Christ is the expression of what divine perfection is in a man going through the world.
If I look up I am perfect; if I look at myself here I am very imperfect: but still I am not of the world just as Christ is not of the world. What are we of? We are of God. We are of God in the midst of a world that is not of God; and in which now, what is religious and what is worldly, are so mingled together that you cannot tell what is black or white; it is all gray. So the Word has to be applied in a thousand ways to things of which the true character must be discerned.
The Spirit applies the living Word to every motion of my heart. He comes and says: I delight in you, but I cannot delight in this and that. The Father’s Word has to be applied to everything in me—things in which will has to be broken; and, because I am going to be in the glory, I purify myself even as He is pure (1 John 3); I have to keep company with Him. I am not sent into the world but in the measure in which I am able to testify for Christ. It may be but a little testimony that I am able to bear, but still that is all I am sent into it for—all that I am required to go into it for.