Living Christ in the World

Eph. 4:17-29
The believer, "through the law," as shown by the Apostle Paul, is "dead to the law," that he may "live unto God." He can say, like Paul, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." This is his standing before God, and the result upon his outward conduct should be, as with the Apostle, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Gal. 2:19, 20.)
He no longer has the law, but Christ for his standard. To live Christ, that is, to reproduce, as it were, the life of Christ in our own, is true Christian walk. Christ always walked in the Spirit, and if we are walking in the Spirit we "shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh," but shall bring forth the fruit of the Spirit—that "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" which adorn in such rich clusters the life of the blessed Lord. (Gal. 5:16, 22, 23.)
It is impossible to gather grapes from the thorns of the old nature. Christ is the true vine, the one stock from which fruit for God can be brought forth. Only as we are branches abiding in Him can we bear fruit like His own; only thus is it possible for us "so to walk, even as He walked." (John 15:5; 1 John 2:6.)