 2:30. Brothers and sisters, He worked miracles. He did this, He did that. It’s true, He did, but reread that record from the view that I’m trying to introduce to you tonight and realize that most of that record is not about healing. It is not about predictions. It is not about the end of the world. It’s not about ethics. It’s not about teaching. It’s about an internal fellowship with God the Father.

I’ve heard almost everything on earth preached about this particular message. I’ve heard about Father-Son relationships. I’ve heard about wine. I’ve heard about salvation, but let’s look again at the story of Jesus at the wedding in Cana, and here He is. He is sitting in the back of a room watching people celebrate, and they run out of wine. And another age comes before His eyes, and He realizes they ran out of wine in the Garden of Eden. He knows He’s come to give them the wine back. This is spiritual. He knows they ran out of wine a long time ago. He knows He’s come to give him the wine back. His mother walks up to Him while He’s looking, listening, and hearing that the wine is not here, and He sees all of mankind. He knows why He’s come. He is in spirit. He’s in fellowship. He is keenly aware of who He is and what’s going on. He looks up. His mother says, “Son, they’re out of wine.” She spoke to Him on the earthly; He spoke to her out of the other realm. He spoke to her from the other place where He was, and He said, “Woman, don’t press it. It is not yet my time. Woman, leave me alone. It’s not my time.” He spoke to her with such insight as to His spiritual place and who He was as reality. That stuff was a picture on this earth. He was the real wine sitting there who had come from another place, and He knew that He was still three years away from giving new wine. She knew, too, that His time was not yet. And so, she said to Him, she didn’t say anything to Him. She walked away and she said to those servants, “I don’t know this Son of mine is unusual, but just in case He were to say anything to you about wine, just do anything He tells you, no matter how outlandish it is.”

He was not looking at some little thing going on at a wedding. He was looking at a great panoramic view of man that stretched from the garden to that age, until the end of time. The spirituals drip from that beautiful story. They drip from that beautiful story. I would have the scales drop from your eyes, saints, and you see the real story of what is going on in the life of Jesus’ ministry.

The woman at the well is the best of all. There’s a bunch, but that’s the best of all. Here is a man walking inside here. He is walking in His Spirit. He is in His spirit. He’s not in His brain. He is not sitting here worrying about Jewish rules and regulations. He sees things so differently than the way we do, and words have different meanings because words in the other realm are used one way. The words in this realm don’t quite match them, and so they kind of miss one another sometimes.

Listen to this glorious message that He preaches to one silly, shallow-minded, dumb little woman. Frivolous little, shallow, emotional, senseless girl. She walks up to the well. She goes to get some well water. I’m going to get some water. He hears water; water right in here, just welling up in me. I was tired a minute ago. It was hot and dusty, oh, but Father, water, God, water, more fellowship. Yes, refreshment. Living water going on in Him. He sees that woman. He remembers when He marked her off in eternity. He knows her, His man on the father. He knows her redeemed, resurrected spirit. He knows this girl. Things are picking up. This is the one who can remember the past, way past.

“May I have a drink?” “You, a Jew, speak to a Samaritan?” Almost gloating over the fact that she had water, and He didn’t. He said, “If you knew who was talking to you, I’d give you water out of eternity. Water that goes on and on and on. Real water, not this picture stuff.” Water. He’s got water. She’s got picture water, symbol water, tide water. He’s got the Father in Him, and He is fellowshipping at this moment with God the Father in Him. So, she says, “Oh, great prophet, we got here. I’ll just ask Him a theological question. You Jews, you worship in Jerusalem, we Samaritans, we got a temple, too, right up there on that hill. You say it’s no good. You say yours is the right. Which one’s the right one?” This little gal has been like everybody else. She was raised to argue theology even though she didn’t know a thing.

Now, boy, you know, all the things that have been preached about this woman at the well and the Lord Jesus at this well, but nobody dwells on the incredible spiritual vocabulary that’s flying here from one who lives in other places. He looks up at her mountain and knows that this was never the right thing. He considers Jerusalem, and He can consider even now, there’s that priest going through all the rituals and doing this with the doves or the lamb or the ox or whatever. And He sees the veil, and He sees the this and the that. He says, “Yeah, Jerusalem’s where you ought to worship, but the hour comes and just arrived right here at this well. Just got here. Just arrived. Eternity and time intersected for you, little lady.” That which was marked off in eternity has now met time.

The hour cometh and now is when men shall no longer worship in Jerusalem, but shall worship where in wind, in spirit, in breath, in spirit. For my Father is looking around right now for those who will worship not in pictures. Not in the pictures of the ox and the doves and the turtle doves and the lamb of Jerusalem or its altar or its priest with all of its symbolic robes and rituals. Not in the unreality of Jerusalem, but in the real reality, in the other place. For my Father is looking around for those who will worship Him in spirit. Alright, now, where is the spirit? “Oh, just you know, oh spirit. Yeah. Praise God. His spirit is spirit. Oh, there is spirit. Let’s be in spirit.” No. Samaria had a location. The Jews had a location, and God had a location. It’s in here. That is where reality is. There’s a door in there, and you walk in. Little lady, they’re at the well, sitting on the side of the well. You are sitting there; your Father is seeking you to give up Samaria and forget Jerusalem. He is seeking the one who will worship Him in the real things in the realm, in spirit. And you know something, she did. She did. When Philip came through years later to preach the gospel in Samaria, you can bet your bottom dollar that little gal was sitting on the front row hollering, “Amen. It’s true. He lives in here.” And since that day, I’ve never thirsted spiritually. I tried everything on earth to fill up a hole in here physically, and it didn’t work. One day, He gave me water out of another realm, and I have been worshiping Him in here, and He’s gone and ascended now, but He’s also ascended in my spirit, and He is in here.

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