I have have heard the phrase "Does Jesus live in your heart?". I find it interesting that this really isn't in the Bible and I would like to understand where this idea and phrase come from.
Does anybody know anything about the origins of this phase, either the person or denomination that came up with it.
In the sense of modern Decision Theology where salvation is a specific conversion experience of making a personal choice to "accept Jesus" the language isn't exactly biblical.
However, that Christ dwells in us is biblical and true and good theology.
First, let's talk about the Trinitarian perspective: Since all three Divine Persons are indivisible and inseparable that means we cannot separate nor divide any Person from Another. So, for example, Christ explicitly tells us that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. Likewise, the Lord tells us, concerning the Holy Spirit, that though the Spirit is "another Comforter" He says "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you".
This is the language of Perichoresis, the way in which the Three Persons of the Trinity are in/with One Another--the Father is in the Son, the Son is in the Father, the Son is in the Spirit, the Father is in the Spirit, etc.
This means that we can say, on this basis alone, that Christ dwells in us through the Holy Spirit.
Additionally, there is biblical language that talks about Christ in us.
2 Corinthians 13:5, Romans 8:10, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 1:27, and most notably for this discussion, Ephesians 3:17
That Christ dwells in us, that Christ is with us, through faith, through the Holy Spirit, is decidedly biblical language.
God the Trinity makes His home with us, that through faith we have received God, life from God. So that, indeed, Christ does dwell in us. Christ makes His abode with us, and--importantly--desires to always make His abode with us.
In the mini-epistle to the Laodiceans in St. John's Apocalypse the phrase, "I stand at the door and knock" is said by the Lord, this is often wrongly applied to trying to get un-believers to have a conversion experience; but in truth this is said to believers. It is an invitation and call to be faithful to our first love, Christ, who loves us and gave His life for us that we might live in and with Him. Who seats us in heavenly places with Himself even as He is seated at the right hand of the Father in glory. This same Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father, is the same Jesus who "fills all things", who reigns in our hearts through the Spirit, through faith; and who meets us in His word, meets us in the Sacraments, meets us in our love and fellowship with one another.
So while we do not "invite Jesus into our hearts" as a kind of decisive salvation moment enacted by our ability and works (Ephesians 2:8-9), we are the Body of Christ as His Church, and Christ dwells in us and reigns in us, and we are being changed and conformed to the image of Christ, to have the mind of Christ, to bear the love of Christ in this Mystery of faith. Which we have received by the grace of God.
Theologians talk about this in different ways,
Unio cum Christi and
Unio Mystica, Union with Christ, Mystical Union--the Mystery--the revealed truth of the Gospel, that we are united to Christ, with Christ, we partake of Christ of His life by God's grace, through faith, in and of the Holy Spirit. This isn't "mysticism" as gets defined popularly today; rather this is the view of Scripture and good theology that there is a union, a communion, and a sharing-together between Christ and His Church. And that we are members of the Church, Christ's Mystical Body, we share of and in Christ, are with Christ, "heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ". This is the language of Baptism such as in Romans 6:3-4 that we have been united to Christ in His death so too are we united to Christ in His resurrected life; and Galatians 3:27 that we are clothed with Christ; this is the language of the Lord's Supper where in 1 Corinthians 10:16 we read that we partake of the body and blood of Christ, and as we read further in that passage that partakers of the altar partake of the sacrifice.
There is a unity between Christ and His Church, between us and the Lord, here in Word and Sacrament, in the new and superabundant life of grace by the Holy Spirit, through and in faith which God gives and works in us. Much of this mystery is not fully comprehended, we see this in several places of Scripture, such as in 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul writes we see now in a glass dimly, but will one day see face to face knowing as we are known, and John says in his epistle that we are God's children now but what we will be is unknown, but we will be like Christ on that coming Day.
We have these mysteries through faith, by the promise of God in His word, the fullness of what God is doing is not fully known now, but one day all will be made plain. But, for now, we cling to faith, that God is keeping His word, Christ is our treasure, buried in us by God, to hold us and keep us.
-CryptoLutheran
