There are several expressions in Scripture which indicate the manifold ways in which we can have partnership with Christ. Of course by regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, we partake of His life. His holiness and His character, but there are other things in which we partake with Him.

1. We are partakers with Christ in the preaching of His Word. In the case of the Apostles, they shared with Christ the honor of being inspired and writing out the Scriptures. We are told in Hebrews that Jesus first began the preaching of the Gospel, and that it was confirmed or finished by those who heard Christ, and that God bore witness to their teaching and preaching by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Christ did not preach all of the Gospel, but left many things for His Apostles to write out in the Acts and the Epistles and the Revelation, and these words of His Apostles are as perfectly inspired and form a part of the divine Scriptures, just as truly as the words spoken by our Savior. Some people have printed the New Testament putting the words of Christ in red ink and the other words of Scripture in black ink, as if to make the impression that the words of the Apostles are not equally inspired with the words of Jesus. There is no such difference between the divine authority of the inspired Scriptures, for our Lord took the Apostles into partnership with Himself in finishing out all the words that make up the inspired Bible. And then all of us who will can be partners with Christ in the preaching of His Word. Of course God in a special way calls men to preach the Gospel, to expound His truth according to the various gifts which He bestows, and in this way they share with Christ the glorious work of communicating divine truth from God to the souls of men.

2. We are partners with Christ in having the Word of God fulfilled in us. Jesus was a target of all ancient prophecy, and as a thousand arrows may be shot at one target, so all the old Scriptures were aimed at Christ, and in Him were accomplished hundreds of things that were foretold. Not less than twenty-five prophecies from the Old Testament were fulfilled in Christ the last twenty-four hours of His earthly life, and fulfilled with the most perfect precision. But true believers are to share with Christ in having most of those same prophecies fulfilled in them according to their measure. As Jesus was the embodiment of the personality of the eternal Word of God, so we Christians are to be the embodiment of the written Word of God, and to have those words wrought out in us by the power of the Holy Ghost.

3. We are partners with Christ in suffering. Of course there are two kinds of suffering in our Christian lives, for we suffer on account of our failures, our backslidings, our ignorance and various faults, but apart from this species of suffering we are partakers with Christ in suffering because we are Christians and because we belong to Christ. We must share in our proportion all the enmity that Satan and evil spirits have against Christ, and we must bear our part of all the hatred that the world has against holiness. There are countless trials which come to us because we go against sinful nature, against the old Adam, and against the world. And every affliction we have which comes to us because of our following Christ is put down to our credit as in union with the Lord.

There is a remarkable passage in the first chapter of Colossians, where Paul says that in his sufferings for Christ he filled up the affliction which Christ left behind for His Church to suffer. While it is true that in the death of Jesus He made a complete atonement, yet in His sufferings He did not take them all, but left a portion behind for His saints to endure that they might thereby be one with Him in all things. Jesus did not carry His cross all the way to Calvary, but allowed another man to carry it for Him part of the way, and we may be sure that man has a high place in Heaven.

Christ suffered on the cross six hours, and then died a great deal sooner than the people expected. If a crucified man did not die under seven hours, after that in cases of emergency the Roman authorities could kill him by other means. Hence when they came to the two thieves who were still living at sundown, they broke their legs to hasten their death, but when they came to Jesus they found He was dead already, and so they broke not His legs, but the Roman soldier pierced His side with a spear, to make His death absolutely certain. When these acts were told to Pilate he marveled that Christ had died so soon.

Thus we see that Jesus suffered six hours, and left the seventh hour for His followers to fill up in suffering, which harmonizes with Paul's expression that he filled up the measure of the afflictions of Christ which were left behind. In this way our Lord permits His saints to become one with Himself in sharing His afflictions, for there is no oneness like that which comes through mutual suffering and death.

4. We are partners with Christ in His royalty and are to reign with Him over earth in the coming ages. Thus union with Christ in reigning with Him is a direct outcome of partnership in suffering, for the Apostle says if we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him. David declared that the saints of the Lord are to be princes in all the earth. (Psa. 45.) Jesus says the overcomers are to have authority over the nations and rule them, or more accurately, shepherdize them, with a rod of iron. This partnership in royalty is not a metaphor, but is to be a glorious reality. Some say that the saints are to reign without subjects, but this is a contradiction, for no one can reign as a prince without having subjects under him, and the Scriptures declare that the Church of the Firstborn, which rises in the first resurrection, shall sit on thrones and reign with Christ a thousand years over the nations on the earth, and then in the new heavens and new earth it is to reign over the nations that shall be born in the ongoing ages of the new earth. As Christ is the chief Shepherd, so His true ministers are the under shepherds, and as Christ is the King appointed of the Father, so those who are one with Him in spirit are to be His princes, participating in His administration over His creatures of the lower orders and over the nations who do not take rank with the glorified saints in the first resurrection.

5. The righteous are partakers with Christ in the inheritance of all the property which is given to Him of the Father. We are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away. Here are three glorious attributes of the inheritance. It is incorruptible — that is, can never die or decay. It is undefiled — that is, perfectly pure, and can never be polluted with sin. And it fadeth not away — that is, exists in eternal youth and freshness and can never get old or (stale, but is always in immortal youth. The Father has made Christ His only heir, and given to Him all the wealth of the universe, material, intellectual, and spiritual, with every possible good that can be known by angels or men, and all this wealth is to be shared in ownership by those who are crucified with Christ, and baptized into His Spirit, and share with Him His lowly life of love and obedience. Our rank in the coming ages will be in proportion to how much we share of the life and sufferings of Christ in this present world.