BS 2651 .M2 1880 . . 
 
 Macduff, John R. 1818-1895 . )7|^-^^ 
 In Christo, or. The monogra 
 of St. Paul 
 
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 ''^^\^"-- -^y^- i43>i'l 
 
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 *<i4 
 
 
IN CHRISTO 
 
 OR 
 
 THE MONOGRAM OF ST. PAUL. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. R. MACDUFF, D.D. 
 
 " It was what Paul was in Christ, which gives that peculiar soul- 
 winning attraction to his preaching of Christ." 
 
 BeSSEr's " BiBELSTUNDEN." 
 
 "The Salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token 
 in every Epistle : so I write." 2 Thess. i.i. 17. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLXXX. 
 
,0? 
 
PATRI MATRI 
 IN CHRISTO 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " p^^S^ ^^ ^^ ®^^^ occur to you," says a gifted writer, 
 
 I K j " ^^ count the number of times in St. Paul's 
 
 i^^^^^ Epistles, in which the phrases ' m Christ,' 
 
 and its equivalents * in Him,' and * in the Lord ' are to 
 
 be found ? " ' 
 
 With singular, and very notable iteration, no less 
 indeed than on thirty-three occasions, do the words 
 " IN CHEIST " alone, independent of these equiva- 
 lents, occur.^ 
 
 This Volume is an attempt to gather the charac- 
 teristic expression (or occasionally where the Apostle's 
 thought and meaning are more suggestive, the latter), 
 as themes of meditation.^ 
 
 I have used the word "Monogram " on the title-page 
 and throughout, from the difficulty of finding any 
 
 ^ Dean Howson's Hulsean Lectures. 
 
 ^ Besides these, as we shall aftenvards find, our translators in their 
 rendering have occasionally adopted the preposition " through," when 
 it is "in" (iv) in the original. 
 
 3 In case any may care to employ them as daily readings, they are 
 numbered so as to extend over a month. 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 other that would better describe the favourite phrase. 
 This IN Christo is the cor cordium of his writings: 
 the key-note, — the one master-chord which vibrates 
 and pulsates through the whole divine symphony ; 
 recalling, as an Old Testament parallel, the watchword 
 of the Great Elijah — "Jehovah liveth." ^ 
 
 Are his Epistles a temple of living stones ? IN 
 Chkisto is the superscription on the portico. Does he 
 speak of running the Christian race ? in Christo is the 
 sacred torch he holds aloft in pressing towards the goal, 
 and which he hands down to his successors in all ages. 
 Is the badge assigned to him by the early Church — the 
 sword of conquest entwined with a garland of victory ? 
 IN Christo, if we can venture to employ a modern 
 term to the acknowledged chief of the spiritual aristo- 
 cracy, is the heraldic motto encircling it. " Thou hast 
 given a banner," says the Psalmist, " to them that fear 
 ^ thee : " — in Christo was the banner-device of this illus- 
 trious champion of the faith. Like a clarion-note, it rises 
 clear and loud above * the shout and shell of battle.' 
 It was solely in the mystic, but very real significance 
 of the grand spiritual verity therein expressed, that 
 
 ^ Favourite epithets and phrases occur in the %mtings of more than 
 one of the sacred penmen, suggested by some special incidents in 
 their lives. Note (for example), St. Peter's frequent reference to hi-} 
 Divine Master, as "the Shepherd," "the Chief Shepherd," "the 
 Shepherd and Bishop of Souls : " — emblems which the memories of the 
 Lake-shore — " Feed my sheep," " Feed my Lambs," are surely sufficient 
 very naturally to account for. The In Christo of the other Apostle 
 does not require to be explained by any similar suggestion or associa- 
 tion. 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 he would have accepted the otherwise -unauthorised 
 ' nimbus ' and ' halo ' with which the devout painters 
 of early and mediaeval ages cinctured his brow. If, 
 like a second Moses on the Heavenly Mount, his 
 countenance shone, he would allow it to be only with 
 a borrowed, reflected lustre : — " the light of the know- 
 ledge of the glory of God in " (from) " the face of Jesus 
 Christ." All the above and similar comparisons, 
 indeed, fall short of his own comprehensive epigram- 
 matic utterance — " The life hid with Christ in God " 
 (Col. iii. 3). Well may the gilded lettering gleam on 
 the baldacchino of the Eoman Basilica which tradition 
 claims for his tomb — " Mihi, vivere, Christus est" ^ 
 
 On two other occasions alone are St. Paul's dis- 
 tinguishing words used in the I^ew Testament. One 
 of these is in a historical reference to the Apostle, 
 defining the topic of his preaching before Felix. But 
 even that is coupled with an allusion to the familiar 
 phrase, " concerning the faith IN Christ '* (Acts xxiv. 
 24). The other occurs in the ist Epistle of St. Peter 
 (iii. 16). And may not this latter claim, too, a similar 
 
 ^ According to the strong and emphatic meaning of the original, he 
 made his ' boast ' in Christ. Although rendered by the same in our 
 translation, there are two different words in the Greek, when he speaks 
 in the commencement of Phil. iii. of *' rejoicing in the Lord " (xatpere 
 ev KvpicS) (ver. i): and "rejoicing in Christ Jesus" {Kaxrxjuj^evoi. ev 
 Xpcarifj 'ItjctoO), lit. ' making our boast in Christ Jesus ' (ver. 3), rising 
 in the latter to the more exultant term. It is the same word which 
 is employed in his great Galatian motto- verse — "God forbid that I 
 should glory (or boast), save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" 
 (Gal. vi. 14). 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 pedigree ? Is it not more than probable that, like a 
 strain of music, it may have lingered in the memory 
 of the Apostle of the circumcision, as a relic of the 
 hallowed converse enjoyed more than once with " his 
 beloved Brother Paul " : more especially during those 
 never-to-be-forgotten days, when they abode together 
 under the same roof at Jerusalem, and spake together 
 of " the things touching the King " (Gal. i. 1 8) ? 
 
 If the Monogram, as I have thus ventured to call it, 
 was peculiarly St. Paul's own in Gospel times, it was 
 not so afterwards. He seems, at all events, to have 
 bequeathed the words as a precious souvenir to those 
 who in a subsequent age followed his steps and shared 
 his crown. To the writer, it is one of the most touch- 
 ing and interesting remembrances of a sojourn in the 
 city of the Apostle's later years and martyrdom, how, 
 in the Eoman Catacombs, with their computed six 
 millions of buried Christians, the mourners and sur- 
 vivors of the martyred dead had served themselves 
 heirs to the same divine " graffito " of the greatest of 
 the Fathers ! How remarkable to trace, ever and anon, 
 inscriptions in rude lettering of the In Christo, either 
 found within, or else taken from, these strangest of 
 burial grounds.^ I quote the following, not from 
 
 ^ The slabs and inscriptions are chiefly to be seen in the singular 
 collection in the Vatican. Some in the Museum of St. John Lateran, 
 or that of the Capitol. (See note at end of Preface.) Moreover, while 
 the Catacombs have thus largely contributed, it may be well also to 
 state that many of these slabs and sculptured sarcophagi were discovered 
 in the Vestibules or under the pavement of the early Basilicas. 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 memory, but from the accurate pages of those who 
 have had leisure to transcribe the tracings, often in- 
 complete, and to a hurried visitor, difficult to decipher. 
 
 " ViCTORiNA, IN PACE ET IN Christo " (Victorina — 
 in peace, and in Christ).^ 
 
 " Fortunatus, in his lifetime, made this for himself, 
 in order that when he should rest in peace, IN Christ, 
 he might have his grave prepared." 
 
 " Marius Vitellianus, to his most faithful wife Pri- 
 mitiva . . . mayest thou live " (vivas) " in Christ." 
 
 "Ursula, thou art accepted IN Christ" (Ursula, 
 
 ACCEPTA SIS IN ChRISTO). 
 
 This latter is followed by a double * Chrism ' (the 
 word now generally employed to describe the Christian 
 monogram). An accurate explorer has noted, as a 
 formula common on the sepulchral stones of the pri- 
 mitive Christians — " Spes IN Christo." " Spes in 
 Deo." " Spes in Christo Deo." This, in conjunction 
 not unfrequently with the symbolic Anchor (as in the 
 crypt of St. Lucina). " Which hope " (spes) " we have 
 as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, and which 
 entereth into that within the veil ; whither the fore- 
 runner is for us entered, even Jesus : " (the hope IN 
 Christ, — the anchor cast in the Eock of Ages), (Heb. 
 vi. 19, 20). A seal found among other smaller articles 
 (see p. XV. of Preface) bears the similar legend — " Spes 
 IN Eo " (Hope IN Him). The following inscription is 
 
 See note, end of Preface. 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 from a sarcophagus of the fourth or fifth century : — ■ 
 " Here lies Paulina in the place of the blessed. Pacata, 
 to whom she was nurse, buried her. A lovable, and 
 holy person, in Christ." On a slab or " tabula " ^ in 
 a wall of the Vatican Library, we have — "Yitalis, 
 buried on Saturday. Kalends of August. In Christ, 
 the Pirst and the Last : " — (The Chrism being added to 
 this, with the Greek Alpha and Omega). " Aselus 
 sleeps IN Christ." "Irene, in peace. Her mother 
 Agape set up this. In Christ." ^ Touching testimony, 
 first of all, as to how fondly they treasured the name, 
 character, and inspired teaching of him, whom Chry- 
 sostom, in one of his golden phrases, calls " the heart 
 of the world." But a testimony also, equally strong, 
 
 1 "On the slabs of the earlier loculi, e.g., in the cemeteries of Pris- 
 cilla and Domitilla, the name is only painted in red and black pigment, 
 not cut or scratched. . . . When engraved, the letters are often 
 coloured with vermilion." — Canon Venables. 
 
 - Those who are curious in such matters, can consult, in the British 
 Museum Library (in addition to De Rossi's gigantic work, "Roma Sot- 
 teranea"), the folio volume of Marco Boldetti (Rome 1720), with its 
 quaint but faithful reproductions. The most remarkable of these 
 inscriptions have been well rendered by Mr. Maitland in his more 
 accessible Volume, "The Church in the Catacombs," along vaih. much 
 valuable material of his own. It may be interesting to add that the 
 most assiduous — we may well say the most extraordinary collector of 
 Christian Inscriptions, was a young scholar who lived at the close of 
 the last century, by name G?etano Marini. The result of thirty-five 
 years devotion was bequeathed to the Vatican Library, and afterwards 
 compiled by De Rossi, in his 31 volumes, containing no less than 8600 
 inscriptions in Latin, and 750 in Greek, gathered from all countries. 
 Among other epitaphs deciphered by Marini bearing on our theme, are 
 — " Accepta sis in Christo." " Aeterna tibi lux in Christo " (450- 
 454). — See Die. of Christian Antiquities. Art. ^^ Inscriptions.^^ 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 as to the wealth of import which was deemed to be 
 included in the phrase itself; meeting, as it did, alike 
 present experiences and aspirations, and boundless 
 future hopes : comprising, in one glorious, emphatic, 
 all-comprehensive word, assurances of peace in life, 
 peace in trouble, peace in death, peace in eternity. 
 
 From these slumbering ashes of the Catacombs of 
 St. Calixtus, that requiem comes down to us, if we 
 can so express it, in its own dumb and silent 
 significance, — its own unimpaired majesty of comfort 
 and peerless privilege. Civis Eomanus Sum, was 
 a proud claim and assertion of the ancient Eoman. 
 What is it to the In Christo of the humblest of God's 
 children ? " In Christ : " — You in Christ, and " Christ 
 in you, the hope of glory" (Col. i. 27). Let us aspire 
 to realise the infinite fulness treasured up IN Sim. 
 He is the same this day as he was to Paul ; the same 
 as He was to the loyal band who loved to grave His 
 name, and their sacred interest in that name, as a con- 
 spicuous portion of the epitaph on the tombs of their 
 sainted dead. There are those who would travestie 
 the words and meaning of a great poet ; those who, 
 false to all the sacred traditions and beliefs of the past, 
 would 
 
 ** Ring in the Christ that is to be." 
 
 *' The Christ that is to be," is the Christ that is, 
 and the Christ that was, to the glorious company of 
 the Apostles and the noble army of martyrs : the 
 Christ, regarding whom this is the ambition of His 
 
xiv PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 noblest follower — "That I may win Him, and be 
 found IN Him, not having mine own righteousness, 
 which is of the law, but that which is, through the 
 faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by 
 faith" (Phil. iii. 9). 
 
 St. Paul (and remember he was no mystic, but the 
 most intensely practical of men) speaks of " all spiri- 
 tual blessings IN Christ" (Eph. i. 3). Some of the 
 more prominent of these, as suggested by his own 
 inspired pen, are to be traced in the pages which follow : 
 although I can truly say, in the words of Luther — " I 
 have scarcely been able to bring to light more than a 
 few little fragments and broken pieces from this most 
 rich and precious mine." ^ 
 
 After what has just been said, it need hardly be 
 added (though it may be well at once to state on the 
 
 1 A distinguished living scholar thus lucidly adverts to the salient 
 article in St. Paul's writings which is to occupy us in the sequel. 
 Speaking of the false ethical teachings which had crept into a par- 
 ticular Church, and which were deceiving many who were honestly 
 striving after truth : — " It was," says he, *' the one purpose of Chris- 
 tianity to solve that very problem which had exercised their minds. 
 In Christ they would find the answer which they sought. His life, 
 His cross, and resurrection was the guarantee ; His Person, the Word 
 Incarnate, was the solution. . . . They had attempted to fence them- 
 selves about, and to purify their lives by a code of rigorous prohibi- 
 tions. Their energy was expended in battling with the physical con- 
 ditions of human life. Their whole mind was absorbed in the struggle 
 with imaginary forms of evil. ... St. Paul sets himself to combat 
 this false tendency. For negative prohibitions he substitutes a posi- 
 tive principle ; for special enactments, a comprehensive motive. He 
 tells them that all their scrupulous restrictions are vain, because they 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 threshold), that the treatment of the ensuing chapters 
 is mainly, if not entirely, practical. I beg the reader 
 also not to expect in these any adherence to chrono- 
 logical sequence. The title of the Book having guided 
 and indeed restricted in the selection of themes, 
 the meditations could not well be linked together 
 by systematic arrangement or consecutive thought. 
 The order adopted, therefore, is entirely arbitrary ; 
 each portion being independent of what precedes or 
 follows. 
 
 Yet another and more needed observation must be 
 made in summing up these prefatory remarks. It is 
 one of a purely personal kind. 
 
 The author can most truly aver, that more than once 
 in the course of composing this Volume, has he laid 
 down his pen and hesitated to commit its pages to the 
 
 fail to touch the springs of action. . . , They must transfer themselves 
 into a wholly new sphere of energy. This transference is nothing less 
 than a migration from earth to heaven, from the region of the external 
 and transitory to the region of the spiritual and eternal. For a code 
 of rules, they must substitute a principle of life. . . . This principle 
 they have in Christ. With Him, they have died to the world ; with 
 Him, they have risen to God. Christ, the Revelation of God's holi- 
 ness, of God's righteousness, of God's love, is light, is life, is heaven. 
 With Him they have been translated into a higher sphere ; have 
 been brought face to face with the Eternal Presence. Let them only 
 realise this translation. It involves new insight, new motives, new 
 energies. They will no more waste themselves upon vexatious special 
 restrictions, for they will be furnished with a higher inspiration which 
 will cover all the minute details of action. They will kill the whole 
 body of their earthly passions, through the strong arm of this personal 
 communion with God in Christ." — (Bishop Lightfoot on the Epistle 
 to the Colossians.) 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 press, from feeling the loftiness of the ideal which 
 constitutes its theme, and the humbling sense of how- 
 far he himself falls short of it. Haud pari passu has 
 been the reflection present in many a line and medita- 
 tion : — the ever-deepening conviction — " I count not 
 myself to have apprehended " (Phil. iii. 1 3). 
 
 But neither, on mature reflection, does he think such 
 ought to operate as a deterrent in the attempt to give 
 prominence to an elevating view of the believer's 
 standing and covenant privileges, and one which, so 
 far as he knows, has not before been made topic of 
 special consideration. He can only hope, that light 
 thrown on truths of transcendent import and value 
 may be found helpful to others as they have been to 
 himself. The very consciousness of being so immea- 
 surably beneath the standard of the Great Apostle, 
 may prove the means of leading both reader and 
 writer more fervently to cherish the resolve — " But, 
 I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for 
 which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus " (Phil, 
 iii. 12).^ 
 
 1 It is alike a duty and a pleasure here to state, that I was originally 
 indebted for the suggestion of this Book to some incidental remarks I 
 heard from the lips of an earnest and accomplished layman. The 
 topics embraced being entirely practical, do not to any extent require 
 the investigation of critical and textual difficulties. In any such that 
 seemed to demand a passing reference, I have to acknowledge help de- 
 rived from the invaluable commentaries of Bishops Lightfoot, Words- 
 worth, Ellicott, and Dean Alford ;, and though last not least, the late 
 respected and learned Professor Eadie of Glasgow : besides the more 
 trustworthy of the German commentators. 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ^*^ Like the above, the most of the other mottoes and monograms in 
 the small woodcuts inserted at the close of each chapter, are copied from 
 those found in the Romxin Catacombs. The greater number of the originals, 
 as already stated, are now in the Lapidanan Gallery, confronting a rov) 
 of Pagan Epitaphs on similar sepulchral stones. The circular woodcut 
 with the inscription SPES DEI and the Chrism (the two combined being 
 rendered "My hope is in God, Christ "), is from a stamp about an inch 
 and a half in diameter. The P {Greek r) of the monogram is made to 
 serve for the Latin P in the word * Spes ' ; [given in Boldetti). The one 
 with the crown and palm conjoined, and an olive wreath encircling the 
 Chrism, was taken from the tomb of Flavia Jovina, a child of three 
 years, referred by Baronius to A.D. 367. A similar one with the same 
 inscription (In Pace) is over the tomb of Faustina. The palm-branch is 
 a symbol constantly " incised on the slab or scratched on the mortar." 
 The square cube-like box suspended by a chain, with the Chrism and Alpha 
 and Omega on either side, is also in the Vatican Gallery, and is supposed 
 to have been used for containing the communion elements (see Maitland, 
 p. 219). The simple monogram with the inscription above — ** In Hoc 
 ViNCES In Christo " (' in this thou shalt conquer, in Christ '), was dis- 
 covered by Bosio, and is supposed to be of the time of Constantine. As is 
 well known, it is the Latin rendering of the Greek inscription on his famous 
 Labarum — 'E;/ TovT(p viKq,. The epitaph on the grave beneath was to 
 ** Sinfonia and her sons.'* SiNFONiA et Filiis {See lb. in loc). There 
 is a curious device which I have not ventured to rendej' in woodcut, from 
 the difficulty of doing so. It may possibly represent the furnace on which 
 tlie female martyr, ViCTOEiNA, already referred to, was consumed, with 
 an instrument of torture above. It is of triangular form tvith the rude 
 
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ■indication of flames at the top {see this last copied and described in Bol- 
 detti, p. 318). lam aware, however, that recent archceologists question, 
 in this and other similar devices, any reference to a martyr-symbol. 
 
 It may not he out of place to add, that in addition to the vnany 
 ' tahulce,^ either of mortar or marble, which hear the Christian monogram, 
 the latter appears under a variety of treatment in vast numbers of lamps, 
 principally of terra-cotta, hut some made of bronze, silver, and amber, 
 which have been unearthed in the course of excavations. The same writer 
 (" Dictionary of Christian Antiquities ") to whom I am indebted for this 
 reminiscence of the Lapidarian Gallery, adds the interesting fact, that 
 {in appropriate contrast with the symbol of the new economy), "the lamps 
 found in the Jewish Catacombs almost universally bear the seven-branched 
 candlestick.^' 
 
 INHOCVINCES 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. WITHOUT CHRIST, I 
 
 II. A MAN IN CHRIST, lO 
 
 III. A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST, 23 
 
 IV. BABES IN CHRIST, 31 
 
 V. SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN CHRIST, 37 
 
 VI. LIFE IN CHRIST, 45 
 
 VIL ONE BODY IN CHRIST, -51 
 
 VIII. NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST, 60 
 
 IX. HELPERS IN CHRIST, 68 
 
 X. HOPE BEYOND IN CHRIST, 78 
 
 XI. PERSEVERANCE IN CHRIST, 88 
 
 XIL THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST, 96 
 
 XIIL THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST (continued), .... IO4 
 
 XIV. CONSOLATION IN CHRIST, IIO 
 
 XV. THE DEAD IN CHRIST, I20 
 
 XVL THE DEAD IN CHRIST [continued), 128 
 
 XVn. THE GATHERING INTO ONE IN CHRIST, . . . -134 
 
 XVIII. BONDS IN CHRIST 147 
 
 XIX. ACCEPTED IN CHRIST, 160 
 
 XX. THE PEACE OF GOD IN CHRIST, 1 69 
 
 XXI. STRENGTH AND RICHES IN CHRIST, . . . • 1 77 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXII. KIGHTEOUSNESS IN CHRIST, . 
 
 XXIII. COMPLETE IN CHRIST, 
 
 XXIV. THE ETERNAL PURPOSE IN CHRIST, 
 XXV. THE PROMISES IN CHRIST, 
 
 XXVI. SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST, . 
 XXVII. NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST, 
 
 xxviiL NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST {continued), 
 
 XXIX. AM I IN CHRIST? .... 
 
 XXX. AM I IN CHRIST ? (continued) . 
 
 XXXI. CONCLUSION, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i86 
 194 
 205 
 
 215 
 221 
 
 230 
 23s 
 245 
 254 
 266 
 
I. 
 
 WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 *• Without Christ."— Ephes. ii. 12. 
 •* In Christ."— 2 Cor. xii. 2. 
 
 HOUGH out of harmony with the subsequent 
 headings, let us, in order to give intensity 
 to the lights of the inspired picture, begin 
 with the one deep shadow — the contrasted truth, 
 which is made by the Apostle to occupy the back- 
 ground. 
 
 Awful record, surely, in the pages of every human 
 diary (Paul himself knew the entry once, with its 
 dismal lettering), — "At that time ye were without 
 Christ." Travellers amid blinding snow and rush of 
 avalanche ; — beyond sight of home or hospice ; — vessels 
 tossed, unpiloted, and rudderless, in the thick darkness ; 
 — planets wandering in ever more devious orbits from 
 their great central sun ; — " Without Christ ! " 
 
 This is not the place, nor is it needful, to enlarge 
 on that great crisis in the Apostle's history with 
 which every reader is so familiar, when, "as he 
 journeyed towards Damascus," the Persecutor was 
 
 A 
 
IN OHRISTO. 
 
 arrested ; when he who fell to the ground a fiery zealot 
 and bigot Pharisee, rose a meek disciple of the Cruci- 
 fied Jesus — wondering, trembling, believing, rejoicing! 
 — the vulture changed into the dove, the lion into the 
 lamb. Ambrose may well speak of the conversion 
 of Paul as "the most glorious deed of Christ the 
 King, next to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit." 
 " Grace came, omnipotent grace ; and the rampart of 
 that great soul fell like the walls of Jericho ; the 
 impregnable city was carried, and all its ample 
 magazines were redeemed for the service of the 
 Lord."^ It was more than this. That crisis of mighty 
 surrender was the hour when the glorious union we are 
 to ponder in this Volume was consummated ; — when 
 " In Christ " rang first in his ear " the melodies of its 
 everlasting chime." The reality is best described in 
 words which will demand special consideration in 
 subsequent pages. "But what things were gain to 
 me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, 
 and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
 knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for whom I have 
 suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but 
 dung, that I may win Christ ; and be found in Him " 
 (Phil. iii. 7-9). 
 
 There was much, doubtless, that made Paul's ex- 
 perience at that memorable moment distinctive and 
 exceptional. It was not, in his case, as in that of 
 
 1 Blunt. 
 
WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 many, with whom " conversion " implies a sudden 
 and startling transition from a life of vice and sin, — 
 the dispersion of darkness from hearts beclouded for 
 years with the repulsive shadows of gross moral 
 debasement. Nor, on the other hand, was it the rare 
 transformation of a scheming impostor (a whited 
 sepulchre), — one who had lived the life of a pretender, 
 — the moral sense vitiated and depraved by hollow 
 hypocritical semblances. No. He sallied forth on 
 that mission from the northern Gate of Jerusalem, — 
 a valorous champion for what he had long deemed the 
 truth; — the consciousness of honest purpose and reli- 
 gious fervour, — " Love of right and scorn of wrong," — 
 though in a distorted form, pulsating in his heart. It 
 is only to repeat the best-known facts in Sacred Story — 
 that in addition to brilliant natural gifts and acquired 
 culture, he had, up to that time, been the most rigid 
 of ceremonialists. No Pharisee had tithed his mint 
 and cummin with more exactitude than he. With 
 scrupulous adherence to the letter of Judaism he had 
 abstained from its forbidden meats and drinks, obeyed 
 its required fastings and lustrations, regarded with 
 pride the pomp of its solemn feasts and the pageantry 
 of its time-honoured ritual ; reverenced its often 
 meaningless traditions, and finally imbibed its fanatic 
 intolerance. " I verily thought," said he, " with 
 myself, that I oupht " (it was a false sense of stern duty 
 and obligation) " to do many things contrary to the 
 name of Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts xxvi. 9). And 
 
IN CHRISTO. 
 
 more than all, he was the possessor of a rare catalogue 
 of virtues, and of so-called 'spiritual attainments/ 
 He could point to a life unstained by impure or ignoble 
 deed — what the world would have called "a splendid 
 righteousness." " If any other man thinketh that he 
 hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: 
 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, 
 of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the He- 
 brews ; as touching the law, a Pharisee ; concerning 
 zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the right- 
 eousness which is in the law, blameless " (Phil. iii. 
 4-6). 
 
 And yet, though it may appear at first sight con- 
 tradictory, — despite of this array of personal and 
 hereditary merit, we might, did our subject demand 
 it, further trace on no mere hypothetical grounds, a 
 course of mental and moral preparation for that 
 culminating event in his history : — the pangs and 
 struggles of a vehement yet intensely earnest nature. 
 Even in his apparently most defiant mood, he 
 felt the ground he was resolutely defending to be 
 gradually yielding, like a sinking morass, beneath his 
 feet. May we not well believe there were unsatisfied 
 yearnings of his great, truth-loving soul, for something 
 beyond mechanical ritual — hard formula — fluent 
 shibboleth; — that he was approaching, at least, that 
 point, graphically described by a master - hand in 
 speaking of another: — when "doubt has eaten out 
 the heart of it : a human soul is seen clinging spas- 
 
WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 modically to an Ark of the Covenaut which it half 
 feels now to have become a Phantasm."^ Among 
 other influences acting upon a susceptible spirit like 
 his, the memories and impressions of the first martyr's 
 death could not surely be readily effaced. He could 
 have been no mere passive spectator of that scene in the 
 Hall Gazith : the angel-like countenance : — the prayer 
 of forgiveness : — the gentle * sleep.' " The Church," 
 says Augustine, •" owes Paul to the prayer of Stephen." 
 And along with the indelible impressions derived from 
 that death, lessons of similar power and cogency must 
 liave been gathered from the lives of Stephen's asso- 
 ciates, — the hated disciples of the cross and the 
 Crucified. The radiant face of the Protomartyr was 
 again and again seen by him reflected in the character 
 and conduct of the followers of Jesus. That surely 
 could be no myth which produced such heroic devo- 
 tion, such unflinching faith, such calm submission, 
 such holy joy : — " a peace " — to use his own subsequent 
 language — "which passeth all understanding."^ All 
 honour, nevertheless, to the man (and the more 
 honour just because of these honest scruples) who 
 could thus brace himself to the moral heroism, of 
 
 ^ Carlyle's " Heroes and Hero Worship," p. 113. 
 
 2 See Neander in loc : also Olshausen, on what he calls " the psycho- 
 logical changes in the mind of Paul. " "In his heart there might 
 be a violent struggle, and he might have to fight against the truth 
 forcing itself upon his mind, a state which, though not outwardly 
 apparent, yet internally would prepare the way for the designs of God 
 in reference to him." — Vol. iv. p. 459. 
 
IN CHRISTO. 
 
 relinquishing the cherished dream and aspiration of 
 toiling years ; — who could drill through layer on layer 
 uf the superincumbent strata of ancestral pride, and pre- 
 judice, and boasted spiritual prerogative, till he reached 
 the sure foundation in the living Eock of Ages. 
 
 To enter, however, with any fulness on this and 
 cognate considerations, would divert us from our pur- 
 pose in this Volume : these topics, moreover, having 
 been amply treated by skilled mental analysts, both 
 in this country and Germany. Enough to say, that 
 despite of a wide diversity of experience alike in ante- 
 cedent and accompaniment, — that scene on the road 
 to Damascus — (as a " calling out of darkness into 
 marvellous light," ) is, in its main essential feature, 
 re-enacted in the case of each individual who has been 
 '' translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son " 
 (Col. i. 13); and who, with the inner eye super- 
 naturally opened and the aching heart-throbs stilled, 
 has risen from the ground to which, in a figurative 
 sense, he has been stricken, — "a man in Christ" 
 (2 Cor. xii. 2). 
 
 " Who art Thou, Lord ? " is the exclamation of such 
 an arrested one. The imagery unfolded in the apo- 
 calyptic vision of a later year (Eev. iii. 20), was that 
 of the same Saviour, " His head filled with dew, and 
 His locks with the drops of the night," — standing at 
 the deserted door of the human heart, — a door choked 
 with tangled brier and weed and thorn, a melancholy 
 ruin. But the divine allegory, in the present and other 
 
WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 repeated references of St. Paul, is reversed. It rather 
 is that of the soul in its rags and wretchedness, 
 imploring admission within the gates of the Great 
 Living Eefuge. Nor is the pleading in vain. Instead 
 of spurning the suppliant away, the welcome is given, 
 " Come in, thou blessed of the Lord, wherefore standest 
 thou WITHOUT ? " From that moment, to change the 
 metaphor, the wounded, weary, fluttering dove, folding 
 its wings, sinks into the clefts of the Eock. From 
 that moment, all the false opiates and anodynes used 
 to quiet the spasms of the spiritual nature, are flung 
 for ever away. The whole being thrills with a new 
 vitality and joy. It is the great Eureka of Life — " I 
 found Him whom my soul loveth " (Sol. Song iii. 4). 
 From that moment, the key-note of the Gospel is struck 
 and never ceases to vibrate — " God is IN Christ, re- 
 conciling the world unto Himself" (2 Cor. v. 19). In 
 a word, a living, vital union is formed between the 
 Believer and his Lord. " To make m Himself of twain, 
 one new man, so making jpeace " (Eph. ii. 15). 
 
 "In Him was life," says St. John (i. 4), as in 
 turn he pens his sacred remembrances in distant 
 Ephesus; — catching up the same blessed truth, and 
 appropriating, so to speak, the monogram of his " com- 
 panion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience 
 of Jesus Christ : " — " AVe are IN Him that is true, even 
 in His Son, Jesus Christ" (i John v. 20). 
 
 " How do I know Thee ? " said Augustine ; " I do 
 not know Thee as Thou art in Thyself, but as Thou 
 
8 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 art to me, and that not without Thee but m Thee/' 
 *' The life which I now live," says Luther, " is but the 
 X mask of life under which lives another, viz., Christ, 
 who is my true life." " A saving interest in Christ " 
 was the favourite stereotyped phrase of the divines of 
 the seventeenth century, expressive alike of the soul's 
 highest aspirations and loftiest spiritual attainments. 
 The earnest words of a reliable modern scholar may 
 be taken as the echo of the best voices of Christendom 
 in the present as in the past. " Eemember, I pray 
 you, that on being in Christ, — on being yet within 
 the sphere of His attracting and redeeming love, all 
 depends. The question of all questions is. Are we in 
 any sense in Christ ? " ^ " The life hid with Christ 
 in God " — this is what I earnestly crave after ; — a life 
 which, in the midst of outward change, can remain 
 immovable ; ever strengthening, enlarging, and deepen- 
 ing ; a life which may gradually mould and fashion all 
 things to itself. In fact, the beginning of that trans- 
 formation by which the mortal is to be clothed with 
 immortality.^ 
 
 " Ye were without Christ " (Eph. ii. 12); " Of Him 
 are ye in Christ Jesus " (i Cor. i. 30). 
 
 « Alienated from the life of God " (Eph. iv. 1 8) 
 " But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were 
 far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ " 
 (Eph. ii. 13). 
 
 * Bishop Ellicott's " Destiny of the Creature," p. 99. 
 2 "Memorials of a Quiet Life," ii. 240. 
 
WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 What a transition do these two sets of contrasted 
 verses imply ! equivalent to the transference from the 
 gloom of deepest midnight into the noontide splendour 
 of perfect day. May it be ours joyfully to appro- 
 priate the assertion, and to follow faithfully the sub- 
 sequent exhortation, " The darkness is past, and the 
 true Light now shineth " (i John ii. 8). "For ye were 
 sometimes darkness, but now are ye light IN the 
 Lord : walk as children of light " (Eph. v. 8). 
 
 IN PACE. 
 
II. 
 
 A MAN IN CHRIST. 
 
 *' I knew a man in Christ."— 2 Cor. xii. 2. 
 
 ''In the Zort/. "—Eph. v. 8. 
 
 •' Of him are ye in Christ Jesus."— i Cor. i. 30. 
 
 E need not pause to speak of the vision Paul 
 refers to in the first of these motto-verses, 
 and which, we have every reason to infer> 
 occurred in the early period of his life and apostleship. 
 It was doubtless a memory ever sacred, and which 
 would follow him like that of the Angels in Jacob's 
 night-dream at Bethel. As a chime of bells from the 
 New Jerusalem, would the music of the message then 
 delivered continue to cheer and gladden him to the 
 last — " My grace is sufTicient for thee " (2 Cor. xii. 9). 
 In introducing the incident, he designates himself 
 by the circumlocution " a man in Chmst ! " He felt 
 no title could be more honourable. He has been 
 spoken of among the Apostolic band as describing 
 the orbit nearest the sun. He himself, while repu- 
 diating any such self- exaltation, in reality claims more. 
 Bather is he like that " other angel " of the Apoca- 
 
A MAN IN CHRIST. ii 
 
 lypse, who is described as " standing in the Sun " 
 (Eev. xix. 1 7). By a blessed interchange, he was " in 
 Christ," and " Christ was " in him " the hope of glory." 
 In the fervent utterance of the ancient Church, he 
 could say — " My beloved is mine, and I am His " 
 (Cant. ii. 16). 
 
 It may be well, before entering on the more special 
 topics of the Volume, to define somewhat more minutely 
 than has already been done, the great Pauline truth 
 which it is the object of these pages to unfold. The 
 believer's union, or identity with Christ, is described 
 in the Xew Testament under various figures. At one 
 time it is the compact relation of the stones to the 
 building ; at another that of the branches to the vine ; 
 at another, that of the members of the body to the 
 head (Eph. ii. 21, 22 ; John xvii. 1—7 ; Eom. xii. 5 ; 
 Eph. i. 22, 23). This Article of faith, however, can only 
 be intelligibly apprehended by being viewed in con- 
 nection with another cognate doctrine, which, slighted 
 though it be by some modern Schools of theological 
 thought, runs like a golden thread throughout the 
 Sacred Writings, viz., Christ the Surety-Substitute of 
 His people ; — standing in their room and stead. 
 
 Every notable official act in the Incarnation 
 is described as performed by Him, in His federal 
 character, as our covenant Head and Eepresentative. 
 When He died, it was reckoned as if His people had 
 died with Him. "I am crucified with Christ:" — 
 " Buried with Him by baptism into death " (Rom. 
 
12 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 vi. 4). By virtue of the same umon, believers be- 
 come partakers with Him in the great Easter triumph. 
 They are " alive from the dead." " Like as Christ 
 was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, 
 even so we also should walk in newness of life. For 
 if we have been planted together in the likeness of 
 His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His re- 
 surrection " (Rom. vi. 4, 5). " Now if we be dead with 
 Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him " 
 (Rom. vi. 8). So also is it in His ascension. His 
 people are spoken of as if they had already received by 
 anticipation, in the Person of their Head, the great cove- 
 nanted reward — the happiness begun on earth which is 
 to be perfected and perpetuated in heaven. They are 
 ''made partakers of the inheritance of the saints in 
 light " (Col. i. 1 2). " Our conversation (or rather, our 
 citizenship, 'KokiTevfia) is in heaven " (Phil. iii. 20). 
 " Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of 
 the living God" (Heb. xii. 22). When, in one of the 
 Messianic Psalms, we hear the Father addressing His 
 Divine Son, — " Sit Thou at My right hand, until I 
 make Thine enemies Thy footstool " (Ps. ex. i ), — we 
 have in that coronation welcome an assurance given 
 also to believers, that they are IN Him already pro- 
 moted to regal honours ; — that as now (to use a law 
 term) they are de jure, so, ere long, they shall be de 
 facto, in possession ; when, in the fulness of perfected 
 bliss, " with gladness and rejoicing they shall be 
 brought, and shall enter into the King's Palace." 
 
A MAN IN CHRIST. 13 
 
 " Whither the Torerunner is for us entered " (Heb. vi. 
 20). The daily life of the believer is lived by virtue 
 of this ' oneness ' with Christ : — " The life I now live 
 in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God " 
 (Gal. ii. 20).^ 
 
 The same truth is expanded and illustrated by 
 our Apostle in the seventh chapter of Eomans, under 
 a different, but equally expressive figure, that of the 
 marriage union. A woman whose husband is deceased 
 is " loosed " from her first contract ; she is free to marry 
 another. The believer, having become dead to the law, 
 his obligation to it (not as a rule of life, but as a 
 covenant of works) lapses and becomes null. " He is 
 married to another, even to him who is raised from the 
 dead " (Eom. vii. 4). " He that is joined to the Lord " 
 in this holy bond "is one spirit" (i Cor. vi. 17). 
 We may add, that in the case of Paul, nothing 
 surely could bring before him more forcibly the 
 reality of this union, than the words which he first 
 heard " as he journeyed towards Damascus : " — " Saul, 
 Saul, why persecutest thou Me ? " ' Me, in the person 
 of My poor saints, — those whom I regard as part of 
 Myself. In breathing out slaughter against the sheep, 
 you are breathing out threatenings and slaughter 
 
 ^ ** Even now He is to be considered as our public Man, our Head ; 
 and so, One in Whom is concluded all the elect of God, We are by 
 Him already in heaven. In heaven I say, by Him, yea, set down 
 there in our places of glory by Him. Hence the Apostle, speaking of 
 us again, saith that as we are predestinate, so we are called, justified, 
 and glorified." — John Dumjan, 
 
14 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 against the Shepherd; in injuring them, you injure 
 Me ' (Acts ix. 4). 
 
 But this suggests to us, better than the Apostle's 
 words, the light thrown by his divine Lord on the 
 mystic union subsisting between Himself and His 
 people, and His frequent declarations regarding it. 
 
 Its reality : — " He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh 
 My blood, dwelleth in Me " (John vi. 56); "I am in 
 My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you " (John xiv. 20). 
 Its intimacy : — " As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in 
 Thee" (John xvii. 21); "As the Father hath loved 
 Me, so have I loved you" (John xv. 9). Or as He 
 otherwise expresses it, in one of the verses of His 
 great Shepherd-allegory, (not as it stands in our 
 version, but beautiful in its preferable rendering) : — • 
 " I know My sheep, and am known of Mine, even as " 
 (that is the measure and strength of the mutual rela- 
 tionship) " even as the Father knoweth Me, and as I 
 know the Father" (John x. 14, 15). The whole drift 
 of the Intercessory Prayer, seven times repeated, is 
 this : — " Thou hast given them to Me ; they are Mine, 
 and shall be Mine for ever." As indeed Himself * very 
 God of very God,' that Divine Intercessor is possessed 
 of essential rights and glories which His people cannot 
 share : but in their fellowship with Him, as the God- 
 Man, — the Brother in their nature, — they are co-heirs 
 with Him, and to be at last " glorified together " (Eom. 
 viii. 1 7). See how their very names are identified : — 
 He is "Beloved" — so are they, "Beloved of God" (Rom. 
 
A MAN IN CHRIST. 15 
 
 i. 7) ; He is " Son," so are they — " God dealeth with 
 you as with sons " (Heb. xii. 7) ; He is " Light," so 
 are they — " Ye are the light of the world " (Matt. v. 
 14); He is " seated on a throne " — so are they, alike 
 in possession and reversion. " Hath made us kings " 
 (Eev. V. 10); that is their royalty in possession ; " To 
 him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with Me on 
 My throne " (Eev. iii. 21); that is the promise of 
 royal rights and privileges in reversion. With what 
 force and impressiveness is that same identification 
 spoken of in the drama-parable of the final day of 
 Judgment, when the Saviour counts done to Himself 
 what has been done to His people : — " Inasmuch as 
 ye have done it to one of the least of these My 
 brethren, ye have done it unto Me " (Matt. xxv. 40). 
 It is, moreover, by virtue of this union with the Divine 
 Son that we obtain communion with the Divine 
 Father. " In that Day," says Christ (' as the con- 
 tinually increasing light breaks upon you '), " ye shall 
 know that I am in My Father, and ye IN Me, and I 
 in you " (John xiv. 20). (Alford.) 
 
 Amazing thought ! outpeering all the fantasies which 
 have gathered round the Pagan doctrine of trans- 
 migration. Transmigration indeed, but nobler than 
 that alleged to be attained by mortals, as through 
 successive stages and aeons they climbed to banquet 
 with the gods in Elysium. Can we wonder, after this, 
 that the " man in Christ " made Him, with whom 
 lie was thus exalted into living fellowship, his "all 
 
1 6 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 in air? that the one absorhing theme, nearest his heart, 
 uppermost in his thoughts, moulding and sanctifying 
 his life, was Christ the ever-present, ever-living, ever- 
 loving Friend ! He describes himself in the super- 
 scription of his earlier Epistles as the "Slave of Christ;" 
 and in his last letter, when immured in the Mamertine, 
 it is still " the Prisoner of Jesus Christ " (Eph. iii. i ). 
 By Christ, and in Christ, the world was crucified to 
 him (Gal. vi. 14). When he addresses the adorable 
 Eather, it is with the filial confidence which that 
 mystical union inspires, as the " God and Eather of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ " (Eph. i. 3). When he describes 
 the distinguishing mark of the spiritual children he 
 has begotten in the Gospel, — the stamped coin of the 
 kingdom, — it is, " Of him are je in Christ Jesus" (i 
 Cor. i. 30). When he adverts with pride and joy to 
 their spiritual parentage, it is, "In Christ Jesus I have 
 begotten you through the Gospel" (i Cor. iv. 15). 
 Does he speak of the one ceaseless aspiration to which 
 all God's dealinG;s with himself are tendinfj ? it is " to 
 be conformed to the image oi His Son" (Rom. viii. 29). 
 When he asks his beloved converts to follow his 
 steps, he defines the measure of their adherence and 
 loyalty thus : — " Be ye followers of me, even (or rather, 
 * in as far ') as I also am of Christ " ( i Cor. xi. i ). 
 Would he put a star into the midnight sky of those 
 in bereavement and sorrow ? it is, as we shall after- 
 wards more fully dwell upon, that " the sleepers IN 
 Jesus" shall be "brought with Him" (i Thess. iv. 14). 
 
A MAN IN CHRIST. 17 
 
 Does he advert to the one ultimate aim of his toil and 
 labour, his perils and sufferings, his watchings and 
 fastings ? it is to " present every man perfect in 
 Christ Jesus" (Col, i. 28). Does he proclaim victory- 
 over the last enemy? — "Thanks be to God, who giveth 
 us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ " ( i Cor. 
 XV. 57). What to him was life ? — " To me to live is 
 Christ" (Phil. i. 21). What to him was death? — "A 
 desire to depart, and be with Christ" (Phil. i. 23). 
 What was that heaven begun, and that heaven for 
 ever and ever, from which we shall afterwards find 
 liim challenging all the powers of the universe to 
 separate him ? — It is " the love of God : " but even 
 this love has its climax, its quintessence, its glory, " IN 
 Christ Jesus our Lord " (Eom. viii. 39). 
 
 Is it unwarrantable further to surmise, that Hebrew 
 of the Hebrews as Paul was, and proudly familiar, in 
 common with every Jew, with the ancestral temple, 
 he might (from the new Gospel light w^hich had flashed 
 upon him) see his own future mystical union in Christ 
 reflected in its typical rites and ceremonies and material 
 forms. He speaks elsewhere of " the covenant that 
 was confirmed before of God in Christ " (Gal. iii. 17); 
 and again, " which vail is done away in Christ " (2 
 Cor. iii. 14). Lifting this vail which screened the Most 
 Holy Place, might he not have discovered his familiar 
 monogram, e.^., significantly set forth in the very con- 
 struction of the Ark of the Covenant ? That Ark itself 
 was surely a remarkable type of Christ in His twofold 
 
 B 
 
1 8 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 nature of Deity and humanity. The fragrant Shittim 
 wood, of which it was composed, formed a meet symbol 
 of His sinless, spotless, human nature ; while, in being 
 " overlaid within and without with gold " (the " Pro- 
 pitiatory" rimmed with the same precious metal), 
 there was the equally expressive representation of His 
 Godhead. Might not that 'clearer light' have led 
 him still further to recognise, in the golden Cherubim 
 which stooped with expanded wings over the mercy- 
 seat, the emblem of believers bending towards one 
 another ? — not looking at one another, but turned with 
 arrested gaze towards the ark, and through it, to the 
 Great Antitype — the true Ark of their salvation. If 
 so, then, dearer than all to him would be the additional 
 figurative revelation of the truth he was privileged 
 specially to expound, and with a personal love to cling 
 to. For was there not a distinct injunction given in 
 the original construction of the sacred chest, that the 
 figures of the Cherubim were not to be separately cast 
 and then simply laid upon the golden lid, or otherwise 
 attached ; but they were to be welded. The gold of the 
 Cherubim and the gold of the " Propitiatory " were to 
 be one and indivisible, of the same mass or lump 
 (Exod. XXV., xxxvii,). Unmistakable typical picture of 
 his own great Verity, the identity and incorporation of 
 the Believer with his Divine Lord : — " Ye are all one 
 IN Christ Jesus ! " 
 
 Or, to take but one other kindred suggestive 
 figuration. Could he have absent from his oft 
 
A MAN IN CHRIST. 19 
 
 ponderings of " One greater than the Temple " (Matt, 
 xii. 6), how it was required of Aaron that when he 
 appeared in the Most Holy Place, it was to be with 
 the names of the twelve tribes of Israel engraven in 
 precious stones embedded in his breastplate ; so that 
 when he ministered before the Lord, the entire cove- 
 nanted people might, in one very expressive sense, be 
 said to be IN Him ? Significant type surely, yet again, 
 of Paul's glorified High Priest, in His every approach 
 to the Father's Throne, the true " Holiest of all." He 
 has the names of His spiritual Israel — one with 
 Himself, engraven on His breastplate, or rather,, 
 engraven indelibly on His heart. In His own Person 
 He represents them. " Now to appear in the presence 
 of God FOR us " (Heb. ix. 24) ; saying, as He stands 
 with the golden censer at the golden altar, " Behold, 
 I and the children whom Thou hast given Me " (Heb. 
 ii 13). 
 
 And if even the Apostle, with all his spiritual dis- 
 cernment, may have seen these things only dimly and 
 obscurely — " the figures of the true," we at aU events 
 can focus the light both of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment economy, and read the exposition of infallible 
 lips. Hear the very words of that Prayer to which 
 we have already incidentally alluded — "I in them, 
 and Thou in Me, that we may be made perfect in one" 
 " All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine ; and I am 
 glorified in them" (John xvii. 23, 10). Every man 
 has an ideal life of excellence and bliss, unattained 
 
20 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 and unattainable in the present and the finite. But 
 the moment he is IN Christ, that ideal and typical 
 perfection becomes his — the unrealised pleroma of the 
 Platonic philosophy (of which we shall afterwards 
 more particularly speak), the " fulness that is in Christ." 
 We live in the power of His risen and eternal life, 
 and that Life is the guarantee of our own. We may 
 imagine Him saying, regarding each of His people, as 
 David said to Abiathar, "Abide thou with me, fear 
 not : for he that seeketh my life sceketh thy life : but 
 with me thou shalt be in safeguard" (i Sam. xxii. 23). 
 " Christ who IS our life ! " (Col. iii. 4). I can be 
 satisfied with no mythic or historic Saviour ; I must 
 with Paul have a personal Christ. I must " know " 
 (not " in whom," as that verse is often misquoted, but) 
 " WHOM I have believed " (2 Tim. i. 1 2). It must 
 be life in a living Eedeemer ; I must be able, with 
 the consciousness of newly inbreathed spiritual vitality 
 and divinely imparted love, to say, "He loved me and gave 
 Himself for me." Thus realised, with higher reference 
 than to a Christian's death or tombstone, the familiar 
 motto of the ancient catacombs may be appropriated, 
 " In Christo, in pace." " In me," says the Saviour 
 Himself, "ye shall have peace." The moment that 
 transition takes place, the believer receives, so to 
 speak, the first instalment of an everlasting future. 
 How inviolable becomes his security, " Both He " (that 
 is Christ) " who sanctifieth, and they " (His people) 
 " who are sanctified, are aU of one " (Heb. ii. 1 1 ), 
 
A MAN IN CHRIST. 
 
 " They shall walk in the name of the Lord their God 
 for ever and ever" (Micah iv. 5). 
 
 From the new standpoint, moreover (in Christ), as 
 we shall find our Apostle afterwards teaching us, 
 everything else looks bright and' beautiful. The 
 sphere of vision, even in regard to external things, is 
 transformed. The very outer world which was made 
 by Him, and redeemed by Him, is invested with new 
 loveliness. The sun shines with a softened splendour, 
 the stars gleam with a new glory. Undertones, never 
 heard before, give new music to rill and river. The 
 voice of the Lord God, not in terror but in love, is 
 once more heard among the trees of the garden. In 
 Christ! — "And He that sat upon the throne said, 
 Behold, I make all things new " (Eev. xxi. 5). Mani- 
 fold, indeed, are the Bible emblems of the believer's 
 close and endearing relationship with his Saviour, 
 "Sitting under the Beloved's shadow;" "leaning on 
 the Beloved's arm." But the " IN Christ " of St. Paul, 
 if it does not transcend, at least includes all the 
 others. It is asserted as the noble privilege of the 
 saints, that they are to be " equal with the angels." 
 But the Apostle's great motto speaks of something 
 even higher than to be brother and sister to the Arch- 
 angel before the throne. It is to be "partaker of the 
 divine nature." He who is Himself the Great Temple 
 of Heaven, predicates of each member of His redeemed 
 family — " I will make him a pillar in the Temple of 
 My God " (Eev. iii. 1 2). 
 
22 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 We may imagine Him whose monogram has been 
 suggestive of these thoughts (now himself a glorious 
 pillar in the upper sanctuary), — thus addressing the 
 Church of the future, "If ye then be risen with 
 Christ, seek those things which are above, where 
 Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set 
 your affections on things above, not on things on 
 the earth" (Col. iii. i, 2). Yes, to use the charac- 
 teristic words of Chrysostom, as Paul stands "glis- 
 tering near the throne of the King, where the 
 cherubim sing the glory, and the seraphim are flying," 
 we can think of him with his own glowing expecta- 
 tions eternally fulfilled ; — transformed into the image 
 of His Saviour. It is said by Prudentius that the 
 name of Christ, inwrought with jewelled gold, marked 
 the purple laharum and sparkled from the helmets of 
 the army of Constantine. In a nobler sense was 
 this the case with the great leader in the host of the 
 Lord. Oh, what would it have been, to have had our 
 faith brightened, our spiritual sensibilities quickened 
 and intensified, our feeble, timid, half-hearted falter- 
 ings and misgivings rebuked, by one hour's fellowship 
 with this "Man IN CHPtlST !" 
 
III. 
 
 A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST. 
 
 **If any man he IN Christ, he is a new creature." — 2 Cor. v. 17. 
 **1n Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, 
 nor uncircumcision, hut a new creature." — Ga.1. vi. 15. 
 "Created IN Christ Jesus."— Eph. ii. 10. 
 
 HESE inspired utterances bring before us the 
 completeness of the transformation involved 
 in the Apostle's monogram. 
 " In Christ," it is nothing short (for so in the first 
 of the verses it is implied in the original) of "a new 
 creation : " " old things," it is added, " are passed away, 
 behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. v. 17). 
 Not more did the world emerge radiant with material 
 beauty from chaos and night, when the summons was 
 given, " Let there be light," than does the soul when 
 it is called " out of darkness " into spiritual life and 
 being. -^ 
 
 ^ See Dean Alford on the above motto-verse ; Kaivr] Kriats. *' He has 
 received-r-* passed into' — 'anew life.' The old things of his former 
 life ' all the old selfish and impure motives, vieAvs, and prejudices ' (De 
 Wette) have passed away. . . . The new birth, the antiquation of the 
 former unconverted state, with all that belonged to it ; ' behold ' (a 
 reminiscence of Isa. xliii. 18, 19), 'all things have become new.'" — 
 Greek Test. ii. 629. 
 
24 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 This new creation is at once God's work, and (being 
 God's work) it is, as we have just said, complete. It 
 is no mere human effort of self-rectification ; — the 
 attempt to piece together the fragments of a broken 
 mirror. To do so, would only result at best in the 
 production of a dim and distorted image. But " God, 
 who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, 
 hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the 
 knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ " (2 Cor. iv. 6). Of the three Persons in the 
 ever-blessed Godhead, this restoration is effected by the 
 special agency of the Holy Ghost. " Beholding as in 
 a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the 
 same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit 
 of the Lord." (Or rather, " as by the Lord the Spirit." ^) 
 We cannot agree with the few commentators who 
 would wrest the high resurrection argument from the 
 1 5 th chapter of ist Corinthians, and make the Apostle 
 therein to discourse rather of a spiritual resuscitation 
 from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. But 
 we may accept this latter interpretation of the passage 
 with a secondary or subordinate meaning : we may 
 regard the one as the pledge and prophecy of the 
 other. "Who hath raised us up together, and made 
 us sit together in heavenly places ^ IN Christ Jesus " 
 (Eph. ii. 6). 
 
 1 2 Cor. iii. 18. — " Tliis seems the obvious and most satisfactory way 
 of taking the words. "—Ih. , Greek Test. ii. 629, in loc. 
 
 2 " In heavenly places : " or rather, "In the heavenlies." This 
 peculiar phrase we shall speak of in Chap. vi. 
 
A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST. 25 
 
 Note further, this 'new creation in Christ' is o. present 
 transformation. It is, in the truest sense, heaven 
 begun here. The popular idea of Heaven and its 
 joys is associated with the future. The blessings of 
 eternal glory with many, with most of us, are pro- 
 spective. The death-sigh of the poet is — 
 
 *' Let me languish into life ; " 
 whereas, in reality, the new being, begun on earth, is 
 then only amplified, intensified. We have previously 
 quoted, regarding that life of the believer, not that it 
 " SHALL be hid," but it " is hid with Christ in God." 
 He can, and does even now, antedate the heavenly 
 experience. When the Apostle speaks of Christ's 
 appearing, he takes care to tell that that appearing is 
 not to be regarded as the commencement of spiritual 
 existence, — a " morn of glory " which is to irradiate 
 some far-distant horizon : " When Christ," (he says) 
 " who IS our life, shall appear " (Col. iii. 4). It is not 
 the natal day, but rather the day of " the manifestation 
 of the sons of God." The seed is already sown, and 
 has germinated ; and though then it will be " fully 
 ripe for the golden sickles of the reaper-angels, it is 
 already "growing up unto the harvest." In one of 
 the most beautiful and memorable of His sayings, the 
 Saviour Himself emphatically declares that the Gates 
 of Immortality are not to be unbarred for the first 
 time at the hour of death. "I am," says He, "the 
 Resurrection and the Life ; he that believeth in Me, 
 though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever 
 
26 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die" (John 
 xi. 25, 26). 
 
 How glorious the condition into which this second 
 birth IN Cheist introduces us ! As the new-born 
 child has no former history, but is ushered all at once 
 into a new realm of existence ; — so is it with the 
 new-born soul. Or, if in one sense it does inherit a 
 past, that past, at all events as regards sin, is cancelled 
 and obliterated ; while before it — " accepted in the 
 Beloved " — lies a boundless future of higher bliss and 
 being. Speaking, "as unto babes in Christ," another 
 Apostle thus refers to this oblivion of the past — "I 
 write unto you, little children, because your sins are 
 forgiven you for His name's sake" (i John ii. 12). 
 Take one illustrative example, out of many that might 
 be given, of this great transition — " The happy period,'* 
 says Cowper, " which was to afford me a clear dis- 
 covery of the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus, was 
 now arrived. I flung myself into a chair near the 
 window ; and seeing a Bible there, ventured once 
 more to apply to it for comfort and instruction. The 
 first verse I saw was the 26th of the third chapter 
 of Eomans : * Whom God hath set forth to be a pro- 
 pitiation through faith in His blood.' Immediately 
 I received strength to believe; and the full beams 
 of the Sun of Eighteousness shone upon me. I saw 
 the sufficiency He had made for my pardon and 
 justification." ^ 
 
 Southey's Life of Cowper. 
 
A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST. 
 
 It need hardly be added, after what has just been 
 said, that the *new creation in Christ' consists exclu- 
 sively of a spiritual union with Him. The Apostle, 
 in one of the verses which heads this chapter, guards 
 against the acceptance of any other substitute in the 
 shape of creed or ceremonial, sacrament or ritual. To 
 be " IN Christ " is not membership in any exclusive, 
 ecclesiastical society, arrogating to itself a monopoly of 
 spiritual privilege and grace. To be " IN" Christ " is 
 not attained through the mystic sprinkling of water 
 by the initial ordinance of the Church. We read in 
 Sacred Story of those thus baptized (and that too by 
 apostolic successors in the apostolic age) who were 
 never " in Christ ; " but who remained in the gall of 
 bitterness and the bond of iniquity (Acts viii. 23); 
 while Paul's own baptism and * ordination,' we have 
 reason to infer, were administered at the hands of a 
 lowly disciple — " one Ananias " (Acts ix. 18). To be 
 IN Christ is not to be attained nor tested, by the 
 multiplication of services or the repetition of liturgies. 
 Nay, though precious and blessed (alike as a memorial- 
 rite and seal of grace) the Holy Communion is, — to be 
 IN Christ is not secured through attendance on so- 
 called " Celebrations ;" — counted as the Eomanist counts 
 his beads, or mutters his paters. It is something 
 truer, deeper. It is something inward, not outward ; — 
 something subjective, not objective. " In Christ 
 Jesus," says our Apostle, " I have begotten you through 
 
2S IN CHRISTO. 
 
 the Gospel"'^ (i Cor. iv. 15.) "Neither circumcision, 
 nor nncircumcision ; " — no lustration, no priestly abso- 
 lution, no hierarchical prerogative, no sacramentarian 
 efficacy, no Church, no party Shibboleth; — not the 
 circumcision of the Old, nor the baptism of the New 
 Testament "availeth anything," but the new creature 
 IN Christ Jesus (2 Cor. v. 17). "Ye are all the 
 children of God hy faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. iii. 26). 
 Nor is it, on the other hand, any mystical or senti- 
 
 ^ We object much to the increasing employment of the term " Cele- 
 bration ; " and, of course, still more to the erroneous views that term 
 represents and attempts to vindicate. When will ' Sacramentarians,' 
 as they are distinctively called, cease to pervert and falsify the Word 
 of God by distorting alike the chronological place and the plain 
 meaning of that oft-quoted verse from which their theory mainly 
 derives its support — " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and 
 drink His blood, ye have no life in you" ? (John vi. 53). A verse not 
 only uttered by our blessed Redeemer in a totally different connection, 
 but spoken at all events an entire year before the Lord's Supper was 
 instituted? When will 'Sacerdotalism,' surrendering man-made 
 assumptions, be content to fall back on the beautiful definition and 
 design of that sacred Feast as given by the Master Himself at the real 
 hour of its Institution — that of a simple memorial and commemoration 
 of His dying love ? "Do this in remembrance of Me." The Apostle 
 tells us to the same effect (i Cor. xi. 23) : " I received of the Lord 
 tliat which I also delivered unto you : " What did he receive ? and 
 what the design and object for which it was received ? Not a word 
 about Sacrifice or ministering Priest, or Celebrant or Altar ; not an 
 allusion of any kind to one of these things. But "as often as ye eat 
 this bread, and drink this cup, ye do sheiu forth the Lord's death till 
 He come." 
 
 "St. Paul summons Timothy " (is the remark of Dr. Reynolds on 
 the verse, "rightly dividing the word of truth" — 2 Tim. ii. 15), "to 
 a right, straightforward dealing with the divine Word. This expression 
 is a protest against all dishonest interpretations of Scripture ; all 
 drawings forth from God's Word what we have first put into it ; and 
 all that morbid exaggeration of half-truths, which turns the truth of 
 God into a lie." — See "Bible Expositor," 1S79. 
 
A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST. 
 
 mental union, — a mere naked theological dogma. St. 
 Paul specially avers (what will be subsequently con- 
 sidered) that believers are " created IN Christ Jesus 
 unto good works " (Eph. ii. i o). 
 
 In Christ, " a new creation ! " Does that, however, 
 imply present and absolute perfection ? In one sense 
 it does. " Ye are complete IN Him." Of the believer 
 it is said, " He cannot sin, because he is born of God " 
 (i John iii. 9). Justified once, he is justified for ever; 
 recreated once, he is recreated for ever. But the 
 hidden life, like the seed we have spoken of, which 
 has to struggle through darkness and superincumbent 
 clod up to the pure light of day, is often impeded and 
 interrupted by reason of sin and moral weakness, 
 the infirmity of the flesh, and successful temptation. 
 The outer world is ever and anon swathed in clouds 
 and drenched in rain-torrents, — ribbed here with ice, 
 dislocated there with earthquake and volcanic fire; 
 palled here in darkness, and swept there with tornado 
 and storm. So with the " new creation." It has " scars 
 upon its brow." There are warring elements within and 
 around which tell too plainly, that for the ' ideal life,' 
 w^e must look upwards and onwards to " the new heavens 
 and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness " 
 (2 Pet. iii. 13). Here "we see," but it is "through 
 a glass, darkly" (i Cor. xiii. 12). The fuU day 
 shall only then break, and the shadows flee away 
 (Cant. iv. 6). Too acutely did the Apostle know by 
 experience the reality of the two antagonist natures — 
 
30 
 
 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 "the law in his members warring against the law of 
 his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law 
 of sin which was in his members" (Eom. vii. 23): 
 the fightings without and the fears within ; — the ' Hill 
 Difficulty ' encountered in so many parts of the jour- 
 ney. Well did he understand the need of his own 
 hortatory words, " Finally, my brethren, be strong in 
 THE Lord, and in the power of His might. . . . Take 
 unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be 
 able to withstand in the evil day, and having done 
 all, to stand" (Ei^h. vi. 10, 13). 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 lY. 
 BABES IN CHRIST. 
 
 "Even as uuto babes in Christ." — i Cor. iii. i. 
 
 HESE words enable us to expand the thought 
 which formed the close of the last medita- 
 tion ; — that the Christian life, though one of 
 progress and development, has its commencement in 
 weakness. " The perfect man in Christ Jesus " was 
 at one time a babe. The spiritual life may be com- 
 pared to our earth, which is not all at once bathed in 
 noontide splendour. Its mountain tops are first flushed 
 with tender radiance ; then their sides and hollows ; 
 by and by reaching to the lower valleys ; till at last 
 "there is nothing hid from the heat and light thereof." 
 Paul may have remembered in this respect his own 
 experience, when, spiritually as well as physically, 
 with an infant's helplessness, he was led through the 
 streets of Damascus. With " the milk belonging to 
 babes" he seems to have been fed during his subsequent 
 withdrawal into the deserts of Arabia, until " the 
 time of his shewing unto Israel " (Gal. i. 1 7). 
 
 It is the normal experience in the believer's inner 
 
32 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 history still. His incipient life is tender, fragile — the 
 pulsations of faith slow and intermittent. That faith 
 is compared to the grain of mustard seed ; to the brittle 
 reed ; to the bending sapling. Jesus Himself recog- 
 nises different degrees of faith, and therefore different 
 stages in His people's growth. " I have many things," 
 He says, " to say unto you, but (as babes) ye cannot 
 bear them now" (John xvi. 12). As if He would 
 further add (if we may venture to fill in the ellipsis), 
 " The time will come when, with matured experience 
 and knowledge, you will be able." He speaks of a 
 " great faith," and of a " little faith ; " but He accepts 
 and acknowledges the little as well as the great. 
 They are the same in kind though varying in degree 
 and intensity, for they rest on Himself the One only 
 Foundation. Our Apostle, in double figure, elsewhere 
 alludes to this same progressive character of the 
 Christian life — from weakness to strength, from feeble- 
 ness to maturity. He conjoins two different metaphors, 
 " Eooted and built up in Him " (Col. ii. 7). " Eooted," 
 here is the feeble sapling, struggling for very life in 
 the rifts of the rock ; but having its fibres, delicate as 
 they are, embedded there, it is safe. The rock shelters 
 it, the dews and rains of heaven moisten it, the sun 
 and air of heaven nurture and mature it. The second 
 emblem expresses, under another metaphor still, the 
 growth and expansion of faith into vigorous manhood ; 
 "Built up in Him." It is now no longer a fragile 
 plant in the rock; but a spiritual building, 
 
BABES IN CHRIST. 33 
 
 stone on stone, tier on tier, upon that same Eock of 
 Ages. Nor is this all. The Giant- Eock itself, so to 
 speak, is incorporated with the living stones. " Built " 
 up IN Him" (Col. ii. 7): or, as he expresses and 
 expands it in a parallel passage — " In whom all the 
 building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy 
 temple in the Lord" (Eph. ii. 21). 
 
 That 'temple in the Lord' attains at last "the 
 measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ " (Eph. 
 iv. 13). Or, as Bengel in one of his quaint figures 
 expresses it, "We shall come to be arrayed in the 
 toga virilis — the Eoman garment of the full-grown 
 man." 
 
 God's dealings with those in the earliest stages of 
 the spiritual life, " babes in Christ," are beautifully 
 delineated long anterior to Gospel times. The prophet 
 Hosea (xi. i), referring in the first instance to the 
 national tribe of Israel, speaks, through the type, of 
 Jehovah's covenant relationship to His spiritual people. 
 He begins with a description of their infancy : — " When 
 Israel was a child, then I loved him." He proceeds 
 to depict the next stage of tottering childhood. God 
 holds him in "leading strings" (ver. 3), "I taught also 
 Ephraim to go." A third experience is when the 
 leading strings are withdrawn. The picture is given 
 of the divine, like the earthly parent, putting out His / 
 hands ready to catch the child as he stumbles on at 
 his first attempt to walk — " taking them by their arms " 
 (ver. 3). Then follows yet another stage of advance- 
 
34 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 ment, "drawing them with the cords of a man" (no 
 longer a child) ; " with bands of love " (ver. 4). 
 
 To the timid and fearful, the desponding and mis- 
 giving, there is comfort surely in all this : that if the 
 good work be begun it will be fostered to its consum- 
 mation. We may feel abashed at our own weakness 
 and instability, as compared with the average expe- 
 riences of God's family. Our love may be cold, our 
 obedience fitful, our faith unworthy of the name. But 
 even if there be no more than the infant's faltering cry 
 (the cry of the " new creature " — the babe in Christ), 
 that cry denotes that the life is there, — "alive unto 
 God ; " and He that hath breathed into us spiritually 
 the breath of a new being — " He that hath begun the 
 good work will carry it on." The wanderer of the 
 fold may be footsore and weary ; the brambles of the 
 thicket still cleaving to its torn fleece. It may be a 
 poor, maimed member of the flock compared to others. 
 But having been brought by the Good Shepherd 
 within, what an old writer calls, " the pasture-ground 
 and covenant-enclosures," it is equally safe and secure 
 with the strongest ; and in its tremulousness can rest 
 in the sure promise — " I will make My grace sufficient 
 for thee," Indeed, it is for the tender ones of 
 the spiritual fold the Great Pastor specially cares. 
 While the others are " fed by Him like a shepherd," 
 there is special provision for the weak and feeble ; — 
 " He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry 
 them in His bosom " (Isa. xl. 1 1 ). The incipient 
 
BABES IN CHRIST, 35 
 
 experience and development, too, of that new-born 
 spiritual life, may and does vary widely in different 
 cases, owing to peculiarity and diversity in intellectual 
 mould, natural disposition, and moral training. To 
 use the words of another — " Its first moment may not 
 indeed be registered in the consciousness, as it may 
 be awakened within us by a varying process, in har- 
 mony with the quickness or the slowness of mental 
 perception and the dulness or the delicacy of tempera- 
 ment. The sun rises in our latitude preceded by a 
 long twilight, which gradually brightens into the 
 radiance of morning ; but within the tropics he ascends 
 at once above the horizon with sudden and exuberant 
 glory." ^ It is a comfort, moreover, that, as babes, 
 He will not expect more from us in the shape of 
 service than we can give Him. He accepts a babe's 
 offering. He accepts our feeblest : — even the fervid 
 thought, and sincere earnest purpose which cannot be 
 translated into action, " Forasmuch as it was in thine 
 heart to build an house for My Name, thou didst well 
 in that it was in thine heart " (2 Chron. vi. 8). 
 
 Oh, ye lisping babes, trust the Parent's loving arm, 
 and loving ways, and loving discipline ! Oh, ye " Little 
 Paiths " and " Eeady-to-halts," like Gideon faint, yet 
 " still pursue." It is one of the well-known spiritual 
 aphorisms of a saintly and sainted writer, " The weakest 
 faith that ever laid hold of a strong Saviour has eternal 
 
 ^ Dr. Eadie on Ephesians,. p. 134. 
 
36 ^ IN CHRISTO. 
 
 life." The characteristic of a babe or a child in 
 infancy is absolute helplessness — dependence — trust, 
 — absence of disquietude — ignorance of the future, 
 utter oblivion to care, and misgiving, and foreboding. 
 It reposes on its mother's breast, or is sung to sleep 
 in its cradle with the mother's lullaby. Picture of 
 the babe — the new creature in Christ Jesus, reposing 
 in its Heavenly Father's arms, and kept in perfect 
 peace, cradled in the Saviour's love. If you are con- 
 scious of a babe's weakness, seek to cherish and 
 manifest a babe's simple dependence — "They that 
 wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." 
 
 It is well to remember in connection with these 
 reflections, how marvellously that very faith that was 
 rebuked as a " little faith " grew to be a strong one. 
 Trace the story of Peter's after-life, as recorded in the 
 Acts. He seems almost to have lost his personal 
 identity. "We fail to recognise the same rash, impul- 
 sive spirit he once was. The harsh music of his 
 nature is toned down, every discordant note subdued 
 into harmony. "And such also," may it not be 
 averred, "were some of you: but ye are washed, but 
 ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of 
 the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God " ( i Cor. 
 vi 1 1 ). 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 V. 
 
 SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN CHRIST. 
 
 ''Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places IN 
 Christ."— Eph. i. 3. 
 
 M'N no other portion of St. Paul's writings do 
 j^ his favourite words occur more frequently 
 than in the glowing utterances of the " Great 
 Encyclical " — that 'circular letter' which, we have good 
 reason to believe, was not intended exclusively for the 
 Church of Ephesus, but for " the saints " (at all events 
 in three other cities of proconsular Asia — Colosse, 
 Hierapolis, and Laodicea), who had never " seen his 
 face in the flesh " (Col. ii. i ), or listened to his burn- 
 ing words. Erom the frequent allusions, indeed, con- 
 tained in it to Him who was emphatically his " Be- 
 loved," it has been well called " the Song of Songs " 
 of the New Testament Scriptures.'^ 
 
 See, in this one chapter alone, from which our 
 
 ^ The question for whom the (so called) Epistle to the Ephesians 
 was intended, is discussed in "Howson and Cony beare," vol. ii. pp. 
 405-410. The theory of the "circular letter" now accepted by a 
 majority of the best critics, originated with Archbishop Usher. 
 
38 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 motto-text is taken, how the Apostle loves, for him- 
 self and others, to be served heir " m Christ " to " all 
 spiritual blessings " (ver. 3). Is it the opening dedi- 
 cation ? (ver. I ) — he speaks of believers as " the faithful 
 in Christ Jesns." Does he impart in the same sentence 
 the apostolic benediction ? The grace and peace in- 
 voked, are "from God the Father " conjoined with 'Uhe 
 Lord Jesus Christ " (ver. 2). Does he speak of their 
 election ? (ver. 4.) They are " chosen in Him before 
 the foundation of the world." Does he speak of their 
 adoption ? (ver. 5.) It is the adoption of children "hy 
 Jesus Christ to Himself." Is it their justification and 
 acceptance in the sight of God ? (ver. 6.) " He hath 
 made us accepted in the Beloved." Is it the free gift 
 of redemption and forgiveness ? (ver. 7.) " In whom 
 we have redemption through His blood." Does he 
 advert to the grandeur of the future dispensation ? 
 (ver. I o.) It is that " He might gather together in 
 one all things in Christ." Is it the purchase of the 
 eternal heritage of the saints ? (ver. 11.) " In whom 
 also we have obtained an inheritance." Is it the seal- 
 ing of the Holy Ghost? (ver. 13.) " In whom" (i.e., 
 in Christ) " ye are sealed with that Holy Spirit of pro- 
 mise." Does he speak of the revelation of " the riches 
 of the glory of His inheritance in the saints ? " (ver. 
 1 8.) It is " according to the working of His mighty 
 power, which He wrought in Christ" (vers. 19, 20). 
 We see thus, in glancing over the contents of one 
 chapter, independent of those which follow, how the 
 
SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN CHRIST, 39 
 
 Apostle loved to sit under that same gracious shadow. 
 Hopes, promises, blessings, prayers, the privilege of 
 grace here, and the boundless prospects of glory here- 
 after, focus and centre in the Person of his adorable 
 Lord. To some of these passages just quoted, we may 
 recur for more special meditation afterwards. Mean- 
 while, surely it is remarkable to trace, within this brief 
 compass, so many successive and unbroken links in 
 the one golden chain — " Christ all and in all." 
 
 In the verse selected above, we have Jesus brought 
 before us as the great channel for the conveyance of 
 spiritual blessings to the souls of His people. More- 
 over, a peculiar phrase is employed descriptive of these 
 blessings. They are spoken of, as we noted in a pre- 
 vious meditation, as " in heavenly places." The same 
 expression occurs five times in the epistle (i. 3, 20 ; 
 ii. 6 ; iii. 10 ; vi 12). It is no part of this volume to 
 enter into exegesis ; but it may be well to observe that, 
 in the original Greek, there is nothing corresponding to 
 the substantive which is added in our own authorised 
 version.^ Many Commentators, ancient and modern, 
 have considered that there is an ellipsis — a word or 
 words which require to be supplied. Hence, some 
 liave suggested "heavenly things;" ^ others, as in the 
 English Bible — " places." * 
 
 * 'Ev TOts iTovpavlois. 
 
 2 Sucli as Chrysostoin and Theodorct, Luther and Michaelis. 
 ^ This rendering is supported, among others, by Jerome and Bengel, 
 Grotius and Olshauscu. 
 
40 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 Peculiar, however, as the idiom is, it seems, viewed 
 in the light of the Apostle's monogram, to require 
 neither of the additional nouns, and to be better with- 
 out either ; simply retaining the intransferable beauty 
 and energy of the plural original — " In the heavenlies" 
 'In Christ,' Paul and all believers have reached a 
 higher spiritual sphere. In Him, "things in heaven 
 and things in earth " are one ; heaven ' brought nigh * 
 IN Christ; — heaven within, heaven above, heaven 
 around. His assertion, elsewhere, is the best com- 
 ment and interpretation on this disputed phrase in 
 the Ephesus letter, " Our citizenship is in heaven " 
 (Phil. iii. 20) ; or yet in that other noble description 
 of the Christian's franchise, and his immunities as an 
 inhabitant of the heavenly Zion : — " Now therefore 
 ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow- 
 citizens with the saints, and of the household of 
 God" (Eph. ii. 19). Heaven to the believer consists 
 not in locality, but in the conscious enjoyment of 
 Christ's nearness and love : — " In whom, though now 
 we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy 
 unspeakable and full of glory (i Pet. i. 8). Chry- 
 sostom and Luther, in further rendering the two 
 concluding words of our motto-verse, " heavenly places 
 through Christ," would to us despoil it of its distinc- 
 tive meaning and significance. True, doubtless, it is 
 through Christ, and through Christ alone, that "the 
 heavenlies " are attained. But is it not more in har- 
 mony surely with our Pauline formula — the dominat- 
 
SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN CHRIST. 41 
 
 inf]: tliouoht of his creed and life — to retain, as in the 
 original, " heavenly places IN Christ " ? It is in Him 
 that we live in this " land Beulah." It is in Him we 
 are bathed, so to speak, in the glory of the heavenly 
 atmosphere, — that atmosphere replete and luminous 
 with His presence ; — " We walk in the light, as He is 
 in the light" (i John i. 7)} 
 
 While thus magnifying " the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ" let us at the same time join with the Apostle 
 in tracing all these up to the love of God the Father. 
 " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 
 ^ Dr. Eadie, in his scholarly commentary, has the following excel- 
 lent observations on the phrase to which we have just been making 
 reference. " It does not denote heaven proper, but is the ideal 
 locality of the Church on the earth as ' the kingdom of heaven ' — 
 above the world in its sphere of occupation and employment. . . . 
 * The heavenly places ' are in Christ. Union to Him brings us into 
 them. His glory is their bright canopy, and His presence diffuses joy 
 and hope. . . . Our life, resurrection, and enthronement folloAV one 
 another, as in the actual history of the great Prototype. But this 
 ' sitting with Jesus ' is as spiritual as the life, and it indicates the 
 calmness and dignity of the new existence. The quickened soul is not 
 merely made aware that in Christy as containing it and all similar 
 souls, it is enlivened, and raised up, and elevated ; but, along with 
 this, it enjoys individually a conscious life, resurrection, and session 
 with Jesus. It feels these blessings in itself through its union with 
 Him. It lives, and it is sensible of this life ; it has been raised, and it 
 is aware of its change of spiritual position. Nay, it feels itself in the 
 meantime 'sitting with Jesus,' not solely because of its relation to 
 Him in His representative character, but because of its o\^^^ joyous 
 and personal possession of royal elevation, purity, and honour : — ' He 
 hath made us kings ' (Rev. i. 6). What is more peculiar to the spirit 
 in this series of present and beatific gifts shall at length be shared in 
 by the entire humanity. The body shall be quickened, raised, and 
 glorified, and the redeemed man shall, in the fulness of his nature, 
 enjoy the happiness of heaven" (pp. 135, 136). 
 
42 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 Christ who hath blessed us." " It hath pleased the 
 Father that in Him should all fulness dwell " (Col. 
 i. 19). 
 
 The Father ! that precious ISTame and word which 
 specially belongs to the Gospel dispensation. Not 
 the God of a false and a harsh theology, armed alone 
 With the thunderbolt ; — some grim Avenger delighting 
 to exact terrible retribution ; or else some mythical 
 Phantom existing in cold, unsympathetic, unpitying 
 isolation ; but the Living, personal " God and Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant 
 mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by 
 the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an 
 inlieritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth 
 not away" (i Pet. i. 3, 4). Nay, how near is His 
 paternal character and love brought to us from the 
 region of the abstract and ideal ! " My Father, and your 
 Father " (John xx. 1 7). " All things are yours," says 
 Paul, in that triumphant passage which we may well call 
 the charter of the believer's privileges, " All are yours, 
 . . . and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's " ( i Cor. 
 iii. 21,23). The Holy Spirit, moreover, the third Person 
 of the blessed Trinity, is represented, in a subsequent 
 portion of the epistle from which the verse preced- 
 ing this meditation is taken, as associated with the 
 Father and the Son in covenant for our salvation ; "For 
 through Him " {i.e., Christ) " we both have access hy one 
 Spirit unto the Father " (Eph. ii. 1 8). God the Fatlier 
 pours the anointing oil of the Holy Ghost on the head 
 
SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN CHRIST. 43 
 
 of the true Aaron ; and the sacred unguent flows down 
 to the very skirts of His garment. Each of His people 
 are thus made participators and recipients of " abound- 
 ing grace ; " yea, the lowliest and humblest receive the 
 most. 
 
 That Father-God IN Christ is further revealed, as 
 waiting, and willing, to bless us with " all spiritual 
 blessings." He gives us, so to speak, a blank cheque, 
 sayiug, ' Fill it up as you please ; fill it up, not for a 
 feiu things, but for all things ; — pardon, peace, grace, 
 holiness, strength for daily duty, light for perplexing 
 paths, comfort in sorrow, support and victory in death.* 
 " My God," says the Apostle in another passage we 
 shall come subsequently to consider, (giving glory to 
 the Father; and yet, too, seeming as if he never could 
 mention the Father's love apart from that of the Son 
 and his interest in Him) ; " My God shall supply all 
 your need according to His riches in glory by Christ 
 Jesus " (Phil. iv. 1 9). It reminds us of the gushing 
 river of Ezekiel's Temple-vision, bordered with trees 
 of unfading leaf and perennial fruit; and regarding 
 which it is said — " Everything lives whither the river 
 Cometh." But while it issued out "from under the 
 threshold of the house," it flowed by " the south side 
 of the altar " (of sacrifice) — (Ezek. xlvii. i). Or, it recalls 
 John's kindred Apocalyptic figuration — strikingly sug- 
 gestive alike of the Father's love and the Son's sacri- 
 ficial offering — the " pure river of the water of life, 
 clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God 
 
44 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 AND OF THE Lamb " (Eev. xxii. i). It brings to re- 
 membrance a yet diviner word of Truth and Inspira- 
 tion from the lips of One more infallible than the 
 chiefest and most favoured of prophets and apostles. 
 He who is emphatically " the Christ of God," thus 
 speaks in the Great Prayer preceding the agony — 
 "Now they have known that all things whatsoever 
 Thou hast given Me are of Thee. And the glory 
 which Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they 
 may he one, even as we aee one (John xvii. 7, 22). 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 VI. 
 
 LIFE IN CHRIST. 
 
 "For the law of the spirit of life IN CilRlST Jesus."— Rom. 
 viii. 2. 
 
 "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to he dead indeed unto sin, 
 but alive unto God (lit.) IN Jesus Christ our Lord."— Rom. vi. ii. 
 
 "For the wages of sin is death ; hut the gift of God is eternal life 
 through " (or rather, IN) " Jesus Christ our Lord"— Rom. vi. 23. 
 
 "As in Adam all die, even so IN Christ shall all he made 
 alive." — I Cor. xv. 22. 
 
 ^EATH and LIFE :— Death by nature, — life by 
 grace ; — dead in sin, — alive nnto God ; — • 
 ^^^^ death in the first Adam — life in the second 
 Adam ; — this is the reiterated theme of these varied 
 passages. 
 
 It is God's plan to bring life out of death. Nature 
 reads it in her yearly parable: "Except a corn of 
 wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : 
 but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit " (John xii. 
 24. The Apostle recognises, in the believer, a double 
 death; and in each case there is the new resultant 
 life. He dies to the law : " Now we are delivered," 
 says he, " from the law ; that being dead wherein we 
 
46 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 were held " (Rom. vii. 6). He dies also with Christ : 
 " I am crucified with Christ ; nevertheless I live " 
 (Gal. ii. 20). While he exclaims in language of no 
 sembled agony, almost in tones of despair, " 
 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from 
 the body of this death ? " (Rom. viL 24) ; the glorious 
 deliverance rises the same moment to his lips ; he has 
 a ready response to his wailing cry ; — the miserere is 
 answered by the paean, — "I thank God through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord " (Rom. vii. 2 5 ) — ' He shall deliver 
 me ; He has delivered me ' (for so may the incomplete 
 utterance be filled in and supplied). Yet again, to 
 repeat one of the motto-verses at the head of this 
 chapter, " The wages of sin is death ; but the gift of 
 God " (the gift of all gifts, like a giant Alp soaring 
 above its surrounding compeers) " is eternal life IN 
 Jesus Christ our Lord " (Rom. vi. 23).^ 
 
 Nor was this topic, ' dying,' yet * living in the Lord 
 Jesus,' a casual theme, associated with any one special 
 period of Paul's ministry. The golden thread is retained 
 and clung to, to the end. What cheered him in Corinth, 
 when in the fulness of his manhood and apostolic vigour 
 he wrote his Roman Epistle, formed also his sheet- 
 anchor and solace amid the days of darkness and the 
 lengthening shadows. In the last letter he ever wrote, 
 — that addressed to Timothy from his dungeon in the 
 
 1 In {iv). See Alford's remarks both on this verse and verse 1 1. " By 
 virtue of our union with Him; not through (did). In this chapter it 
 is not Christ's Mediatorship, but His Headship, which is prominent." 
 
LIFE IN CHRIST. 47 
 
 city of tlie Caesars, — when his thoughts, we may well 
 believe, were most matured in Christian doctrine and 
 spiritual things ; when, had there been aught of the 
 mystic in his past creed, he would have disowned or 
 cancelled it, — the old parallelism of " death in Christ " 
 and " life in Him," lingers like a cherished strain in tlie 
 doomed man's ears. He holds to it amonsr the few 
 " faithful things" which still survived; — "This is a faith- 
 ful saying" (one, among unreliable promises, to be wholly , 
 relied on), " that if we be dead with Christ we shall 
 also live with Him'' (2 Tim. ii. 11). The Apostle of 
 love, when he also had reached his waning years, rises 
 to the fervour of a kindred utterance : " This is the 
 record " (not part of the record, but the record, the 
 sum and quintessence of all His teachings), " that God 
 hath given to us eternal life, and that life is " (not shall 
 be, but a present glorious possession is), — " in His Son " 
 (i John V. 1 1). 
 
 Thus, what the first Adam lost, not only the second 
 Adam restored, but far more than restored. We know 
 not, regarding the former, whether life would have been 
 contingent on his remaining loyal in his allegiance : 
 or, though successfully resisting the first assault of the 
 tempter and his wiles, whether, by some subsequent 
 failure in obedience, that life would have been forfeited. 
 But there is no such contingency in the life purchased 
 and guaranteed by the Second Adam — the Lord from 
 heaven. Hence, in contrast with the ' Paradise Lost,' 
 and the sword of its flaming cherubim, the Great Giver 
 
48 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 X 
 
 of this new life could aver, " I came tliat ye might have 
 life, and that ye might have it more abundantly ; " — a 
 life with no possibility of fall or forfeiture. Beautiful 
 is the similar comment which the Divine Eestorer — 
 the living, loving Head of the Second Covenant, Him- 
 self makes, as He stands amid the weeping throng 
 at Bethany — "He that believeth on Me, though he 
 were dead, yet shall He live: and whosoever liveth 
 and believeth in Me shall never die; believest thou 
 this?" (John xi. 25, 26). We are reminded of 
 words of prophetic song spoken regarding a Mightier 
 than the Psalmist of Israel ; — the pleading of Messiah 
 for the Church redeemed with His blood : — " He asked 
 life of Thee, and Thou gavest him a long life, even for 
 ever and ever " (Ps. xxi. 4. — Prayer-book version). 
 
 Though it must be confessed a subordinate and 
 secondary, there is yet another view of the present 
 theme to which at least the reflected life in Christ 
 may be applied, and with which it may not be in- 
 appropriate to conclude the present meditation. 
 
 The World, as well as the Church, stands a debtor 
 to that Life. " I," says Christ, " am the Light of the 
 world J' To borrow a lunar illustration. Just as the 
 moon in the heavens (the invariable Scriptural emblem 
 of the Church) not only derives all her light and 
 splendour from the sun, but gives back also that light 
 in a reflected shape to the planet of which she is the 
 satellite : — so with the Church and the reflected beams 
 
LIFE IN CHRIST. 49 
 
 of the true Sun of Eighteousness. What would our 
 earth have "been hut for Christianity ? She may be too 
 proud to make the acknowledgment: — or unconscious of 
 the presence of the Greater light from which she derives 
 the boon. Be it so. She is nevertheless the recipient 
 of His blessings. From that cradle of Bethlehem, that 
 home of Nazareth, that cross of Calvary, that grave of 
 Golgotha, there have gone forth ameliorating, civilising 
 influences, to mankind. Believers are the alone par- 
 takers, indeed, of real spiritual light and life, the true 
 radiance of the divine Sun. But all, in another sense, 
 have benefited by the brightness of His rising. So that 
 the words of the Psalmist have a far wider than their 
 literal meaning : " In them hath He set a tabernacle 
 for the sun ; which is as a Bridegroom coming out of 
 his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a 
 race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, 
 and his circuit nnto the ends of it, and there is nothinor 
 hid from the heat thereof" (Ps. xix. 4-6). Nay, 
 more ; is it too much to add, that this material earth of 
 ours, — this creation groaning and travailing in pain — 
 has become so far now, and will be to a vaster degree 
 hereafter, a participant in the life-blessings in Christ ? 
 Glorying, above all, in their grander spiritual meaning, 
 St. Paul did not despise or overlook these elevating 
 hopes and prospects, which had become the heritage 
 of the material economy around him, through the 
 death of his great Lord. It was contemplating such, 
 that he could take down his harp from the willows, 
 
5^ 
 
 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 and sing of Creation, so long " subject to vanity," being 
 " delivered from the bondage of corruption, and trans- 
 lated into the glorious liberty of the sons of God." Oh 
 yes, smile as many may do at the assumption ; a dead 
 and dying world, — the fields around us, the flowers 
 that waft their fragrance on our path — the revolving 
 seasons that gladden us — the verdure of Spring, the 
 radiant glory of Summer, the mellowed stores of 
 Autunm ; — in a word, the earth we tread, stands debtor 
 to " the law of the Spirit of life IN Christ Jesus." 
 
 
( 5^ ) 
 
 VII. 
 ONE BODY IN CHRIST. 
 
 ** We, being many, are one body IN Christ." — Pwom. xii. 5. 
 
 ^j^ANY folds, "one flock" (John x. 16):— not, 
 as rendered in our English version, " one 
 fold " : ^ — many branches, one tree : many- 
 stones, one temple : many regiments, one army : many 
 planets, one system : many flowers, one garden : many 
 members, one body. 
 
 Such is the true ideal of the Christian Church. The 
 Apostle's illustration or metaphor, in our motto- verse, 
 is from the last of these; the human body, with its 
 different members ; each member occupying its appro- 
 priate place and fulfilling its appointed function in the 
 system. His object is to inculcate, that, diversity of 
 offices and gifts among Christians, so far from being 
 inconsistent with this union, is necessary to its perfec- 
 tion and usefulness. " The eye cannot say unto the 
 hand, I have no need of thee : nor again the head to 
 the feet, I have no need of you!" (i Cor. xii. 21). 
 Yet, each and all the members of this spiritual frame- 
 
 ' Greek, fiia Troifiyrj, not fiia avXrj. 
 
52 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 work are absolutely powerless and effete, but for the 
 divine life that throbs and pulsates through every vein : 
 a corporate union with the living Head. It is " one 
 body IN Christ." God hath given Him " to be the 
 Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, 
 the fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. i. 
 
 22, 23). 
 
 The same expressive image is perhaps more fully 
 expanded in an afterpart of this same epistle. " The 
 Head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly 
 joined together and compacted by that which every 
 joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in 
 the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body 
 unto the edifying of itself in love " (iv. 15,16). Or yet 
 again, in his Epistle to the Colossians, during the same 
 period of his later life — (showing that the . favourite 
 metaphor had taken deep hold of the mind of the writer) 
 — " The Head, from which all the body by joints and 
 bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, 
 increaseth with the increase of God " (Col. ii. 1 9). 
 
 To a certain extent, what the Apostle had averred 
 regarding the gifts and graces of individual members, 
 holds true regarding the organization of churches. 
 Multiform in every age have been the projects and 
 aspirations after " Church union ; " identity of Church 
 rule and symbolism : — many, if not most of which as- 
 pirations, it is to be feared are alike false in theory, and 
 unattainable, if not undesirable, in practice. All honour 
 indeed to every faithful and conscientious attempt to 
 
ONE BODY IN CHRIST. 53 
 
 diminish painful and unworthy antagonisms between 
 sect and sect ; and shame on those who, by prating 
 words, do their best to promote or perpetuate schisms 
 which all who love Christ's Name must deplore. At 
 the same time, experience has amply shown the im- 
 practicability and worthlessness of any mere external 
 uniformity — that little reliance can be placed on man- 
 made devices to secure such outward unity, the demo- 
 lition of mere outer lines of distinction. Synodical 
 conferences. Evangelical alliances, and Church con- 
 gresses, may serve successfully to lop the branches of 
 the Ecclesiastical forest into temporary and artificial 
 sameness ; but, as in Nature, they will, sooner or later, 
 resent the attempt at identity, — and assert the free 
 outgrowth of varying shape and form. In truth, the 
 divine idea and ideal seems rather to be an echo of 
 Nature's parable. It seems to discountenance the 
 fusing of principles into one stereotyped, unchanging 
 system. It is " Mani/ members one hod]/." Co-operation, 
 without necessarily incorporation; union, without neces- 
 sarily communion ; Zechariah's symbolic Lamp (Zech. 
 iv. 2, 3) " all of gold " fed from the same reservoir, — 
 the oil distilled from the same " two olive-trees ; " — but 
 seven- branched : — the noblest and grandest illustration 
 of the oft-quoted aphorism — " unity in diversity, and 
 diversity in unity." One candlestick, but " seven 
 lamps thereon." One flock certainly ; but not the ab- 
 sorption of all folds into one. Within limits that were 
 expedient and possible, no one was doubtless a more 
 
54 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 thorough lover and advocate of union than the Great 
 Apostle. Note how he speaks of the most marvellous 
 example he himself lived to see consummated, and in 
 the completion of which he was the most honoured 
 instrument. It was that of two elements whose amal- 
 gamation seemed so incredible and impossible, that he 
 speaks of it as " the mystery " (Eph. iii. 3) : — " That 
 the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same 
 body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the 
 Gospel." Hear his terse and vivid description of this 
 joint participation of Jew and Gentile in the privileges 
 of the new faith. The words he employs are remark- 
 able : denoting so very prolonged and so very wide a 
 separation; but now brought so very near IN Christ. 
 "Co-heirs" — "co-incorporated," "co-partakers." Words, 
 as has been suggested, which appear coined by him- 
 self in order to deepen and intensify his meaning.^ 
 Let them remain, as containing a vivid picture of the 
 true spiritual union he would seek to have realised, at all 
 events among the individual members of Christ's Church, 
 purchased with His blood: — the oneness of all who 
 love the Lord Jesus in sincerity, ' holding the Head ' : — 
 " fellow-partakers," as he expresses it (rising to the 
 climax), "of his promise in Christ by the Gospel." 
 " Salute," says he, in words of noble catholicity, " every 
 saint IN Christ Jesus" (Phil. iv. 21). For, after all, 
 the grand, and superlatively momentous question is — - 
 
 ^ The cvv is thrice repeated, avyKkytpovbiia^ cixrau^a, ffviifiiToxa. 
 See Dr. Eadie on Ephesians, pp. 207-209. 
 
ONE BODY IN CHRIST. 55 
 
 not that of Church System, and Church life, and party- 
 colours, but of personal relation to Him; — the conscious- 
 ness of this incorporation which makes us individually 
 participators in the life of God's dear Son. Let us 
 listen, from the Eedemption-Song of the Old Testament, 
 to what has been called " the bleat of Messiah's true 
 sheep : " It is a longing after no denominational pas- 
 ture — no artificial enclosure or fold ; but for fellowship 
 with the Great, the Divine Shepherd Himself: — 
 " Tell me, Thou whom my soul loveth, where Thou 
 feedest, where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon ; 
 for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the 
 flocks of Thy companions ? " (Sol. Song i. 7). Or, 
 returning to our Apostle, let us listen, under a different 
 metaphor, to the words of this great ' Athlete ' as he 
 runs the Christian race. His first concern is ' Am I in 
 Christ ? ' ' Have I secured in Him my high calling ? ' 
 And then (but not till then) he proclaims, as a sequel 
 to that individvM experience, what may be called his 
 theory of Church union, and one in its results eminently 
 alike desirable and practicable. The whole passage is 
 worth quoting and pondering : " I press toward the 
 mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
 Jesus. Let its therefore, as many as be perfect, be 
 thus minded ; and if in anything ye be otherwise 
 minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Never- 
 theless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk 
 by the same rule, let us mind the same thing " (Phil, 
 iii. 14, 15, 16). " I press toward the mark for the 
 
56 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 prize of the high calling of God IN Christ Jesus ! " All 
 outward and accidental Churcli life is nothing to this. 
 John lay in his Master's bosom. Peter saw his Master's 
 glory on the Mount. But the humblest Christians 
 who can claim living union and communion with their 
 divine Lord, have, in truth, if not loftier at least surer 
 credentials of their high calling. Judas enjoyed an 
 external Church fellowship and Church privilege which 
 fell to the lot only of a select few. Alas ! it was of 
 no avail to him. Whereas, the lowliest martyr of the 
 catacombs who had never seen Christ's face in the 
 flesh, but on the tablet of whose forgotten grave ' In 
 Christo ' could be inscribed by loving faithful hands, 
 was a true member of " the Holy Church throughout 
 all the world." 
 
 Thanks be to God, there is a glorious inner, real 
 unity dominating aU artificial barriers : a sect-mark 
 not of man's device : God's own unmistakable sym- 
 bolism of holiness of character. There is a golden 
 chain of true Apostolic succession, linking, in indisso- 
 luble bonds, men of every varying age and varying 
 ecclesiastical party, w^io own the distinguishing badge 
 of one of Paul's most loved companions — " Tychicus, a 
 faithful minister in the Lord : " — Puritanism and Angli- 
 canism, Priest and Presbyter, Prelacy and Dissent; 
 names, and times, and schools, as diverse as those of 
 Ambrose and Augustine, Pascal and Fenelon, Luther 
 and Calvin, Martyn and Pattison, Knox and Chalmers. 
 They are worshippers in a great invisible and indi- 
 
ONE BODY IN CHRIST. S7 
 
 visible Temple, with this as its superscription — " One 
 lodij IN Christ." " Ye are all one in Christ Jesus." 
 Party and conventional distinctions disappear before 
 the words of the Master — "All Mine are Thine, 
 and Thine are Mine ; and I am glorified in them " 
 (John xvii. lo). Well has the object and divine 
 mission of the true Church of God on earth been 
 defined — " to destroy evil, and to assimilate Humanity 
 to God : to penetrate and purify the world, and as 
 salt, preserve it from corruption. It has an existence 
 continuous throughout the ages ; continuous however, 
 not on the principles of hereditary succession or of 
 human election, as in an ordinary corporation, but on 
 the principle of spiritual similarity of character ( I John 
 i. 3). The Apostle Paul asserted this spiritual succes- 
 sion when he said that the seed of Abraham were to 
 be reckoned, not as his lineal descendants, but as 
 inheritors of his faith. And Christ, too, meant the 
 same, when He told the Jews that out of the stones 
 before Him God could raise up children unto 
 Abraham." ^ 
 
 How striking is the same Apostle's address, con- 
 tained in the opening words of his earliest inspired 
 Epistle : — " Unto the Church of the Thessalonians 
 which is . . . * m the Lord Jesus Christ'" (ver. i). y 
 Then mark his introductory salutation. How perfect a 
 definition of the House of God below — a body of true 
 
 ^ Rev. F. W. Robertson on Corinthians, pp. 16, 17. 
 
58 IN CHRISrO. 
 
 believers : — " Eemembering without ceasing your work 
 of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in 
 OUR Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our 
 Father" (i Thess. i. 3). Here we have, not the poor 
 unity of opinion, or formula, or ritual, but of hope, and 
 affection, and common interest. " It is between Christ 
 and His Church," says old Thomas Brooks, " as between 
 two lute strings ; no sooner is one struck than the 
 other trembles." There is a mutual glow and thrill 
 of sympathy between heart and heart : — " And whether 
 one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or 
 one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with 
 it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in 
 particular" (i Cor. xii. 26, 27). "For ye are all the 
 children of God by faith IN Christ Jesus. For as 
 many of you as have been baptized into Christ have 
 put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there 
 is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor 
 female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus " (Gal. iii. 
 26-28). 
 
 The day at least is coming, when the impossibility 
 of the Church militant will become the certainty and 
 triumph of the Church triumphant — " complete IN 
 Him." In the words of a deceased scholar, as devout 
 as he was learned — " Under Jesus, as universal Eegent, 
 harmony will be restored to the universe. The anthem 
 to God and the Lamb begins with saints, is taken up 
 by angels, and re-echoed by the wide creation " (Eev. 
 V. 9-14). Then indeed will the Apostle's ardent 
 
ONE BODY IN CHRIST. 
 
 59 
 
 longings regarding true brotherhood be gloriously and 
 literally realised : — " That we may present every one 
 perfect IN Christ Jesus" (Col. i. 28). Then will the 
 ideal of a Greater than Paul be reached : for the prayer 
 of the Divine Intercessor Himself will be fulfilled — 
 " That they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in 
 Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us " 
 (John xvii. 21). 
 
 IN HOC VINCES 
 
( 6o ) 
 
 VIII. 
 NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST. 
 
 "There is therefore now no condemnation to them ■which are IN 
 Cheist Jesus."— Rom. viii. i. 
 
 ^^^SjHESE are tlie opening words of the choicest 
 fl^li chapter in St. Paul's great Epistle, — "the 
 ^'^^'-'^ Evangel within an evangel:" that Epistle 
 which Luther graphically calls " the Lord's lantern, 
 illuminating all the pages of Holy Writ." " Thanks 
 be to God," adds the German theologian who quotes 
 the saying, "for this truest bulwark of the Gospel, 
 this most fragrant flower of his evangelical labour, a 
 very amaranth, unfading, immortal." ^ 
 
 In our motto-verse, we have the brief but expres- 
 sive deduction from the whole previous discussion. 
 The Inspired Writer has reached a transition point in 
 his argument; and "no condemnation m Christ," is 
 the golden key by which (if I may so express it) he 
 locks up one compartment of his treasure-house, 
 while, with the same golden key he opens the other, 
 
 ^ Besser. 
 
NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST. 6i 
 
 with its equally ricli and precious contents of Christian 
 doctrine and precept, privilege and promise. 
 
 By an irresistible chain of reasoning, he had 
 demonstrated the utter insufficiency of the law to 
 effect the justification of the sinner in the sight 
 of God. The sinner is sisted at the bar; and after 
 proving and substantiating (to use a legal phrase) the 
 various counts of the indictment, all is summed up 
 in the final deliverance — " therefore by the deeds of 
 the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight " 
 (Eom. iii. 20). Then he had proceeded to make a 
 revelation of God's own method of recovery, alike from 
 the guilt and the dominion of sin, in the work of the 
 adorable Surety, — emphatically " the power of God 
 unto salvation." By this method the penal consequences 
 of transgression are done away, and the Holy One be- 
 comes " the Just, and yet the Justifier." See, in the 
 course of the. Apostle's statement, how unconsciously 
 the favourite monogram occurs : — " But now the right- 
 eousness of God without the law is manifested, beinor 
 witnessed by the law and the prophets ; even the 
 righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ 
 unto all and upon all them that believe : for there is 
 no difference : for all have sinned, and come short of 
 the glory of God ; being justified freely by His grace 
 through the redemption that is IN Christ Jesus" 
 (Rom. iii. 2 1-24). The great evangelical Prophet 
 seemed, centuries before, to anticipate the formula as 
 well as the creed of the Great evangelical Apostle : " In 
 
IN CHRISTO. 
 
 THE LoiiD shall all tlie seed of Israel be justified " (Isa. 
 xlv. 25). 
 
 Not when he wrote this letter to his Eoman con- 
 verts, but in a future year of his chequered life, spent 
 in their city, would St. Paul be fully cognisant of that 
 word of terrible significance — * Condemno,' as it rang 
 its death-knell, through the pillared hall of Caesar's 
 judgment-seat on the Palatine. But he knew now, 
 and it was his support and solace in these dark hours, 
 the more glorious spiritual meaning of the magni- 
 ficent converse — " NoN condemno." It is God's own 
 blessed ahsolvitur ; the judicial sentence of high heaven 
 — by which the prisoner is dismissed from the bar with 
 the verdict of ' not guilty ' on his head ; and which en- 
 ables him to silence the charge and challenge of every 
 other accuser. " Who shall lay anything to the charge 
 of God's elect ? It is God that justifieth ; who is he 
 that condemneth?" (Rom. viii. 33, 34.) 
 
 In a verse immediately following, the Apostle seems 
 to rehearse and epitomise the long train of reasoning 
 which had occupied the preceding context. In a few 
 terse and salient words, we have the grounds upon 
 which that verdict of * no condemnation in Christ ' is 
 pronounced. I shall avail myself, so far at least, of 
 the paraphrase-rendering of one, whose name, in the 
 last generation, was in all the churches, and who has 
 thrown, beyond other Commentators I know, a flood of 
 light on the great Roman Epistle : " For what the law 
 could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh" 
 
NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST. 63 
 
 (frail, fallen, humanity — the unrenewed nature — in- 
 capable of meeting its requirements), " God sending His 
 own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin " 
 (paying sin's penalty and wages — the curse of a 
 broken law), " condemned " (or punished) " sin in the 
 flesh : " — (in the flesh, ie., in the human nature of 
 Christ), "that the righteousness of the law might" 
 (through Him) " be fulfilled in us " (Eom. viii. 3).'^ 
 
 The righteousness of that law must be " fulfilled ; " 
 its requirements must be met, and its sanctities up- 
 held, either in the person of the sinner or of his divine 
 Surety. There was a great typical truth surely 
 uttered, as we see the law's stony tables sacredly en- 
 closed and guarded within the ancient 'Ark of the 
 testimony,' alike in Jewish tabernacle and Temple. 
 We know, moreover, that between that enclosure and 
 the officiating high-priest, with equally significant 
 meaning, there intervened the golden lid called " the 
 Propitiatory." The true antitype of the latter, the 
 Golden Shield of His Church and people, comes be- 
 tween the unabrogated demands of the law and the 
 sinner standing before the Mercy-Seat — " The redemp- 
 tion," says the Apostle, "that is in Christ Jesus: 
 Whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through 
 faith in His blood" (Eom. iii. 24, 25). There is 
 * no condemnation,' because, in Him, that inviolate and 
 inviolable law has been kept ; its honour vindicated ; 
 
 ^ Sec Haldane on tlie Romans, in loc. 
 
64 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 its penalties borne ; its precepts obeyed. " Christ hath 
 redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a 
 curse for us " (Gal. iii. 13). By His voluntary sub- 
 stitution and suretyship He has once and for ever 
 solved the momentous problem — settled the awful 
 alternative, " condemn " or " not condeinn!' " God sent 
 KOT His Son into the world to condemn the world, but 
 that the world through Him might be saved " (John 
 iii. 17). That world was a doomed and death-stricken 
 camp. But He, the true Aaron, has " stood between 
 the living and the dead, and the plague is stayed" 
 (Num. xvi. 48). 
 
 "No condemnation IN Christ." Yes, and side by 
 side with that negative statement is the glorious posi- 
 tive and counterpart truth " Accepted IN the Beloved " 
 (Eph. i. 6). " Ye are all the children of God by faith 
 in Christ Jesits " (Gal. iii. 26). In the garment of the 
 true Elder Brother the seed of Jacob received the 
 Father's blessing. " Oh, the unspeakable greatness of 
 the exchange ! " exclaimed one of the venerated brother- 
 hood in Eeformation times — " the sinless One is con- 
 demned, and he that is guilty goes free : the Blessing 
 bears the curse, and the cursed is brought into blessing. 
 The Living dies, and the dead live ; and he that knows 
 nothing but confusion of face is clothed with glory." 
 What else can afford absolute peace, comfort, and 
 security but this ? What else can rock the waves 
 of the soul to rest but the voice of Him, who, at the 
 fourth watch of the night, when the darkness of 
 
NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST. 6$ 
 
 despair is deepest, comes " walking on the sea," 
 saying, " Fear not, it is I : be not afraid ! " " He that 
 heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, 
 hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condem- 
 nation ; but is passed from death imto life " (John v. 
 
 24). 
 
 Nor can any other utter the great absolution. Crea- 
 tion cannot do so. Though in her temple also doth 
 every one, and every thing, speak of His glory ; from 
 stream and rivulet murmuring their matin and evensong, 
 and flowers ringing their jubilant bells or wafting from 
 their censers fumes of incense, up to the stars in the 
 nightly firmament, like white-robed Levites minister- 
 ing in the illimitable fane. Yet there is one " glory," 
 for the proclamation of which these have "no speech 
 nor language, their voice is not heard." Every priestess 
 in Nature's Delphic oracle is dumb. No response has 
 ever been given, or can be given, to the urgent quest 
 of aching humanity — " How is God to deal with my 
 sinful soul ? " Here are unsounded and unsoundable 
 depths. " There is nothing to draw with, and the 
 well is deep." God may have left, and has left His 
 own tool-marks and hieroglyphics on the everlasting 
 hills, to testify to His power and Godhead, His wisdom 
 and might. But on their stupendous brows is carved 
 too the confession — " Thus far shalt thou go and no 
 farther." 
 
 We turn from these, with assured confidence, to that 
 which is graven as with an iron pen and lead on the 
 
66 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 true Bock for ever. " But now in Christ Jesus ye 
 who sometimes were far off are made nigli by tlie blood 
 of Christ " (Eph. ii. 1 3). " What," says Bishop Hall, 
 " is the best grounds of a philosopher's constancy, but 
 as moving sands in comparison of the Eock that we 
 may build upon ! " Once upon the Eock of Ages, 
 * condemnation ' there cannot be. Every believer may 
 echo, in lowly triumph, the Apostle's challenge (to 
 which we shall afterwards more particularly refer), — 
 as he closes this sublime chapter — "Who shall 
 separate ? " Not life ; not death ; not angels, nor 
 principalities, nor powers ; not things present, nor 
 things to come ; nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
 creature. The eternal Eock must perish, before one 
 trembling soul which has fled thither for refuge. Im- 
 mutability must become mutable, and God Himself 
 cease to be God, before one jewel can be plucked from 
 the diadem purchased by the Prince of life ! 
 
 Let us increasingly exult in this glorious manifesto 
 of the Apostle ; alike the foundation-truth and top- 
 stone of the gospel. Not the gospel of moral duties : 
 not the attractive and beautiful evangel of charity and 
 love. These are indeed each to be commended, and 
 to have their rightful place assigned and vindicated in 
 " the proportion of faith." Assuredly he who wrote 
 the 1 2th of Eomans and the 13 th of ist Corinthians, 
 would be the last to eliminate their teachings from his 
 creed. But they are only the superstructure which he 
 rears on a nobler basis. They are subsidiary, and at 
 
NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST. 67 
 
 pains is he to tell us so. Let us listen to one such 
 earnest protest from his own lips, coupled with the 
 leading tenet in his religious system to which he 
 subordinates all others : "Moreover, brethren, I 
 declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto 
 you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye 
 stand; by which also ye are saved, . . . how that 
 Christ died FOR OUR sins according to the Scriptures" 
 (i Cor. XV. 1-3). We recently perused the closing 
 words of one, who will not be suspected of narrowness 
 in his theology : " All bridges," said Bunsen, when he 
 himself was crossing over the river of death, "all 
 bridges that one builds through life fail at such a 
 time as this, and nothing remains but the Bridge 
 of the Saviour." " The only plank," says another 
 gifted mind of an opposite school of thought, " between 
 the believer and destruction, is the blood of the Incar- 
 nate God." 
 
( 68 ) 
 
 IX. 
 
 HELPERS IN CHRIST. 
 
 •'Salute Urbane, our helper IN Christ."— Rom. xvi. 9. 
 "Greet Aquila and Priscilla, my helpers IN CHRIST Jesus."— ^ 
 Rom. xvi. 3. 
 
 E have made frequent reference, in previous 
 pages, to the inscription (the name of this 
 Volume) found, often rudely carved, in the 
 Catacombs ; — a touching and significant epitaph ! 
 
 In the 1 6th chapter of Romans, from which our 
 motto-verses are taken, we may be said to walk 
 among monuments : not monuments of the departed, 
 but of the living friends, companions, contemporaries 
 of the Great Apostle. And it is remarkable the fre- 
 quency with which the same familiar formula or 
 inscription greets us. In Ciiristo, is thus beautifully 
 associated alike with " the quick and the dead." 
 
 Phoebe, the deaconess of the church at Cenchrea (the 
 port of Corinth, on the Saronic gulph of the -^gean), 
 was either the bearer of the letter, or else sent at the 
 same time on some confidential mission to the Roman 
 Christians. She carried with her Paul's commenda- 
 
HELPERS IN CHRIST. 69 
 
 tion : " Eeceive her in the Lord'' (vers, i, 2). Aquila 
 and Priscilla — with whom he had hallowed associations, 
 alike in Corinth and at Ephesus, but whose house in 
 Rome seems now to have been a rendezvous for the 
 Christian converts in that city — are greeted, as they 
 well might be, with pre-eminent warmth and affection; 
 specially so, owing to the imminent peril they had 
 encountered in rescuing the Apostle from the mob by 
 which he had been assailed in the city of Diana, 
 "my helpers in Christ Jesus" (vers. 3, 4).^ 
 
 His two kinsmen, Andronicus and Junia, names of 
 note, too, in the little brotherhood of the Boman saints, 
 and who, at one time or other, unspecified, had shared 
 his experience of captivity (doubtless one of the 
 "prisons frequent" referred to in 2 Cor. xi. 23), are 
 saluted, not only as " in Christ" but with the re- 
 markable distinctive epithet of elder-born saints — 
 " which were IN Cheist before me " (ver. 7). This may 
 refer, not only to the honour and privilege of priority 
 in conversion,* but possibly, too, may contain grateful 
 
 ^ " It seems to have been the practice of Aquila ard Priscilla (i Cor. 
 xvi. ic) and some other Christians (Col. iv. 15), to hold assemblies for 
 worship in their houses, which were saluted ; and in return sent salu- 
 tations as ' ONE BODY in the Lord.'^ See Alford's Greek Test, in loc.y 
 with interesting reference to Justin Martyr's experience. 
 
 2 *' The earlier the new birth, tlie weightier will be the glory in the 
 kingdom of God. Young ones regenerated shall have their brows set 
 with more jewels. They shall have an abundant entrance. The more 
 violent the storms they encounter, the greater will be their glory. 
 If there be any sorrow in heaven, it is because thoy were not sooner 
 born that they might have glorified God more on earth, who bestowed 
 such honour upon them in heaven." — Charnock. 
 
70 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 allusion to what, as members of the early Church in 
 Jerusalem, they had been and done to Paul himself 
 before his great change. May we not gather from this 
 indirect evidence, that when yet breathing out threaten- 
 ings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, 
 the prayers of these relatives may have had their own 
 potent share in the demolition of that fortress of 
 bigotry and unbelief, and in reclaiming its treasures 
 for the service of the Christ so long resisted ? 
 
 Amplias, a contraction of Ampliatus, an unknown 
 private Christian, but whose name suggested some 
 specially sacred memory of a personal character, is 
 hailed " my beloved in the Lord " (ver. 8). Urbane (or 
 Urbanus) is identified with some wider and more gene- 
 ral service to the faithful ; for he is saluted as " our 
 fellow-helper IN Christ " ^ (ver. 9). Apelles, probably 
 a Jewish convert, but otherwise all unknown, has the 
 favoured designation " ' approved ' ^ IN Christ " (ver. 
 I o). The converted members (some of them possibly 
 the slaves) of the household of Narcissus, supposed to 
 be a Eoman patrician, are saluted in the Lord " (ver. 
 ii).3 
 
 ^ These two names have been found, among many others, in inscrip- 
 tions on sepulchral monuments connected with the imperial household. 
 "On an inscription a.d. 115, Urbanus and Ampliatus occur next to 
 each other in a list of imperial freedmen connected with the mint." 
 (See Lightfoot on Phil., p. 174.) 
 
 " " Approved, by trial." — Alford. 
 
 3 There is an inscription extant which is supposed to refer to one of 
 St. Paul's " household " : ti.claudio.sp.f.nakcissiano (Lightfoot on 
 Phil., p. 175). 
 
HELPERS IN CHRIST. 71 
 
 Tryphena and Tryphosa, probably two sister deacon- 
 esses still engaged in Christian work, are hailed as 
 labouring ''in the Lord" ^ (ver. 12), while the past 
 unremitting and singular services of "the beloved 
 Persis " (for she had " laboured much in the Lord,") are 
 correspondingly acknowledged (ver. 12). Eufus, pro- 
 bably the son of Simon the Cyrenian, the cross-bearer of 
 the gospels (Mark xv. 21, Luke xxiii. 26), is saluted as 
 *' elect in the Lord " (ver. 13), while his mother, with 
 a beautiful and tender touch of courteous gratitude for 
 kindnesses received at her hand, is figuratively saluted, 
 also IN Christ, as " his mother and mine " (ver. 13). 
 "One whom his mother comforteth!" (Isa. Ixvi. 13). 
 
 When the Apostle has finished the dictation of his 
 letter, concluding with this enumeration of greetings 
 we have just glanced at, Tertius, the amanuensis (pro- 
 bably himself a Eoman, though now at Corinth) takes 
 up the stylus on his own account ; and even he signi- 
 ficantly adopts the well-known words in the singular 
 person — " 1, Tertius, who wrote this Epistle, salute you 
 in the Lord" (ver. 22). 
 
 It cannot escape the observation of the reader, how 
 it was that St. Paul, who at the time of writing this 
 Epistle had never personally visited Eome, could have 
 been able to include so many names in his salutations. 
 It is to be noted, first of all, that several of the names 
 
 ^ Both these names are seen in Columbaria ("dove-cotes"), founl 
 at or near the Appian "Way. 
 
73 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 are in Greek ; probably a number of those whom he 
 had converted to the faith of Christ in Corinth or 
 Ephesus, and who had left their native cities to settle 
 in the great Metropolis for commercial purposes. It 
 has moreover been suggested, among other explanations, 
 that some of these may have been among " the strangers 
 cf Eome " spoken of in Acts, who were in the habit 
 periodically of visiting Jerusalem at Pentecost, and 
 whom Paul may have either met there, or in the course 
 of their journey thither. (See Howson and Conyhearet 
 p. 1 5 8). The occurrence of the names of Aquila and 
 Priscilla may be accounted for thus ; — that they most 
 probably had returned to Ptome when the decree of 
 Claudius for the expulsion of the Jews from the city 
 had been repealed. 
 
 These salutations, contained in one chapter of one 
 Epistle, are only in harmony with other kindred mes- 
 sages of the same Apostle at other times. As he writes 
 to the Corinthians from Philippi, sending the letter by 
 the hands of Timothy, what are the best credentials 
 he can give of this youthful servant of the Church ? " I 
 have sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, 
 and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into 
 remembrance of my ways which be in Christ " ( i Cor. 
 iv. 17). At the close of the same, he again couples 
 with his own greeting the names of the faithful Aquila 
 and Priscilla. In their case the salutation is one of 
 special emphasis : " Aquila and Priscilla salute you 
 much IN THE Lord, with the church that is in their 
 
HELPERS IN CHRIST. 73 
 
 house " ( I Cor. xvi. 1 9). Take the concluding chapter 
 of his Epistle to his favourite converts, — those who had 
 cost him least anxiety, and had filled him with greatest 
 comfort and consolation. Within the first four verses 
 his monogram is three times mingled with loving ex- 
 hortations : " Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved 
 and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the 
 Lord, my dearly beloved, I beseech Euodias, and beseech 
 Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord. 
 And I entreat thee also, true yoke-fellow, help those 
 women which laboured with me in the Gospel, with 
 Clement also, and other my fellow-labourers, whose 
 names are written in the book of life. Eejoice in 
 the Lord alway : and again I say, Eejoice " (Phil. iv. 
 1-4). Does he speak of the self-sacrificing mission 
 of Epaphroditus, and all the efforts of that cherished 
 companion and fellow-labourer and soldier in minister- 
 ing to his wants ? He adjures them that on his return 
 to their midst from a perilous mission, they " receive 
 him with all gladness in the Lord " (ii. 25, 29). While 
 in the closing sentence, when he would embrace them 
 in one comprehensive greeting, it is still in the old 
 stereotyped phrase, so natural to his thoughts, " Salute 
 every saint in Christ Jesus" (Phil. iv. 21). It is the 
 same, whether it be a message to an ordained Pastor, 
 " Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received 
 in the Lord'' (Col. iv. 17) : or an appeal to what we 
 would designate a layman, as in the incomparable 
 Epistle to Philemon (that specimen of Christian cour- 
 
74 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 tesy, which gives, more than all else the Apostle has 
 written, a glimpse of his affectionate heart). Hear his 
 wonted expression, as he warmly commends the run- 
 away slave to the consideration and generous forgive- 
 ness of a gracious Master (ver. i6), "Not now as a 
 servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, speci- 
 ally to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the 
 flesh, and in the Lord ; " — closing with the loving per- 
 sonal challenge to one who had won so large a place in 
 his Christian esteem — " Yea, brother, let me have joy 
 of thee in the Lord" (ver. 20). 
 
 "What do these salutations of this heroic man, with 
 their peculiar and almost invariable adjunct, suggest ? 
 Salutations to those so diverse in age and rank and 
 occupation, from the slave of the household to the head 
 of the family; from the humble deaconess to the 
 laborious pastor and teacher ? — Is it not the value he 
 placed alike on loving sympathy, and active co-opera- 
 tion ? How different it would have been to him had 
 he been left in lonely isolation, to encounter the good 
 fight single-handed ; instead of being able, as he is, to 
 pour his warm benedictions on his " helpers in Christ ! " 
 It was in later years, with a doleful heart-break, he 
 uttered the wail from his lonely, unbefriended cell — 
 "All men forsook me" (2 Tim. iv. 16). True, on that 
 very account, he clung with all the fonder reverence 
 and trust to THE One who would never forsake ; — " Not- 
 withstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened 
 me" (2 Tim. iv. 17). But who can read the whole 
 
HELPERS IN CHRIST, 75 
 
 touching story of Paul's life, from the day already 
 spoken of, when led a blinded traveller in the Syrian 
 city, till the hour when " ready to be offered, and the 
 time of his departure was at hand," — but must see how 
 sensitively he clung to the support of Christian friends ; 
 friendships and fellowships prized and valued, we be- 
 lieve, mainly through realizing the mystical union with 
 a living Lord ?j What he said of one devoted adherent, 
 ' faithful among the faithless,' he felt, and desired, and 
 prayed for all ; — " The Lord give mercy unto the house 
 of Onesiphorus ; for he oft refreshed me, and was not 
 ashamed of my chain " (2 Tim. i. 1 6). See with what 
 imploring and anxious importunity, again and again, 
 he beseeches his dearest son in the faith to hasten 
 across the intervening ocean and gladden the last hours 
 of his waning life with his presence and words ! (2 Tim. 
 iv. 21). 
 
 Happy are they who, in life's retrospect, can claim 
 such fellowships : — in some cases, possibly, golden 
 friendships, whose memory now is all that remains; 
 but recalling those who, at the time, were like the 
 ministering spirits in Jacob's night-dream — 
 
 *' Angels to beckon me, 
 Nearer, my God, to Thee, 
 Nearer to Thee ! "— 
 
 those inciting either to noble deeds, or, more generally, 
 directing to modest pathways of usefulness ; giving the 
 strong arm to some faithful or tardy runner in the 
 
76 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 race ; evoking slumbering sympathies ; chafing the be- 
 numbed hand, kindling the smouldering heart- fires and 
 hearth-fires, infusing the glow of a new and better life. 
 Above all, those whose lives have been the true pulpit 
 and sermon of the age ; who, by consistent character, 
 simple faith, patient endurance, unselfish generosity, 
 have glorified God and taught and stimulated others to 
 glorify Him ; thus earning for themselves, though they 
 knew it not, a title to that noblest designation, " helpers 
 IN Christ Jesus ; " exercising in some cases, and per- 
 haps unconsciously, a wider influence, and like Phoebe, 
 the humble Cenchrean deaconess, becoming " a suc- 
 courer of many" (Eom. xvi. I, 2). 
 
 Nor is " the helper in Christ Jesus " the monopoly 
 of any Church, or Church system, or Church teaching, 
 This list in the 1 6th of Eomans is emphatically a list 
 of laymen; private members of the Roman brother- 
 hood. Paul, with his breadth and catholicity of soul, 
 would have been the first to repudiate and condemn 
 any arrogated prerogative of churchly caste, or of 
 Christian work. There is a niche in the Temple, — a 
 vocation in the sacred courts for all. There is room 
 for ' the hewer of wood, and the drawer of water,' as 
 well as for the ministering Levite. When will the 
 Churches of Christ, in these modern days, be taught to 
 make religious worship and religious life not all passive 
 and receptive ? Their members will only rise to the 
 dignity of their chartered privileges as " Priests unto 
 God" (Rev. i. 6), when they recognise the duty of 
 
HELPERS IN CHRIST. 77 
 
 co-operation and sympathy, — of active and willing 
 service. The command laid upon each by the Great 
 Bishop of souls is — " Go, work in My vineyard ! " Go ; 
 and be thou like one of the brethren or sisters in the 
 Apostolic age, " a helper m Christ." 
 
( 78 ) 
 
 X. 
 
 HOPE BEYOND IN CHRIST. 
 
 •' If in this life only we have hope IN Christ, we are of all men 
 most miserable." — i Cor. xv. 19. 
 ** In Christ shall all be made alive." — i Cor. xv. 22. 
 
 E have already remarked that Paul was no 
 morbid Christian ; but doubtless he had 
 his experience of those times of depression 
 to which God's people, yes, all God's servants, are more 
 or less subject, from Elijah in his cave and the Baptist 
 in his prison, to Luther in his forest-castle and Bunyan 
 in his Bedford cell. 
 
 It may have been in one of these seasons he was 
 led to pen the sentence in the first of our motto- 
 verses. But, in truth, we need assign it to no special 
 occasion. Such plaintive utterance sounds only natural 
 in the lips of one whose habitual dwelling was in " the 
 tents of Kedar ; " who could tell, day by day, of a 
 continuous " fight of afflictions." It is with no irre- 
 verence that we may apply to him the name of the 
 Great Master, in whose footsteps he so faithfully trod, 
 — "a man of sorrows." It would have been a traversing 
 
HOPE BEYOND IN CHRIST. 79 
 
 of truth therefore, — alien to his whole nature, — had 
 he (regarding what may be called the outer accidents 
 of existence) made the unnatural avowal, that life was 
 with him full of gladness and joy. Such varied tribu- 
 lations as fell to his lot take music and ripple out 
 of the best and noblest hearts. Either he, or some 
 other kindred spirit, elsewhere asserts the familiar 
 saying — " Chastisement is not joyous but grievous " 
 (Heb. xii. 11). We cannot indeed for a moment 
 think that a mind like his could be insensible to the 
 beauties and glories of the fair world around him. 
 One who could so discourse, as we find him doing to 
 the Lystrians (Acts xiv. 15-17), of "the living God, 
 who made heaven, and earth, and the sea ; " and to the 
 Athenians (Acts xvii.), of Him " who made the world 
 and all things therein," yet dwelling in a greater 
 than " Temple made with hands ; " — could not be in- 
 different either to the grandeur of outer nature or the 
 refinements of art. The Jewish Eabbis credit his great 
 teacher Gamaliel with a love of the beautiful ; which 
 he could hardly fail to instil into the susceptible soul 
 of his pupil. In the opening chapter of his Epistle to 
 the Eomans, the Apostle confronts paganism with the 
 great Volume of nature ; and from the entries in her 
 magnificent pages — " the invisible things of God " — 
 he leaves those without excuse, who are blinded to 
 the Eternal power and Godhead of the Almighty 
 Framer (Eom. i. 19-21). In the finest chapter of 
 that same epistle, while he mourns the present degra- 
 
8o IN CHRISTO. 
 
 dation, he anticipates with fond hope the ultimate 
 restoration of this fair earth — a second Genesis : — 
 when its present ashen robes of sorrow shall be ex- 
 changed for festive attire: — when "the creation itself 
 also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, 
 into the glorious liberty of the children of God " (Eom. 
 viii. 2i). Yet it must be allowed, too, that the attrac- 
 tion and fascination which the outer world would other- 
 wise have exercised over his emotional nature, must 
 have been materially diminished by what an interest- 
 ing writer calls "the great tragedy of the creation's 
 present existence of woe " — " subject to vanity " — 
 "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
 together until now." "^ Though he could not fail to 
 have many and cherished memories of the circlet of 
 oleander and vine-clad hills with their lofty summits, 
 which hemmed in his native Tarsus : though he had 
 been witness more than once, as the travelling mis- 
 sionary, to the savage grandeur of the Pisidian moun- 
 tains : though he had stood on the Athenian Areopagus, 
 and gazed on the unrivalled panorama whose nearest 
 summit man had crowned with the noblest effort of 
 
 ^ See the -whole remarks in Besser in loco. The same adds the 
 observation, pertinent to our theme — "He (Paul) heard heaven and 
 earth tell of something else than do poets and natural philosophers 
 when they listen to 'the tales of the wood.' . . . The holy prophets 
 led him to view nature, after their light had dawned on him in the 
 person of Christ. He now understood the 8th Psalm, because ho 
 knew man as the fallen, but, in Christ, restored Lord * over the works 
 of God's hands.* " 
 
HOPE BEYOND IN CHRIST. Si 
 
 genius : thougli he had again and again threaded his 
 way through the Archipelago, and watched those golden 
 sunsets over the Great Sea which all who have seen 
 them can never forget : though he had gazed on the 
 cluster of stone pines which crowned the Acro- 
 Corinthus, and made them, along with the groves of 
 palm and olive, to be suggestive of nobler verities : 
 though he had seen oftentimes Jerusalem in her 
 waning splendour, with her coronal of everlasting hills ; 
 though the Valley of Shechem, the gorges of Hermon, 
 the gardens of Damascus, the oaks of Bashan, "the 
 cedars of God," had one after another been unfolded 
 to his eye ; still the attractions of these, and a hundred 
 other similar scenes, seemed to have been rendered 
 invisible, if we may so express it, through the blurred 
 and cobwebbed windows of a tried soul like his. With 
 a very special emphasis could he write — " We look 
 not at the things which are seen, but at the things 
 which are not seen" (2 Cor. iv. 18). He could be 
 expected to have little heart or inclination to linger 
 over the sublime or beautiful, whose reiterated ex- 
 periences are thus recorded in the pages of his 
 chequered diary — " I die daily." " Even unto this 
 present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are 
 naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling- 
 place ; and labour, working with our own hands : 
 being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer 
 it ; being defamed, we entreat : we are made as 
 the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all 
 
 F 
 
82 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 things unto this day" (i Cor. iv. 11-13). "In 
 labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in 
 prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews 
 five times received I forty stripes save one, Thrice 
 was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I 
 suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been iu 
 the deep ; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in 
 perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in 
 perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils 
 in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among 
 false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watch- 
 ings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in 
 cold and nakedness" (3 Cor. xi. 23-27). We may 
 well imagine him truly feeling and saying, ' If this be 
 " the be-all, and the end-all here," is life worth 
 living ? ' If only in this world he had hope in 
 Christ; if in his case the Valley of Achor opened 
 to no better land of promise, it w^ould have been a 
 mockery and abuse of language to arrogate for himself 
 the title of ' happy.' " Miserable " would have been 
 the honest verdict. 
 
 From another standpoint, however, this wail of our 
 motto-verse may be regarded as exceptional in the case 
 of Paul. ' Hope in Christ' even if it were possible to 
 take a restricted view of it, as bounded by this world, 
 has an accompanying and peerless blessedness. The 
 Christian has been described as having the monopoly 
 of true pleasure. In one sense it is so : " Thou hast 
 put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that 
 
HOPE BEYOND IN CHRIST. S^ 
 
 their corn and their wine increased " (Ps. iv. 7). The 
 possessor of a good conscience : emancipated from 
 the misery of evil-doing — the hell of a heart seething 
 with foul corruption — a life at enmity with God, at 
 variance with goodness and purity and peace. Accord- 
 ingly, even allowing for a moment the monstrous sup- 
 position that Christianity is a fable, * a baseless fabric 
 of a vision;' — heaven, a myth ; — death, an eternal sleep ; 
 — the whole * life in Christ ' we have been speaking of, 
 a lie and a delusion ; — nevertheless, those who are 
 loving and self-denying; — souls ruled and regulated 
 by lofty principle and noble aims, cannot fail to be 
 envied and happy. True religion, consisting in loyal 
 allegiance to God and the dictates of conscience, con- 
 fers the bliss of a present foretasted heaven, altogether 
 independent of * the life to come.' So that, with no 
 great straining of experience, the Apostle's language 
 may be reversed, — " Even if in this life only we have 
 hope in Christ, we are NOT of all men the most miser- 
 able." Although, we allow, it is a poor, hypothetical 
 argument at the best, yet, hear the testimony from lips 
 too sadly qualified to give it : — " Indisputably," is the 
 tribute paid by one of the most illustrious children of 
 genius in a letter which has recently seen the light, — 
 " Indisputably, the firm believers in the gospel have a 
 great advantage over all others, for this simple reason, 
 that, if true, they have their reward hereafter ; and if 
 there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel 
 in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an 
 
84 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 exalted hope through life, without subsequent dis- 
 appointment." "^ 
 
 Such considerations, however, we repeat, are only 
 unworthy negative views to take. But passing to the 
 affirmative : How is all that present ' peace and joy in 
 believing ' augmented and intensified, when linked with 
 the assured blessedness in reversion ? according to the 
 beautiful saying of Coleridge, " Death only supplying the 
 oil for the inextinguishable lamp of life; " — "the hope full 
 of immortality : " — " the hope laid up for us in heaven : " 
 — " absent Irom the body, present with the Lord " : — 
 "Christ in you" (and you in Christ)," the hope of glory" ? 
 — " For if by one man's offence death reigned by one ; 
 much more they which receive abundance of grace 
 and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by 
 one, Jesus Christ " (Eom. v. 1 7). Not the ' peradven- 
 ture ' of some blissful future ; — not what may after all 
 turn out only to be the desert mirage, with the mimic 
 gleaming of waters and waving of phantom-trees, — a 
 beautiful illusion. But a glorious, unmistakable, tran- 
 scendent verity : the pure river of the celestial city, 
 * clear as crystal,' and the assured confidence of banquet- 
 ing for ever on the fruit of the perennial Tree in the midst 
 of the Paradise of God ! A union for the affianced 
 Bride of Christ, not like the unions of earth which 
 death sooner or later severs ; but * everlasting espou- 
 sals * : — " With gladness and rejoicing she shall be 
 
 * Lord Byron, 182] 
 
HOPE BEYOND IN CHRIST. 85 
 
 brought ; she shall enter into the King's Palace " and 
 the King's presence, wearing on her person her costly 
 jewels, the Eoyal dowry of "glory, honour, and im- 
 mortality, eternal life ! " 
 
 We are let into the secret and explanation of Paul's 
 " Paradise " even in this lower world (and which 
 made him though " sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing "), by 
 what he says to his Philippian converts, and which 
 will afterwards demand special consideration, " Eejoice 
 IN THE Lord alway ; and again I say. Rejoice . . . The 
 Lord is at hand" (Phil. iv. 4, 5). Or, better still, by 
 listening to the words of his Divine Master in His 
 great Valedictory : " And ye now therefore have sorrow ; 
 but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, 
 and your joy no man taketh from you " (John xvi. 22). 
 He, the Forerunner, has already entered to take posses- 
 sion of the kingdom, in the name and in behalf of His 
 redeemed people — " Where I am, there shall also My 
 servants be." As the first sheaf was taken into the 
 Temple, and waved before the Lord as a pledge of the 
 harvest to follow; so has the Eisen Jesus been pre- 
 sented to the Father in the heavenly sanctuary, the 
 pledge and earnest of a multitude which no man can 
 number ; " Now is Christ risen from the dead, and 
 become the first-fruits of them that slept. . . . Christ 
 the first-fruits ; afterward they that are Christ's at His 
 coming" (i Cor. xv. 20, 23). 
 
 No wonder that the believers of these early ages, 
 having " access by faith into this grace " wherein they 
 
86 IN CHRISTO, 
 
 stood, rejoiced " in hope of the glory of God " (Rom. 
 V. 2). Nay, that this gladness of hope was imported 
 by them into 'the region and shadow of death' — 
 made conspicuous in the very emblems and devices 
 selected in their Catacombs. " In contemplating the 
 subjects," says a recent writer, " with which the Chris- 
 tians of Rome decorated their sepulchres, the first thing 
 that strikes us is a certain tone of joyousness . . . 
 There is, in the Christian tombs, nothing of the sad- 
 ness which often strikes us in the Etruscan. Here the 
 vine with rich clusters spreads over the ceiling ; laugh- 
 ing boys hold bunches of grapes ; birds seem to flit to 
 and fro. Spring sows the seed ; Summer gathers the 
 grape ; Autumn the olive ; Winter sits beside his fire ; 
 Cupid and Psyche .... fill baskets with flowers ; the 
 Phoenix sits in the palm-tree. There are banquets, 
 probably of mystic meaning; or the departed, richly 
 clad, walk among the bowers of Paradise." ^ 
 
 Great Apostle of the Gentiles! As we follow 
 thee with unequal steps in thy struggle-race, we will 
 catch up the torch of hope thou hast left behind thee ; 
 — that "HOPE IN Christ," and in the great Beyond, 
 which renders it impossible to be * miserable,' however 
 great the fight of afflictions may be. We shall accept, 
 in thine own noble words, the panacea for all life's 
 miseries — taking the sting out of its trials, and arching 
 its future with the bow of ' strong consolation ' — " We 
 
 ^ "Contemporary Review," March 1880. 
 
TIOPE BEYOND IN CHRIST. S7 
 
 are troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; we are 
 perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but not for- 
 saken ; cast down, but not destroyed ; always bearing 
 about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that 
 the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our 
 mortal body . . . Knowing that He which raised 
 up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and 
 shall present us with you. Tor which cause we faint 
 not ; but though our outward man perish, yet the in- 
 ward man is renewed day by day. Tor our light afflic- 
 tion, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far 
 more exceeding and eternal weight of glory " (2 Cor. 
 iv. 8-10; 14, 16, 17). It may not be inappropriate 
 to close with the prayer of the Apostle in another 
 epistle : " Kow our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, 
 even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us 
 everlasting consolatiofb and good HOPE through grace, 
 comfort your hearts, an&stallish you in every good ivord 
 and work " (2 Thess. ii. 16, 1 7). 
 
 IN PACE. 
 
XL 
 
 PERSEVERANCE IN CHRIST. 
 
 "The steadfastness of your faith IN Christ."— Col. ii. 5. 
 
 OD, had He seen meet, could have so ordered 
 that the Believer might have had his new 
 spiritual life made at once absolutely com- 
 plete. At the moment of transition from darkness to 
 light He might have said — " If any man be IN Christ, 
 the angel-life — the perfect life — has forthwith begun." 
 Not so. He has willed it, and wisely willed it, 
 otherwise. Jesus, in speaking of those in whom that 
 union was realised, says emphatically — " These are 
 in the world" (John xvii. 11). He has decreed for 
 His people a season of discipline, before the mystical 
 oneness of earth is merged and consummated in ever- 
 lasting union and communion in Heaven. The forty 
 years' wilderness hardships precede the green fields 
 and smiling vineyards of the true Canaan. 
 
 " In Christ : " — and yet — " these are in the world ! " 
 — that world offering no smooth path — no exemption 
 from trial and sin ; rather, temptation without, having 
 an answering echo to corruption within. Corruption 
 
PERSEVERANCE IN CHRIST. 89 
 
 and temptation too, not only warring and wrestling, 
 but alas ! at times overthrowing and mastering. 
 
 But blessed also is the counterpart truth — " God is 
 faithful." The mournful deflections and aberrations 
 of His people, — their z^Tifaithfulness — will not affect 
 His faithfulness. Nay, more ; we have the recorded 
 promise regarding His own, that " He will not suffer 
 them to be tempted above that they are able, but will, 
 with the temptation, make a way to escape, that they 
 may be able to bear it " ( i Cor. x. 1 3). Even Satan, 
 the roaring lion, is kept by Him as it were in a chain. 
 The great Adversary was not permitted to put forth 
 his hand so much as to touch righteous Job, till he 
 received permission ; and even then, the " Mightier 
 than the mightiest " set bounds to his assailing power 
 (Job i. 12). This Old Testament picture has its Xew 
 Testament parallel in the case, not of one of God's 
 patient, but of His mpatient children, whose unadvised 
 lips drew forth the consolatory assurance — " Simon, 
 Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that 
 he may sift you as wheat : but I have prayed for thee, 
 that thy faith fail not" (Luke xxiL 31, 32). 
 
 These lamentable stumblinors and fallinojs on 
 the part of the believer (cause of deepest spiritual 
 humiliation), are yet, as an old writer expresses it, 
 " falls within the house." With broken-hearted peni- 
 tence and contrition of soul he can, without presump- 
 tion, still cleave to the glad and gracious assurance — 
 "Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down : for 
 
90 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 the Lord iiplioldeth him with His hand " (Ps. xxxvii 
 24). " Eejoice not against me, mine enemy: when 
 I fall, I shall arise " (Micah vii. 8). Mournful excep- 
 tions there may be, and often are, in the case of those 
 who claim the Christian name. But with regard to 
 all who are really in Christ, let us ponder the sure 
 word of promise under both the legal and Gospel 
 dispensations. What says the former ? "If they 
 break My statutes, and keep not My commandments ; 
 then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and 
 their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless My loving- 
 kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer 
 my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, 
 nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips " (Ps. 
 Ixxxix. 31-34); or, as it has been translated and 
 confirmed in the language of the better covenant — 
 " Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto 
 the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, 
 confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable 
 things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we 
 might have a strong consolation, who have fled for 
 refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us : 
 which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both 
 sure and steadfast " (Heb vi. 17-19). 
 
 Such seasons of declension and backsliding — in an 
 unwatchful moment the fatal yielding to some sudden 
 gust of temptation, may be regarded only as the rock 
 which impedes the stream, frets its course or soils its 
 purity, but which fails to stem its onward flow. Or, 
 
PERSEVERANCE IN CHRIST. 91 
 
 to take a more apt illustration, the true ' life in Chinst * 
 resembles the ocean tide. Even while we watch its 
 advance, it seems partially to recede. One moment a 
 dash on the shingle, with a boom of muffled thunder; 
 the next, borne back chafed and buffeted. Yet all the 
 while it is steadily progressive. The scores you made 
 a few minutes ago on the hard, unwashed sand, are 
 now converted into a series of little pools, each silently 
 telling that the retreat is only apparent, that soon the 
 boats now moored on the beach will be floating on 
 their own buoyant element. 
 
 So with the Christian. The spiritual retrogression 
 we have spoken of, is often painfully visible — the 
 wave of ardent feeling of to-day, refluent to-morrow; 
 to-day an Asahel, to-morrow a Eeady-to-halt, perchanca 
 worse. But " faithful is He that calleth you, who also 
 will do it" (i Thess. v. 24). Inviolable is the word — 
 " He abideth faithful : He cannot deny Himself " 
 (2 Tim. ii. 13). As well dream of arresting the 
 apparently capricious advance of these tidal waters, 
 as arrest the wavelets of spiritual life in the human 
 soul once turned Godwards and heavenwards. In the 
 Living Vine once, in the Vine for ever. On the Eock 
 once, on the Eock for ever. In the fold once, in the 
 fold for ever. " I give unto them eternal life, and they 
 shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them 
 out of My hand" (John x. 28). 
 
 And this lets us into the true secret of 'the perse- 
 verance of the Saints,* that old article in the creed of 
 
92 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 faithful churches, which is at times sneered at. The 
 Apostle's monogram is the key to it — " In Christ." 
 It is nothing in believers themselves. They are like 
 dismasted, rudderless vessels, tossed hither and thither 
 by capricious waves; often 'the wind contrary/ or 
 grazing the hidden rocks. But they are " kept by 
 the power of God." "Finally, my brethren," says 
 Paul, " be strong IN THE Lord " (in Christ), " and in the 
 power of His might " (Eph. vi. i o). " I am crucified 
 with Christ," says he in another place, as he para- 
 phrases his own brief formula, " nevertheless I live : 
 yet not I, but Christ liveth in me " (Gal. ii. 20). 
 That tempest-tossed bark would never have lived out 
 the storm but for Him who now guides its helm. To 
 him have the words of Omnipotence been spoken — 
 " God hath given thee all them that sail with thee." 
 " There shall be no loss of any man's life among you " 
 (Acts xxvii. 24, 22). He will guide through winds 
 and waves and buffeting elements till it can be said 
 of the imperilled crew — " So He brought them into 
 the haven where they would be.'* Christ's own prayer 
 of perpetual efficacy secures that safe landing on the 
 eternal shore — " Holy Father, keep through Thine own 
 name those whom Thou hast given Me " (John xvii. 11). 
 "Oh! what a blessing," is the exclamation of the 
 devout Evans, " that while the light of a believer's 
 soul can decay and wax dim, the life of his soul is 
 imperishable : it ' is hid with Christ in God.' " 
 
 It is interesting and remarkable, in connection with 
 
PERSEVERANCE IN CHRIST. 93 
 
 these tlioughts, to note the very last words of the last 
 letter the great Apostle dictated immediately before 
 his death : — " And the Lord shall deliver me from 
 every evil work, and will preserve me unto His 
 heavenly kingdom " (2 Tim. iv. 1 8). 
 
 Doubting, desponding one, " no small tempest lying 
 on you," buffeted with a great fight of afflictions, — 
 seek fully to realise this truth — " He giveth power to 
 the faint ; and to them that have no might, He increaseth 
 strength " (Isa. xl. 29). At times God permits faltering 
 and failure just to teach the lesson of your own weak- 
 ness and of the Saviour's almighty strength. He who 
 felt warranted in appropriating the honoured title IN 
 Christ, reiterates again and again this needed lesson, 
 claiming no immunity from the power and peril of 
 temptation — " I see another law in my members, 
 warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me 
 into captivity to the law of sin which is in my mem- 
 bers " (Kom. vii. 23). Paul " in Christ," yet, at times, 
 the reluctant captive of sin ; mourning and deploring 
 the unsteadfastness of his " faith in Christ ! " " Does 
 the greatness of this man oppress thee, instead of 
 elevating thee ? " asks one, who has ably analysed the 
 Apostle's inner life — " Behold, are his own words, ' by 
 the grace of God I am what I am : ' " and in exhorting 
 his beloved Philippians — " Brethren, be followers 
 together with me, and mark them which walk so as 
 ye have us for an ensample " (Phil. iii. 1 7), he expects 
 nothing of his brethren that is beyond the power of 
 
94 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 the riches of God's grace working in them " both to 
 will and to do " (Phil. ii. 1 3). " It shall be done," adds 
 the same writer, " if we will but tread in the blessed 
 footsteps of Paul's faith." ^ 
 
 Thus ' treading,' with God's help, these trials and 
 temptations which overcome others will be to you like 
 the storm-blast to the oak moored in the rift of the 
 rock : the very bending of the branches only tending 
 to rivet the roots of faith, and trust, and love, firmer 
 and deeper in the Eock of Ages. " That the trial of 
 your faith," says a brother Apostle and companion in 
 tribulation, "being much more precious than of gold 
 that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might 
 be found unto praise and honour and glory at the 
 appearing of Jesus Christ " ( i Pet. i. 7). 
 
 Eemember, too, for your comfort, that He is as 
 willing as He is able thus to " keep you from falling, 
 and to present you faultless before the presence of His 
 glory with exceeding joy" (Jude 24). You may take 
 the words alike as a precept and a promise — " Sin 
 shall not have dominion over you " (Rom. vi. 1 4). 
 
 Most precious and encouraging surely is this view 
 to take of our mystical union with the Saviour ! Yet 
 it is one that carries with it a correspondingly deep 
 and solemn responsibility — " I am not my own, I am 
 bought with a price." " In Christ " — " whose I am, 
 and whom I serve" (Acts xxvii. 23). Like the gold 
 
 * Besser. 
 
PERSEVERANCE IN CHRIST. 95 
 
 and silver and brazen vessels in the tabernacle of 
 old, the believer is first dedicated, then consecrated. 
 Though armour-proof, if not against the wiles of the 
 devil, yet against his final triumph over " the faithful 
 in Christ Jesus" still, the Christian warrior has also 
 the monitory words recorded for his admonition, that 
 it is only " he that endureth unto the end, the same 
 shall be saved" (Matt. x. 22). " We are made," says 
 the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, " partakers 
 of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence 
 steadfast unto the end " (Heb. iii. 1 4). 
 
 "Let that therefore abide in you which ye have 
 heard from the beginning. If that which ye have 
 heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also 
 shall continue in the Son " (i John ii. 24). 
 
 " Therefore," is the tender and affectionate exhorta- 
 tion of "the man in Christ," as he rises to some 
 elevating conception of the grandeur of that union 
 which he so loves to contemplate, — the words them- 
 selves, which we shall reserve for future consideration, 
 sound like an antiphon to those of the honoured sou 
 of Zebedee just quoted — " Therefore, my brethren, 
 dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so 
 stand fast iN the Lord, my dearly beloved" CPhil. 
 iv. i). 
 
( 96 ) 
 
 XII. 
 THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST 
 
 " The Churches of Judea which were IN Christ."— Gal. i. 22. 
 "In whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth unto 
 an holy temple IN the Lord." — Eph. ii. 21. 
 
 p^^lT a previous meditation we noted tlie Apostle's 
 fervent salutations to individual believers in 
 Christ. The object of his life and ministry 
 was " to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus " 
 (Col. i. 28). 
 
 Under our present motto- verses we may regard him 
 speaking to, and of, believers in their collective capa- 
 city ; — Churches, and groups of Churches. We are 
 reminded of the beautiful symbol of the Great Prophet, 
 as he saw in the Messianic age, flocks of doves, varied 
 it may be in their plumage, speeding, with fleet wings 
 to the window of the true Ark ; safe IN Christ " from 
 the windy storm and tempest" (Isa. Ix. 8). Or the 
 still more apposite figure, employed by the Redeemer 
 Himself, to which we have previously adverted, when 
 not only does He speak of the individual members of 
 His flock, (calling His own (separate) sheep by name^ 
 
THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST. 97 
 
 and, one by one, " leading them out "), but also refer- 
 ring to them in the aggregate. They constitute, though 
 with divers folds and many under-shepherds, one great 
 flock — reposing in the green pastures and by the 
 ' waters of comfort,' under Himself, the Chief Shep- 
 herd and Bishop of souls. 
 
 The earliest in chronological order of all St. Paul's 
 letters is the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, It 
 is interesting surely to read its opening sentence, 
 which in a sense may be regarded as the exordium or 
 prologue of his whole series of inspired communica- 
 tions to the Church and Churches of the future. Thus 
 it runs — " Unto the Church of the Thessalonians 
 which is in God the Father and m the Lord Jesus 
 Christ" (i Thess. i. i). His subsequent salutations 
 and addresses to believers in this their corporate form, 
 however varied be the figures and symbolism employed, 
 combine in giving the main features in the Apostle's 
 ideal of a true heaven-born Church, viz., that it is not 
 only living, but inspired with life m Christ. All 
 Church-life is traced up to the Great Life- Giver. The 
 laurel- wreath of the Apostle's own spiritual victories, in 
 these different Churches he had planted, he lays at the 
 feet of his Great Eedeemer — " Are not ye my work 
 in the Lord; " " The seal of mine apostleship are ye 
 in the Lord" (i Cor. ix. i, 2). "In whom all the 
 building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy 
 temple in the Lord " (Eph. ii. 21). Even when he chal- 
 
 G 
 
98 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 lenges respect and sympathy for his fellow-labourers, 
 he thus recals the secret of success, by reminding of 
 the golden link which binds the servants of the one 
 household of faith to the Heavenly Master — " And we 
 beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour 
 among you, and are over you IN the Lord" (i Thess. 
 V. 12). In the words of Archbishop Leighton, as he 
 enlarges on one of the above — " The whole building 
 is Christ mystical; Christ together with the whole 
 body of the elect. He as the foundation, they as the 
 stones built upon Him. He the living Stone, and they, 
 by union with Him, living stones. He having life in 
 Himself, and they deriving it from Him. He primi- 
 tively living, and they by participation." In Christ ! 
 — the Church throughout all the world has in this 
 the alone pledge and guarantee of its stability and 
 permanence. In Christ ! — He walks in the midst of 
 His seven golden candlesticks, and has the stars in 
 His right hand (Rev. i. 13, 1 6), feeding every candle- 
 stick with the oil of His grace, and keeping every 
 luminary in its sphere in the spiritual firmament. 
 'In Him' the bush cannot be consumed. As good 
 Samuel Eutherford quaintly expresses it — " That bush 
 has been burning these five thousand years, but no 
 man yet saw the ashes of that fire." Very significant 
 are the Apostle's own words, as he seeks, under the most 
 endearing of human emblems, to set forth the intensity 
 of the Lord's attachment to His Church — " No man ever 
 yet hated his ownjlesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth 
 
THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST. 99 
 
 it, even as the Lord the Church " (Eph. v. 29). When 
 the divine Head of that Church Himself (employing a 
 different figure) declares that " the gates of hell shall 
 not prevail against it " (Matt. xvi. 1 8) : how shall they 
 not prevail ? Just because it is IN Him. " On this 
 Eock (Immutable, Immovable) will I build My Church." 
 To destroy and engulph the cargo, you must first 
 wreck the all-glorious Vessel which bears it. The 
 Church collectively is so dear to Him, that it is 
 spoken of in words we shall in a future chapter more 
 particularly consider — as His very * body,' — " the 
 fulness of Him that filleth aU in all" (Eph. i. 23). 
 There are other things — other realms which contribute 
 to that fulness. " On His head are many crowns." 
 He wields creation's sceptre — The worlds were created 
 " by Him and for Him." The light is His garment ; 
 the clouds are His chariot; the stars of heaven are a 
 tiara for His brow. But He is " Head over all things 
 to the Church " (Eph. i. 22). All other provinces of His 
 vast empire are subordinated to this. If the material 
 universe be His Temple, the Church is the Shekinah. 
 If the one be the outer Court, the other is the Adytum, 
 — the " Holy of holies." He is Lord over angels, — mag- 
 nified, and lauded, and glorified by them. But even to 
 these " principalities and powers in heavenly places is 
 made known by the Chuech the manifold wisdom of 
 God" (Eph. iii. 10). "Unto Him," is the Apostle's 
 doxology in closing the most beautiful of his recorded 
 prayers — " Unto Him be glory in the Church in Christ 
 
lOO IN CHRISTO. 
 
 Jesus ^ throughout all ages, world without end " (Eph. 
 iii. 2 1 ). If such, then, be His present interest in His 
 Church, and such her own predestined glory, we may 
 safely commit the steering of the vessel of salvation 
 to the heavenly Pilot. Despite of winds, and tides, 
 and adverse currents. He will ensure that she will ride 
 out the storm, and reef her sails in peace in the quiet 
 haven. 
 
 " In Christ ! " we may well write underneath the 
 Pauline motto, words, which, as we have seen in our 
 Preface, were wont to be traced in rude symbolism but 
 with loving faith over the catacombed dead — " We 
 have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to 
 lay hold upon the hope set before us ; which hope we 
 have as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, and 
 which entereth into that within the veil" (Heb. vi. 
 
 18,19). 
 
 One other thought urgently suggests itself. If 
 churches were to realise, more habitually and fully 
 than they do, the sacredness of that golden link — " in 
 Christ " — (the superlative glory, yes, and responsibility 
 of their mystical union with the Great Head), might 
 we not prayerfully look and long for the removal of 
 aU unworthy jealousies and acerbities. How would 
 the thought, how ought the thought, of " one IN Him," 
 — to hush the din of rival faction and angry recrimi- 
 nation ; shame into silence hard thoughts and hard 
 
 * iv (in) in the original, not " by " as in our version. 
 
THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST. loi 
 
 names ; banish from the reh'gious vocabulary such a 
 word as 'toleration:* — Christians tolerating Christians. 
 Churches tolerating Churches. Strange paralogism of 
 language ! arming alike the British scoffer, and the 
 Hindoo idolater, with a keen weapon of assault against 
 " the truth as it is in Jesus." In Christ, ought to be 
 the death-blow to religious party. The nearer His 
 people are in Him, whether in their individual or cor- 
 porate capacity, the nearer they will be to one another. 
 It is because of their distance from the central Sun 
 that they move in such wide and devious orbits. As 
 it is expressed by a thoughtful Christian of recent 
 times — " The different modes in which different and 
 differing people desire to do God's will are as lines 
 converging to a common centre. When the true- 
 hearted meet in the centre, in the real knowledge and 
 love of God, the distance of the varied lines from each 
 other has vanished away, and all is one." ^ " The 
 Christian hope is common to them that are Christians, 
 in which they all unite and meet ; whereas, in refer- 
 ence to the hopes of other men, there is no such thing 
 as a centre in which their hopes may unite and meet, 
 and so they lie scattered. All the hopes of Christians 
 do run into one hope." ^ 
 
 " What," it has been well said by yet another 
 master in Israel, " what were the letters of this man 
 in Christ to the Churches, but proclamations of peace, 
 
 ^ "Memorials of a Quiet Life." ' Flavel. 
 
I02 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 edicts from the throne of Love, commanding Christians 
 as they valued the Eoyal favour of the King of Saints, 
 and hoped for a crown above, to love one another." ^ 
 
 The day is at all events promised, when " in sweet 
 fellowship beyond the stream " we shall all come " in 
 the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the 
 Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of 
 the stature of the fulness of Christ " (Eph. iv. 1 3). 
 Then, at least, the realisation and consummation of 
 this longed-for Church fellowship will be ensured. 
 The Church of the present economy, as observed in a 
 previous page, may, in a mingled, imperfect state (and 
 that with no breach of true unity) be composed of 
 varied folds, though one flock. But in ' the pastures 
 of the blessed,' even this divergence will cease. The 
 earthly fold will be no longer needed to protect from 
 prowling robber and beast of prey. " The ransomed of 
 the Lord," united, glorified, will gather in eternal har- 
 mony on the golden meadows of heaven. Here, the 
 varied portions of the wide universal Church are like 
 the briny pools of water on the seashore. There is 
 no incongruity in their remaining separate and apart : 
 each wdth its own distinctive and accidental conforma- 
 tion of rock and shingle, sand and seaweed. But when 
 the mighty tide of heavenly glory — the waves of the 
 
 1 Dr. Harris. Chrysostom remarks that the "name of Christ is 
 oftener mentioned in ist Corinthians than in any other Epistle. The 
 Apostle thereby designing to draw them away from their party ad- 
 miration of particular teachers to Christ alone." 
 
THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST. 
 
 103 
 
 eternal ocean of Divine love sweep over, "all shall be 
 one ! " — no trace of separation will remain. The 
 amalgamation will be complete. " One m Christ ! " 
 will be the boom of the everlasting surge of that 
 unebbing sea. And the Apostle's own words will have 
 their best and only true fulfilment — "Ye are all the 
 children of God hy faith in Christ Jesus ! " 
 
( I04 ) 
 
 XIII. 
 THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST. 
 
 "The Churches of Judea which were IN Christ."— Gal. i. 22. 
 
 "Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in 
 the flesh, who are called Uncircumcisiou by that which is called 
 the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands ; that at that time 
 ye were without Christ. . . . But now IN Christ Jesus ye who 
 sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." — 
 Eph. ii. 11-13. 
 
 "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor 
 uncircumcision, but a new creature." — Gal. vi. 15. 
 
 " Ye are all one IN Christ Jesus."— Gal. iii. 28. 
 
 HERE is another aspect of the subject treated 
 in the previous meditation, bearing on the 
 Apostle's great motto, which demands a few 
 passing thoughts. It is one that was very much local 
 and temporary ; having an almost exclusive reference 
 indeed to the Apostolic age. As such, therefore, it is 
 of limited interest as compared with the grandeur of 
 that vast spiritual union, just considered, in reversion 
 for the Church of the future. 
 
 But the subject is referred to in such distinct, and 
 almost exulting terms (and that more than once), that 
 
THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST. 105 
 
 we cannot pass it altogether nnnoticed. " In Christ." 
 That word — or rather the power and principle which 
 it enshrines, was the mighty talisman that effected 
 the strangest of all national and social revolutions : 
 in the noblest sense of the term " turning the world 
 upside down." To any diligent reader of St. Paul's 
 Epistles, it is evident that next to his own marvellous 
 conversion, there was nothing to him so wondrous, so 
 almost incredible, as being able to speak of "the 
 churches " in JuDEA which were " in Christ ; " ^ the 
 fusing (with all their antagonistic and irreconcilable 
 elements) of Jew and Gentile " into one body." For 
 what did such an amalgamation involve ? The aban- 
 donment of all that an Israelite held most sacred. 
 The renunciation of proud national and spiritual pre- 
 rogative ; the surrender of his chartered rights : — " to 
 whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the 
 covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service 
 of God, and the promises " (Eom. ix. 4). The Jew 
 had no dealing with the Samaritan : the Jew and 
 Samaritan together had still less dealing wdth the 
 outside Gentile. The Gentile was ' ostracised : ' re- 
 garded as * a dog,' unclean, an " alien from the common- 
 wealth of Israel and a stranger from the covenant of 
 promise." No wonder that Paul should speak of the 
 
 ^ ** Tais iv Xpi(TT(^. This addition was necessary when speaking of 
 the Christian brotherhood of Judea, for the unconverted Jewish com- 
 munities might still be called tlie churches of God." — Bishop Light- 
 foot. 
 
lo5 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 demolition of that partition- wall as a " mystery ; " 
 something so astounding as to be entitled to the appel- 
 lation of a New dispensation. Hear his own words — 
 " For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ 
 for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation 
 of the grace of God which is given me to you- ward : 
 how that by revelation He made known unto me the 
 mystery" (Eph. iii. 1-3). And then note how ex- 
 plicitly he states, that this 'mystery' — this new charter- 
 deed of admission within the household of faith — is 
 inscribed " in the name which is above every name." 
 The intervening veil, or curtain, is rent away in Christ 
 (2 Cor. iii. 1 4) : — " That the Gentiles should be fellow- 
 heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His 
 promise in Christ by the Gospel " (Eph. iii. 6) ; or, as 
 he employs the same expression in writing to the 
 Church of Colosse — " The mystery which hath been 
 hid from ages and from generations, but now is made 
 manifest to His saints : to whom God would make 
 known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery 
 among the Gentiles ; which is Christ in you, the hope 
 of glory" (Col. i. 26, 27). 
 
 Nor did this wondrous moral and spiritual revolu- 
 tion terminate here. There were other conventional 
 and hereditary barriers within the Jewish body politic, 
 which might have been deemed equally insuperable, 
 which shared in the demolition. To jiame but one 
 of these (distinctive of most Oriental nations, and to 
 which, partially at least, the Jew was no exception) — 
 
THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST. 107 
 
 the position which females held, socially and ecclesias- 
 tically. Men and women, even in their acts of wor- 
 ship, were divided. The Synagogue was rigidly parti- 
 tioned for the separation of the sexes. The females sat 
 screened " behind the lattice." They had their separate 
 oratories for prayer. They had their assigned court 
 in the Temple. But, in their case specially, an aboli- 
 tion of caste in domestic religious life was effected 
 " IN Christ Jesus." Hear the Apostle's own words, 
 which so graphically describe the breaking down of 
 this barrier that severed Jew from Greek and male 
 from female. The words, in connection with our 
 theme, are surely very significant : the monogram is 
 twice repeated — " Tor ye are all the children of God 
 by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as 
 have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 
 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond 
 nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are 
 all one IN Christ Jesus" (Gal. iii. 26-28). 
 
 Wondrous triumph ! What, from the Jewish stand- 
 point, would have been regarded and denounced as the 
 most Utopian of all dreams, not only rendered possible, 
 but made an accomplished fact IN Him : the wide, 
 yawning gulph — national, social, and spiritual — filled 
 up IN Him : one undivided brotherhood and sisterhood 
 IN Him. It was a threefold superscription in Latin, 
 Greek, and Hebrew, that was written on the cross of 
 Calvary — Jesus OF Nazareth, the King of the Jews : 
 — testifying that the kingdoms and peoples, and homes 
 
io8 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 of the earth were in Him to be confederate. These 
 outstretched arms of His, as He hung upon the tree, 
 were designed figuratively to embrace no partial nation- 
 ality, no exclusive covenant race, but a whole world 
 He died to save: — Greek and Eoman, master and 
 slave, bondman and freeman, male and female. The 
 Jew, the representative of spiritual exclusiveness ; 
 the Greek, the representative of advanced culture ; 
 the Roman, the representative of power; the slave, 
 the representative of oppression ; the female, the 
 representative of weakness — " Where there is neither 
 Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision. Bar- 
 barian, Scythian, bond nor free : but Christ is all and 
 in all" (Col. iii. ii). 
 
 Christ ! how Thou hast broken the fetter of the 
 crushed and down-trodden, and taken from man's help- 
 meet the curse of degradation; raising her from being his 
 drudge to her birthright as his companion ; purifying 
 the domestic home ; hallowing alike the domestic 
 hearth and altar ; mitigating the horrors of war and 
 famine ; opening the sluices of individual and national 
 sympathy ; providing asylums for the poor, shelter for 
 the suffering, bread for the perishing, homes for the 
 homeless, and better than all, salvation for the lost ! 
 
 We are reminded of that memorable scene at the 
 Beautiful Gate of the Jewish Temple of old, when 
 Peter, challenged by the Jewish Sanhedrim to reveal 
 the * power,' or the * name ' by which he had wrought 
 so signal a deliverance on the cripple ; and when, 
 
THE CHURCHES IN CHRIST, 109 
 
 repudiating the possession of any virtue or efficacy in 
 himself, he replied that it was by the name of Jesus 
 Christ of Nazareth (Acts iv. i o). The Gospel of the 
 grace of God is, in the noblest figurative sense, that 
 Beautiful Gate of Mercy opened by Christ and IN 
 Christ, and which no man can shut. We behold the 
 vast and varying, almost incongruous multitude, issuing 
 forth from the healing portals under the life-giving 
 impulse of that same all-glorious * Name ; ' with their 
 fetters broken, their diseases healed, their tongues 
 unloosed, and souls saved, " walking and leaping, and 
 praising God ! " 
 
XIV. 
 CONSOLATION IN CHRIST. 
 
 ** If there be therefore any consolation ^ IN Christ." — Phil. ii. i. 
 
 g ^^^ HIS is the very strongest way the Apostle 
 has of asserting that there are many and 
 abundant consolations IN Christ. Yea, 
 
 " everlasting consolation and good hope through 
 grace." 
 
 The form in which the expression is cast, is in 
 accordance with similar phraseology he employs in 
 unfolding other truths of vital moment. As, e.g., in 
 
 ^ I am aware that the word translated 'consolation' (7ropdfc\7;(rij) 
 in our English version, has by some been rendered rather "exhorta- 
 tion" (see Lightfoot and Eadie in loco). It is susceptible of either 
 meaning. "The words," says the latter of these commentators, "are 
 taken by some to denote the sphere of this irapaKXrjffis ; by others, to 
 point to its source. In the one case the meaning is, "if in Christ 
 there be any exhortation ; " in the other, ' ' if there be any consola- 
 tion felt," or "if ye have any consolation through union with Christ." 
 ..." Examples of both meanings are so numerous, that they need 
 not be quoted. The meanings are allied in this way, that the exhor- 
 tation is often intended to impart comfort or results in it " (pp. 83, 84). 
 "We have retained the rendering in our A.V. which is supported by 
 Chrysostom, Theodoret, Calvin, Grotius, and jothers. 
 
CONSOLATION IN CHRIST. in 
 
 I st Corinthians xv., where the conditional particle " if " 
 is introduced, again and again, in a series of proposi- 
 tions, — not in the way of insinuating doubt, but rather 
 of imparting emphasis to his argument. 
 
 These consolations, let it be specially noted, are re- 
 presented by him as being found in Christ and Chris- 
 tianity. " God, at sundry times and in divers man- 
 ners spake in time past unto the fathers by the 
 prophets" (Heb. i. i). But, among these Seers, Isaiah 
 stands out almost alone as the prophet of ' consolation,' 
 with his " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people " (Isa. xl. 
 i). While, even in his case, aU his choicest clusters of 
 solace are gathered, not from Judaism, but from "the 
 Plant of Eenown " — " the Branch out of the stem of 
 Jesse." His brightest constellations of promise shine 
 in the future firmament, of whose glories he was the 
 evangelical Interpreter. Into the lips of the yet 
 distant Messiah he puts the glowing words — "The 
 Spirit of the Lord God is upon me ; because the Lord 
 hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the 
 meek ; He hath sent me to bind up the broken- 
 hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
 opening of the prison to them that are bound ; to 
 proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day 
 of vengeance of our God ; to comfort aU that mourn ; 
 to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give 
 unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourn- 
 ing, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness " 
 (Isa. Ixi. I -3). In a well-known picture, the great 
 
ri2 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 artist, with the audacity of genius, seeks to reflect 
 this noble utterance of the prophet, and to delineate 
 on canvas the sublimest of Gospel verities, with the 
 title of * Christ the Consoler.* Judaism, I repeat, was 
 not the religion of consolation. By it, affliction, in its 
 varied forms, was regarded as purely retributive, — the 
 proof and token of the Divine displeasure. Judaism 
 extorted the reproachful wail from the wddow of 
 Zarephath, as she addressed the man of God, terror- 
 stricken and heart-broken in the presence of death — 
 "Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remem- 
 brance, and to slay my son?" (i Kings xvii. i8). 
 ^ " I am the man," was the exclamation of the plaintive 
 prophet of Judah, "who have seen affliction by the 
 rod of His wrath" (Lam. iii. i). "Such" (was the 
 cruel verdict of " miserable comforters " as they pointed 
 to the degraded Prince of the East on his bed of sack- 
 cloth and ashes) — " Such are the dwellings of the 
 wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not 
 God" (Job xviii. 21). 
 
 Christ, and Christianity, came, with their grander 
 revelations, to show that the sorrows and trials of life 
 are not penal, but disciplinary, — pledges of divine 
 love. The cypress is interweaved with the palm of 
 victory. In the words of an eloquent writer, in 
 speaking of the mission of afflictions — " They are not 
 the forecastings of a coming storm, but the distillings 
 of a mercy- cloud sailing athwart the azure sky of a 
 soul IN Christ," 
 
CONSOLATION IN CHRIST. 113 
 
 *The Consolations in Christ,' constitute a theme far 
 too wide to be embraced in a few brief sentences. 
 
 Though by no means more prominent or valuable 
 than others that might be named, let me select two, 
 suggested by the sentence in the Intercessory Prayer 
 of the Great Consoler — " I in them, and Thou in Me, 
 that they may be made perfect in one " (John 
 xvii. 2 3) : the Father revealed in the Son, and the 
 Son revealed in the experience of His people. 
 
 The first of these consolations is the revelation 
 made hy Christ and in Christ of the Father. 
 
 The fundamental question of all theology — of all 
 religion — is. Who is God ? What is the nature of 
 that august, invisible Being, who sways the sceptre of 
 universal empire ; — in whose presence I live now, and 
 to whom I have the instinctive feeling (even were that 
 not otherwise countersigned by His inspired, autho- 
 ritative Message) that I shall at last be accountable ? 
 Is He the awful God of the Pagan mythology, en- 
 throned in Olympian thunders and tempests^ with a 
 temble reserve of power ; all loveless, unsympathetic ; 
 unknowable and unknown ? Especially do these 
 thoughts press for solution in times of trial ; seasons 
 of sudden and appalling bereavement; when the 
 lights of life are suddenly dimmed or eclipsed — the 
 staff mysteriously removed — the rod cruelly broken. 
 " Tell me," is the cry of the smitten one in such hours 
 of piteous desolation — " Tell me about this Great 
 Sovereign who holds the balance of life and death iii 
 
 II 
 
114 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 His hand, who has come forth from the inscrutable 
 recesses of His own Being, and touched me to the 
 quick." " Tell me Thy name," was the request that burst 
 in trembling terror from the lips even of a child of the 
 covenant, as he confronted a mysterious Presence at 
 the brook Jabbok (Gen. xxxii. 29). What was the 
 recorded answer to that very query ? We may listen 
 to it as given in the night of a more mysterious agony 
 by the same adorable One, who in Angel-form had 
 wrestled with the Patriarch — " I have manifested 
 T/iT/ Name unto the men whom Thou hast given Me 
 out of the world " (John xvii. 6). Set in the true 
 antitypical Rock- cleft, we listen to the proclamation of 
 the Divine name. But, glorious as was the revelation 
 to Moses of Jehovah, as "the Lord, the Lord God 
 merciful and gracious," it is a more gracious, more 
 loving revelation still : " My Father, and your Failier ; 
 My God, and your God " (John xx. 1 7). Nay, " He 
 that hath seen Me," said Jesus on that same night 
 of the betrayal, " hath seen the Father " (John xiv. 
 9). ' I am the visible image and embodiment of the 
 Invisible God.' ' And tell Me,' we may imagine Him 
 asking, ' How have I been seen ? ' It is " full of grace 
 and truth ; " — receiving the penitent, welcoming the 
 pi:odigal, giving bread to the hungry and health to the 
 diseased, rest of soul and body to the weary and 
 heavy-laden, weeping over the loved and lost, putting 
 music into the lips of the bereaved and broken- 
 hearted, forgiving renegade disciple and blaspheming 
 
CONSOLATION IN CHRIST. 115 
 
 murderer, and taking as companion to heaven that 
 expiring felon. " Say unto the cities of Judah, * Be- 
 hold (in Me) 7/our God'" (Isa. xl. 9). 
 
 Yes ! " No man hath seen God at any time : the 
 only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the 
 Father, He hath declared Him " (John i. 1 8). And 
 He hath tkus declared Him : not the myth of philo- 
 sophy; not some impalpable principle or property of 
 matter, or attribute of mind. But a living, loving 
 Person. Not love, but the loving One : — not Omni- 
 potence, but the Omnipotent One. Not the inscrutable 
 inapproachable Sovereign, wielding a stern sceptre, and 
 promulgating stern decrees; but the gracious Parent, 
 over whose every behest and dispensation — even 
 those most baffling to sense and sight — you can write, 
 "Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these 
 things " (Luke xii. 30). Listen to the words of the 
 Apostle. How he seems to delight to dwell with rei- 
 terated emphasis on the loving Name ! " Grace be to 
 you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. Blessed be God, even the Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the 
 God of all comfort: who comforteth us in all our 
 tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them 
 which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith 
 we ourselves are comforted of God " (2 Cor. i. 2-4). 
 
 (2.) The one other "Consolation in Christ" we 
 may now refer to, rising naturally out of the other, ia 
 
;i6 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 the manifestation of Himself, in the experience of His 
 people, alike as the Surety-Eedeemer and the sympa- 
 thising Friend. 
 
 Jude the Apostle put the anxious question, " Lord, 
 how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us ? " 
 (Johnxiv. 22). The whole incarnation was an answer 
 to that query. I may embody it, however, in the 
 terse and apposite sentence of an old divine (Dr. 
 South, 1633) : " This happiness does Christ vouchsafe 
 to all His, that as a Saviour He once suffered for 
 them, and that as a Friend he always suffers with 
 them/' 
 
 Though we have just spoken of the inferiority of 
 the old dispensation in its code of comfort, we may, 
 nevertheless, in illustrating this manifestation of 
 Christ as * Consoler,' borrow from Judaism one of its 
 beautiful types ; — that, too, from the earliest days of 
 its economy. It is an episode in the life of the most 
 attractive and lovable of the * Pilgrim Fathers.* Let 
 the patriarch Joseph typically reveal the forgiveness, 
 sympathy, and love of that Saviour he so remarkably 
 prefigured. Look at the touching scene recorded in 
 Genesis xlv. 15:" Moreover he kissed all his brethren, 
 ^ and wept upon them ; and after that his brethren 
 talked with him." How descriptive of the true Joseph, 
 when His brethren find themselves in His presence ! 
 It is the moment of joyous reconciliation. Jesus first 
 imparts the kiss of forgiveness. There is no possible 
 consolation without that. Then comes the outburst 
 
CONSOLATION IN CHRIST. 117 
 
 of fond love (for there might be reconciliation between 
 contending parties, without any manifestation of such 
 affectionate solicitude). It might be a cold, unsympa- 
 thetic remission of debt, or formal pardon of offence — 
 no more. But the true " Brother born for adversity " 
 — the Friend that sticketh closer than any brother — . 
 lets fall the tears of tenderest love. Then note, still 
 further, what follows — " And after that, his brethren 
 talked with him.'' Here we have as a natural, but 
 touching sequence, the consolation of mutual fellowship 
 and intercommunion between Christ and His people. 
 The Bible is the medium of that divine communion 
 on His part. Prayer is the medium of that hallowed 
 fellowship on theirs.^ It reminds of the simple say- 
 ing of a converted New Zealander : — " I open my 
 Bible, God talks with me : I shut my Bible, and go 
 to my knees, and I talk with God." May that kiss 
 of gracious reconciliation, and that tear of blissful 
 sympathy, be ours. If really and truly "IN Christ," 
 they are so ! 
 
 Eeader ! "while you exult in the gracious revelation 
 of the Father, rejoice also in the loving, exalted 
 sympathy of the Brother in your nature — the divine- 
 liuman Friend. Make the prayer of * the man in 
 Clirist' your own — " That I may know Him, . . . and 
 the fellowship of His sufferings" (Phil. iii. 10). He 
 knows all the peculiarities of your trials ; — every drop 
 
 * 1 am indebted for this illustratiou to a friend. 
 
liS 7.V CHRISTO. 
 
 in your cup, — -for He Himself drained that cup, filled, 
 with every ingredient of sorrow. Oh, when the hour 
 of sudden desolation cometh as a whirlwind, — when 
 the choicest flowers of the earthly garden droop their 
 heads, and hide their dewy tears amid withered leaves 
 and blighted stems, exuding only the fragrance of 
 decay, — accept all as the loving, though mysterious, 
 means employed by Him who Himself once " suffered 
 being tempted," to transfer your thoughts and affec- 
 tions to the better Eden, where no flower is known to 
 languish, no frost to injure, no sun to scorch ; where the 
 very tears distilled during the night-watches of earth 
 will be transformed into dewdrops sparkling in the 
 morning sunshine of immortality. Meanwhile, carry 
 the cross which He has appointed ; take it up in Him, 
 and bear it for Him. Amid a present experience, it 
 may be of clouds and darkness, be it yours to feel in 
 the words of one of God's tried children — " My real 
 life is that hidden with Christ in God, which is a 
 never-failing wellspring of delight. ... To have the 
 gulph removed which separated me from God, to feel 
 that union as of a branch in the Vine, makes all suffer- 
 ing appear light, since it is His will. Since by it we 
 may be more closely conformed to His image who was 
 made perfect through suffering." ^ " For as the suff'er- 
 ings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also 
 aboundeth by Christ, . . . that as ye are partakers of 
 
 1 " Memorials of a Quiet Life," ii. 125-26. 
 
CONSOLATION IN CHRIST. 119 
 
 the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation " (2 
 Cor. i. 5-7). 
 
 " As ye ham teen partakers of the sufferings, so shall 
 ye he also of the consolation" Yes. Like the aged 
 Simeon in the Jewish temple of old, wait for " the Con- 
 solation of Israel " (Luke ii. 25). A waiting- time may be 
 needed before " the why and the wherefore " of His deal- 
 ings are made manifest. But if, like that patriarch of 
 the dawning Gospel dispensation, you take the promised 
 Saviour in the arms of your faith, the day will come 
 (it may be now, it may be at death, it assuredly will be 
 on entering the better Jerusalem Temple above), when 
 you shall with him also, not in a ' J}J'unc Dimittis' but 
 in a glorious * Jubilate/ be able to say, "Mine eyes 
 have seen Thy Salvation ! " " It is good that a man 
 should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of 
 the Lord " (Lam. iii. 26). 
 
 -M 
 
( 120 ) 
 
 XV. 
 THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 
 
 " The dead IN Christ."— i Thess. iv. i6. 
 
 " Them also which sleep IN Jesus."— i Thess. iv. 14. 
 
 THOUGHTFUL divine of recent times, 
 almost as if our Apostle's monogram guided 
 his pen, thus writes of " dying in the 
 Lord" " It is the child of God falling asleep in the 
 same arms of redeeming Love in which he was always 
 embraced, and where he always was safe. In the 
 peace of God." ^ 
 
 How blessed, alike for ourselves, and for those 
 near and dear to us^ such a certainty ! " We know 
 that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dis- 
 solved, we have a building of God, an house not 
 made with hands, eternal in the heavens " (2 Cor. 
 V. i). How different the hesitating guesses of the 
 noblest heathen, regarding "the land beyond the Sty- 
 gian river : " such as we find in the utterances of 
 Socrates and Plato, Tacitus and Cicero ! One of these, 
 in an epistle to a friend who had lost a relative, says, 
 
 ^ Bishop M'llvaiue. 
 
THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 12 1 
 
 " If there be a life beyond death, he has gone to it." 
 All was vague and uncertain — a dreary, dreamy, 
 groping in the dark : and their Elysium, when 
 spoken of, is one crowded with materialistic images 
 never touching the realm of the spiritual. Explorers 
 of the Eoman Catacombs, or of their subterranean 
 treasures transferred elsewhere, have frequently noted 
 the cheerless, hopeless form in which the grief of 
 Pagan mourners is expressed. No divine loving 
 Hand recognised ; — no unerring Wisdom trusted when 
 it cannot be traced. Inexorable Fate is spoken of 
 as the alone deity presiding over human destiny! 
 Here is the translation of one such inscription given 
 by a well-known archaeologist from the Lapidariau 
 Gallery : — " Caius Julius Maximus, aged 2 years and 
 5 months : — 
 
 " relentless Fortune, who delightest in cruel death ; 
 v:hy is Maximus so early snatched from us ? He who 
 used to he leloved in my hosom ! This stone now marks 
 his tomb. Behold his mother ! " 
 
 How different the legend written by the Apostle on 
 the catacombs of universal Christendom ! — In Christo. 
 " I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concern- 
 ing them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as 
 others which have no hope. For if we believe that 
 Jesus died and rose * again, even so them also which 
 sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him " ( i Thess. iv. 
 13, 14), or, as these words, in accordance with the 
 permitted alternative rendering of the original, may 
 
122 IN CHRISTO, 
 
 be translated — "Them also that are laid asleep ly 
 Jesus" ^ 
 
 How many thousands on thousands have had these 
 utterances verified, for their unspeakable solace, since 
 the Apostle penned them ! To select illustrative 
 cases were impossible : let one which at the moment 
 presents itself suffice. Stand in thought beside the 
 Great Luther, as we see him stooping, first over the 
 death-bed of his loved daughter Magdalene, and then 
 follow him in the mournful sequel of that life-sorrow. 
 " Gracious God ! " he exclaims, " if it be Thy will to 
 take her hence, I am content to know that she will be 
 with Thee ... I would fain keep my child, for she is 
 very dear to me, if our Lord God would leave her 
 with me. But His will be done. To her nothing 
 better can happen . . . Thou dear one," he exclaimed 
 through his tears when all was over, and he gazed 
 upon the coffin, " how well it is with Thee ! . . . 
 Thou shalt rise and shine like a star, yes, like the 
 sun . . . You should be pleased," added he to the 
 bystanders, who had come to render the last offices 
 of affection : " I have sent a saint to heaven." As 
 
 ^ Our word " Cemetery " {Koifxr]Trjpt.ou) was familiar to Pagan writers ; 
 Init, in its literal acceptation only, as an ordinary "sleeping-place." 
 Christianity stamped upon it a new and more sacred meaning, asso- 
 ciating it witli the believer's last couch of rest when laid in the tomb, 
 *' in sure and certain hope of a resurrection to Eternal Life." By being 
 in Christ, the departure of the soul was no longer the gloomy *' mors " 
 of the heathen. In the words of St. Jerome—" Mors, non est mors, sed 
 dormitio et somnus appellatur." — See Dictionary of Christian Anti- 
 quities, p. 329, art. Cemetery. 
 
THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 123 
 
 they returned from the funeral, — " My daughter," he 
 said, "is now provided for, both in body and soul. 
 We Christians have nothing to complain of. "VYe know 
 it must be so. We are more sure of eternal life than 
 anything else. For God, who has promised it to us 
 for His dear Son's sake, can never lie." And, yet once 
 more, in his silent, darkened home, from which the 
 glory had departed, he thus writes a cherished friend : 
 " I from my inmost heart crave that to me and all 
 mine, to thee also and all dear to us, may be given a 
 like hour of departure, that is truly to fall asleep IN 
 THE Lord." 1 
 
 But let us not, in the record of these and such like 
 'reliquaries,' be mistaken. In no respect dare the 
 Christian, no, not the heroic Luther, speak lightly 
 of the terrors of death. Indeed, even in that solemn 
 passage of his life, he speaks of " quivering " under 
 the foe. It is not poetry, but nature, that dictates 
 the words — 
 
 ** It is a dread and awful thing to die." 
 
 Though the last enemy, and a vanquished enemy, 
 death is still an enemy, which no stoical resolution 
 can transform into an angel of light. He is the closer 
 of the portals of busy existence, — the silencer of the 
 shuttles of life's busy loom, — the extinguisher of fond 
 hopes, — the witherer of tender buds, — the severer of 
 loving bonds, — the separator of chief friends, brother 
 
 * See Luther's " Watchwords for the Warfare," passim. 
 
124 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 sundered from brother, sister from sister ; parent from 
 child, child from parent ; putting stern denial on any- 
 permanent " union here of hearts." Even the death- 
 bed of the maturest, ripest saint, can claim no exemp- 
 tion from the inevitable accompaniments : the pain, 
 and languor, and weakness ; the feeble ' touch of the 
 vanishing hand ; ' the trembling whispers of the voice 
 that is so soon to be still; the conscious opening, on 
 the earthward side, of the dark Gate and its close on 
 silent hinges. Yes, on every lip, the mourning wail is 
 the same — 
 
 " To know that prayers, and time, and pain 
 Can the lost love no more regain ; 
 Than bid the hours of dying day 
 Gleam in their midnight-noon again ! " 
 
 The dead past cannot bury its dead. The dead present 
 cannot fill the vacant chair or bring back the absent 
 guest to the vacant souL The following snatches from 
 the wild coronachs of Ossian — that strange Classic 
 of mountain -lands — are only specimen-dirges of wide 
 humanity : — " How many be there of my heroes, the 
 chief of the race ; they that were cheerful in the hall 
 when the sound of the shells arose ! No more shall I 
 find their steps on the hearth : no more shall I hear their 
 voice in the chase ! Pale, silent, are they who were 
 my friends ; . . . and there, far remote, I shall be un- 
 known. No bard shall hear of me, no grey cairn shall 
 rise to my renown. ... It is the voice of Alpin, the 
 son of Song, mourning for the dead. Bent is his head 
 
THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 125 
 
 of age, red his tearful eye. Alpin, thou son of Song, 
 why alone on this silent hill ? Why complainest thou 
 as a blast in the wood, as a wave on the lonely shore ? 
 My tears are for the dead : my voice for those who 
 have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair 
 among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like 
 Morar ; the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills 
 shall know thee no more ; thy bow shall lie in the 
 halls unstrung ! " 
 
 Paul is represented as speaking of death as a depar- 
 ture. In the original, the simile is rather that of a vessel 
 that is about to set sail.i In one sense the Apostle's 
 metaphor cannot be dissociated from sadness. " Set 
 sail" — the Vessel long familiar to us, as it rode at 
 anchor in life's harbour, with the scenes of stirring exist- 
 ence around. Now, its cable is unloosed, its anchor is 
 weighed. Friends crowd the pier to wave the last fare- 
 well, as with canvas set, it departs on the mysterious 
 voyage to the " undiscovered country " from which 
 there is no return ! But let our Apostle finish his 
 unfinished sentence. " Having a desire to depart " (to 
 set sail), " and to be with Christ, which is far letter! " 
 Immediately all is changed. The vessel is chartered 
 for a nobler Haven ; " mortality is swallowed up of life.'* 
 " This is the only one aspect," says Bishop EUicott, 
 using the familiar monogram, " in which death does 
 not seem absolutely intolerable, and that is, dying 
 
 ^ 2 Tim. iv. 6, 6.v6.\v(xi.%. — See Barnes' Commentary in loc. 
 
126 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 IN Christ : dying in Him who trod the death-realm 
 before us ; — dying in Him who tasted death, that 
 whether we live or die, whether we remain clothed or 
 unclothed, we should never be separate from His 
 sympathy and love." ^ His people were one with Him 
 in the Easter triumph of the ever-memorable morning, 
 when at the entrance to His tomb " the stone was rolled 
 away;" — the glorious evidence that He had risen. 
 They thereby received a pledge of their own resurrec- 
 tion-life — their own triumph over death: — "He that 
 raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your 
 mortal bodies " (Eom. viii. 1 1 ). To revert to that 
 other familiar and significant simile of our Apostle 
 we have already alluded to in a recent chapter — the 
 Kedeemer was " the first-fruits of them that slept " 
 (i Cor. XV. 20). We there saw that as the earliest 
 gatherings of the fields of Palestine were of old 
 carried with pomp and joy to the Jewish temple, antl 
 waved as an offering before the Lord, — the pledge 
 alike of coming vintage and harvest : So has Christ — 
 the first sheaf of the immortal harvest — been taken to 
 the heavenly altar- courts — the earnest of the fruit of 
 His own soul- travail yet to follow. / " I myself cannot 
 die. I live in Christ ; and though, at His call, I may 
 enter on a new and untried state of being, I shall but 
 part with my earthly tenement, * as a bird escaped from 
 the snare of the fowler,' to rejoice in my deliverance 
 
 ^ "Destiii}^ of the Creature," p. "jy 
 
THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 
 
 127 
 
 from a cumbrous body, tbat clogs the free and full 
 exercise of all my powers. As the husk of the chry- 
 salis I shall cast it aside, and rise out of it to soar 
 above the dark clouds and mists of earth into the pure 
 and serene atmosphere of heaven, where dwell only 
 those who are holy and heavenly — the perfected 
 spirits of the redeemed.^ ") 
 
 ^ " Memorials of a Quiet Life," ii. 290. 
 
 IN HOC VINCES 
 
( 128 ) 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 
 
 **The dead IN Christ."— i Thess. iv. i6. 
 
 "Them also which sleep in Jesus." — i Thess. iv. 14. 
 
 B 
 
 ET us pursue these thoughts a little further. 
 " The dead m Christ " — " Asleep in Jesus." 
 Yes, so thoroughly has Jesus conquered death 
 by His own dying, that He is said, in the Apostle's 
 emphatic words, to have "abolished death." He has 
 flooded the dark valley with light for His departing 
 people. He has converted its gloomy rolling mists 
 into golden clouds, opening vistas into Paradise. 
 
 ** For them the silver ladder shall be set, 
 Their Saviour shall receive their latest breath ; 
 They travel to a fadeless coronet, 
 Up through the Gate of death. " ^ 
 
 Matthew Henry well calls death " a parenthesis in the 
 believer's history." Being already IN Christ, their 
 removal implies not really a change of state, but only 
 a change of locality, — a glorious step in the law of 
 endless development — the presence and love of Christ 
 
 ^ A. A. Proctor. 
 
THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 129 
 
 now enjoyed by faith, then enjoyed by sight in full 
 beatific vision and fruition. The prayer of Stephen is 
 the death-song of every true saint : " Lord Jesus, receive 
 my spirit." " I myself cannot die," to quote again 
 from the records of the same saintly life as in the 
 preceding meditation, — "I live in Christ ; — and 
 though at His call I may enter on a new and untried 
 state of being, I shall but part with my earthly tene- 
 ment, ' as a bird escaped from the snare of the fowler/ 
 to rejoice in my deliverance from a cumbrous body, 
 that clogs the free and full exercise of all my powers. 
 As the husk of the chrysalis I shall cast it aside, and 
 rise out of it to soar above the dark clouds and mists of 
 earth into the pure and serene atmosphere of heaven, 
 where dwell only those who are holy and heavenly — 
 the perfected spirits of the redeemed." 
 
 Those who have been in Eome will remember that 
 the Via Sacra (the highway for the ancient laurel- 
 wreathed conquerors leading to the Capitol, with the 
 Temple of Jupiter crowning its summit) is not very 
 far distant from the Catacomb of St. Calixtus, of 
 which we have already frequently spoken. Death, to 
 believers, is the true Via Sacra, with its triumphal 
 arch conducting to the heavenly Temple, and to the 
 presence of the enthroned King, who is Himself the 
 crown and consummation of their bliss: from His 
 lips to receive the welcome of the fulfilled promise — 
 " To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with 
 Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am 
 
I30 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 set down with My Father in His throne " (Rev. 
 iii. 2i). 
 
 (i.) Then, as regards our own departure. If "IN 
 Christ : — " Yea, though I walk through the valley of 
 the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Voltaire, in 
 one of his letters, says, " I hate life, and yet I am afraid 
 to die." Contrast this with the Christian's experience, 
 as interpreted by St. Paal: " Whether we wake or 
 sleep," whether we continue on earth, or fall asleep on 
 our death-pillow, "we shall live together with Him" 
 (i Thess. V. lo). In Christ and with Christ; this is, 
 in brief, the history of the believer's limitless future. 
 The Bible picture of heaven is not merely the negative 
 one, of deliverance from the ills of life, the ending of 
 the long-drawn sigh and wail of humanity ; but it is 
 the positive enjoyment of .the Redeemer's Presence. 
 Here is the morning which follows the night of earth : 
 " What time I awake, I am still with Thee ! " We have 
 lately quoted Luther's words of solace over his loved 
 child ;-^appropriate was the closing prayer at his own 
 deathbed — " heavenly Father, .though I must resign 
 my body, and be borne away from this life, I know 
 that I shall be with Thee for ever 1 " 
 
 When the many thousands of Israel crossed of old 
 the Jordan — the waters standing up. as a wall on either 
 side, and they marched dry-shod through the channel — 
 every eye was directed to the sacred symbol preceding 
 them. So of the Great Antitype it may be said, as 
 His people pass through the darksome river of which 
 
THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 131 
 
 the other has ever been the type, " Behold, the Ark of 
 the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over 
 before you into Jordan " (Jos. iii. 11). It was the 
 reflected glory of Jesus (in Christ), which caused the 
 face of the doomed protomartyr to appear to those who 
 looked steadfastly on him, " as it had been the face of 
 an angel" (Acts vi. 15). "Blessed are the dead which 
 die IN THE Lord" (Eev. xiv. 13). 
 
 (2.) As regards departed friends : — " Weep not ! " 
 He, or she, "is not dead, but sleepeth" (Matt. ix. 24). 
 He, or she, is not dead, but livet/i ! God " giveth His 
 beloved sleep " : — not the slumber spoken of by the 
 Poet — 
 
 " Sleep the sleep that knows no waking," 
 
 but that which is to precede and usher in the everlast- 
 ing morning. It was with the prospect of that glorious 
 day-dawn and of a joyous reunion, that the learned and 
 loving Neander uttered the touching words as he com- 
 posed himself on his dying pillow, — " Good-night ! " 
 The first of our motto- verses forms but one clause in a 
 sentence of joyous consolation to mourners, which has 
 this most blissful ending — "And so shall we ("we" 
 — a little word, but implying and involving the assured 
 hope of blissful restoration to those we mourn), " ever 
 be with the Lord." 
 
 " Not here, — God be thanked, no — not here ; living 
 and not dead yonder, with the Master ! We are far 
 too much the creatures of sense ; and the accompani- 
 
132 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 ments of dissolution and departure fill up our hearts 
 and our eyes. Think them all away, believe them all 
 away, love them all away. Stand in the light of 
 Christ's life, and Christ's death, and Christ's rising, till 
 you feel " Thou art a shadow, not a substance ; no real 
 thing at all." Yes, a shadow; and where a shadow 
 falls, there must be sunlight above to cast it. Look 
 up, then, above the shadow Death, above the sin and 
 separation from God, of which it is the shadow ! 
 Look up to the unsetting light of the Eternal Life on 
 the throne of the universe, and see bathed in it the 
 living dead, in Christ." ^ 
 
 " The Living Dead in Christ ! " — It conveys the 
 tender rebuke to the disconsolate Believer, " Why seek 
 ye the living among the dead ? " The elevating thought 
 plucks the sting from death and robs the grave of its 
 victory. It tells of a meeting-place, where these " loved 
 and lost " shall be loved never to be lost again, but 
 permitted to exult in ties which defy dissolution. 
 The mourners of the first ages had no monopoly of 
 the lines they delighted so fondly to trace — 
 " In Jesu Christo obdormivit." ^ 
 
 ^ Dr. Maclaren's Sermons, p. 103. 
 
 2 In Jesus Christ he fell asleep." From their bearing on the theme of 
 this volume and of this chapter, the author may be forgiven quoting 
 the following, he has written elsewhere. The familiar Scottish pro- 
 nunciation of the verb is retained : — 
 
 Oh precious tale of triumph this, 
 And martyr-blood shed to achieve it ! 
 Of suffering past — of present bliss — 
 " In Jesu Christo obdormivit." 
 
THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 133 
 
 Of cherished dead be mine the trust, 
 Thrice-blessed solace to believe it ! 
 That I can utter o'er their dust — 
 " In Jesu Christo obdormivit." 
 
 Sad were indeed this world to me, 
 
 With thoughts of loved ones called to leave it. 
 
 But for that angel's lullaby — 
 
 *' In Jesu Christo obdormivit." 
 
 Now to the silent grave I bring 
 My immortelle, and interweave it 
 "With God's own golden lettering — 
 ** In Jesu Christo obdormivit." 
 
 Since the preceding chapters were finished, I have been reminded, in 
 the pages of Boldetti, of the following well-known and touching inscrip- 
 tion from the cemetery of Calixtus, probably of date the middle of the 
 third century. It is a lengthened one, but thus it begins : — " Alex- 
 ander MORTVVS NON EST, SED VIVIT SUPER ASTRA. In ChRISTO." 
 {Alexayider is not dead, but lives beyond the stars. In Christ.) 
 
 C3 
 
 IN PACE. 
 
( 134 ) 
 
 XVII. 
 THE GATHERING INTO ONE IN CHRIST. 
 
 "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might 
 gather together in one all things IN Christ, both which are ia 
 heaven, and Avhich are on earth ; even IN Him." — Eph. i. lo. 
 
 HE Apostle's monogram has here a special 
 significance added to it, by the pronoun 
 which closes the verse. As it has been 
 expressed by an able commentator : " With what force 
 and pertinence this passage re-echoes the vital words 
 In Him, ... an emphasis which the repetition of 
 the words * Even in Him/ seems specially designed to 
 enhance." 
 
 The verse is confessedly a difficult and enigmatical 
 one. But keeping in view the In Christo as the 
 pivot, so to speak, on which it turns, we may take it, 
 as suggestive at least, of vaiious thoughts regarding 
 this " dispensation " (as it is here called) " of the ful- 
 ness of times," whose characteristic is the " gathering 
 together in one all things in ChrisC 
 
 Let, however, two remarks be premised for the 
 better elucidation of the verse. The first is, that the 
 
THE GATHERING INTO ONE IN CHRIST. 135 
 
 expression "gather together in one," of our version, is 
 comprised in a single word in the original Greek. As 
 the Apostle refers to this gathering as being in Christ, 
 he evidently speaks of an aggregation round Him as the 
 centre. The interpretation of the figure by the com- 
 mentator Grotius, as " the reunion of a dispersed army," 
 is incomplete, unless we add the rallying of broken 
 ranks around the Great Chief or Spiritual Captain. 
 It has been more appropriately supposed by others to 
 have reference to an orator recapitulating to his auditory 
 at the close of his speech ; " gathering together into one " 
 the scattered links of thought and argument, familiarly 
 known as ' the heads of his discourse.' ^ If so, we re- 
 peat, it is " in Christ." 
 
 A second preliminary observation of a critical kind 
 is in regard to the word in the opening of our verse, 
 'dispensation' which has a special significance and 
 signification in the original, not conveyed in our ren- 
 dering, {plKovofiia). Its literal reference is to house 
 arrangement, the conduct of household affairs ; and in 
 its connection with this ' whole family in heaven and 
 earth,' it is suggestive of the righteous administration 
 of the Great Master of the Household. The un- 
 folding of the Christian dispensation is an " Economy!' 
 One age of progress and advancement gives birth to 
 another, until the evolution of cycles, and eras, and 
 dispensations, culminates in "the fulness of times.'' 
 
 ^ See Barnes, in loc. 
 
136 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 As little as the material world owes its present 
 beauty and order to the exploded myth of an old 
 dreamer (the ' fortuitous concourse of atoms '), has the 
 realm of the spiritual been left uncontrolled to caprice 
 of circumstance. There are no disjointed links in 
 the chain of the divine administration. The God of 
 the Christian economy is a God of order. The spiritual 
 fabric of which He is the Architect is symmetrically 
 built. " The whole building fitly framed together," 
 —planned in systematic and harmonious beauty in 
 the counsels of Eternity, has been age after age " grow- 
 ing unto an holy Temple in the Lord." And tier will 
 be added to tier, column to column, till the termina- 
 tion of the appointed cycles. There has been a knit- 
 ting together of the separate parts in the mystical body, 
 by a gradual process of development, till it reaches 
 " the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," 
 the perfect man in Him. 
 
 Let us now proceed to note the more special lessons 
 contained in our motto- verse. 
 
 ( I .) The primary and obvious reference of the words 
 is that which we have already considered in a previous 
 meditation, and on which we need not further linger — 
 the gathering together of Jew and Gentile ; the unfold- 
 ing of " the mystery hid from ages and generations " 
 (Col. i. 26), w^hen the middle wall of partition was 
 broken down ; — when the Jew, long exclusive and 
 excluding, came to own and recognise as " brothers in 
 
THE GATHERING INTO ONE IN CHRIST. 137 
 
 Christ," those Gentile proselytes who lived in the 
 Pagan cities to which the circular epistle was written. 
 Foremost, doubtless, among these, would be some who 
 had before proclaimed as their alone deity, the Great 
 Diana of the JSphesians, whose image had fallen down 
 from Jupiter (Acts xix. 35). In one sense, therefore, 
 this " gathering into one" — this strange fusion of in- 
 congruous elements — was the immediate result of the 
 Incarnation of Christ. " Uven m Him." But for the 
 cross of Jesus, the words of Paul in this same epistle 
 never could have been spoken — " Now therefore ye are 
 no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens 
 with the saints, and of the household of God : and are 
 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
 Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone " 
 (Eph. ii. 19, 20). 
 
 (2.) But this view is a restricted and a partial one, 
 local and temporary. The words suggest a much 
 wider and grander interpretation in relation to Christ's 
 Government of the Universe. 
 
 Observe that "gathering into One, even in Him" 
 is further emphasised in the succeeding clause ; — " all 
 things which are in heaven and which are on earth." 
 Surely the mere welding together of two dispensations 
 must fall far short of the full meaning of the Apostle. 
 It is indeed a lofty thought — that of a vast creation, 
 inclusive of things celestial and terrestrial, being 
 brought under the sway of the Incarnate Eedeemer ; 
 well worthy of being designated "a dispensation." 
 
138 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 " All things," we read elsewhere, were made, not only 
 " b?/ Him " but "/or Him." " He hath put all things 
 under His feet." The elementary truth of theology, 
 reiterated throughout inspired Scripture, represents this 
 earth, by reason of sin, as having forfeited the divine 
 regard. Not only so, but that in being separated 
 from God, it was sundered from all that was holy and 
 happy in God's universe. In Christ the yawning 
 gulf has been bridged : this blessed union and inter- 
 communion between man and other members of the 
 wide family of God has been resumed. Again IN Him 
 are heaven and earth made a united empire. Angels 
 who had never swerved from their allegiance, once 
 more become "ministering spirits," sent forth in the 
 sublimest of embassies, " to minister to them who are 
 heirs of salvation." Our planet is reponed to its place 
 in the brotherhood of holy and loyal worlds, under the 
 harmony of a reign of law and a reign of love. 
 
 Observe further; that in our motto-verse this 
 * gathering into one ' is not of all persons, but of " all 
 things^ The ' earth ' here spoken of, may be taken in 
 its most literal meaning. The inanimate is included 
 with the animate. The realm material is to share the 
 blessedness of the realm spiritual. The very outer 
 creation, whose fair face is blighted and scanned by sin, 
 is to participate in the regeneration "m Christ Jesus" 
 "the glorious liberty of the children of God." 
 
 Magnificent theme of contemplation ! we again say — 
 (too magnificent for a few brief sentences) — that Jesus 
 
THE GATHERING INTO ONE IN CHRIST. 139 
 
 is the mighty " King Eegent " of this vast administra- 
 tion, — " the Eestorer of the breaches ! " No wonder 
 Paul loves the repetition " Uven in Jlim" " His spiri- 
 tual mediative work has secured it, and His media- 
 torial Person is the spiritual centre of the universe. 
 As the stone dropped into the lake creates those 
 widening and concentric circles which ultimately reach 
 the furthest shore ; so the deed done on Calvary has 
 sent its blessed undulations through the distant spheres 
 and realms of God's great empire." ^ We may add with 
 Luther, " Although other empires, kingdoms, princi- 
 palities, and dominions have their changes, and soon fall 
 away like flowers, this kingdom, on the contrary, has 
 roots so firm and deep, that by no force nor might can 
 it be torn up or laid waste, but abides for ever." 
 
 (3.) A third view that may be taken, not less glori- 
 ous and animating, is one, unlike those already stated, 
 as it belongs to the future. It is prospective and 
 reversionary; and, in one sense, to w^hich the others 
 are subordinate. This yet higher reference is set forth 
 and expounded by the Apostle in i Cor. xv. 51,52: 
 " Behold, I shew you a mystery ; we shall not all sleep, 
 but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the trum- 
 pet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incor- 
 ruptible, and we shall be changed." In this sense 
 the things spoken of ' in heaven and earth,' must be 
 
 * Dr. Eadie, " Commentary on Ephesians," p. 53. 
 
I40 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 taken in their more special application to persons, 
 " The fulness of times " may thus be regarded as the 
 winding up of the present dispensation, when the 
 number of the elect shall be accomplished. Those ' on 
 earth ' referring to " the quick/' — believers who shall be 
 alive when the Lord comes. Those in heaven, referring 
 to the vast company of those who have fallen asleep : 
 — " the dead in Christ." And " the mystery " (well may 
 it be so called in the verse immediately preceding) will 
 be the wondrous transformation and renovation of the 
 whole family of the Eedeemed — from Abel, downward 
 to its last member, on the day of Eesurrection ; when 
 " He shall send His angels, and shall gather together 
 His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part 
 of earth to the uttermost part of heaven " : — when, at 
 the same solemn moment, " He shall change our vile 
 bodies, and fashion them like unto His glorious body, 
 according to the working whereby He is able even to 
 subdue all things unto Himself" (Phil. iii. 21). "As 
 the dewdrops," says a devout writer on the words we 
 are now considering — "spangle the ground, ere they 
 are exhaled when the sun bursts in his glory from the 
 morning sky; so shall His people awake from their 
 graves, and stand in regenerated life and glory as they 
 rise to meet their Lord in the air. This is the consum- 
 mation of that great mystery, 'the gathering together of 
 all things in Christ' of which the Apostle speaks. Then 
 shall we behold Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and 
 all the saints of old, all the Old Testament Church, and 
 
THE GATHERING INTO ONE IN CHRIST. 141 
 
 the New Testament Church, * the whole family in heaven 
 and earth ' ; — then shall we behold these all gathered 
 together IN Christ. . . . Oh, when the trumpet shall 
 sound, shall we be among those 'Blessed and holy ' who 
 have 'part in the first resurrection'? (Eev. xx. 6). 
 And, In the dispensation of the fidness of times, shall 
 we be among those of earth or heaven that are gathered 
 together IN Christ, by grace, to glory ? " ^ 
 
 (4.) There is yet a fourth view, also prospective, sug- 
 gested by the Apostle's words, which may admit, at all 
 events, of reverential pondering : — it is what in a per- 
 missible, and evangelical, but not in an unwarranted 
 and speculative sense, may be called the view of uni- 
 versal restoration. Let none misapprehend, or mis- 
 understand ; as if by this, recognition were given to a 
 new article in the creed of what is called ' advanced 
 modern thought ' ; — the theory propounded first by 
 Origen, and revived in these later days. 
 
 It is a subject, indeed, upon which, we willingly own, 
 no one can presumptuously dogmatise. We dare not, 
 on the one hand, impeach or tamper with the Divine 
 Justice and Eighteousness, Neither, on the other, 
 can we, poor mortals, assign limits to the same divine, 
 boundless Love. "With God" (whatever be com- 
 patible with His rectitude, and truth, and other moral 
 attributes) " with God all things are possible." To 
 His Church, and to all who believe in His Son's 
 
 * M'Gliee on Ephesians, pp.53-55. 
 
142 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 name, " His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting." 
 Nay, further, there is a glorious future — a glorious 
 uniti/, waiting that Church, when the earthly Prayer 
 we have already quoted of the Great Intercessor shall 
 be fulfilled, " that they may be made perfect in one : " 
 — " that they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in 
 Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us " 
 (John xvii. 21). " In that day there shall be one 
 Lord and His name one" (Zech. xiv. 9). I hear 
 the sound of " much people in Heaven " gathered out 
 of * every kindred, and nation, and people, and tongue/ 
 A chastened imagination may be free to indulge its 
 pleasing reverie regarding these * nations,' as well as 
 persons "of the saved" (Eev. xix. i ; xxi. 24). Beyond 
 " the dark hills of time," it may see a rainbow of hope 
 spanning the distant altitudes of eternity ; — this sin- 
 stricken, woe-worn world resuming its place among 
 restored planets, — -joining in the harmonies of the 
 glad coronation-song, 
 
 " Crown Him Lord of all." 
 
 We are safe, and abundantly within warrant, in predi- 
 cating this, regarding those who have fled to Jesus for 
 salvation; — yes, regarding the humblest, feeblest, dim- 
 mest satellite, which owns the power, the light, and life 
 of the great Central Sun. " Christ," we read, ** loved 
 the Church, and gave Himself for it, . . . that He 
 might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not 
 having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it 
 
THE GATHERING INTO ONE IN CHRIST. 143 
 
 should be holy and without blemish " (Eph. v. 27). 
 " A glorious Church ! " is the comment of Eichard 
 Knill, — "this expression is found but once in the 
 Bible, and it is in connection with persons who had 
 been great sinners. So bad, indeed, as to be styled 
 dead in sin, — without God, and without hope in the 
 world." But further we are forbidden to go, in sup- 
 port of any human theory of final restoration. This 
 would be trenching on the realm of the unknowable ; 
 intruding on the region which angels fear to tread. 
 We leave others to theorise and dogmatise where the 
 Word of God seems to observe and to inculcate the 
 attitude of * mute expressive silence.' When the Holy 
 Oracle, indeed, does speak, it is not, like the Pagan 
 oracles, in utterances of studied ambiguity, but in 
 words of unmistakable warning ; and those incur grave 
 responsibility who would seek to minimise or modify 
 these solemn monitions. Just as much as they err, on 
 the other hand, who, in gloomily formulated dogmas, 
 would listen to nothing but muffled peals and funeral 
 bells and dirges of doom, attempting to make them- 
 selves wiser than God. 
 
 One thing, I repeat, can alone be asserted without 
 modification or qualification; that for Christ's own 
 people — those who are IN Him, the lost moral har- 
 monies, not only can be, but are, everlastingly restored 
 and retuned. Listen to the Apostle's declaration as 
 he stands on the living Eock of Ages, and proclaims 
 the ground of a reconciliation that can never more be 
 
144 ^^ CHRISTO. 
 
 marred or disturbed : — " And, having made peace 
 though the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all 
 things unto Himself ; by him, I say, whether they be 
 things in earth, or things in heaven " (Col. i. 20). " This 
 much," observes such a safe guide as Bishop Ellicott, 
 after warning against doing violence to revelations that 
 carry with them their own limitations, — " this much, 
 however, we may dare to say, but no more than this : — 
 that all, from its union with the Saviour, is saveable, 
 shall be saved; all that from being one with the 
 Restorer is capable of restoration, shall be restored ; 
 yea, all that distinctly evinces the continued and pre- 
 jjonderating action of the true central force shall be 
 gathered up into the ever-blessed centre of Life and 
 Love." ' 
 
 We may aver further, that there is in reserve for the 
 Eedeemed an ever brightening and more glorious future. 
 Their song is ever to increase ; to grow, as it were, in 
 intensity and volume. At first it is heard by the 
 seer as " a voice of a great multitude ; " deeper, as 
 " the voice of many waters ; " deeper still, as " the 
 voice of mighty thunderings " (Rev. xix. 6). The 
 circles of joy are to be ceaselessly widening and ex- 
 panding: though at the same time we believe the 
 utterance of each of the glorified multitude will still 
 be the old prayer of Paul upon earth — " that I may 
 know Him." As if, after ages and cycles have rolled 
 
 ^ " Destiny of the Creature," p. 94. 
 
THE GATHERING INTO ONE IN CHRIST. 145 
 
 by, they were only lisping the alphabet of knowledge ; 
 or, like the world's great philosopher, picking up tiny 
 shells on the beach, while the vast ocean of truth 
 and bliss lies undiscovered before them — "And every 
 creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and 
 under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all 
 that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, 
 and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon 
 the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever" 
 (Eev. V. 1 3). The refrain of the song of earth will 
 be the refrain of the Eternal Anthem — " Of Him are 
 ye IN Christ Jesus . . . even in Him ! " 
 
 And surely, if yet one more word may be added, it 
 is, that it becomes our duty, as individuals and as 
 Churches, to help on this glorious consummation, this 
 " dispensation of the fulness of times" Be the mystery 
 what it may, the essence of that fulness (what cannot 
 be marred or diminished by rival theological theories 
 and dogmas) is the glorifying of our Great Master. 
 These "all things," material and immaterial, are in 
 Christ : and, if in Him ourselves, it follows, as alike our 
 obligation and our privilege, to seek to bring others to 
 be partakers of our joy ! Both assertions seem beauti- 
 fully brought out in these other words of our Apostle 
 (2 Cor. iv. 6) : — " God, who commanded the light to 
 shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts " — 
 to do what ? To keep it there ? secreted, unutilised, 
 monopolised ? Nay, as the verb may be more graphi- 
 cally and grammatically rendered, " to give out " (not 
 
 K 
 
U6 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 to ' ffive ' merely, as in our version, but " to give out : " 
 we are the moral reflectors of the Great Sun of Eight- 
 eousness) " to give out the light of the knowledge of 
 the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 
 
 " Come thou," — may the divine words addressed of 
 old to Noah be repeated — " Come thou, and all thy 
 house, into the ark." It is the simplest truth in the 
 Apostle's new * economy,' but one that can never 
 weary nor grow old by repetition. There is room in 
 that Ark — there is room in Christ for all ! Different 
 it is in things that are * of the earth earthy.' There 
 is room there only for the few ; the rich, the gifted, 
 the noble, the ambitious, the powerful, the successful 
 The vast majority are left to battle with the storm, — 
 to mingle indiscriminately in the crowd. The many 
 are left out in the dark, while the few favoured guests, 
 only, troop to the festal halL 
 
 Not so with Christ and His offered salvation. 
 Blood for all : hope for all : grace for all : robes and 
 crowns and palms for all. All warranted — all wel- 
 come. Oh may we, in the glorious fulness of God's 
 own times, be at last " gathered together in one — EVEN 
 IN Him ! " 
 
( M7 ) 
 
 XVIII. 
 BONDS IN CHRIST. 
 
 **My bonds IN Christ are manifest in all the Palace." * 
 
 —Phil. i. 13. 
 
 Y bonds m Christ ! " 
 
 Thus was Paul's monogram inscribed on 
 
 the very place of his captivity. 
 
 The Apostle, when he wrote these words, was a 
 
 prisoner in Ptome. Not as yet immured in a dungeon ; 
 
 but certainly under restraint ; chained to soldiers from 
 
 the pretorian barracks, who kept guard over him by 
 
 1 'Ev 8\ip t4> 7r/3aiTw/)iV- It matters comparatively little to what the 
 ^prsetorio' strictly refers. The "royal household," as in our version 
 (the * Caesar's Palace ' on the Palatine of iv. 22), is the view supported 
 by Chrysostom, Theodoret, and the Greek commentators ; also, Eras- 
 mus, Beza, Grotius, Bengel, and others. Luther renders it "Richt- 
 haus," Judgment-hall : as it is translated in Matt, xxvii. 29, &c. (Prof. 
 Eadie in loc.) The meaning adopted by many recent scholars is the 
 "Imperial barracks," or "Imperial troops" (Praetorian guard). [See 
 the subject treated in an exhaustive dissertation by Bishop Lightfoot, 
 (pp. 99-104).] It is possible, such is the view of one modern writer 
 there stated, that while the reference may be (probably ought to be) 
 to the ' body -guard,' that body-guard was itself attached to the Palace 
 "for the protection of the Emperor, either lodged in its courts or 
 standing sentry at its gates." — Dean Merivale's 'History of the Homaru,* 
 vi. p. 268, quoted by Jb. 
 
148 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 turns ; that, too, by day and night without intermission. 
 And ere long this * fettered freedom ' (he must have had 
 his own premonitions), was to end in incarceration in 
 the Mamertine/ 
 
 At first sight, strange and sad entry is this in such 
 a life — Paul in bonds ! a chained and caged eagle : 
 instead of mounting with joyous pinion up the blue 
 heavens, exulting in the liberty with which Christ had 
 made him free, he is found chafing and beating his 
 wings against the enclosing bars. To all human ap- 
 pearance, no occurrence could be more adverse and 
 fatal to the propagation of the Gospel. The arrest of 
 its noblest representative and champion, might surely 
 well be considered equivalent to defeat. 
 
 Not so ! However qualified at first may have been 
 the illustrious captive's own verdict on this unseason- 
 able repression, he can write on a calm, mature retro- 
 spect, " The things which happened unto me have fallen 
 out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel " (Phil, 
 i. 1 2). It is the old story ; the apparent reverse and 
 discomfiture of man turned into the triumph of truth 
 and of God ; garnered mercies found hidden in provi- 
 
 1 It is worthy of note, tliat the Apostle applies two different words 
 in speaking of these "bonds." As in our motto-verse, heaixovs, (the same 
 also in vers. 7, 14, 17 ; Philem. 10. 13 ; Col. iv. 18). The other, ivaXdaei, 
 as in Eph. vi. 20 ; Acts xxviii. 20. '* The latter," says Bishop Light- 
 loot, *' seems to differ from the former, only as bringing out the idea 
 of attachment rather than confinement . . . the word is used especially 
 of the * coupling- chain,' * hand-cuff,' by which the prisoner was attached 
 to his guard, as in the case of Agrippa. Josephus ^ ?i<. xviii. 6, 7, 10. ' 
 — (Introduction to Philippians, p. 8.) 
 
BONDS IN CHRIST. 149 
 
 dential dealings, at the time dark, mysterious, unto- 
 ward. 
 
 Similarly incomprehensible (to take another "New 
 Testament memory), was that weeping and wailing in 
 the desolate home and dreary graveyard of Bethany, — 
 the cry of bereft hearts unsuccoured in their agony. 
 Why so sudden an eclipse of their home joys, — the 
 deprivation of a brother beloved, and the removal of a 
 prop so needed in the infant Church ? Why, above 
 all, the mysterious delay in the advent of the One only 
 Being in the world who could either arrest the foot- 
 steps of the dreaded foe, or give back to the mourners 
 their beloved dead ? We hardly seem to wonder at 
 — we dare not chide — the half-reproachful refrain — 
 " If He had been here our brother had not died ! " 
 But wait the Divine disclosure. What lessons of con- 
 solation have these three days of doleful watching 
 taught the Church of Christ in every age ! How our 
 Bibles and our souls would be shorn of perhaps their 
 most treasured solace, had that Eleventh chapter of the 
 Fourth Evangelist never been written ; or rather, had 
 these tears of the Bethany sisters never been suffered 
 to flow, and that weary interval to elapse ! The Lord 
 of these weepers was, by that seemingly cruel post- 
 ponement of succour, really only preparing a fuller 
 cup of consolation for them, and for mourners of all 
 times. 
 
 So with St. Paul. Leave out his bonds from the 
 story of his life, and we are conscious at once of lire- 
 
I50 7.V CHRISTO. 
 
 parable loss. First of all, we should, in all human 
 likelihood, have been thereby deprived of the most 
 precious and enduring legacy he has bequeathed to 
 the Church of the future : for not the least touching 
 and beautiful of his inspired letters, as we well know, 
 were indited during his Eoman imprisonment. There 
 was a meaning in the captive's words, with reference 
 to himself and his own life-work, he did not probably 
 contemplate in writing them — " I suffer trouble, as an 
 evil-doer, even unto bonds : but the Word of God is 
 not bound" (2 Tim. ii. 9). It was because one bow 
 he bravely carried was broken, that we are indebted 
 to another still spared to him ; — for those " winged 
 words " — golden arrows — which have been speeding 
 their flight for eighteen centuries, and are speeding 
 still. Add to this, we should have forfeited thereby 
 a noble — the noblest chapter in the record of his own 
 personal experience ; the record of his patience and 
 faith ; the calm radiance of evening sky and golden sun- 
 set, after a day of storm and tempest. Affliction, " even 
 unto bonds," in his case (as affliction in the case of all 
 God's true people), evidently ripened and mellowed the 
 saintly character, — transfiguring him, before he was 
 glorified. Yes, it was not when he walked a free man, 
 in busy mart, or imperial city; not on Athenian 
 Areopagus, nor in Ephesian theatre, nor in Temple- 
 court of Jerusalem, that he experienced the deepest 
 consciousness (and recorded that experience) of fel- 
 lowship with his Lord in His sufferings, and of 
 
BONDS IN CHRIST. 151 
 
 attaining "conformity to His death" (Phil. iii. 10). 
 It was rather when he heard the clank of the chain 
 which bound him to his guardsman, and afterwards 
 gazed on damp dungeon walls, that, like the bird of 
 night, the trill of his jubilant song, afterwards to be 
 considered, was heard — " Eejoice IN the Loed alway: 
 and again I say, Eejoice " (Phil. iv. 4). He could use 
 the emphatic symbol of another Epistle, when speaking 
 of a similar season of trial and humiliation — "Most 
 gladly will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the 
 power of Christ may rest upon me " (2 Cor. xii. 9) 
 The very soldiers who guarded him could not fail to 
 be subdued into reverence. They saw in their prisoner 
 no semblance of the ordinary criminal type, his hands 
 stained with blood, and his soul with foul perfidy 
 and dishonour. But one, strong in the maintenance 
 of a virtuous cause, — an unimpeachable moral creed ; 
 and ready, if need be, as much as the bravest 
 among the legions of Caesar ever were, to suffer and 
 die for it. They carried the story of that calm en- 
 durance to their fellow comrades in royal hall and 
 imperial barrack, so that his "bonds in Christ" became 
 thus " manifest in all the Palace, and in all other 
 places." 
 
 It concerns us, however, at present, specially to 
 note the associations of his bonds with the name of 
 his great Lord. They are " bonds IN Christ." " That," 
 says Archbishop Leighton, "which the Papists fabu- 
 lously say of some of their saints, that they received the 
 
152 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 impression of the wounds of Christ in their body, is 
 true, in a spiritual sense, of the soul of every one that 
 is indeed a saint and believer." It was the remem- 
 brance of Christ's own bonds and sufferings which im- 
 parted strength to Paul in the endurance of his. iN" 
 Him he had victory over obloquy and scorn, sorrow 
 and pain. " For as the sufferings of Christ abound in 
 us, so also our consolation aboundeth by Christ " (2 
 Cor. i. 5). Moreover, this participation in his Lord's 
 sufferings had its counterpart in the glory that was 
 to follow — " We suffer with Him, that we may be also 
 glorified together." " If we suffer, we shall also reign* 
 with Him." 
 
 There is one, somewhat enigmatical passage, which 
 may not unnaturally, in connection with the present 
 meditation, suggest itself to the reader. It is that 
 contained in Col. i. 24: "Who now rejoice in my 
 sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of 
 the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's 
 sake, which is the Church." What can these words 
 be supposed to mean ? We may at once reply, nega- 
 tively, that we know what they do not mean. It 
 would be to reverse and nullify the whole teaching of 
 the Apostle (constituting a libel on his theology), to 
 represent him describing his afflictions as meritorious : 
 being even in a qualified sense, * factors ' in " the 
 salvation which is IN Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. ii. 10). 
 Much more incongruous still would it be, with his re- 
 peated assertions, had he described any poor endur- 
 
BONDS IN CHRIST. 153 
 
 ances of his as forming works of supererogation in the 
 Eomish sense : — supplementing some deficiencies and 
 shortcomings in the all-perfect and all-sufficient aton- 
 ing work of his Lord, who " by one offering hath 
 perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Had 
 such been his meaning, I repeat, it would have been to 
 unsay and repudiate the utterances of a lifetime, — 
 to destroy what had taken him years of toil to build 
 up, — putting the wood and the hay and the stubble, 
 in the place of the gold, silver, and precious stones. 
 He would most certainly have been the last to sum- 
 mon in the aid of miserable, inadequate, puny moral 
 forces of his own, to buttress what he had elsewhere 
 nobly spoken of as the one, and only " power of God 
 unto salvation." 
 
 It is enough surely to say, in explanation of the 
 verse in question, that identifying himself with his 
 Divine Master, he willingly rejoiced in being subjected 
 to the scoffs and buffetings — the taunts, reproaches, and 
 contumely which had fallen on Him. While ever feeling 
 alive to the wide, immeasurable interval which sepa- 
 rated his afflictions from the far deeper and intenser 
 ones endured by his Lord (not worthy to be named 
 together in the same breath) — he yet rejoiced that his 
 present experience enabled him, so far at least, to dimi- 
 nish that wide disparity. He gloried in anything which 
 brought him nearer in resemblance and in fellowship 
 to the Saviour he loved. To endure His cross was 
 his highest honour, to be 'like Him* his noblest 
 
154 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 aspiration. If, therefore, as one of tlie members of His 
 suffering body, his afflictions brought him closer to the 
 Lord, that approximation would be his best recompense 
 and reward. With undissembled gladness he could 
 say — " I rejoice in my sufferings." 
 
 But to return to the most notable lesson to be de- 
 rived from the contemplation of Paul's 'bonds IN 
 Christ.' 
 
 Do they not afford, in the case of God's servant,' 
 only another illustration of the great, divine law, that 
 freedom comes out of bondage, glory comes out of suf- 
 fering, death comes out of life. Nature herself pro- 
 claims and endorses this universal experience. Every 
 spring, with its ten thousand thousand verdant lips, 
 utters it over the fallen leaves which autumn winds 
 have swept, and winter frosts have smitten with 
 decay. The tiny grain-stalks which flush the early 
 year, repeat and vivify that utterance of the gracious 
 Teacher we previously quoted when dwelling on the 
 same theme — " Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
 ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth 
 forth much fruit" (John xii. 2 4). The storm which has 
 roused the ocean into madness, and strewed its shores 
 with wrecks, has dispersed miasma from the air, and 
 on invisible wings driven the pestilence from our 
 homes. The very bed of the lava stream, now furrow- 
 ing the side of the burning mountain, and which once 
 carried devastation and death in its fiery course; or 
 
BONDS IN CHRIST. 155 
 
 the excoriated lip of the volcano, have been seen, from 
 a subtle application of the same law, carpeted with 
 flowers or festooned with vines.'^ So is it with suffer- 
 ing, and suffering believers. Hear what the same 
 heroic bondsman himself says as to the noblest exem- 
 plification of this law (of life emerging out of death) : 
 " Always bearing about in the body the dying of the 
 Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made 
 manifest in our body. For we which live are alway 
 delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also 
 of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh " 
 (2 Cor. iv. 10, 11). "Therefore I take pleasure in 
 infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecu- 
 tions, in distresses, for Christ's sake : for when I am 
 weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor. xii. 10). 
 
 These sufferings, moreover, are not only disciplinary, 
 — moulding into a more blessed conformity with the 
 Prince of sufferers ; but when thus meekly and uncom- 
 
 1 "In the case of a volcanic mountain, the heat, often retained long 
 after eruptions, is added to that of isolation, and so strengthens the 
 wind from the valley. A German traveller, Herr Rein, has lately pub- 
 lished some interesting observations of the way in which vegetation 
 is distributed on the sides of volcanoes in Japan. It is continually 
 being propagated upwards by the valley-wind conveying the ripe seeds 
 in that direction. One of the highest mountain-chains in Japan, that 
 of Outake, has a, ridge directed from north to east, in which are eight 
 successive craters. The most southern is proved to be the most recent 
 by having no vegetation, whereas the most northern and oldest is 
 covered up to its interior walls with Arctic and Alpine plants : the 
 charminsf Alpine campanula, larger and more beautiful than its Euro- 
 pean congeners, including lovely saxifrages, and very varied anemones. " 
 —The Times, Dec. 1879. 
 
156 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 plainingly borne, they become a self-evidencing testi- 
 mony to the power and the grace of Christ. The bonds 
 of Paul were not only manifest alike in all the Barracks 
 and " in all the Palace," but he tells us they served to 
 nerve and brace the drooping energies of his comrades in 
 the fight of faith. The gracious results of trial in thus 
 bringing into nearer fellowship and identity with Jesus, 
 will only indeed be fully realised and manifested in 
 the bright world where trial is unknown. We must, 
 meanwhile, often rest satisfied that there is much in 
 the trials themselves which are incomprehensible, — 
 the ' why ' and the * wherefore ' of which Heaven alone 
 shall fully disclose. The day is coming, however, 
 when many a child of earthly affliction will be able to 
 utter, with a higher and infinitely nobler meaning — 
 "My bonds IN Christ are manifest in all the 
 Palacer 
 
 It was but the other day I read, in the works of a 
 distinguished French philosopher and orator, what I 
 may venture, perhaps somewhat fancifully, to adopt 
 as a beautiful and undesigned comment on these 
 words (assuming for the time the correctness of our 
 own Bible rendering) — "In all the Palace " ; — " We are 
 all of us like the weavers of the Gobelins, who, follow- 
 ing out the pattern of an unknown artist, endeavour 
 to match the threads of divers colours on the wrong 
 side of the woof, and do not see the result of their 
 labour It is only when the texture is complete, that 
 they can admire at their ease these lovely flowers and 
 
BONDS IN CHRIST. 157 
 
 figures, these splendid pictures worthy of the palaces 
 of kings. So it is with us. We work, we suffer, and 
 we see neither the end nor the fruit. But God sees 
 it ; and when He releases us from our task, He will dis- 
 close to our wondering gaze what He, the great Artist, 
 everywhere present and invisible, has woven out of 
 those toils that now seem so sterile ; and He will then 
 deign to hang up in His Palace of gold the flimsy web 
 that we have spun." ^ 
 
 Happy those amongst us whose * bonds IN Christ* 
 are working out so glorious a consummation ! The web 
 of life, with its chameleon pattern — its strange, incom- 
 prehensible interweaving of dark and bright threads, 
 fitted, by. processes we cannot understand on earth, to 
 be made manifest at last as an adornment in the Palace 
 of the Great King ! The weaving of the tapestried 
 web, moreover, if we might still carry out the thought 
 suggested by the emblem, is a slow, gradual (shall we 
 say tedious ?) process. It is not the photographic 
 picture which is begun and finished with a flash of 
 light : it resembles rather the hour by hour, and day 
 by day, and month by month, of patient and laborious 
 handicraft. This is Paul's own exact representation of 
 that grander tapestry which the angels of afiBiiction are, 
 behind scenes, busily weaving: — yea, in the quotation 
 we have just given, which is being weaved by a 
 Higher and Better than Angel. Hear his words : "Our 
 
 * Life of Ozonam. 
 
158 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 light affliction," says he (others would have given it a 
 different name), " worketh for us a far more exceed- 
 ing and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. iv. 17). 
 Every stitch of the hand, every turn of the shuttle, is 
 " working out," in some mysterious but very real way, 
 God's great cartoon for the Palace halls and walls of 
 Eternity ! 
 
 Nor are our " bonds in Christ," in the modern ac- 
 ceptation of the term, necessarily restricted to affliction 
 in its more pronounced form, of sickness, pain, bereave- 
 ment. These may resolve themselves into some iron 
 fetter in our daily life ; — something in the tear and 
 wear of ordinary work ; the bonds, it may be, of some 
 seemingly mean and ignoble calling ; — the fretting 
 domestic care ; — the petty wrong ; the ungrateful 
 recompense ; — the wretched estrangement. Some of 
 these, indeed, if the incidents of the Great Life 
 be thought over, were the very afflictions which the 
 Master Himself endured. Let us seek to face our 
 bonds and crosses, as He did, in a spirit of calm sub- 
 mission; glorifying God in the day of visitation. 
 Not seeking to get rid of trial ; — not seeking to strip 
 off the fetters ; — not seeking to battle against the ap- 
 pointments of Providence, to break loose from the 
 meanness and paltriness of our life-work and its sur- 
 roundings; but rather to import into the mean and 
 ignoble, the common and the trivial, a Christian and 
 Christ-like spirit. Thus, meekly acquiescing in what- 
 ever the Divine ordination may be, to breathe the 
 
BONDS IN CHRIST 
 
 159 
 
 prayer ' divinely taught/ of the Gethsemane agony — 
 " Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." All 
 trial will thus be ennobled, consecrated, sublimated ; — 
 iron fetters will become golden ones, by their being 
 regarded and accepted as " bonds in Christ." 
 
( i6o ) 
 
 XIX. 
 
 ACCEPTED IN CHRIST. 
 
 "To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made 
 us accepted IN the Beloved : in whom we have redemption 
 through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches 
 of His grace."— E ph. i. 6, 7. 
 
 ♦• But now, IN Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far oflf are 
 made nigh by the blood of Christ." — Eph. ii. 13. 
 
 |N this — the most deeply experimental of St. 
 Paul's Epistles, how often do our eyes rest 
 on the replica of his great motto ! Let us 
 enter by the gateway thus surmounted by the familiar 
 words, and examine one or two of the sacred treasures 
 within. 
 
 I. Note the covenant relationship — " accepted in the 
 Beloved" It is only under a new phraseology what 
 we have already found him describing as "the new 
 creature in Christ Jesus" The soul, unlovable in itself, 
 made lovable "in the Beloved" — "the Altogether 
 lovely One " (Sol. Song v. 16). " Fair as the moon " 
 (Sol. Song vi. 10), is one out of many figurative de- 
 scriptions of the Church in its corporate capacity; 
 
ACCEPTED IN CHRIST. i6i 
 
 and what is true of the Church collectively, is equally 
 true of each individual member of it. 
 
 Let us look a little more particularly at this significant 
 symbol, as illustrative of the present topic. Whence 
 does the moon in the heavens derive her brightness ? 
 That brightness is not inherent. On the contrary, 
 astronomers tell us, our silvery satellite is in itself a 
 hideous distorted mass of extinct volcanoes, from which 
 all life and glory have departed; — a haunt of chaos 
 and darkness, — airless, cloudless, tenantless. Whence, 
 then, is the light derived which enables it to shine like 
 a pendent lamp in God's midnight Sanctuary — a vestal 
 fire in the Holy of holies of His material Temple ? 
 As is well known, it is all from the sun. The lesser 
 light is bathed in the glory of the sovereign orb. 
 Without that sun the moon would be no more than a 
 black spot in creation. 
 
 What a picture of the believer by nature ! — His 
 heart a chaos ; the home of spiritual gloom and deso- 
 lation, ploughed and furrowed with the traces of sin's 
 volcanic fires. But the Sun of Eighteousness has 
 arisen ; the darkness is past ; and the transfigured soul 
 shines in His reflected glories. In a word, that soul 
 is, " IN Christ," a new world, " a new creation." The 
 summons has been given—" Arise, shine ; for thy light 
 is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee " 
 (Isa. Ix. i). In Christ, and in Christ alone, the 
 emblematic description is verified — " fair as the 
 moon." 
 
 L 
 
i62 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 The more special reference, however, in the first 
 of our verses, seems rather to be to another favourite 
 emblem of St. Paul's : one which forms a distinctive 
 feature in the same sacred allegory from which the 
 lunar symbol just spoken of, is taken. " I am black, 
 but comely," is the portraiture there given of the 
 Bride (Sol. Song i. 5). Comely, beautiful, glorious, 
 through the comeliness and glory of Another. This 
 same figure the Apostle more fully expands in the 
 close of the Epistle. " Husbands, love your wives, 
 even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself 
 for it ; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the 
 washing of water by the Word, that He might present 
 it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or 
 wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy, 
 and without blemish" (Eph. v. 25-27). "Oh, how 
 wonderful," to quote the simple but perspicuous com- 
 ment of a practical writer on the Epistle, — " Oh, how 
 wonderful the union between the Lord Jesus Christ 
 and those who believe on His name. As a husband is 
 responsible for all the debts of his wife, Jesus is respon- 
 sible for the sins of His people, and pays the mighty 
 debt of every poor sinner that depends upon Him. As 
 the wife is lifted up, and taken even from the meanest 
 rank in the world, and if the husband is on a throne, 
 she is lifted up to the rank of her husband : — so Jesus 
 takes the sinner out of the depths of guilt and sin, 
 clothes him with His own righteousness, and will never 
 leave him nor forsake him, until He raises him up to 
 
ACCEPTED IN CHRIST. 163 
 
 sit upon His own throne. ' He raiseth up the poor out 
 of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, 
 that He may set him with princes, even with the 
 princes of His people ' " ^ (Ps. cxiii. 7, 8). " Accepted in 
 the Beloved," the believer's name becomes Hephzibah, 
 " The Lord delighteth in thee " (Is. Ixii. 4). 
 
 II. Our thoughts in the above texts are not only 
 directed to the blessed mystical relationship — " ac- 
 cepted in Christ," but to the procuring cause of that 
 acceptance. " In whom we have Redemption through 
 His blood." " But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who some- 
 times were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ"^ 
 (Eph. ii. 1 3) 
 
 The expression in the first of our verses is even 
 stronger in the original — " In w^hom we have the (rrjv) 
 Eedemption." Moreover, the word Eedemption in- 
 variably implies ' ransom by payment.' ^ The bleating 
 of sacrificial offerings began outside the gates of Eden ; — 
 they were heard on the heights of Ararat : — still more 
 under the Levitical economy did these expiatory sacri- 
 fices proclaim each day, and almost each hour of the day, 
 the great truth—" without the shedding of blood there 
 is no remission." That whole typical economy would 
 be an enigma : — it would resolve itself into a wasteful 
 
 1 M'Ghee on Ephesians in loc. 
 
 ' Let us note tlie precise expressions " In whom," " In Christ Jesus." 
 Kot as some who give the ungrammatical rendering of Aid — * through 
 whom ' or ^on account of whom." But ()^v Si) "in "; by virtue of living 
 union with Christ. 
 
 ^ dwoXirrpuais. See Eadie on Ephesians, pp. 37, 38. 
 
i64 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 expenditure of life, an unwarrantable redundancy of 
 animal suffering, had it not been for its anti-typical 
 meaning, — tlie significant prefiguration of an All-perfect 
 Sacrifice. Eegarded by themselves, the wounds and 
 cries of these expiring victims are a strange anomaly 
 in the government of a gracious and righteous Law- 
 giver. Why torrents of innocent blood thus staining 
 holy altars ? But, accept the theory of sin's penal 
 consequences (the necessity of expiation by vicarious 
 suffering, through the death of the adorable Surety), and 
 all is explained. Christ becoming the Sponsor for His 
 people: — "made sin for us: (2 Cor. v. 21). Sal- 
 vation procured by the substitution and atonement of 
 a spotless Offering, " the Lamb slain from the founda- 
 tion of the world ; — " The Son of Man, who came not to 
 be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life 
 a RANSOM for many " (Matt. xx. 2 8). If any there be 
 (and many such there are in these times) who cavil at 
 this article of our faith, and pronounce it a theology 
 * unworthy of God ' : — it is for us to accept these and 
 other cognate truths, with all their deep and profound 
 mystery, as revealed verities : — resting satisfied with 
 the asserted 'obligation' (a moral obligation arising 
 out of the very nature and character of the Supreme), 
 and which is thus enunciated in the Great * Epistle 
 of Sacrifice ' — "It became Him, of whom are all 
 things, and by whom are all things ... to make the 
 Captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings" 
 (Heb. ii. i o). Antagonistic to reason we allow ; yet 
 
ACCEPTED IN CHRIST. 165 
 
 it is this very doctrine, humbly and reverentially re- 
 ceived, which has imparted comfort and peace to God's 
 people in every age. Hear the testimony, among a 
 thousand such, of one whose name is in all the 
 churches : " Never," says Dr. Chalmers, " does light 
 and peace so fill my heart, as -when, like a little child, 
 I take up the lesson that God hath laid on His own 
 Son the iniquity of us all." 
 
 III. We have noted, in the first of our motto- verses, 
 the promring cause of our union with Christ. But 
 the same verse enables us to go a step yet higher. It 
 gives us what may be called the impelling cause : — the 
 great " motive power " in Eedemption, — " according to 
 the riches of His grace." On that cross there is engraven, 
 in imperishable lettering, the eternal love and grace of 
 the Father. 
 
 There was nothing in the believer to deserve such 
 a ransom, and ransom price. No * foreseen excellence ' 
 to recommend to the Divine favour. If " IN Christ " 
 be tlie legend and superscription on the gateway of the 
 spiritual temple, — Grace is the word inscribed on its 
 every stone, and shaft, and lintel, and buttress, — even 
 to " the top-stone " (Zech. iv. 7). 
 
 And as grace is the impelling cause on the part of 
 God, so, we may add, is His imparted grace the pro- 
 pelling power in the heart and life and progress of 
 His people. It is He who vouchsafes to them par- 
 doning grace, sanctifying grace, sustaining grace, com- 
 forting grace, dying grace ; grace, till grace is needed 
 
1 66 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 no more, and is merged in glory. " It is the Grace of 
 God," as one, who knew it well, expresses it, " which 
 can enable the lame, the halt, the maimed, the blind 
 to go through the land and possess it " (Evans). Of, 
 and by themselves, God's people could never reach 
 that possession. " These," says Christ (to repeat a 
 well-known passage), " are IN the world," tempted and 
 tossed, weak and vacillating. If nothing but their 
 own fragile roots to grapple with, they would succumb 
 to the first hurricane. But, speaking of Himself by 
 the lips of one of the later prophets — " I am like a 
 green " (evergreen) " fir-tree ; from Me " (in Me) " is thy 
 fruit found " (Hosea xiv. 8). " In Me." We may say 
 regarding the Jehovah of the New Testament, what 
 Bishop Eeynolds says of the Jehovah of the Old, when He 
 revealed His name to Moses as the Great I AM : — " He 
 puts His hand to a blank, to enable His people to write 
 under it what they will that may be for their good." 
 " In WTiom : " — " in the Beloved " — we have pardon, 
 peace, joy, pity, sympathy, help, comfort, everlasting 
 salvation. Ours in life — ours in death — ours through 
 eternity ! As the Great High Priest within the veil, 
 and by virtue of His people's union with Him, He is 
 the Dispenser of these heavenly blessings. "Jesus 
 Christ," says an old divine, " is the Lord-Treasurer of 
 heaven and earth ; as Joseph in Egypt. If any one 
 would have corn, they must go to Joseph for it ; He 
 was the rock that Moses must stand on, that the glory 
 
ACCEPTED IN CHRIST. 167 
 
 of God's goodness might pass before Him." ^ "I say 
 not unto you," is a remarkable utterance in His own 
 valedictory discourse, " that I shall pray the Father for 
 you " (John xvi. 26). As if He said, * He sees you in 
 Me. He beholds your names written on My golden 
 breastplate.' It is enough. An alternative rendering of 
 the Psalmist's words may be taken and employed by the 
 believer in their highest reference to the Great Inter- 
 cessor : — " I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh 
 upon me " (or, " carries me on His heart "). 
 
 We may only further add, that this union, the 
 result of grace and love on the part of the Eternal 
 Father and the Eternal Son, is sealed on the one hand 
 by the Holy Ghost :— " In whom " (Christ) « also, after 
 that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit 
 of promise " (Eph. i. 13). On the other, it is ratified 
 on the part of the believer hy faith. To use the words 
 of Besser, " Faith, in Paul's sense of it, is the Christ- 
 betrothed-soul's wedding-ring ; the preciousness of 
 which lies, not in the holding of it, but in Him that 
 is held by it, viz.^ m Jesus Christ." It was the pecu- 
 liar aspect and attitude of faith as set forth by St. 
 Paul — " through faith in His blood," — " Eedemption 
 through His blood," — which brought him so near in 
 loving fellowship with Christ. We know that, in one 
 sense, personal communion with Jesus had not been 
 enjoyed by him as in the case of the other Apostles 
 
 ^ Nehemiah Adams. 
 
l68 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 He had never seen His Lord save in vision. But 
 there is a contact, closer and more real than discern- 
 ment by the outer senses. Though his eye had not 
 rested on the awful scenes of Calvary, he could say 
 with a refined spiritual apprehension — " Jesus Christ 
 is evidently set forth." " I am crucified with Christ." 
 " Always bearing about in the body the dying of the 
 Lord Jesus." By faith he saw the blood sprinkling of the 
 true Pasclial Lamb ; as if gazing on the Divine Victim 
 " Christ our Passover sacrificed for us " ( i Cor. v. 7). 
 
 It is the same with all who, in any lowly measure, 
 tread in the footsteps of the Great Apostle, and are 
 heirs to that faith which is the substance of things 
 hoped for, the " confidence " of things not seen. " Ac- 
 cepted in the Beloved " is faith's assurance now. " In 
 whom w^e have Eedemption through His blood," faith's 
 note of triumph. And when these glorious espousals 
 shall be consummated on the Bridal-day of the Church 
 triumphant, that same redemption-note of earth will 
 be continued as the everlasting " Epithalamium " — 
 the song of Infinite love, the song of Eternity — 
 " Thoio wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by 
 Thy blood!" 
 
( i69. ) 
 
 XX. 
 
 THE PEACE OF GOD IN CHRIST. 
 
 **So stand fast IN the Lord, my clearly beloved."— Phil. iv. i. 
 
 •• I beseech Euodias, and beseech SjTityche, that they be of the 
 same mind IN the Lord." — Phil. iv. 2. 
 
 *' Rejoice in the Lord ahvay: and again I say, Rejoice." 
 —Phil. iv. 4. 
 
 ** And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,', shall 
 keep your hearts and minds IN Christ Jesus."— Phil. iv. 7. 
 
 HEEE is a wonderful reiteration of the 
 Apostle's favourite monogram and its equi- 
 valents, in this concluding chapter of his 
 Epistle to the Philippians. Though already alluded 
 to in an earlier page, we need make no apology in 
 recurring to these more fully now : and the above four 
 motto- verses, which we may profitably link together, do 
 not, as we shall afterwards find, exhaust the list. In 
 the last of these verses, by that same unaccountable de- 
 parture from the ordinary rendering previously referred 
 to, the preposition {ev) has been translated in our 
 authorised version ' through ' Christ, instead of, as else- 
 where, * in ' Christ. A similar unnecessary divergence, 
 
I70 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 as we shall note in a subsequent meditation, occurs 
 both in verses 1 3 and 1 9. 
 
 The transition, in the opening of the chapter, is a 
 marked and beautiful one from the immediately pre- 
 ceding context, where we have the strange and unwonted 
 reference to Paul in tears (chap. iii. 1 8). His heroic 
 soul could willingly bear any personal suffering and 
 degradation ; but at the manifestation of hostility or 
 disloyalty to his dear Lord, covert or open, his mag- 
 nanimity gave way. He could not refrain from weep- 
 ing, when he thought of " the enemies of the cross of 
 Christ ; " — those who, professing outwardly the tenets 
 of the Gospel, remained empty formalists — utter 
 strangers to its spiritualising power ; nay, dishonour- 
 ing its pure and elevated morality with shameless and 
 corrupted lives, — absorbed in * earthly things.' He 
 turns with a feeling of relief and gladness to the 
 members of his much-loved Church in Philippi, who 
 (different from many other communities he had planted) 
 he knew were faithful to their Great Master. Their 
 " citizenship was in heaven." They were the chartered 
 heirs and denizens of a nobler commonwealth than 
 " the present evil world ; " they were looking and 
 longing for their Lord's second coming (chap. iii. 20), 
 when body as well as spirit would be transformed into 
 a blessed resemblance with His own glorious and 
 glorified body (ver. 21). They had already proved to 
 him on earth, and would, in a nobler and loftier sense 
 prove in heaven, " a royal diadem in the hand of his 
 
THE PEACE OF GOD IN CHRIST. 171 
 
 God." Heaping one endearing epithet on another, — 
 with a yearning, loving tenderness, the outpouring of a 
 full heart that has no parallel in his other letters, — 
 he exhorts his " brethren, dearly beloved and longed 
 for ; " his " joy and crown," to " stand fast in the 
 Lord." Stand fast : a military term ; and not the 
 cnly one, as we shall presently see, employed by him 
 in this chapter. Christ is represented as a glorious 
 Tortress — "The Tower of David, builded for an armoury" 
 (Sol. Song iv. 4), the true City of Eefuge. The Apostle 
 entreats his loved Philippian disciples to permit no- 
 thing to entice from its walls, and thus imperil their 
 safety and peace. He exhorts them, as sentries, to stand 
 firm at the post of duty : or, as a regiment, to stand 
 fast in the day of battle in loyal devotion to the Great 
 Captain of Salvation. Through their exceptionally 
 cordial acceptance of the Gospel message, he felt as if 
 a laurel- wreath or oaken garland, better than that of 
 the successful athlete of Isthmia or Corinth, had been 
 put around his brow. But, lest any breath of sin or 
 apostacy might threaten to mar its beauty, or soil its 
 verdure ; — lest some moment of un vigilance should 
 lull them to sleep and indifference ; — or worse, lead 
 them to stray from the watch-tower and parley with 
 the foe ; the exhortation just quoted is employed. 
 " Look not to me," he seems to say, " or to any human 
 instrument : stand fast in the Lord ! " It recalls a 
 passage in which, with a still deeper emphasis, the 
 same phrase is used. Here he speaks of their stead- 
 
172 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 fastness being his joy : there he calls it his very life, 
 "Now we live, if ye standfast in the Lord " (i Thess. 
 iii. 8). Similarly in another Epistle — "Finally, my 
 brethren, be strong in theJLord, and in the power of 
 His might. Wherefore take unto you the whole 
 armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand 
 in the evil day, and having done all, to stand " (Eph. 
 vi. 10, 13). 
 
 In the Church, however, which, of all he had 
 founded, had given him least cause for disquietude 
 and trouble (on the contrary, which had all along 
 afforded the most indubitable proofs of affection and 
 esteem), there was one darkening cloud in its other- 
 wise bright sky. Two female members (whose services, 
 moreover, in aiding him to spread the Gospel he grate- 
 fully recognises in Phil. iv. 3) had been involved in one 
 of those unhappy estrangements, which so often mar 
 the beauty and harmony of the imperfect fellowships 
 below. We are not informed what the cause of dis- 
 agreement was, nor from what it had arisen. Perhaps 
 from the too common one of rivalry and partisanship ; 
 some miserable question about precedence, and its 
 usual accompaniment — a lack of generous forbearance. 
 Very possibly an allusion to the cause is referred to 
 in Phil. ii. 3 : — " Let nothing be done through strife 
 or vain-glory ; but in lowliness of mind let each 
 esteem other better than themselves ; " and where, as 
 the best counteractive to such an unworthy spirit, 
 there is held up the peerless example of Him who 
 
THE PEACE OF GOD IN CHRIST. 173 
 
 stooped to a servant's place, and was willing to become 
 the lowliest of the lowly : — " Let this mind be in 
 you, which was also in Christ Jesus " (Phil. ii. 5). The 
 Apostle would seek to effect the needed reconciliation. 
 How does he endeavour to repair this unseemly breach? 
 Again his monogram is enlisted in the office of peace- 
 maker. He makes a personal appeal : — " I beseech 
 Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the 
 same mind in the Lord." After all, this he fondly 
 hoped was only a passing cloud ; and again he returns 
 to the jubilant term employed in the beginning of 
 chapter iii., coupled with a reduplication of his favourite 
 word — " Rejoice IN THE Lord alway, and again I say, 
 BejoicG " ^ (Phil. iv. 4). " In the Lord," was the secret of 
 the alway rejoicing; the source of its reality, its inten- 
 sity, and permanence. It was joy resultant from a 
 living union with a living Saviour. Hence not a fitful 
 spasmodic joy, but deep, lasting, continuous. Not the 
 ripple of the shallow brook gurgling over its pebbly 
 bed, but the calm, steady, silent flow of the river in 
 its well-worn channel, too deep to be noisy. Paul had 
 been himself the partaker and recipient of that joy, a 
 joy in the Lord ' alway ; ' — the habitually realised 
 presence and fellowship of his Eedeemer; a growing 
 
 ^ 'Rejoice' : 'Joy be with you.' It is the same Greek word em- 
 ployed by the Saviour in His own memorable Resurrection-greeting — 
 'All hail!' (Matt, xxviii. 9). So that the Apostle's "Rejoice in the 
 Lord," was in one sense only a translation and echo of his great 
 Master's Easter salutation. 
 
174 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 consciousness of the reality and security of that divine 
 fortress within whose walls he had fled for safety. 
 With this glowing and growing assurance of personal 
 tranquillity and gladness of heart, he would have 
 
 • others share the inner sunshine — " Again I say, 
 Eejoice." 
 
 Two exhortations follow, which, as they have no 
 immediate connection with his monogram, we need not 
 dwell upon : viz., the avoidance of feverish carefulness 
 on the one hand, and the cultivation of abundant 
 prayerfulness on the other. But as he sums up, the 
 familiar term once more occurs as the culminating 
 expression of the paragraph : — " And the peace of God, 
 which passeth all understanding, shall keep" (as a 
 citadel or garrison is kept and defended by a military 
 guard) "your hearts and minds IN Christ Jesus" 
 (Phil. iv. 7). Here again, observe it is the warrior or 
 sentinel symbol which is employed : — a somewhat 
 singular application of the metaphor as applied to 
 "Peace." The heart, the mind, the will, the thoughts, 
 the feelings, the affections, are " IN Christ ; " shut up 
 as in a fortress ; and God's own ' Peace ' — the gentlest 
 of sentries — keeps watch and ward at the gates of this 
 all-glorious stronghold. Paul, when he wrote the 
 words, had, as we recently noted, his hand fastened by 
 a chain to the soldier at his side ; thereby ensuring his 
 
 V safe custody. May not this possibly have suggested 
 the simile ? ' The peace of God ' (personified) says 
 he, ' like that guardsman from Osesar's barracks, will 
 
THE PEACE OF GOD IN CHRIST. 175 
 
 hold you in safe keeping, — only the golden fetters of 
 God's sweet peace will be substituted for the iron ones 
 of man's galling and cruel power ' ! 
 
 And what a peace must this be " m Christ Jesus," 
 which the Apostle here describes as " passing all under- 
 standing " ! Let us for a moment go round about this 
 fortress thus garrisoned and sentinelled, and mark its 
 bulwarks. As its foundation there is, as we found in 
 the preceding chapter, the assurance of pardon : " In 
 WHOM we have redemption through His blood, even 
 the forgiveness of sins." In Him the mighty, aU- 
 momentous question of our soul's everlasting interests 
 is settled and adjusted for ever : so that once within 
 these walls, we are eternally safe. Then, even as re- 
 gards the present, — ^that union with Jesus enables us to 
 repose in the gladdening conviction, that our path of 
 life is meted out for us and appointed ; that it is not 
 an arbitrary destiny, but a plan of God. We have 
 the bliss of that Saviour's unseen but real fellowship 
 on earth ; — His unseen, but real advocacy in heaven ; 
 the pledge that no true evil can befall us; that 
 the sting has been extracted from trial, and the last 
 enemy robbed of his victory. No wonder then, with 
 these as its leading characteristics, that the Apostle 
 should call it a peace which baffles finite comprehen- 
 sion. No plummet-line can fathom it, no tempest can 
 assail it, no time can destroy it : " Its foundations are 
 in the Holy mountains." Away, then, with all dis- 
 quietudes, all misgivings and forebodings. " Thou wilt 
 
176 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 keep him," Saviour God, "in perfect peace, whose 
 mind is stayed ON Thee, because he trusteth in Thee " 
 (Isa. XX vi. 3). 
 
 Yes, " IN Christ Jesus." Hear how the Divine 
 Eedeemer, in bequeathing that peace, does Himself, so 
 to speak, anticipate the monogram of this greatest 
 Apostle — *' Peace I leave with you, my peace I^ give 
 unto you : not as the world giveth give I unto you. 
 Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid " 
 (John xiv. 27); "These things I have spoken unto 
 you that IN Me ye might have peace " (John xvi. 33). 
 No wonder that in wandering through the Eoman 
 Catacombs, the eye should fall on the Christian's 
 expressive trilogy — spes • pax • tibi (Hope • Peace • 
 To thee). 
 
XXI. 
 STRENGTH AND RICHES IN CHRIST. 
 
 ** I can do all things IN CHRIST which streugtheneth me." — 
 Phil. iv. 13. 
 
 *' But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches 
 in glory IN Christ Jesus."— Phil. iv. 19. 
 
 latrmT^ 
 
 N the verse which formed the subject of our 
 last meditation, we found that our excel- 
 lent Bible translators had unaccountably em- 
 ployed the preposition " through," instead of the more 
 literal one of " in." 
 
 In the above two verses which foUow in the same 
 postscript-chapter, there is a similar departure from the 
 translation of other passages. In both cases, however, 
 we have ventured to restore the rendering, so that each 
 may take its place, as it ought, among the monogram- 
 mottoes of the Great Apostle/ 
 
 They both occur in connection with a tribute of 
 
 ^ Phil. iv. 13. Udm-a lax^^ ^^ TV {^^ Him). The Xpiart^ in the 
 Received text is not found in versions of highest authority. * * But 
 the reference is unmistakeable ; and the omission of the name ^ves a 
 peculiar point to the starting declaration. " — Dr. Eadie in loco. 
 
 M 
 
178 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 grateful acknowledgment paid to the beloved Philippian 
 Church, for what they had done on his behalf in a 
 season of constrained silence and inactivity. By the 
 hands, too, of the faithful Epaphroditus, they had sent 
 him substantial tokens of their sympathy 'and affec- 
 tion. He received these, as he received everything, 
 " IN Christ." " I rejoiced m the Lord greatly " (ver. 
 lo). 1% the Lord the gift was given. In, the Lord 
 the gift, with a thankful heart, is accepted. With 
 the courtesy and delicacy of a noble mind, he is fearful, 
 lest in the very act of acknowledgment, his words 
 and feelings may have been misapprehended. He 
 may have conveyed the impression of indulging in 
 a querulous and complaining spirit, hinting at wants, 
 and chafing under penury. To have done so would 
 have been alien to his nature, k sufficient and ample 
 refutation truly was his whole past disinterested life. 
 He takes, however, the special opportunity of assuring 
 them that he was not one thus to repine under straits 
 and fret under discouragements. His new 'life in 
 Christ' had enabled him, with calm and cheerful 
 equanimity, to rise superior to the mere 'accidents' of 
 existence. Whether it be * abasement or abounding,' 
 indigence or fulness, an embittered lot or outward 
 prosperity, he was alike content in the sovereign, all- 
 gracious will of Him who regulated his chequered 
 history. His, at the same time, was no sullen, stoical 
 acquiescence in a hard, but hopeless fate. Indeed, even 
 in the very conveyance of this assurance of his content- 
 
STRENGTH AND RICHES IN CHRIST. 179 
 
 ment, we may note a beautiful testimony to his humi- 
 lity : " I have learned," he says, " in whatsoever state I 
 am, therewith to be content." It is a frank avowal that 
 he had, by nature, a mind as prone to impatience as 
 others ; ^ that it was with struggle and self-discipline he 
 had schooled himself into this "calm and heavenly 
 frame." In a word, that its root and secret were not 
 in himself. His In Christo solves it all. * I can face 
 all things, and do all things, and suffer all things, in 
 Christ, who strengthenetJi me.' ^ 
 
 That ' fortress ' (to recur to the symbol of the pre- 
 vious meditation) was full of all manner of store. It 
 contained the * panoply of God.' He was " strong in the 
 Lord, and in the power of His might." He was strong 
 for duty ; he was strong for (what to him was perhaps 
 more difficult than duty) restraint and inaction. He 
 had " learned " that hardest lesson of strength. " Their 
 
 ^ Barnes. 
 
 * Tije same Greek word is employed several times by him, as in 
 I Tim. i. 12 — 'I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me," in- 
 fused strength into me, " inspired me with strength." (See Lightfoot 
 on Philippians, p. 164.) As the Apostle's monogram has suggested 
 many references to the Roman Catacombs, it may be worth while, in 
 connection with this verse, to refer to another frequent hieroglyph there 
 found, and one which seems to have shared mth the chrism a special 
 favouritism with the early Christians. Indeed, the two are often com- 
 bined. It is the symbol of the fish : — and this, at first sight singular 
 partiality, is readily understood and accounted for from the explana- 
 tion given by Augustine. The initial letters of the Greek word for 
 fish (IX0T2) read as an acrostic — Irjffovs Xpi<xToi Geou Tios "Zur-qp, — 
 "Jesus Christ God's Son Saviour." Thus, to use the words of that 
 ancient Father, *• the name of Christ is mystically designated." 
 
 Moreover, this symbol is sometimes still further significantly con- 
 
i8o 7iV CJIRISTO. 
 
 strength is to sit still " (Isa. xxx. 7). A noble testimony- 
 he adds, in a succeeding verse, to this same content- 
 ment in Christ. To others, what must he have ap- 
 peared to be ? Indeed, what was he ? A prisoner ; his 
 liberty curtailed ; his energies cramped. No longer per- 
 mitted, as the freeman, to bound at will over the waves 
 of the Great Sea, or to foot the passages of the Pisidian 
 Alps ; to join the Sabbath prayer-meeting by the Phi- 
 lippian river-side ; to grapple with subtle intellects 
 in the bazaars of Corinth, or in the Athenian Agora. 
 Now, even when he tells the cherished story of the 
 cross, he is subjected to jealous espionage. The clank of 
 the chain mingles with the silvery accents of his voice. 
 Yet, what is his testimony and avowal ? what the 
 manifesto of one who never spoke but in words of 
 truth and soberness ? "/ have all and abound " (Phil, 
 iv. 1 8). A beautiful and succinct comment on these, 
 his present (indeed on his habitual) feelings, is con- 
 
 joined with others ; e.g., not on slabs, but on rings and seals, a lamb is 
 represented as standing on the back of the fish : — the weak believer sup- 
 ported by Christ. Or, of similar import, a ship or galley — the Christian 
 symbol of the Church — is represented as borne through " the waves of 
 this troublesome world " on the same figurative fish. It is the believer 
 individually, as well as the Church eollectively, riding out the storm, 
 and reaching the hea,venly port in safety, through and in the 
 strengthening and sustaining power of " Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
 our Saviour." We have reason to know, from Clement of Alexandria, 
 that this symbol was familiar in the second century. Indeed, De 
 Rossi clearly shows, by ]3ainstaking investigation, that it was one 
 peculiar to the very earliest age, and is rarely found subsequent to the 
 time of Constantino. (See former books of reference. Also, an excel- 
 lent compendium, ** The Catacombs of Rome," passim.) 
 
STRENGTH AND RICHES IN CHRIST. i8i 
 
 tained in Col. i. 1 1 : " Strengthened with all might, 
 according to His glorious power, unto all patience and 
 long-suffering with joy fulness." 
 
 But to pass to the other memorable entry at the 
 head of this meditation. 
 
 What can be his recompense to his beloved Philip- 
 pians for all their generous deeds ; and — better to the 
 truly great soul than deeds — the tender affectionate 
 solicitude and sympathy which evoked and inspired 
 them ? 
 
 He feels he can give at least no personal return or 
 equivalent. He was powerless as a little child ! 
 Even when in the enjoyment of liberty and indepen- 
 dent action, his hands ministered to his own neces- 
 sities.^ What can he do now ? How can he shape 
 now his acknowledgment and reply ? His monogram 
 furnishes and dictates the message. ' I can give no- 
 thing back ; I can send nothing back,' he seems to 
 say. * " Silver and gold have I none : " — nevertheless, 
 the cup of cold water will not go unrewarded. I look 
 away from my poor self to the Great Eecompenser — 
 *'But my God shall supply all your need according to His 
 riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Phil. iv. 19). The 
 cloud you have loaded will descend in sure blessings 
 on your heads.' He remembered the words of the 
 Lord Jesus how He said — " Inasmuch as ye have done 
 
 Acts XX. 34. 
 
i82 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have 
 done it unto Me " (Matt. xxv. 40). 
 
 A beautiful contrast has been noted in the pronoun 
 here employed — " My God." ' You have generously 
 met and supplied all my wants, ministering to me in 
 my distress ; God, on my behalf, will return the boon. 
 As ye have been my helpers, God will be yours. 
 Once and again ye sent unto my necessity. He will 
 befriend you by supplying " all your need." Yes, and 
 in a way I never could. My best recompensing 
 blessings, even if I had them to give, would be limited, 
 temporary. His are inexhaustible. And, better still, 
 they are " riches in glory ; " — recompense beyond 
 the bounds of earth.^ And all 'IN Christ Jesus.* 
 That is the climax: here, as elsewhere, giving value, 
 and security, and permanence : — the divine secret of 
 that illimitable supply. 
 
 The unfallen angels are as dependent as we are on 
 God's bounty. Direct from Him they receive every 
 blessing. They can appropriate the first part of the 
 verse — "My God shall supply all your need out of 
 His riches ; " but it is the sinner, redeemed by the 
 blood of the divine Surety, — he who has his privi- 
 leges and immunities ensured and guaranteed by 
 covenant, who alone can lay claim to the wealth of 
 meaning in the concluding words — " In glory in Christ 
 Jesus." His are the illimitable gifts and legacies of 
 
 ^ ''UXvpdipec iv S6^7} seems to be a pregnant phrase, signifying 'shall 
 supply, by placing you in glory.' " — Light Joot, note, p. 167. 
 
STRENGTH AND RICHES IN CHRIST. 183 
 
 gro.ce, — each of which has, in the words of the old 
 writers, 'the mark of the cross upon it, — the badge 
 and pledge of inviolability. 
 
 How often has the experience of Paul been borne 
 out in that of His true followers in every age ! In 
 circumstances where poor, frail humanity reeled and 
 staggered : in battles of the faith, or battles of the soul, 
 where there seemed nothing but failure, defeat, dis- 
 comfiture ; how wondrously has upholding, sustaining, 
 conquering grace been vouchsafed ! Is it some evil 
 habit, some secret sin, some debasing propensity, 
 some grovelling appetite and passion to subdue ? In 
 Christ he has been strengthened. Is it some life-long 
 affliction to bear — reverses in fortune, wearing, wast- 
 ing disease and sickness, breaches in the loved circle; 
 or, what is harder still, some of life's unspoken sor- 
 rows, the hidden wound of the lacerated heart ? In 
 Christ he has been strengthened. Is it some painful or 
 perilous duty to encounter or discharge — from which 
 flesh and blood recoil, but which some dire necessity 
 of circumstance renders imperative ? In Christ he has 
 been strengthenedo Is it some unforeseen assault of 
 the evil one, the presentation of ' the tempting oppor- 
 tunity : ' — one footstep more, conscience shipwrecked 
 and peace bartered ? In Christ he has been and he 
 will be strengthened. Yes ! beautiful is this promise 
 of grace for every recurring exigency. The supply, 
 not of one want, but of all wants. Grace, too, given, 
 not in anticipation of the trial or the temptation, but 
 
1 84 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 when these come, it is meted out in loving proportion 
 to our needs. "My God shall supply." It is like 
 the Physician watching his patient, and ready to give 
 the restorative or counteractive as these may be re- 
 quired — "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be." 
 Teaching us, thereby, not to dishonour God, or to 
 perplex ourselves, with uneasy forebodings and appre- 
 hensions as to the unravelled and unrevealed future ; 
 but to trust Him, that in the right time and in the 
 right way the want will be supplied, or the difficulty 
 solved, or the heart-ache soothed — " And God is able 
 to make all grace abound toward you ; that ye, always 
 having all-sufficiency in all things, may abound to 
 every good work" (2 Cor. ix. 8). Think as soon of 
 exhausting the ocean, as of exhausting that infinite, 
 divine supply. Millions of His children have come, 
 and are coming, as needy suppliants; and still, over the 
 portico of the Paternal dwelling gleam the words — 
 " There is bread enough in your Father's house, and to 
 spare ! " To quote an old Scotch divine on this pas- 
 sage — " There is a kind of omnipotency in a believer 
 being supported by Christ's strengthening power; so 
 that there is nothing within the compass of his Chris- 
 tian calling, and for which there is a covenant-promise 
 for through-bearing, — there is no such thing impossible 
 for Him to do : — * I am able to do all things.' " ^ 
 One other thought, suggested by these two previous 
 
 Fcrgiisson of Kilwinning, 1656 ; p. 
 
STRENGTH AND RICHES IN CHRIST, 185 
 
 meditations. We have surely here brought before us, 
 in the testimony and experience of St. Paul, thejoy/ul 
 element of the religion of Jesus. If " in Christ " be 
 the keynote, "joy" is the refrain of this whole chapter 
 — this whole Epistle — " Eejoice in the Lord alway ; 
 and again I say. Rejoice." It may be otherwise coun- 
 terfeited and misrepresented; but Christianity is, or 
 ought to be, the religion of joy. Compare it with the 
 teachings of the great sages and masters of antiquity, 
 — leaders in the schools of Pagan thought. How their 
 boasted philosophic systems pale into dead ashes 
 beside these glowing embers in the writings of St. 
 Paul ! The one is like a sluggish pool, a cold, dreary, 
 moorland tarn, compared with the rush and sparkle of 
 a pure, life-giving stream, whose banks all along its 
 course are carpeted with verdure, and bathed in sun- 
 shine — " The JOY of the Lord is your strength " (Neh. 
 viii. 10). 
 
 Appropriate and beautiful, as a close, seem the 
 words of the Apostle at the end of this Epistle to the 
 Philippians; a doxology to God, a salutation to His 
 saints — " Now unto God and our Father be glory 
 for ever and ever. Amen. Salute every saint IN 
 CHRIST JESUS" (iv. 20, 21). 
 
( i86 ) 
 
 XXII. 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS IN CHRIST. 
 
 *'TIiat we might be made the righteousness of God IN Him."— 
 2 Cor. V. 21. 
 
 *' And be found IN Him."— Phil. iii. 9. 
 
 ^pN Him " — clothed in the robe of His imputed 
 |B righteousness, so that the eye of a holy 
 t ^^=TTrfr-r^ Q.Q(j ijj looking upon us can see "neither 
 spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing " (Eph. v. 27). 
 
 That is a truth, like some others, discarded in 
 modern theology. It is, nevertheless, one of those 
 divine verities, which, unless we wrest language from 
 its plainest meaning, is everywhere alike implied and 
 asserted in Sacred Scripture. Listen to the utterances 
 of three representative Seers of the Old Testament — 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel. " Surely, shall one say, 
 * In the Lord I have righteousness ' " (Isa. xlv. 24) ; 
 " I wiU greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be 
 joyful in my God ; for He hath clothed me with the 
 garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the 
 robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself 
 with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS IN CHRIST. 187 
 
 her jewels " (Isa. Ixi. i o). " This is His name whereby 
 He shall be called, The Lord our righteousness " (Jer. 
 xxiii. 6). "To finish the transgression, and to make 
 an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, 
 and to bring in everlasting righteousness " (Dan. ix. 24). 
 The best and loftiest of inspired Hebrew poetry 
 celebrates the same theme. If " the King's daughter," 
 in the 45 th Psalm (the nuptial ode of a Greater than 
 Solomon), be regarded as symbolising angelic hosts; 
 peerless among them stands "the Queen in gold of 
 Ophir " (Ps. xlv. 9). 
 
 That key-note, thus struck by the prophets and 
 minstrels of the Old Testament, has its cadences pro- 
 longed and multiplied in the Gospel Age. Hear our 
 own Apostle — " As by one man's disobedience many 
 were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall 
 many be made righteous" (Eom. v. 19). The whole 
 Epistle of the Ptomans, indeed, is a sublime unfolding 
 of the same theme. The righteousness of Christ is 
 the jewel of that most precious casket, — the kernel of 
 that " creed of creeds." " I am ready," is the opening 
 sentence of the Ptoman letter, " to preach the Gospel : 
 . . . FOR, therein is the Righteousness of God revealed " 
 (chap. i. 15-17). In the unfolding of that revelation he 
 begins with a demonstration of the proposition — " There 
 is none righteous, no, not one;" and having estab- 
 lished, by an array of irrefragable proofs, the humiliat- 
 ing assertion, — he proceeds to disclose the great end of 
 " God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful 
 
188 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 flesh " (chap. viii. 3), " that the Righteousness of the law 
 might be fulfilled in us " (chap. viii. 4). Thus, " as by 
 the offence of one judgment came upon all men to 
 condemnation, even so by the righteousness of One 
 the free gift came upon all men unto justification of 
 life " (chap. v. 1 8). With his loved monogram before 
 him, he can elsewhere tersely sum up the glorious 
 truth — " But of Him are ye IN Christ Jesus, who of 
 God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and 
 sanctification, and redemption " (i Cor. i. 30). " Jacob," 
 says old Thomas Brooks, " got the blessing in the gar- 
 ment of his elder brother. So, in the garment of 
 Christ's righteousness, who is our Elder Brother, we 
 obtain the blessing, yea all spiritual blessings "m 
 Eim ! " 
 
 Is it not that same imputed robe, too, which forms 
 the central point in the matchless parable of our 
 blessed Lord ? Before either the ring of adoption, or 
 the shoes of liberty were spoken of, the command to 
 the attendant menials is — " Bring forth the best robe 
 and put it on him " (Luke xv. 22). The old ragged 
 raiment of the wanderer is removed, and underneath 
 that * best robe ' (the choicest of the wardrobe) every 
 scar, and blain, and blemish reminding of the 'far 
 country,' is concealed from view. 
 
 The gracious lips which uttered the gracious truth in 
 a parabolic form on earth, thus addressed His Ephesian 
 Church from His throne in glory. Under the significant 
 Oriental figure (which we have already referred to in 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS IN CHRIST. 
 
 our opening chapter), of a heavenly merchantman 
 with goodly treasures, — costly wares, going from street 
 to street, and from door to door, knocking for admis- 
 sion. He sets forth alike the righteousness that is 
 awanting, and the righteousness that is provided — 
 " And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miser- 
 able, and poor, and blind, and naked : I counsel thee 
 to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou may est 
 be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be 
 clothed" (Eev. iii. 17, 18). 
 
 Hear, yet again, our Apostle, when he was drawing 
 nigh to the close of his great life, how fondly and 
 lovingly he clings to this sheet-anchor in the gathering 
 storm. The exhortations he had given to others in 
 the past — " Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ " (Rom. 
 xiii. 14); " Having on the breastplate of righteous- 
 ness " (Eph. vi. 1 4), he addresses to himself now. 
 In that glorious garment and panoply he wiU wrap 
 himself, and so pass unscathed through the swellings of 
 Jordan. " Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown 
 of righteousness y which the Lord, the righteous Judge, 
 will give me at that day " (2 Tim. iv. 8). Yes, " that 
 day" had its most luminous glories associated with 
 the same transcendent truth — the robe of righteous- 
 ness, the clothing of wrought gold — " That I may win 
 Him, and be found m Him, not having mine own 
 righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is 
 through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which 
 is of God by faith " (Phil. iii. 8, 9). 
 
[Qo IN CHRISTO, 
 
 What was Paul's anticipated glory in " the Day of 
 appearing," has been that of Christ's people in every 
 age. At the supreme moment, when the trump of 
 the Archangel shall sound, and the dead small and 
 great shall be sisted at the great assize, the loved and 
 familiar strain of earth will thrill with a new and 
 grander significance — 
 
 ** Rock of Ages, cleft for me. 
 Let me hide myself iu Thee." 
 
 Will not the wail of ' Eden lost,' only with an altered 
 and more glorious meaning, become the first utterance 
 in Eden restored — " I heard Thy voice, and I was 
 afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself ! " Hid 
 thyself! where ? « I am found IN HIM : " — " A Man 
 shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert 
 from the tempest" (Isa. xxxii. 2). Nay, when the 
 opened Books of Judgment are closed, when the 
 redeemed multitude which no man can number are 
 seen thronging (like ministering Levites, each in their 
 appointed places) the Heavenly Temple ; — and when, 
 in that place of undefined glory where, interweaved, 
 are the figures of Temple and Palace, Priest and King 
 (Eev. vii.), the question is represented as being asked 
 by Angel Spectators — " What are these arrayed in 
 white robes, and whence came they ? " The reply is, 
 " They have washed their robes and made them white 
 in the blood of the Lamb" (Pwev. vii. 13, 14). That 
 radiant, blissful assemblage will be like Israel at the 
 Exodus, in the borrowed jewels with which they 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS IN CHRIST. 191 
 
 marched out of Egypt and entered Canaan, "earrings 
 of gold, and chains and bracelets of silver." The old 
 words of earth will form the refrain of the Eternal 
 anthem — " Made the righteousness of God IN Him." 
 " Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun " (in 
 the Sun) "in the kingdom of their Father"^ (Matt, 
 xiii. 43)- 
 
 One other query is naturally suggested ere we close. 
 Is that Eighteousness easily procurable ? — is it within 
 reach — accessible ? Listen on this point also to the 
 
 ^ In these our days, when this doctrine of imputed righteousness is, 
 with not a few, decried, it is well to turn to some of the Great Lights 
 of bygone centuries, and see how resolutely they clung to it as a 
 foundation-article in their creed. Hear the words of Luther : " "What 
 gives peace to the conscience is. that by faith our sins are no more ours 
 but Christ's, on whom God hath laid them all ; and that, on the other 
 hand, all Christ's righteousness is ours, to whom God hath given it. 
 Christ lays His hand upon us and we are healed. He casts His mantle 
 upon us and we are clothed." AVhat says so reliable an authority as 
 Richard Hooker ? ' ' The righteousness wherein we must be found, if 
 we will be justified, is not our own ; therefore we cannot be justified 
 by any inherent quality. Christ hath merited righteousness for as 
 many as are found in Him. In Him God findeth us, if we be faithful, 
 for by faith we are incorporated into Him. Then, although in our- 
 selves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man, which 
 in himself is full of sin, being found in Christ through faith, and having 
 his sin in hatred through repentance, him God beholdeth with a 
 gracious eye, putting away his sin, by not imputing it ; taking quite 
 away the punishment due thereunto by pardoning it, and accepteth him 
 in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous as if he had fulfilled all that is 
 commanded him in the law, I must take heed what I say, but the 
 Apostle saith, ' God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that 
 we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. ' God hath made 
 Himself the sin of man, and men are made the righteousness of God." 
 "A soul," says Gurnall, "castled within these walls, is impregnable. 
 God cannot see the sinner, because Christ hides him." 
 
192 IN CHRISTO, 
 
 Apostle's own expression, in his own comforting assm*- 
 ance — " It is nigh thee " (Eom. x. 8). In the same 
 graphic passage he further asserts, that the Provider of 
 that righteousness in offering it, mocks with no impos- 
 sibility ; as if its attainment demanded scaling the 
 heights of heaven or descending to the depths beneath 
 (Rom. X. 6, 7). "I bring near my righteousness," is 
 God's part. Acceptance by faith is ours. " Even the 
 righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ 
 unto all and upon all them that believe " (Rom, 
 iii. 2 2). "It is by becoming one with Christ, that 
 Christ's righteousness can become our righteousness " 
 (Zightfoot). " Thus," has it been well remarked, " the 
 very perfection of God which seemed ,to close the door, 
 is the very perfection that opens it to a poor sinner 
 coming through Jesus " {Harrington Evans). 
 
 Some ancient warriors had their shields embossed, 
 outside and in, with figures of their particular gods. 
 With these they covered their head in the day of battle ; 
 and the intervention of the hallowed symbol (on which 
 their eye rested) between them and the missiles of 
 the foe, nerved their own arm in the thickest of the 
 fight. " Behold, God our shield," exclaims the 
 believer in the midst of the spiritual conflict, as the 
 Apostle's monogram gleams engraven on the shield of 
 faith, — " Behold, God our Shield, and look upon 
 the face of Thine Anointed " (Ps. Ixxxiv. 9). 
 
 Accept, then, the glorious verity in all its fulness, 
 as your alone security now, and your only safety 
 
'RIGHTEOUSNESS IN CHRIST. 193 
 
 and security on " that day." Destitute of that 
 righteousness — ' out of Christ ' — you are like the bird, 
 building its nest on the precarious bough. It may 
 appear secure : but the ringing axe of the woodman 
 sooner or later is heard at the root ; and driven from 
 the havoc of its dismantled home, it goes screaming 
 through the forest with the tale of its woe. In Christ, 
 on the other hand, you are like the bird which builds 
 in the recess of the ocean-cliff. Boiling, seething 
 caldrons may be at its base: the death-shriek from 
 some bark, with its drowning crew grappling with 
 the storm, may be heard below : the unavailing boom 
 of the gun of distress dies away, unsuccoured and un- 
 responded to, amid the wail of the tempest. But, up in 
 the niche of that beetling precipice, aU is safe. There 
 the most timid of the winged tribes can nestle with 
 folded wing — " He shall dwell on high, his place of 
 defence shall be the munitions of rocks " (Isa. xxxiii, 
 1 6). "No axe can touch it : — no blow can shiver it : — 
 no prowler's hand can pillage it : — the wild wind cannot 
 sway it : the spent spray cannot reach it. " Oh my 
 dove, who art in the clefts of the Eock " (Sol. Song ii. 
 14). "Trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord 
 Jehovah is" (marginal rendering) " the EocK of Ages!" 
 
 IN HOC VINCES 
 
( 194 ) 
 
 XXIII. 
 COMPLETE IN CHRIST. 
 
 "Ye are complete IN HiM."— Col. ii. lo. 
 
 comprehend fully the bearing of the Apostle's 
 monogram in connection with these words, 
 we require to advert to the circumstances 
 in which the Epistle from which they are taken was 
 written, and the peculiar phase of erroneous doctrine 
 that Epistle was designed to counteract and condemn. 
 The meaning of the writer can hardly be understood 
 and appreciated without somewhat of a departure 
 from the practical treatment of the themes of this 
 Volume. It will require more than a passing and 
 casual allusion to those strange phenomena of religious 
 thought current during Paul's lifetime and ministry. 
 What was better known and more fully developed in 
 a subsequent age as Gnosticism, with its pernicious 
 leaven, was already at work with special activity in the 
 Church of Colosse and the group of sister Churches in 
 Asia Minor. It is difficult, in a few words, to state 
 what the scope and nature really was of this outgrowth 
 of Oriental mysticism. It was of a curiously complex 
 
COMPLETE IN CHRIST. 
 
 195 
 
 character; compounded of dreamy speculation, rigid 
 asceticism, and arrogant exclusiveness. Its funda- 
 mental tenet was the impossibility of reconciling the 
 character of a holy, righteous, and loving God, with 
 the existence of evil in the worid. In order, there- 
 lore, to sever the Supreme Deity from complicity with 
 evil, the votaries of the system made all sin to be 
 inherent in matter. They held that God, through 
 His spiritual nature, could have no connection what- 
 ever with gross and corporeal things. It will be seen 
 at a glance that the system was thus, so far, a 
 modification or expansion of the peculiar Pagan doc- 
 trine of two principles — Good and Evil, Light and 
 Darkness. The Divine Being, the " First Father " or 
 " Good Principle," they supposed to reside in a region 
 of lofty elevation and abstraction, called the " pleroma," 
 or ''fulness of inaccessible light," from which alone He 
 could give forth His decrees. He had the further 
 name of Bythos or ' The Unfathomable,' denoting the 
 mystery that enshrouded Him in the ' abyss ' in which 
 He dwelt. From this pleroma there issued forth, " like 
 echoes from a sound," emanations (peons) ; an inter- 
 mediate race of spiritual beings, or races, occupying 
 concentric circles in the pleroma. By means of one of 
 these aeons, inferior to the rest (even his name is given, 
 Demiurgus), the world was created out of pre-existing 
 matter (Hyle) after the form of an ideal which had 
 existed from Eternity in the mind of the Great Father. 
 But the sluggish, inert mass from wliich it sprang being 
 
196 7iV CHRISTO. 
 
 permeated with evil, it was brought into being with- 
 out His knowledge or assent. In the hand of these 
 aeons was placed the virtual government of the 
 Earth, and indeed of all materialism which lay outside 
 the 'abyss.' Through them alone the will of God 
 was revealed. They were regarded as the visible em- 
 bodiment of the divine attributes, Justice, Wisdom, 
 Power, Peace, Truth, and others. We need not w^on- 
 der that they became, as such, the objects of divine 
 worship. 
 
 The doctrines of the Gnostics were esoteric; in 
 other words, they professed that their mysteries were 
 only capable of being understood by the * initiated few,' 
 and were incomprehensible to the multitude. In 
 order to be preserved from the malignant and baneful 
 evil inherent in matter, they subjected themselves 
 voluntarily, like the Jewish sect of Essenes which pre- 
 ceded and resembled them, to rigid austerities and 
 self-mortifications. It is with very distinct allusion to 
 their system, that reference is made in the concluding 
 portion of the chapter following our motto- verse. In 
 the " worshipping of angels " there was an appearance 
 of " voluntary humility " (ver. 1 8). There was " a show 
 of wisdom" — a counterfeit piety and devotion — in 
 their " will- worship and neglecting of the body " (ver. 
 23). There was even a 'reverent religiousness' in 
 the effort, by their theory of a subordinate agency, to 
 remove the responsibility of existing evil from the 
 character and government of the Great Supreme. 
 
COMPLETE IN CHRIST. 197 
 
 But these doctrines, after all, were little else than a 
 web of plausible and sophistical assumptions ; engen- 
 dering deceit and self-righteousness, and completely 
 obscuring the glory and beauty of the Gospel * plan of 
 salvation/ 
 
 Tor in order to have a yet further adequate under- 
 standing of the Apostle's references, we must not omit 
 their views regarding the Person of Christ. These, 
 like most religious errors, had, too, a semblance of 
 truth in them, but only a semblance. He was con- 
 sidered to be the highest of the seons ; and that, after 
 dwelling with the Great Father in the pleroma, he was 
 sent down to earth in order to remedy the evil existing 
 in creation. Others amongst them appear to have 
 held, that this delegated seon only descended . on the 
 man Jesus at His baptism. In either case Christ was 
 commissioned to reveal a knowledge of the true God ; 
 and thus to reclaim some higher natures among the 
 race of men who had been led astray by the evil prin- 
 ciple (or Demiurgus). 
 
 I need hardly add, however, that notwithstanding 
 this apparent recognition of the divine mission of Jesus 
 of Nazareth, there was virtually a supercession of His 
 claims, as the One Mediator, by this throng of subordi- 
 nate ones. These latter differed from the angels on 
 the ladder of the Jewish patriarch, in that they 
 utterly obscured the ladder itself ; or rather Him 
 whom the ladder symbolised. The atoning work 
 of the cross was altogether left out. It was the 
 
198 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 vision of the Temple seraphim without the altar and 
 mercy-seat. 
 
 The Apostle sets himself to vindicate the Person 
 and work of his dear Lord against all that cumbrous 
 system of angelic emanation — " science " (Gnosticism) 
 "falsely so called" (i Tim. vi. 20). In the opening 
 chapter of this Epistle to the Colossians, he depicts 
 Him as the Eternal, Self- existent One. No mere 
 intermediate aeon — no, nor the first of aeons — the 
 head of these graduated ranks, " thrones and dominions 
 and principalities and powers ; " but in Him all are 
 concentrated. " In whom dwelleth all the fulness " 
 (pleroma) "of the Godhead bodily" (Col. ii. 9). With 
 an absolute unchallenged control, His spiritual empire 
 extends alike over the material and moral ; the domain 
 of matter — the domain of spirit, from its highest 
 heights to its deepest depths ; so that in His divine 
 personality He was the only true and veritable Pleroma 
 alike of the earlier Platonic and this later Gnostic 
 philosophy. "Eor by Him were all things created 
 that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and 
 invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or 
 principalities, or powers ; all things were created by 
 Him, and for Him : and He is before all things, and 
 by Him all things consist : and He is the head of the 
 body, the Church ; who is the beginning, the first-born 
 from the dead ; that in all things He might have the 
 pre-eminence: for it pleased the Father, that IN Him 
 should all fulness " {pleroma) " dwell " (Col. i. 16-19). 
 
COMPLETE IN CHRIST. 199 
 
 He was the Great, the only, Eeconciler of " things in 
 earth and things in heaven" (Col. i. 20). "By the 
 blood of the cross," and the plenitude of His atoning 
 work, He accomplished what myriads of seons — this 
 alleged plurality of mediators — never could; opening 
 up by His one all-sufficient sacrifice a way of pardon 
 and acceptance — God's way to the sinner and the 
 sinner's way to God. *Come,' our Apostle may be 
 supposed to say (if we may be allowed for a moment 
 to paraphrase his meaning) in addressing those im- 
 perilled by these sophistries — ' Come ; and I shall 
 unfold to you the true ' Wisdom ' : even Him ** In 
 whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and know- 
 ledge. " And this I say lest any man should beguile 
 you with enticing words " ' (Col. ii. 3, 4). * We indeed,' 
 he seems further to aver, ' are in one sense Gnostics : ' 
 — votaries of these esoteric doctrines. We dare not 
 disguise that in the revelation of the Christ we believe 
 in and love, we have a ' mystery/ ' — the * Great Mystery 
 of godliness — God manifest in the flesh* (i Tim. 
 iii. 16); " The mystery of God, and of the Father, and 
 of Christ " (Col. ii. 2). " We speak the wisdom of 
 God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which 
 God ordained before the world unto our glory " (i Cor. 
 ii. 7). 
 
 But, away with all superficial, imaginary barriers 
 between the soul and God : — all intermediate agencies ; 
 all carnal ordinances, all distinctions of meats, all 
 washings and lustrations, all assertion of exclusive 
 
200 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 privilege and religious caste. " Let no man therefore 
 judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an 
 liolyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days : 
 which are a shadow of things to come ; but the body 
 is of Christ" (Col. ii. i6, 17). "Christ hath blotted 
 out the handwriting of ordinances that was against 
 us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the 
 way, nailing it to His cross " (Col. ii. 1 4). The 
 Pleroma or Plenitude, groped after by the dreamy 
 mystic, has its ideal and realisation in " the Image of 
 the Invisible God — the first-born of every creature" 
 (Col. i. 15); the true Light, with whom is no darkness 
 at all. " Ye are complete IN Him." ^ 
 
 Surely one, if not the main, great lesson to be 
 derived from the whole scope of the Apostle's teaching, 
 as we have endeavoured to unfold and explain it in 
 the light of our motto-verse, is the necessity of jealously 
 guarding against aught that would interfere with our 
 unwavering trust in Christ, and our acceptance of the 
 one only method of salvation in Him. Gnosticism is 
 at work in a thousand subtle forms in our fallen 
 nature. The aeons of these early dreamers have their 
 reproduction, in proteus shape, in every era of the 
 Church. In the present age, specially so under the 
 two representative phases of Eomanism and Eation- 
 
 ^ Various learned works might be mentioned where the doctrines ot 
 the Gnostics are fully treated and explained. In none more so than 
 Bishop Lightfoot's commentary, with its dissertation on ** the Colos- 
 sian Heresy " and its excursus on Pleroma. See note, at end ol Preface 
 to this Volume, with extract from same. 
 
COMPLETE IN CHRIST. 201 
 
 alism, corruptions 0/ the truth and substitutions /or 
 the truth. The former what, for lack of another term, 
 may be called " Ecclesiasticism," with its feasts and 
 fasts, priestly absolution, sacramentarian efficacy, sacer- 
 dotal exclusiveness, and party shibboleth. The latter 
 in the not less insidious garb of false dogma, doctrinal 
 error and defection : — the seons of Eeason asserting 
 their unauthorised mission from some ple7^oma-s'p\ieTe 
 of their own, unrevealed and unauthenticated in God's 
 Holy Word, with unworthy humanitarian views of the 
 Person of Christ, and inadequate views of His atoning 
 work ; desecrating the refined gold of God's own sanc- 
 tuary with daubs of untempered mortar. These, and 
 other cognate forms that might be stated, are " beg- 
 garly elements," " the rudiments of the w^orld : " coun- 
 terfeits of the truth : " teaching for doctrines the com- 
 mandments of men," " the show of wisdom in will- 
 worship," " not after Christ ; " artificial lights, striving 
 to supplant the all-sufficient and only true Light. 
 With not a few such, it is what the Apostle calls 
 " spoiling " and " beguiling " (vers. 8, 1 8). It is 
 putting shackles on the freed spirit — loading the 
 wings with cumbering weights only to hamper and 
 impede them in their upward soarings ; mocking the 
 * man in Christ ' with food for babes. 
 
 In Him there is " all-sufficiency in all things," — 
 the entire pleroma. " He is the only-Begotten of the 
 Father, full of grace and truth " (John i. 1 4). As it 
 is said in one of the Messianic visions of Zechariah — 
 
IN CHRISTO. 
 
 " He shall bear the glory " (Zech. vi. 13); or yet 
 again in the typical words of Isaiah — " And they 
 shall hang upon Him all the glory of his father's house, 
 the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quan- 
 tity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels 
 of flagons " (Isa. xxii. 24). " Of Him, and through 
 Him, and to Him are all things." If we are alive — 
 the life is His. If we are growing, the growth is 
 -His ; if we are strong, the strength is His. How 
 stable, too, and enduring is that union and fellowship ! 
 " He unites Himself," says Luther, " to me, with a tie 
 so close and permanent that no man on earth, by the 
 firmest bonds of the most endearing friendship, by the 
 holiest rights of the nearest kindred, could be related 
 more truly or given up to me more intimately. From 
 Him I may and should expect greater things than 
 from the person in the world most devoted to me, 
 because His love to me is to an infinite extent more 
 fervent than the love of the most tried and steadfast 
 friend, than the love of brother to brother, than any 
 love on earth." 
 
 With some lowly measure of appropriating faith 
 are we individually able to say in the parallel words 
 of the Apostle of Love — " And out of His fulness " 
 (pleroma) " have all we received, and grace for grace :" 
 " Co7Jiplete IN Him." Complete, as in a panoply of 
 divine armour : complete (as we have found described 
 in a recent chapter), in a castle fortified with battle- 
 ment and bastion. " The name of the Lord " (the 
 
COMPLETE IN CHRIST. 203 
 
 attributes by which He is known) " is a strong tower, 
 the righteous runneth into it, and is safe " (Prov. xviii. 
 10). Or, as in the already familiar verse, wherein the 
 believer in Christ is similarly described as encircled 
 with a four-fold defence — " Of Him are ye in Christ 
 Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and 
 righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption " 
 (i Cor. i. 30). Upon which words John Howe has 
 the following appropriate comment — ' All that is IN 
 Christ belongs to those that come to Him. Are we 
 foolish creatures ? He is wisdom. Are we guilty ? He 
 is righteousness. Are we impure ? He is sanctification. 
 Are we enslaved ? He is redemption. This, if we be 
 in Him ; but nothing at all to us if we be not in 
 Him'* " It is an unspeakable mercy," says another, 
 "when the soul seems to see all those perfections — 
 once a brazen wall to keep him out, now a brazen 
 wall to keep him safe. . . . Our altar is foursquare. 
 It has a face each way, and it has a horn upon each 
 corner, that the manslayer who flies for safety may 
 touch it." 
 
 If every day be revealing to us our own miserable 
 shortcomings, the deficiency and defilement of our 
 best obedience : in one word, our incompleteness ; let 
 it only lead us to exult more and more in the infinite 
 inexhaustible /2/i?zess of the true Plekoma;^ clinging 
 
 ^ "Happy would it be if puzzled and perplexed Christians would 
 turn their eyes to the fulness of Christ's obedience, and see themselves 
 complete in Him. " — Flavel. 
 
204 
 
 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 with more unwavering confidence to the sustaining 
 assurance of our Apostle in another Epistle we have 
 already dwelt upon, — a promise which neither in his 
 case, nor in ours, can be belied by failure — " My God 
 will supply all your need out of His riches in glory in 
 Christ Jesus." " If we were always," says a writer 
 above quoted, "realising the truth, we are IN Christ, 
 we should never be downcast any more." 
 
( 205 ) 
 
 XXIV. 
 THE ETERNAL PURPOSE IN CHRIST. 
 
 ''According as He hath chosen us IN Him before the foundation 
 of the world." — Eph. i. 4. 
 
 ' ' Being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who 
 worketh all things after the counsel of His own will; that we 
 should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted IN Christ." 
 —Eph. i. II, 12. 
 
 "According to the eternal purpose which He pui*posed IN 
 Christ Jesus our Lord : in whom we have boldness and access 
 Avith confidence by the faith of Him." — Eph. iii. 11, 12. 
 
 ¥BiS&'^ revert in this meditation to what in point of 
 ' theological sequence ' might appropriately 
 occupy an earlier part in the Volume. But 
 
 ^ 
 
 neither is it without design that the subject is placed 
 in its present position. The traveller pauses at times 
 to take a retrospective view of the distant receding 
 landscape. So let it be in our contemplation of the 
 Apostle's favourite inscription in its connection with 
 the eternal purpose IN Christ before the foundation of 
 the world. 
 
 The cluster of motto-texts are again taken from his 
 encyclical letter. In each of them, with significaDt 
 
2o6 7.V CHRISTO. 
 
 repetition, occurs the monogravi or its equivalents. 
 They lead us back in thought before the birth of the 
 creation. Passages — vistas of light — are disclosed to 
 us in these far-off cycles and eras, when the Trinity in 
 Unity dwelt alone in the sublime solitudes of eternity. 
 They record the earliest movements of divine love and 
 mercy towards the lost and fallen, ere the trance of 
 that eternity was broken by any manifestation of 
 Almighty power: — Creation still slumbering, so to 
 speak, as a thought in the Infinite Mind. Note well, 
 in these diverse passages, the specific terms in which the 
 Believer's Title-deeds — thus laid up in the archives of 
 heaven — are formulated : " In Him," " in Christ," " in 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 We have here, then, represented to us (using the 
 symbol of human language as the only possible exposi- 
 tor of transcendental mysteries), the covenant entered 
 into by the adorable Godhead. The members of the 
 whole Church of which Christ is the Head ; in other 
 words, the names of His elect people, were inscribed in 
 the Great Volume of the divine decrees, " while as yet 
 He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the 
 highest part of the dust of the world " (Pro v. viii. 26). 
 Of these He could say, " In Thy Book all my members 
 were written when as yet there was none of them." 
 This purpose of electing grace IN Christ Jesus is 
 everywhere represented as originating with the Eternal 
 Father. Specially is it so spoken of by the lips of 
 " the Faithful and True Witness." Hear the opening 
 
THE ETERNAL PURPOSE IN CHRIST. 207 
 
 utterances of His intercessory prayer (that portion of 
 Holy Writ we have so often quoted, but which stands 
 alone in its inestimable preciousness, not only as being 
 a divine Cardiphonia, — an unfolding of the very heart 
 of Jesus, — but a revelation of the Father's will and 
 purpose). " As Thou hast given Him power over all 
 liesh, that He might give eternal life to as many as 
 Thou hast given Him " (John xvii. 1 2) ; " Thine they 
 were, and Thou gavest them Me " (ver. 6). It was the 
 Father's eternal love that first opened the floodgates 
 of mercy. It was the Father's eternal love which first 
 set the stranded vessel floating on the waters. It was 
 His arm which " laid help upon One that is mighty." 
 It was the Father's voice which said, " Deliver from 
 going down to the pit, I have found a ransom" (Job 
 xxxiii. 24). Beautiful are the words of the Saviour in 
 one of His great sermons by the Sea of Galilee, regard- 
 ing this originating love of the Father. With a divine 
 self-abnegation He says — " For I came down from 
 heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him 
 that sent Me " (John vi. 38). 
 
 (2). But, while " God so loved the world that He 
 gave ; '* let us proceed to mark, in this interchange of 
 Covenant-mercy, the voluntary consecration of the Son 
 for the redemption of the world: — although even in 
 His acceptance of the Suretyship, there is a recognition 
 of the Father's antecedent love — "Then said I, Lo, I 
 come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, 
 I delight to do Thy will, my God " (Ps. xl. 7, 8). Not 
 
2o8 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 the less interesting, however, is the alacrity with which 
 the adorable Eedeemer responded to the Father's will. 
 He, as the Eternal Son, infinitely independent and self- 
 existent, rich in all the plenitude of the divine perfec- 
 tions, was incapable of any accession to His underived 
 ineffable glory ; or rather, that glory was susceptible of 
 no expansion, nor enlargement. He was " heir of all 
 things." He " made the worlds." All space was His 
 dominion. Creation was His Palace ; the universe 
 His Temple. Yet He tells us the spot in His vast 
 illimitable Empire in which He mainly rejoiced : " Ee- 
 joicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and My 
 delights were with the sons of men" (Pro v. viii. 31). 
 And when these lofty purposes came to be fulfilled 
 and consummated, what does He represent as being 
 stiU His chiefest joy ? It was the same as it had been 
 in " the ages of the ages ; " — " The glory which Thou 
 gavest Me, I have given them" (John xvii. 22). The 
 intercessory prayer reaches its climax and conclusion 
 thus, " That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me 
 may be in them, and I in them" (John xvii. 26). 
 
 Who dare speak of contrariety between the will of 
 the Eternal Father and Eternal Son, when we listen to 
 such an amazing declaration as this — " Therefore doth 
 My Father love Me, because I lay down My life " (John 
 X. 1 7). John, in after times, speaking in the name of 
 the whole brotherhood of saints, anticipates and repu- 
 diates the false theological dogma that would either 
 question the spontaneity of the Father's love, or repre- 
 
THE ETERNAL PURPOSE IN CHRIST. 209 
 
 sent that WTipurchasable love as being purchased and 
 secured through the intervention of the Son — " We 
 have known and believed the love which God hath 
 to us" (i John iv. 16). 
 
 (3.) Once more : — In this purpose of grsice we have 
 the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the ever-blessed 
 triune Godhead, conjoined with the Eternal Father 
 and the Son in thoughts of unutterable love. " The 
 Spirit of God," we read, " moved on the face of the 
 waters." He brooded over elemental chaos, when the 
 Omnipotent fiat went forth — " Let there be light ! " 
 He would thereby symbolise and proclaim His interest 
 in the world about to be redeemed. It was " through 
 the Eternal Spirit " that Christ " offered Himself with- 
 out spot to God " (Heb. ix. 1 4). Moreover, it is He 
 who carries on, and carries out, these great purposes of 
 electing grace in the spiritual illumination and regene- 
 ration of every redeemed soul, and in imparting a 
 capacitating meetness for the heavenly inheritance. 
 We are " changed into the same (divine) image from 
 glory to glory, hi/ the Lord the Spirit " (Margin, 2 Cor. 
 iii. 1 8). In words which immediately follow the second 
 of our motto-verses, we have the entire work of the 
 Holy Ghost very specially interweaved, so to speak, 
 with the Apostle's monogram, and in conjunction, too, 
 with the believer's predestination — "In whom ye also 
 trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the 
 gospel of your salvation : in whom also, after that ye 
 believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of 
 
210 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 promise, whicli is the earnest of our inheritance until 
 the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the 
 praise of His glory" (Eph. i. 13, 14). 
 
 Mysterious indeed, and unfathomable to our finite 
 capacities, is this great doctrine. Yet how often our 
 Apostle refers to it ! Even in the closing salutations 
 of a letter, we found he cannot resist the allusion 
 — " Salute Eufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother 
 and mine." ^ God's eternal purpose and calling formed, 
 in words already quoted, an incentive to him in run- 
 ning the Christian race — " I press toward the mark for 
 the prize of the high calling of God IN Christ Jesus " 
 (Phil. iii. 14). The same sublime theme seems to 
 have occupied his latest thoughts. In the final letter 
 penned in his Eoman dungeon, he thus writes — " Who 
 hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, . . . 
 according to His own purpose and grace, which was 
 given us in Chkist Jesus before the world began" 
 (2 Tim. i. 9). 
 
 Need we wonder that he thus fondly clings to that 
 transcendent truth ! He truly felt it was the strongest, 
 the most inviolable, safeguard of his security, a very 
 " anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast." " In hope of 
 
 ^ Romans xvi. 13. We previously referred (chap, ix.) to this verse. 
 "We may here further remark, that there is surely a special and touching 
 epigrammatic beauty in its complimentary sequence — "his mother and 
 mine." As Barnes briefly paraphrases it — "His in a literal sense; 
 mine in a figurative," It recalls a yet more touching and tender say- 
 ing— ""Woman, behold thy Son; Son, behold thy mother" (John 
 xix. 26, 27). 
 
THE ETERNAL PURPOSE IN CHRIST. 211 
 
 eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised he/ore 
 the world began " (Titus i. 2). In the comprehensive 
 charter of the believer's privileges contained in his 
 1st Epistle to the Corinthians (chap. iii. 2 1), he asserts, 
 " All things are yours." Why ? " Because," he adds, 
 " ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Each Person in 
 the Divine Trinity, indeed, may be regarded as having 
 given the solemn pledge, — " They shall never perish." 
 Against the Church (with its chief corner-stone laid in 
 everlasting ages, reared in this " unison of the Eternal 
 purpose ") the gates of hell shall never prevail. Every 
 individual believer can say, " He hath made with me 
 an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and 
 sure " (2 Sam. xxiii. 5). " The covenant," are the 
 words of our Apostle, " was confirmed before OF GOD 
 in Christ" (Gal. iii. 17). Well may he speak of 
 it in his Ephesian Epistle (chap. i. 1 8) : — " That ye 
 may know what is the hope of His calling, and what 
 the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the 
 saints." In the firm grasping of this doctrine we are 
 necessarily filled with all joy and peace in believing. 
 Not in a restricted, but in its amplest spiritual mean- 
 ing, as applied to every member of the Church of 
 Christ, " He that is called IN the Lord is the Lord's 
 freeman" (i Cor. vii. 22). 
 
 Connecting the Apostle's monogram specially with 
 the Second Person in the Holy Trinity, how peculiarly 
 that Book of Election — that covenant roll, " sealed 
 with seven seals," is in the keeping of " the Lion of 
 
212 IN CHRISTO, 
 
 the tribe of Judah ! " (Eev. v. 5). To revert to Paul's 
 simile previously dwelt upon, we are "rooted IN Christ." 
 " The root of that Tree is stronger than the foundations 
 of the earth. . . . The same love that He had to thee, 
 when He gave thee to His Son ; the same love He has 
 to thee now, infinite, unchangeable " {Evans). " Who 
 shall " (who can) " lay anything to the charge of 
 God's elect." " We are in Him that is true " ^ (i John 
 V. 20). Oh, how well to know and believe, that it 
 is not on our own fitful frames and feelings and 
 capricious emotions our eternal well-being depends, 
 but that Christ's everlasting interest in its, is the 
 ground of our present and everlasting interest in 
 Him. " The gifts and calling of God are without 
 
 ^ 'In Him that is truth.' "We have here (and also in one of the 
 opening pages of this Volume) quoted from the First and earlier Epistle 
 of the Apostle John. In his Third Epistle (which we have the strongest 
 ground for believing was written in his extreme old age, and therefore 
 containing the last utterances of this honoured and beloved disciple), 
 we find the following saying — ** I have no greater joy, than to hear 
 that my children walk in truth " (3 John 4). Among the cherished 
 Valedictory words of his Divine Lord, and which he alone of the 
 Evangelists records, there is a well-knoAvn golden sentence which 
 could not fail specially to linger in his ears,— the ever-memorable — 
 *' I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life " (John xiv. 6). When, 
 therefore, in conveying what may be called his farewell messages and 
 benedictions to his *' beloved Gains " (and through him to the ages and 
 churches of future Christendom), he asserts, that "he has no greater 
 joy than to see his children walking in truth " ;— (possibly, at least, 
 his meaning) walking in Him who is Himself the Truth Incarnate,— 
 may he not be regarded as, with his latest breath, echoing and empha- 
 sising the In Christo of his great Contemporary ? 
 
 I am indebted for the substance of this thought, to a suggestive dis- 
 course of my friend Dr. Plumptre's, I heard as these pages were passing 
 through the press. 
 
THE ETERNAL PURPOSE IN CHRIST, 213 
 
 repentance." Here is the history of that calling: — 
 "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love where- 
 with He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, 
 hath quickened us together vnth Christ ^ (by grace ye 
 are saved) " (Eph. ii. 4, 5). 
 
 " All that the Father giveth Me," are the words of 
 the divine Kedeemer Himself, " shall come to Me." He 
 is standing with a wealth of glory in His hand, and 
 the hoarded love of Eternity in His heart, and saying, 
 " It is not the will of your Eather which is in heaven, 
 that one of these little ones should perish " (Matt, 
 xviii. 14). If that be His Father's will, what is His 
 own ? " Him that cometh unto Me I will in no 
 wise cast out " (John vi. 3 7). " Father, I will 
 that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with 
 Me where I am, that they may behold My glory " 
 (John xvii. 24). 
 
 That doctrine of election, — the purpose of God to 
 His people in Christ Jesus, before the world began, 
 (which, inscrutable as it is, runs, as we have seen, like 
 a golden thread through the warp and woof of divine 
 revelation), will reappear on the lips of the enthroned 
 Judge and Heavenly King. On the Great Day — 
 "the day of His espousals, the day of the gladness of 
 His heart " — He is represented as saying — " Come, ye 
 blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 
 ^ In some MSS., indeed, it is the Apostle's monogram (iv) : but for 
 tliis there is not sufficient authority : although the meaning in the 
 passage is ti.e very same. 
 
214 
 
 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 for you from the foundation of the world " (Matt. xxv. 
 
 34). 
 
 With no words can we more appropriately close this 
 meditation than those of our Apostle in 2 Thess. i. 
 11,12 : — " Wherefore also we pray always for you, that 
 our God would count you worthy of this calling, 
 and fulfil all the good pleasure of His goodness, 
 and the work of faith with power; that the name 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and 
 ye IN Him, according to the grace of our God and the 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
( 215 ) 
 
 XXV. 
 THE PROMISES IN CHRIST. 
 
 *' Partakers of His promise in Chkist by the Gospel." — Eph. 
 iii. 6. 
 
 "For all the promises of God IN Him are yea, and IN Him 
 AmeD, unto the glory of God by us." — 2 Cor. i. 20. 
 
 lOD the Father is the great Treasure-house of 
 Promises : — -the divine Fountain-head. But 
 Christ is the channel through which the river, 
 and every rill that swells it, flows — " All the promises 
 of God," with their boundless wealth and preciousness, 
 "are in Him." " Whereby are given unto us exceeding 
 great and precious promises " (2 Pet. i. 4). The Church, 
 as the Bride of the Lamb, is dowered with these as her 
 marriage portion, "glory, honour, immortality, eternal 
 life," The believer, in a spiritual sense, and with a 
 spiritual telescope, can sweep the whole stellar firma- 
 ment of promise, and say, " They are all mine, because 
 Christ is mine." " If ye abide IN Me," are the vale- 
 dictory words of the Saviour, " ye shall ask what ye 
 will, and it shall be done unto you " (John xv. 7). 
 " In Christ," everything within the compass of omni- 
 
2i6 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 potence to bestow, that is really good for us, becomes 
 ours. " In Christ," we are called " children of the 
 promise : " " heirs of promise." " The glory," says 
 Jesus, "which Thou gavest Me^ I have given themr 
 In Christ — all the attributes of God are embarked 
 on our side, and pledged for our salvation. This 
 Prince of the kings of the earth, the true Ahasuerus, 
 seated in His Eoyal banqueting-house, stretches out 
 the golden sceptre of promise, asking, "What is thy 
 petition, and it shall be granted thee, and what is thy 
 request ? " (Esther v. 6). Not more do the facets of the 
 diamond derive their brilliancy from the light; not 
 more do the planets in the solar system derive their 
 glory, and the flowers which deck the earth their beauty 
 and colour from the sun, than do the promises of Scrip- 
 ture borrow their heavenly lustre and loveliness from 
 Christ, the true Sun of Eighteousness. 
 
 I remember standing gazing on one of the sunsets 
 in the Holy Land, near the shores of the Dead Sea. 
 The side of a mountain sloping towards its leaden 
 cavernous depths, and which shortly before seemed to 
 partake of the sterility around, became all at once lit 
 up like a sheet of living fire. It was the myriad 
 clusters of red anemones, which clothe Palestine like a 
 carpet in early spring, that were kindled and trans- 
 formed into ruby splendour, as the flaming orb of day 
 descended over the heights of Moab : Picture of the 
 promises of God, which have a new beauty and glory 
 imparted to them when seen in Christ, under the 
 
THE PROMISES IN CHRIST. 217 
 
 radiance of One " above the brightness of the sun; " — 
 ay, and we may also add, reaching down to the very 
 brink of humanity's dead and deadest sea shores. 
 
 That one promise-word of the Saviour, in its com- 
 prehensiveness, embraces all that the sinner needs, 
 all that God can bestow : — it is, as if the whole con- 
 tents of the glorious casket were gathered up in one : 
 — " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believetli 
 on Me hath everlasting life " (John vi. 47). " Great," 
 remarks a valued writer, " as Jesus is in the promise, He 
 is greater in the fulfilment." " Christ," says Bunyau, 
 " is not one jot the poorer for all the forgiveness that 
 He has given away to great sinners. There is the 
 same virtue in His merits to save now as there was 
 at the very beginning. Oh ! the riches of the grace 
 of Christ." The Apostle in one of our motto-verses 
 further tells us that these His promises are not only 
 exceeding great, and exceeding precious, but exceeding 
 sure. " For the Son of God, Jesus Christ," says he, in 
 the immediately preceding context, " who was preached 
 among you by us . . . was not yea, and nay, but in 
 Him was yea" (2 Cor. i. 19). In another place, speak- 
 ing of those who are " to obtain the salvation which is 
 IN Christ Jesus with eternal glory," he adds, "He 
 abideth faithful, He cannot deny Himself" (2 Tim. 
 ii. 1 3). 
 
 There are times, indeed, when His ways are 
 mysterious. We cannot descry or discern the reason 
 of His dealings : when, it may be, some cherished 
 
2i8 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 lights of life are suddenly eclipsed; — the cloud 
 without either bow or silver lining : when, in the 
 plaintive musing of the Psalmist, we are led in 
 our misgiving to say — "Hath God forgotten to be 
 gracious, and doth His promise fail for evermore ? " 
 But be it ours to hope on, and trust on. There may 
 be needed discipline in the waiting. The noblest and 
 rarest tribute and triumph of faith is contained in the 
 words, " Though He slay me, yet will I t7mst in Him " 
 (Job xiii. 15). It has been well said — " He doth 
 purposely conceal His designs from His children, in 
 order that they may live upon His absolute promises 
 in Jesus." The day at all events will come, when " in 
 His light we shall see light : " when all the by-past 
 pilgrimage will be revealed, spanned with the lumi- 
 nous * bow of God ; ' — the golden lettering gleaming 
 upon it — " He is faithful that promised." 
 
 Let us, then, pursue our appointed way, knowing 
 that that way from first to last is paved with " pro- 
 mises IN Christ ; " and that " what He hath spoken, 
 He is able also to perform." His promises are suited 
 for every age, every diversity of circumstance, every 
 variety of temperament, every changing experience : 
 strength in weakness, light in darkness, comfort in sor- 
 row, support in temptation, peace in unrest, hope and 
 pardon in despair. And when 'the supreme hour* 
 overtakes, these become brightest, truest, best of all. 
 The memorable incident in His own ministry of love 
 is often reproduced when " in the fourth watch of the 
 
THE PROMISES IN CHRIST. 219 
 
 night," the time when the darkness was deepest, He 
 came to the tempest-tossed disciples, " walking on the 
 sea." They were troubled. They thought only at first 
 of some demon-shape from the spirit-world. " They 
 were afraid, and cried out for fear." But, gentle, well- 
 known accents stilled the storm without, and the storm 
 within : " Fear not ; it is I ; be not afraid ! " 
 
 Yes ! as * in Christ ' is a glorious word and reality 
 to live upon, so it is a glorious word and reality to die 
 upon. See how the promise (and the promise observe 
 IN Him) lighted up the waning hours of the great 
 Apostle. In the last letter his hand penned, in his 
 Eoman dungeon, it is beautiful to note its first, its 
 opening sentence — "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ 
 by the will of God, according to the promise of life 
 which is IN Christ Jesus " (2 Tim. i. i). The pro- 
 mise of eternal life was now, like a radiant beacon, 
 within sight, close at hand ; the last billows were 
 bringing him into the desired haven. But it was a 
 beacon light in Cheist. Life to him, we have often 
 noted before, had no reality, no glory, apart from a 
 living Saviour. So, neither would death, apart from 
 the same, bring with it joy or peace. If he thought 
 of it under the image of sleep, it was a sleep IN Jesus. 
 It is remarkable that one, who, of all the champions of 
 the faith, stood in moral heroism perhaps nearest to St. 
 Paul himself, died literally with In Christo, as the word 
 which alike last fell upon his ear, and which evoked 
 the last assent from his lips. " Venerable Father," said 
 
220 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 Dr. Jonas to Luther, at his dying moment, "do you 
 die trusting in Christ ? " . . . He answered by an 
 audible and joyful * Yes/ ^ 
 
 Meanwhile, alike for a living hour and a dying 
 hour, let us be animated and quickened, as well as 
 solemnised by the wondrous consummation of these 
 * promises in Christ.' The Apostle Peter, in the verse 
 already quoted, represents them as so many golden 
 ladder-steps conducting to the most unspeakable height 
 of bliss and glory to which created beings can attain — 
 " Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and pre- 
 cious promises : that by these ye might be partakers of 
 the divine nature " (2 Pet. i. 4). It is the fulfilment of 
 the Eedeemer's own prayer, the full realisation of His 
 people's mystical union in Himself (John xvii. 2 1 ). 
 " Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let 
 us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and 
 spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God " (2 Cor. 
 vii. i). 
 
 * Luther's Watchwords, p. 355. 
 
( 221 ; 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST. 
 
 *• Sanctified in Christ Jesus."— i Cor. i. 2. 
 "As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye IN 
 IIiM."— Col. ii. 6. 
 
 ^^^^EEPLY solemn is the theme which these 
 motto- verses suggest (and which we have 
 purposely reserved) in connection with the 
 Apostle's monogram — " Sanctification in Christ." 
 
 In one of our recent meditations on God's eternal 
 purpose in the salvation of the elect, the divine object 
 and consummation, so to speak, of that election is thus 
 set forth — " According as He hath chosen us IN Him 
 before the foundation of the world, that we should be 
 holy and without blame before Him in love" (Eph. 
 i. 4). Again and again, in the same epistle, is the 
 truth of the believer's consecration IN Christ reite- 
 rated. " Eor we are His workmanship, created IN Christ 
 Jesus unto good works, which God hath before or- 
 dained that we should walk in them " (Eph. ii. i o ; so 
 also Eph. ii. 21 ; v. 25). 
 
 Need we wonder that the thought of 'Holiness' 
 
IN CHRISTO. 
 
 should be so intimately associated, by the Apostle, 
 with the mystical union subsisting between Jesus and 
 His people ! It were only strange had it been other- 
 wise. Sanctifi cation is, or ought to be, as natural to 
 the Christian, as the flower is to the root or stalk. In 
 the case of a healthy tree, the sap permeates through 
 stem and branch and twig ; and as little could a healthy 
 and vigorous plant exhibit only withered and leafless 
 branches, as a soul joined to the true Vine — " rooted 
 in Him " — be found barren and unfruitful. Holiness 
 is just the outer expression and manifestation of the 
 new, inner life in Christ. As such, surely it ought, 
 from its very nature, being the result and outcome of 
 living union and communion with a living Lord, to be 
 loftier and purer than the purest and most elevated 
 virtues of Pagan moralist — " He that abideth in Me, 
 and I in him, the same bringeth forth muck fruit " 
 (John XV. 5). 
 
 This resurrection-life to holiness occupies a pro- 
 minent place in that * identified parallelism,' which in 
 previous pages we found to be a favourite theme of 
 our Apostle's. " Therefore we are buried with Him by 
 baptism into death ; that like as Christ was raised up 
 from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we 
 also should walk in newness of life. For if we have 
 been planted together in the likeness of His death, we 
 shaU. be also in the likeness of His resurrection : know- 
 ing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that 
 the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth 
 
SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST. 223 
 
 we should not serve sin. Likewise reckon ye also 
 yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto 
 God IN (Gr. iv) Jesus Christ our Lord" (Eom. vi. 4, 5, 
 6, 11). Partakers of this new, Eisen life of the Ee- 
 deemer, it may be said of each of the living members, 
 what the Apostle said of the living Head — " In that 
 He died, He died unto sin once ; but in that He liveth. 
 He liveth unto God " (Eom. vi. i o). " His death for 
 us," says one, now * without fault before the throne,' 
 "is comparatively easy to grasp. By it, I am saved. 
 But I wish to live in His life, to realise Him with 
 me, and to get my wants supplied, and my spirit 
 sanctified, by a constant association as it were with a 
 living Jesus." ^ 
 
 In a figurative shape, and retaining the Apostle's 
 monogram, the nature and obligation of this life of 
 holiness are alike brought forcibly before us in the 
 second of our motto-verses — " Walk ye IN Him." It 
 expresses, under the most familiar of emblems, the 
 carrying about with us a realised consciousness of our 
 oneness with the risen Saviour. Were that thouo^ht 
 constantly and habitually cherished, what a preventa- 
 tive and preservative against temptation ! How sen- 
 sitive and shrinkinor would be the dread of marrino- 
 and sullying the soul thus glorified with the presence, 
 and identified with the honour, of its Great Lord ! If 
 Christ, in His own significant words, be the Way, we 
 
 * Mary B. M. Duncan's Bible Hours. 
 
224 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 may, to each one of His true followers, apply (by 
 accommodation) the injunction of the ancient prophet 
 — "And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, 
 saying. This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn 
 to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left " (Isa. 
 XXX. 2i). The way, observe, is "in Christ" : yet 
 note, also, that the pilgrims in that way are represented 
 as " turning to the right hand and turning to the left." 
 As a German commentator expounds and paraphrases 
 it — 'The wayfarers adapt themselves thus to their 
 varied worldly callings, this one turning at times to 
 the right, this other to the left, as life's imperative 
 duties demand. Still there dare be no deflection from 
 the one only way itself.' These callings and avoca- 
 tions are all in Him : and we may appropriately add 
 with the Apostle — " As many as walk according to 
 this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the 
 Israel of God " (Gal. vi. i6). 
 
 Have we said that this sanctifi cation flows as a 
 necessary sequence and corollary from the new life in 
 Christ Jesus : — that no sooner is that mystical union 
 formed, than the subject of it becomes a " sanctified " 
 and " separated " one, according to the Apostle's nexus 
 in one of the passages previously quoted — " In whom 
 , , . an holy temple in the Lord " ? 
 
 Yes, truly ; such is the lofty ideal, at least, of the 
 Christian life and character. Alas ! however, how 
 difficult, how impossible the realisation ! What poor 
 transcripts of the divine original ! How meagre the 
 
SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST. 225 
 
 attainment of the saintliest, how much more inade- 
 quate those of the average believer ! See how our 
 Apostle feels and expresses his own wide severance 
 from that ideal : how vivid as well as true his descrip- 
 tion of the dual nature, the two antagonist principles : 
 — the ardent aspiration after holiness of heart and life, 
 yet the dead weights which impeded him and his 
 fellow-runners in the spiritual race — "For I delight 
 in the law of God after the inward man : but I 
 see another law in my members warring against the 
 law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to 
 the law of sin which is in my members. wretched 
 man that I am : who shall deliver me from the body 
 of this death ? " (Rom. vii. 22-24). He knew Christ, 
 as few had known Him : he had ' won Christ,' as few 
 had won Him : yet he speaks as if all were yet un- 
 attained : — " That I may know Him ; " " that I way 
 win Him " (Phil. iii. 8, i o). Nevertheless, observe, 
 the race, with him, was never abandoned. That un- 
 attained ideal is still pursued with unwavering and 
 persistent effort—" But I follow after, if that I may 
 apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of 
 Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have 
 apprehended : but this one thing I do, forgetting those 
 things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those 
 things which are before, I press toward the mark for 
 the prize of the high calling of God IN Christ Jesus " 
 (Phil. iii. 12-14). 
 
 And be it remembered for our comfort, none more 
 
226 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 graciously owns and recognises the difficulty — none 
 more tenderly sympathises with our poor, imperfect, 
 halting efforts, than the All-perfect One Himself. In 
 this, as in all other things, " He knoweth our frame, 
 He remembereth that we are dust." He makes infinite 
 allowance for the difficulties of approaching that per- 
 fection to which in His case alone it was possible to 
 attain. He speaks of His people, as " lilies among 
 thorns " : as " lambs in the midst of wolves." With 
 a touching compassion for their weakness and short- 
 comings. He interjects, in the very midst of His Great 
 Intercessory, the significant ejaculation — "These are 
 in the world ! " In the world, — struggling, falling, 
 beaten down with a great fight of temptations. " The 
 flesh is weak," was the generous allowance made for 
 those, faint in body, and faint in soul, who were found 
 slumbering at the Garden Gate, unwakeful at the hour 
 of all time, when sympathy and vigilance were most 
 needed, and neglect least excusable ! 
 
 As a second ground of comfort and heart-cheer, not 
 only have we the assured sympathy of Jesus, but we 
 have the promise of His supporting grace. In the 
 midst of his own conscious weakness and shortcoming, 
 we have in a former page found our Apostle saying, " I 
 can do all things IN Christ which strengtheneth me " 
 (Phil. iv. 13). 
 
 Of the " consolations in Christ," referred to else- 
 where by him, not one surely is more precious and 
 
SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST. 227 
 
 sustaining than this — that He has made provision to 
 deliver, not only from the guilt but from the domi- 
 nion of sin. " He said unto me, My grace is sufficient 
 for thee ; for My strength is made perfect in weak- 
 ness " (2 Cor. xii. 9). " His heart," is the utterance 
 of a saintly writer who knew from experience the 
 reality of that upholding strength, " His heart is large 
 enough to take me in ; His hand is strong enough to 
 bear me up." Nor is the theme of our present medita- 
 tion to be relegated to the place of the mystical. Nay 
 rather, it may be taken as forming the most elevating 
 and persuasive of incentives to pure deed and elevated 
 action. In Christ. — That monogram is, it ought to 
 be, a divine talisman to crush the guilty purpose, to 
 stifle the vicious passion, to quench the kindling spark 
 of revenge, to bear unretaliated the cruel taunt, to 
 surrender the dubious vantage-ground, to accept with- 
 out murmur the daily burden, and submit without 
 fret to the exacted sacrifice. In a word, to be, and to 
 do, and to suffer, because of Him. " Walking IN Him." 
 — Whenever in any difficulty or perplexity, hesitating 
 as to the path of duty, trembling it may be on the 
 verge of temptation, let the footstep be arrested by the 
 question, ' How would my Lord and Saviour have 
 acted here ? ' " He that saith He abideth in Him ought 
 himself also so to walk, even as He walked" (i John 
 ii. 6). 
 
 How it becomes those " sanctified in Christ Jesus " to 
 exercise a scrupulous carefulness and circumspection in 
 
228 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 thought, word, and deed : remembering that the world is 
 keen enough, yes, and unjust enough, to see the Master 
 reflected in the conduct of His unworfhy and often 
 hlameworthj disciples. How many, on the other hand, 
 have these and such-like thoughts, happily compelled, 
 by a holy jealousy, to retain footing on the Rock, when 
 the waves might have otherwise swept into the seething 
 abyss ! How many have been raised above what was 
 selfish, ungenerous, unworthy, by keeping habitually 
 before them the simple words of our Apostle, " My ways 
 which be " IN Christ " ( i Cor. iv. 1 7). I know few sen- 
 tences or sentiments more beautiful than the follow- 
 ing : — " All I ask of you is, Be just. Lay that blame 
 on me, and blame me as much as you will, but be just 
 to Him, who cannot be answerable for the offences of 
 His disciples ; since if they obeyed His precepts and 
 imitated His example, they never could thus offend. 
 And at all events believe this, for it is the simple 
 truth, that if the thought of HiM has not done all it 
 ought, it has done something. I have suppressed 
 many, as I think, most deserved sarcasms, which 
 sprang into my mind in the ardour of composition, 
 and have struck out many more which have flowed 
 from my pen, and I have done both, mainly from the 
 recollection of HiM.''^ 
 
 Meanwhile, let us cleave to the gracious promise, 
 that if our union be true, real, sincere, " He who hath 
 
 * Conclusion of "Defence of the Eclipse of Faith." 
 
SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST. 229 
 
 begun the good work will carry it on." The word of 
 the Lord is sure. " Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, 
 who of God is made unto you . . . sanctification" 
 (i Cor. i. 30). And if every day leads us more and 
 more to mark and mourn the slowness of our progress — 
 the devious and distant orbit w^e describe around the 
 Great Central Sun of our bliss and being — let it be 
 our comfort to know that the day is coming, when, 
 bathed in the beams of the ' True Light,' with no 
 darkening cloud or disturbing medium, "we shall be 
 like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." **And 
 every man that hath this hope IN Him purifieth him- 
 self, even as He is pure." 
 
( 230 ) 
 
 XXVII. 
 NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST. 
 
 **For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
 nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able 
 to separate us from the love of God, which is IN CHRIST Jesus 
 OUR Lord."— Rom. viii. 38, 39. 
 
 HE challenge contained in these two verses 
 forms an appropriate topic in approaching 
 the close of this Volume. As " in Christ " 
 began, so " in Christ " ends this beautiful eighth of 
 Romans. To repeat what was noted in a previous 
 meditation, and which has frequently been adverted 
 to by others, the " no condemnation " in Him, of the 
 opening verse, is followed by the " no separation " 
 FROM Him, in the concluding one. 
 
 As we peruse the context of the chapter, we seem 
 to be ever and anon in the midst of a spiritual con- 
 flict, surrounded with the clang of battle. But now 
 the victorious standard is planted on the height far 
 above the din of encounter. In what precedes, we are 
 conscious of toiling up the steeps of the mountain 
 
NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST. 231 
 
 side ; now we are within sight of the summit, above 
 and beyond the storm-clouds. He puts the shout of 
 triumph into his own lips, and the lips of all others 
 who are safe in Christ. 
 
 If, as has been surmised, one great object the 
 Apostle had in writing this Eoman Epistle, was for 
 the purpose of sustaining his brethren in the Imperial 
 city who were either suffering themselves, or had seen 
 their beloved relatives suffering at the cruel hands of 
 Nero, we can imagine how gracious and acceptable 
 would be the solace thus conveyed : the elevating 
 assurance that, though subjected to the miscarriage of 
 justice at a human tribunal, and condemned by the 
 behest of a ferocious earthly tyrant, there was One 
 *' judging righteous judgment " who uttered the excul- 
 patory sentence — " not condemned^ And, better still, 
 if, in the case of not a few, imprisonment and mar- 
 tyrdom had produced their mournful result in the 
 severance of earthly fellowships, how cheering the 
 thought that there was One from whose love and 
 presence there could be " no separation" no, not even 
 by pang or torture, flame or sword ! Hear the words 
 of heart-cheer he puts into the lips of the comrades 
 who are falling thickly around him; — ^words which 
 will, in due time be appropriate to himself at a similar 
 hour : — " It is God that justifieth. Who is he that 
 condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that 
 is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, 
 who also maketh intercession for us. Who shaE 
 
232 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 separate us from the love of Christ ? " (Eom. viii. 
 
 33-3 5)- 
 
 Can we, in some feeble measure, enter into the full 
 meaning of this chapter, and make its glorious ter- 
 minating challenge our own ? Can we sing the 
 wondrous song of victory with its opening and closing 
 keynote — " in Cheist " ? 
 
 Life " shall not separate ! " The world may rock 
 to ruin; the stars may fall from their orbits; or 
 rather, nature's funeral pile must be lighted ; Creation, 
 hoary with years, must in due time succumb to the 
 inevitable laws of decadence. There is the same 
 transience in the more sacred provinces of life. 
 Earthly relationships and friendships are at the best 
 fickle, mutable, arbitrary. Change they may, perish 
 at some time they must. Not so is the bond of fel- 
 lowship uniting us with Christ. There are no such 
 precarious ties and tenures here ; no such sorrowful 
 farewells. It is union beyond the reach of change 
 and peril, chance and vicissitude. " He alone," says 
 Augustine, "never loseth what is dear to him, to 
 whom all things are dear in Him who is never lost ! " 
 
 Death shall not separate. Death ! What ! that 
 which is so sadly and irrevocably allied with the 
 thought of separation ! Yet here too, in the noblest 
 sense of it, separation there is not, and cannot be. 
 " I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never 
 perish." At what is truly misnamed 'the closing 
 hour/ Being (immortal being) is only interrupted : no, 
 
NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST. 233 
 
 not even is it suspended, but rather transferred, exalted, 
 perfected. The stream of existence is indeed for the 
 moment lost from view ; but not as the river of Pales- 
 tine is lost in the gloomy depths of the Dead Sea, shut 
 up in that gleamless caldron with no exit or emer- 
 gence; but lost, rather as the river of Egypt is said 
 to lose itself in the sands, to reappear when it joins 
 the ocean. That river, hidden for a time, will emerge 
 living and life-giving on the shores of the illimitable 
 sea, to lose and merge its waters in the Eternal Ocean 
 of divine love. Eor, to repeat a verse oft quoted in 
 previous pages — but which is specially appropriate 
 here — it is " the Life hid with Christ in God ; and 
 when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall 
 ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. iii. 3, 4). 
 Separated : yes, but it is only as the disciples were 
 separated from their dear Lord after the Eesurrection. 
 We all remember the night on the Sea of Tiberias; 
 the thought of its unremunerated toil mingling with 
 sadder, deeper, more sacred ponderings on His absence. 
 But, as morning with its faint earliest ray daw^ns on 
 the silvery beach, there stands a well-known Figure. 
 There is heard a well-known Voice, welcoming them 
 as " children " to the meal already prepared, — " It is 
 the Lord ! " 
 
 So with the believer and death with its night of 
 tossing on the tempestuous waves. But, ere long, the 
 darkness is past ; and lo ! on the Heavenly shore, 
 there is a Voice heard inviting to sit down at the 
 
234 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 banquet of love; and, better than that on earthly- 
 lakeside, — a banquet with " no separation : " — " It is 
 the Lord " for ever ! 
 
 Death has somewhere been called one of the "gates 
 of pearl " spoken of in Eevelation. Not so, is it, 
 assuredly, from the earthly view. No : there, it is 
 rather a gloomy portal; stern, repulsive, iron-barred. 
 But seen by angels, and the saintly multitude from 
 "the other side," — "Every several gate was of one 
 pearl" (Eev. xxi. 21). 
 
 Let us seek to habituate ourselves to this view of 
 death — " death in Christ." An enemy truly, but ' the 
 last enemy.' Then, in whatever shape it may overtake 
 us ; whether in the quiet slumber of our own chamber 
 — a peaceful departure tended by the hands of loving 
 affection ; or the slow ravages of wasting disease, the 
 wild delirium of raging fever, the crash of some sudden 
 and unforeseen calamity, — we shall be able, like Paul, 
 not, perhaps, as in his case, with a psean of triumph, 
 but under the sublime consciousness of being in Christ, 
 with simple confiding faith to say — " I am persuaded " 
 that death . . . shall not " separate us from the love 
 of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 "And so shall we ever he with the Lord !" 
 
'S:> 
 
 XXVIII. 
 NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST. 
 
 " For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
 nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall he ahle 
 to separate us from the love of God, -which is IN Christ Jesus 
 OUR Lord. "—Rom. viii. 38, 39. 
 
 " The salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." — 
 2 Tim. ii. 10. 
 
 i 
 
 IN our former meditation we found the Apostle 
 JM uttering the exultant challenge and "per- 
 g¥^fn^ suasion," that nought — no circumstances of 
 Life ; no, nor Death itself ; no created thing, no created 
 being, could ever separate him from the love of God. 
 And the ground of that challenge — the guarantee of 
 inviolable security, was derived from his now familiar 
 monogram — the realised mystical union and iellow- 
 ship with his divine Lord. He is especially emphatic 
 in its avowal. His words in the original are more 
 expressive than in our rendering.^ 
 
 'J* The love' — 'the special love' — (t^s) "Here plainly enough 
 God's love to xis in Chi-ist,— to us as we are in Christ" (Alford). 
 
IN CHRISTO. 
 
 The completed work of the Great Surety, His cross 
 and passion, His glorious resurrection, His triumphal 
 ascension, His prevailing intercession : — varied links 
 in the golden chain spoken of in succession in the 
 same chapter, place the salvation of the child of God 
 beyond the possibility of failure or disaster. Who shall, 
 who can, who dare separate ? In the words of a gifted 
 writer, " The movables may go ; the birthright and in- 
 heritance cannot. ... He that loved them out of dark- 
 ness will love them into everlastinf:f lidit." " How 
 happy," says Pascal, in language very appropriate 
 to the present remarks, " is the soul who hnds his 
 delight in Thee, since he may abandon himself to Thy 
 love. . . . How firm and lasting is his happiness, 
 since his hope cannot be disappointed, because Thou 
 wilt never be destroyed, and neither life nor death 
 shall separate him from the object of his desires,'* 
 Not, (to repeat the qualifying remark made in more 
 than one previous meditation) that that triumphant 
 song of the Apostle can always be sung with unfalter- 
 ing lip, or the vessel of faith be borne ever onward 
 with propitious breezes over summer seas. No : — 
 the normal description and expression of the spiritual 
 as of the natural life rather is, " the day is neither 
 clear nor dark " (Zech. xiv. 7). Like the shipmen of 
 old in the Sea of Adria, there are times when 
 " neither sun nor stars in many days appear, and no 
 small tempest lay on us" (Acts xxvii. 20). Towards 
 the close of the very chapter from which our motto- 
 
NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST. 237 
 
 verse is taken (indeed immediately preceding it), the 
 Apostle gives the catalogue of hostile spiritual forces. 
 These, in a hundred varying forms and phases of anta- 
 gonism, are assailing the life of faith in the believer. 
 And a formidable list it is. " Tribulation, distress, 
 persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword" (Eom. viii. 
 35). But none of these, nor all combined, can effect 
 his final overthrow. His security in Christ is beyond 
 the reach of peril or vicissitude. That covenant, 
 well-ordered in all things and sure, will guarantee the 
 tempest-tossed riding out the storm. As it has been 
 said, " If there be tossing and doubting, it is the heav- 
 ing of a ship at anchor, not the dashing on the rocks." 
 The heavenly Bridegroom pledges His troth to a 
 deathless union with His affianced Bride — " I will 
 betroth thee unto Me for ever " (Hosea ii. 1 9). The 
 inheritance is won, and entered upon by " Him that is 
 true : and," it is added, " we are in Him that is true, 
 even in His Son Jesus Christ " (i John v. 20). The 
 Little- Faiths as well as the Great-Faiths can utter the 
 challenge — " Who shall separate ? " 
 
 While, then, sin may, and often does, justly dim and 
 obscure the sense of pardon and the hope of heaven ; 
 while the wailing acknowledgment of the stricken soul 
 often arises, " Mine iniquities have separated between 
 me and my God," let us remember the divine whisper 
 heard within the veil, already quoted in one of our 
 earlier chapters : a whisper on the lips of Him " who 
 also maketh intercession for us," turning the mourn- 
 
238 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 ing into dancing, and exchanging the sackcloth for the 
 girdle of gladness, — " I have prayed for thee, that thy 
 faith fail not." Below, a sinking, fragile, yes, apparently 
 lost disciple ; above, a praying, interceding, omnipotent 
 Saviour. Below, sin triumphing and triumphant ; 
 but above, grace triumphant too ; and leaving the as- 
 saulted soul more than conqueror through (in) IIi77i 
 that loved it ! The God who cannot lie thus at last 
 vindicates the ineffable meaning and preciousness of 
 His own wondrous words, with their " five negatives," 
 as they have been called (for so it is in the untrans- 
 ferable tautology of the original), — " I will never leave 
 thee, nor forsake thee — no never, no never, no never ! " 
 The challenge echoing on through infinite ages — " Who 
 shall separate ? " and the answering echo — " JVb never, 
 no never I " 
 
 We have just spoken of the remains of corruption 
 — the presence and the power of sin in the heart, as 
 marring and hindering the full outburst of the believer's 
 song of triumph. There may be some whose eyes 
 trace these pages who have a different experience; 
 whose trembling, faltering notes proceed from a diffe- 
 rent cause : not so much from sin, as from sorrow. 
 Their harps being hung on the willows of grief, how 
 can they sing the Lord's song ? And yet, in another 
 sense, as partakers of a living union with their divine 
 Lord, it is their very sadness which will best attune 
 their lips to gladness, in the fuller realisation of that 
 Saviour's promised nearness and love — "Ye now 
 
NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST. 239 
 
 therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again, and 
 your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh 
 from you " (John xvi. 22). The kindred glowing 
 words of St. Paul in his 2nd Epistle to Timothy are 
 specially suggested : an epistle which we know was 
 written when death and its solemn thoughts were 
 very nigh the writer. They are words, moreover, 
 which have imparted to them a special interest as 
 being ingeniously supposed, from their structure, to 
 have formed a prophetic hymn of the ancient Church 
 — a fragment from its first service of song.'^ May we 
 not take them as appropriate for all ; but specially for 
 the mourner in Jesus ? May we without presump- 
 tion think of them as sung over the holy dust of the 
 Catacombs and their sepulchral slabs, on which, as we 
 have seen. In Christo was often reverently though 
 rudely carved ? Here are the two opening lines : — 
 
 " If we died vdth Him, we shall also live with Him. 
 If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him " (2 Tim. ii. 1 1, 12). 
 
 Death in Christ, assuredly followed by a spiritual 
 and glorious resurrection IN Him. 'Death shall not 
 separate ! ' 
 
 And this further suggests, that our meditation would 
 be incomplete without a few closing thoughts on an 
 additional prominent clause in the Apostle's challenge, 
 — " Things to come shall not separate." The trance of 
 
 1 See Mack, quoted by Dr. Reynolds in Expositor, p. 298. Also Mr. 
 Cheetham's interesting article on Ancient Church Hymns in Smith's 
 " Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," vol. i. p. 801. 
 
J40 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 that beatific heavenly bliss can never be broken ; and 
 this, once more, because we are in Christ. Identifica- 
 tion with Him on earth, in His cross and sufferings, is 
 followed by identification with Him in heaven in 
 His crown and glory. The avowal of time is the 
 theme and rejoicing of eternity — " I live, yet not I, 
 but Christ liveth in me." 
 
 God is OUR God in Christ. If I may be allowed to 
 quote remarks made elsewhere, which seem appro- 
 priate here — " The words to us are written (which 
 to the unredeemed angels they are not) in the blood 
 of atonement ! Imagine, for a moment, a conversa- 
 tion between a bright angel in heaven and a ransomed 
 sinner from earth. The angel can speak of a past 
 eternity ; he can tell a glorious pedigree ; he can 
 point up to his Almighty Maker, and say, "He has 
 been my God for ages and ages past. I have been 
 kept, supported, gladdened by His amazing mercy, 
 long before the birth of time or your world I ' ' True,' 
 we may imagine the redeemed sinner to reply, *but 
 I can tell of something more wondrous still : ITe 
 is my God in covenant. Thou art His by creation, 
 but I am His also by adoption, filiation, sonship. 
 Though grace has kept thee through these countless 
 ages, during which Thou hast cast thy crown at His 
 feet, what is the grace manifested to thee, in com- 
 parison with the grace manifested to me ? Grace made 
 thee holy, and preserved thee holy. But grace found 
 me on the brink of despair; plucked me as a brand 
 
NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST. 241 
 
 from the burning ; brought me from the depths of woe 
 and degradation to a throne and a crown ! Thy God 
 hath loved thee. My God hath loved me and given 
 Himself for me ! Who shall separate me " from the 
 love of Christ " ? ' ^ If every saint in glory is to be 
 "a priest unto God" (Eev. i. 6), the In Christo of 
 the catacombed dead on earth will become — like the 
 Urim and Thummim — (the "gems oracular" which 
 gleamed on the high priest's ephod or breastplate of 
 old), the consecrated pledge of immortal bliss. We 
 have seen in one of these opening meditations, when 
 the Apostle Paul was caught up to Paradise, what the 
 thought of heaven ever afterwards was to him : — " In 
 Christ.'' All our heavenly knowledge will come direct 
 from this mysterious everlasting union. Here there is 
 needed the intervention of the Word, Ordinances, and 
 Sacraments. There the spiritual world will no more 
 be lighted up by satellites. The fairness of the moon 
 will give place to the brightness of the sun. Heaven 
 win be an eternal Mount of Transfiguration — Hermon 
 with all its radiance, and none of its transience. As 
 every eye rests on the One all-glorious Person — the 
 true Shekinah, — -the old utterance will be breathed 
 with an eternal significance — " Lord, it is good for us 
 to be here." 
 
 Further stiU, in Christ will be the guarantee for an 
 ever-progressive acquaintance with divine realities, and 
 
 * " The Hart and the "Waterbrooks," 
 
242 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 the entering ever deeper and deeper into the secrets 
 of Eedeeming Love : — soaring ever higher and higher to 
 the heights of His revealed glory. The Song of heaven 
 will be a true Excelsior — a " Song of degrees." Like 
 the well-known Parabolic assymtotes of the mathema- 
 tician (to adopt Addison's beautiful and appropriate 
 simile), the saint in glory will be always approaching 
 nearer and nearer the Infinite perfection, although feel- 
 ing the utter impossibility of that ever being reached. 
 Jesus the Great Shepherd will lead His people from 
 steep to steep on the everlasting hills, and as they 
 survey the ever- widening prospect. He will say to them, 
 as He did to Nathaniel of old, " Ye shall see greater 
 things than these ! " 
 
 Who, indeed, can form the faintest conception, in 
 this lower world and imperfect state, of all which this 
 wondrous mystical union involves, in its connection 
 with " Things to come " ? Saints becoming one IN 
 Christ for ever. His ransomed people, not so much 
 constellating around Himself as their great central 
 orb; He 'resting them' in His love, and joying over 
 them with singing (Zeph. iii. 1 7) : but rather like the 
 dewdrops exhaled by the morning sun, absorbed in 
 the sun itself; not the living stones rising tier on tier, 
 but rather those enshrined and incorporated in the 
 Great Eternal Temple ; according to the words of the 
 Apocalyptic vision — words best left in their own 
 mysterious indefinite grandeur — " I saw no temple 
 therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb 
 
NO SEPARATION IN CHRIST. 243 
 
 are the temple of it" (Eev. xxi. 22). They are 
 " glorified together." T/iey are glorified in Him, and 
 He is glorified in them. It is the Dove of the Psalmist 
 — " its wings covered with silver and its feathers with 
 yellow gold," no longer hastening its escape from the 
 windy storm and tempest, but sinking out of sight in 
 the clefts of the Eock, — folding its pinions in the 
 perfected bliss of everlasting rest and everlasting love 
 IN Him ! 
 
 Yes, wonderful climax this in our motto-verse, 
 where the Apostle, rising in his eagle flight from perch 
 to perch, from altitude to altitude, defies " things to 
 come," the cycles of Eternity — ever to separate Him 
 from " the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord." 
 
 *' Then across the border river : 
 From His presence nought can sever : 
 We shall sing His praise for ever ! " 
 
 If the consciousness of being " in Christ " on earth 
 be supremest happiness, what will it be to be in Christ 
 in glory, and that for " the ages of the ages ! " If 
 even here, amid falling shadows and interrupted con- 
 verse, the assurance of an Invisible Presence evokes the 
 testimony — " Did not our hearts burn within us while 
 He talked to us by the way " (Luke xxiv. 3 2) : — 
 what will it be to sit at a Banqueting Table where, 
 unlike the earthly one, there can be no " vanishing 
 out of sight ! " If the few wavelets of Divine love be 
 precious as they break on the earthly shores, what will 
 
244 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 it be to be launched on the Infinite ocean of Redeem- 
 ing love, listening to its everlasting music, — and 
 enabled in some feeble measure to comprehend (but 
 even then, oh, kow feebly /), the height and depth, the 
 length and breadth of the love of God IN Christ! 
 Then, at least, shall Paul's prayer be fulfilled : the 
 glorious consummation of the motto-words which 
 head this chapter, and on which, page after page in 
 this volume, we have been dwelling, — "That they 
 may also obtain the salvation which is IN CHRIST 
 JESUS with eternal glory I " 
 
 IN PACE. 
 
( 245 ) 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 AM I IN CHRIST? 
 
 "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in 
 you, except ye he reprohates." — 2 Cor. xiii. 5. 
 
 •' Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of 
 me, in faith and love which is IN Christ Jesus." — 2 Tim. i. 13. 
 
 UE previous meditation might appropriately 
 have formed the conclusion of this Volume : 
 the eternal union and communion of the 
 believer with an ever-living Lord in heaven. 
 
 But there is one all momentous practical question 
 which seems still to demand the special consideration 
 of every reader. How do I know that all this wealth 
 of present bliss and everlasting glory is mine ? 'Am I 
 IN Christ ? ' 
 
 The entire verse from the Apostle's 2nd Epistle 
 to the Corinthians, of which the first words above 
 quoted are a part, distinctly state that there are cer- 
 tain data by which this personal problem may be 
 accurately solved. To express it differently, there are 
 certain plain, palpable tests and characteristics fur- 
 nished in Holy Scripture, by which we can approxi- 
 
246 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 mately, at all events, determine our relation to God, 
 and our warrant to say in the language (we have often 
 quoted) of him who thus penned his own monogram — 
 " I know ^ a man in Christ." 
 
 Surely we may say, in premising, of supremest im- 
 portance to each of us is the answer to that question. 
 'Out of Christ' — outside the clefts of the Eock — we 
 are exposed to the fury of the storm. " Out of Me " 
 (apart from Me), says the Saviour Himself, " ye can do 
 nothing " (John xv. 5). Xor can there be any neutral 
 ground — any possibility of compromise here. An old 
 writer tersely expresses it, " Halfway to Christ is a 
 dreadful place." On the other hand, we have written 
 to little purpose in the preceding pages, if we have 
 failed to set forth the glorious converse; alike the 
 freeness of the Gospel invitation, and the inviolable 
 security and peace to be found in Christ. With Him 
 (m Him), we are safe for time, safe for eternity. It 
 was the presence of the Ark in the Wilderness of old 
 — the symbol of the Jehovah- Angel's presence — which 
 guaranteed Israel's safety. When the Ark moved, they 
 moved ; when the Ark rested, they rested. The prayer 
 of Moses is very remarkable. It was not, ' Take us 
 safe to Canaan ' : but rather (if we may venture to 
 give his petition a Gospel rendering) — to be, in Christ ; 
 — within the shadow of the Pillar- Cloud by day, and 
 the Fiery Column by night : — " If Thy presence go 
 
 ^ " I Jcnow," not 'knew,' as in our authorised version. — See AlforiVa 
 Greek Testament in loc. 
 
AM I IN CHRIST? 247 
 
 not with us, carry us not hence" (Ex. xxxiii. 15). 
 Happy for those of us who can say, with some good 
 measure of lowly confidence, in the words of one who 
 knew more than others of this blissful shelter of the 
 great Anti-typical SheJcinah, "And truly our fellowship 
 is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ" 
 (i John i. 3). 
 
 Let us restrict ourselves, at present, to two such 
 texts afforded by our Apostle, and which he groups 
 together in the second of our motto-verses — " In faith 
 and love which is in Christ Jesus " (2 Tim. i. 13). 
 
 (i.) The first of these characteristics here mentioned 
 is FAITH in Christ. It would be to rehearse the best- 
 known and most significant utterances, both of Gospels 
 and Epistles, were we to attempt enumerating the 
 various passages in which this elementary Christian 
 grace is referred to. Take a few specimen sayings of 
 the Redeemer Himself. It is, if I may so call it, the 
 leading and prominent feature in His own repeated 
 manifestoes. " Come unto Me " (Matt. xi. 2 8). " Him 
 that Cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out " 
 (John vi. 3 7). " AU that the Father giveth Me shall 
 come to Me." " He that believeth on Me, though he 
 were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth 
 and believeth in Me, shall never die " (John xi. 25, 26). 
 " God so loved the world, that He gave His only be- 
 gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should 
 not perish, but have everlasting life " (John iii. 1 6). 
 
248 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My 
 word, and helieveth on Him that sent Me, hath ever- 
 lasting life, and shall not come into condemnation ; 
 but is passed from death unto life " (John v. 24). " In 
 the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood 
 and cried, saying. If any man thirst, let him come 
 unto Me, and drink. He that helieveth on Me, as the 
 Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers 
 of living water" (John vii. 37, 38). So also in the 
 Great Intercessory Prayer — " For I have given unto 
 them the words which Thou gavest Me ; and they have 
 received them, and have known surely that I came 
 out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst 
 send Me " (John xvii. 8). 
 
 To pass from the sayings of the Master to those 
 of His faithful Apostles. One of Paul's most familiar 
 exhortations in one of the most memorable incidents 
 of his history was — " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and thou shalt be saved " (Acts xvi. 31). " For," says 
 he in another epistle, " though I be absent in the 
 flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and be- 
 holding your order, and the steadfastness of jovlt faith 
 IN Christ " (Col. ii. 5). " The righteousness which is 
 of faith " is a remarkable assertion of his towards the 
 close of his Eoman Epistle — " speaketh on this wise. 
 ... If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
 Jesus, and shalt helieve in thine heart that God hath 
 raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved " (Eom. 
 X. 6, 9). The Beloved disciple again and again echoes 
 
AM I IN CHRIST? 249 
 
 the same assertion — " Whosoever believeth that Jesus 
 is the Christ is born of God" (i John v. i). "He 
 that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in 
 himself " ( i John v. i o). Quotations might be almost 
 indefinitely multiplied ; but those given are enough to 
 show, that " coming " to Christ, " confessing " Christ, 
 " believing in " Christ : in other words, the exercise of a 
 simple appropriating faith in Him and in all the bene- 
 fits of His purchase, form one incontrovertible evidence 
 to every anxious inquirer, of God "dwelling in Him, 
 and he m God" (John iv. 15). "Only live in this 
 faith, walk in it, and act in it, and as surely as Christ 
 lived by the Father, so shall every member of His 
 body live by the strength and wisdom of its Head." ^ 
 
 With this foundation text before us, we can adopt 
 the words of the Saviour's Valedictory discourse and say, 
 "At THAT day " (the day of your coming to Me, and 
 reposing on Me), "ye shall know that I am in my 
 Father, and ye IN Me, and I in you" (John xiv. 20). 
 
 (2.) The second characteristic, here mentioned by 
 the Apostle, is love : — " in faith and love, which is in 
 Christ Jesus." When these two sacred graces have 
 revealed themselves, they confidently tell that the soul 
 has become an adjunct of the Great living Temple. 
 
 Let us here also listen, in the first instance, to the 
 Saviour's own emphatic testimony : " He that loveth 
 Me shall be loved of My Father" (John xiv. 21). 
 
 ^ '■ Memorials of a Quiet Life," voL ii. p. 213. 
 
2 so 7iV CHRISTO. 
 
 " The Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved 
 Me, and have believed that I came out from God" 
 (John xvi. 27). Our Apostle refers in many passages 
 to this new and indispensable evidence of the spiritual 
 life. He speaks not only of that divine love, like the 
 sun in the heavens flooding the soul, but the soul 
 becoming itself a willing recipient. " The love of 
 God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, 
 which is given unto us" (Eom. v. 5). Again, "The 
 love of Christ constraineth us" (2 Cor. v. 14). "The 
 Lord direct your hearts into the love of God " (2 Thess. 
 iii. 5). It is, moreover, remarkable the frequency with 
 which St. Paul combines, as we find him doing in this 
 same verse at the head of the chapter, both testing 
 principles of Faith and Love ; as if they were the two 
 co-ordinate and inseparable factors in the Christian's 
 inner life — " Putting on the breastplate of faith and 
 love " ( I Thess. V. 8). In one of the most glowing 
 passages of his writings we have a similar conjunction 
 in a more extended form — " In whom we have bold- 
 ness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. 
 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith ; that 
 ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to 
 comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and 
 length, and depth, and height ; and to know the love 
 of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be 
 filled with all the fulness of God" (Eph. iii. 12, 
 17-19); while his closing benediction in the same 
 Epistle is — " Peace be to the brethren, and love with 
 
AM I IN CHRIST! 251 
 
 faith" (Eph. vi. 23). Though he reverses the order, 
 hear, in his salutation to his beloved Philemon, the 
 groundwork of thanksgiving to God on his behalf — 
 " Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward 
 the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints " (Philemon 5). 
 And once more, see how in writing to his son Timothy 
 he entwines, so to speak, faith and love with his mono- 
 gram — "And the grace of our Lord was exceeding 
 abundant, with faith and love, which is IN Christ 
 Jesus" (i Tim. i. 14). In the General Epistle of 
 Jude we have the same juxtaposition of the two 
 Christian graces. It seems as if Faith brings first 
 within the divine fortress, and then, armed with the 
 holy breastplate of Love, we pace in safety the battle- 
 ments, and keep sacred vigil within. — " But ye be- 
 loved, building up yourselves in your most holy faith, 
 . . . keep yourselves in the love of God" (Jude 20, 
 21). The venerable St. James speaks of "the crown 
 of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love 
 Him " (James i. 1 2). As in the case of the Apostle 
 of the Gentiles, how beautifully also does the Apostle 
 of the Circumcision combine the two graces, putting 
 moreover in the lips of his converts the familiar mono- 
 gram — " Whom having not seen, ye love ; IN whom, 
 though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice 
 with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (i Pet. i. 8). 
 Could the latter Apostle ever forget how solemnly the 
 ' love-test ' was addressed to himself : and that, too, in 
 words of more touching adjuration than ever fell on 
 
252 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 mortal ear : " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me ? " 
 We need be least of all surprised to meet with this 
 evidence of love reiterated in the Epistles of the Dis- 
 ciple of Love. We find St. John adducing it, first in 
 a negative shape : " If any man love the world, the 
 love of the Father is not in Him" (i John ii. 15). 
 Then, to take one out of many beautiful and expres- 
 sive passages in his Epistles, in which it is brought 
 before us in a positive form — "And we have known 
 and believed the love that God hath to us. God is 
 love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, 
 and God in him" (i John iv. 16). This atmosphere of 
 love, breathed and inhaled by every " man in Christ," 
 includes along with the love of God the love of the 
 Brotherhood. Deepest in the centre, its waves send 
 their circling eddies to the circumference of humanity ; 
 — " If we love one another. His love is perfected in 
 us.'' " We know that we have passed from death unto 
 life, because we love the brethren " ( i John iii. 1 4). 
 " Be ye kind," says St. Paul, in a beautiful passage 
 (Eph. iv. 32), where, yet again, his monogram (which 
 occurs in the original) is misrendered, and indeed 
 practically omitted, in our authorised translation — " Be 
 ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one 
 another, even as God IN Christ hath forgiven you." ^ 
 
 Can we, with some lowly measure of assured confi- 
 dence, subscribe the twofold test which the Apostle 
 
 ^ 6 Gcos eV Xpiarc^, not "for ChrlsCs sake," as in the English version. 
 
AM I IN CHRIST? 253 
 
 has thus submitted to us ? Has faith, the elder-born 
 of the two graces, reached out its hand, and touched 
 the golden sceptre ? Have we looked to Christ ? 
 Have we come to Christ ? Have we received Christ ? 
 Then, further, and in conjunction with this, are we 
 conscious of a faith '*' which worketh by love : " a faith 
 which has born within us new thoughts of God? 
 Has the dread feeling which once surrounded our every 
 conception of Him — the Awful, the Incomprehensible 
 — passed away ; and do we feel the loving affection of 
 children, engendered and cherished towards our Father 
 in Heaven, and the Brother in our nature on the 
 Throne ? In a word, can we take up and appropriate 
 the twin challenge of the two great leaders in the 
 Apostolic Church ? Can we make St. Paul's noble 
 avowal of a personal faith, which thus at the end of his 
 consecrated life rises to its climax — " I know whom I 
 have BELIEVED, and am persuaded that He is able to 
 keep that which I have committed unto Him " ? (2 
 Tim. i. 1 2). Can we make St. Peter's equally memorable 
 declaration (it may be, like him, with trembling lip, 
 yet too with honest sincerity of heart and purpose, — 
 " Lord, Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that / 
 LOVE Thee " ? (John xxi. 1 7). 
 
( 254 ) 
 
 XXX. 
 
 AM I IN CHRIST? 
 
 "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in 
 you, except ye be reprobates." — 2 Cor. xiii, 5. 
 
 M 
 
 HE tests spoken of in the preceding chapters 
 would be incomplete without the addition 
 of one other. 
 
 To " faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus," must 
 be added their necessary adjunct and concomitant — 
 " Without HOLINESS no man shall see the Lord " (Heb. 
 xii. 14). Indeed, faith and love would be spurious, 
 mere names and counterfeits, unless this latter be their 
 expression and outcome. The Divine Master himself 
 tells of the impossibility otherwise of entering the 
 fortress of Love. He makes holiness an essential con- 
 dition, so to speak, of abiding within that fortress. 
 " If ye keep My commandments y ye shall ahide in My 
 love " (John xv. i o). And how frequently He reiterates 
 the same assertion. " If ye love Me, keep My. com- 
 mandments " (John xiv. 15); " also, " He that hath My 
 commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth 
 
AM I IN CHRIST? 255 
 
 Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My 
 Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself 
 to him " (John xiv. 21). " If a man love Me, he will 
 keep My words : and My Father will love him, and 
 we will come unto him and make our abode with 
 Him" (John xiv. 23). "He that abideth in Me, the 
 same bringeth forth much fruit" (John xv. 5). While 
 assuring them that all within the compass of His 
 Omnipotence to bestow will be theirs in answer to 
 prayer, hear the divine postulate — " If ye abide in Me, 
 a7id My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye wiU 
 and it shall be done unto you " (John xv. 7). Equally 
 impressive is His converse utterance of warning : — 
 " Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh 
 away " (John xv. 2). Holiness is the key-note to the 
 whole teaching of His Sermon on the Mount. With 
 what righteous emphasis does He discard mere barren, 
 intellectual assent to doctrine, if dissevered from 
 purity of heart, and assimilation to the divine will and 
 character — " Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, 
 Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he 
 that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven " 
 (Matt. vii. 21). In His intercessory prayer, His peti- 
 tions to the Father are, if we may so express it, sup- 
 ported and strengthened with the plea — " Thine they 
 were, and Thou gavest them Me, and they have kept Thy 
 word " (John xvii. 6). After His work on earth was 
 completed, how solemnly does He dwell, in later in- 
 junctions from His glorified lips to the Churches in 
 
IN CHRISTO. 
 
 Asia, on the necessity of a spirit of holiness in all 
 (whether in a corporate or individual capacity) who 
 are IN Him ! How repeated, in these divine epilogues 
 also (just as we have noted in the course of His earthly 
 ministry) — are His monitions against an inoperative 
 and uninfluential faith — a cold formal love ! To take 
 one as an example. " I know," says He to the Church 
 of Sardis, " thy works, that thou hast a name that thou 
 livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the 
 things which remain, that are ready to die : for I have 
 not found thy works perfect before God. Kemember 
 therefore how thou hast received and heard ; and hold 
 fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I 
 will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know 
 what hour I will come upon thee!" (Rev. iii. 1-3). 
 While to those of that same Church who had their 
 "garments undefiled" (ver. 4), in other words, who 
 had attained to holiness of heart and life. He appends 
 the beautiful promise — " He that overcometh, the 
 same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not 
 blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will 
 confess his name before My Father, and before His 
 Angels" (ver. 5). 
 
 Is it needful for us to adduce any passages of 
 similar import from the writings of St. Paul ? All 
 our preceding meditations on his monogram are filled 
 with imperative injunctions as to the cultivation and 
 development of this inner grace of sanctification. " Ye 
 are not your own, for ye are bought with a price, there- 
 
AM I IN CHRIST? 257 
 
 fore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which 
 are His" (i Cor. vi. 20). "In whom," as a resultant 
 necessity of this mystical union and incorporation, (to 
 revert to a familiar verse), " all the building fitly framed 
 together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord : IN" 
 WHOM ye also are builded together for an habitation 
 in God through the Spirit " (Eph. ii. 21, 22). " Grieve 
 not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto 
 the day of redemption " (Eph. iv. 3). In the Epistle 
 to the Colossians, (where, as we have also previously 
 seen, the oneness of the believer with his Saviour is 
 very specially referred to), the great end and object of 
 that mystical union is thus stated — "And you . . . 
 hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through 
 death, to present you holy and unblameable and un- 
 reproveable in His sight" (Col. i. 21, 22). The cen- 
 tral portion and kernel of his prayer in behalf of the 
 same Church is — " That ye might be filled with the 
 knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual 
 understanding ; that ye might walk worthy of the 
 Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good 
 work, and increasing in the knowledge of God " (Col. 
 i. 9, I o). " They that are Christ's," says he, in writ- 
 ing to the Galatians, " have crucified the flesh with the 
 affections and lusts" (Gal. v. 24). To like purpose in 
 Ephesians i. 4, believers are said to be " chosen IN 
 Him before the foundation of the world, that they 
 should be holy and without blame before Him in love." 
 In the sublimest chapter of his great Epistle, in speak- 
 
258 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 ing of "the called according to His purpose," he 
 adds — "For whom He did foreknow, He also did 
 predestinate to le conformed to the image of His Son " 
 (Eom. viii. 28, 29). The summing up of that same 
 doctrinal epistle begins with the adjuration — " I be- 
 seech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 
 that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, hol^, 
 acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service " 
 (Eom. xii. i). Nor can we forget how, in an earlier 
 part, these most solemn words confront us (we know 
 none more solemn in Scripture or that should lead to 
 deeper heart-scrutiny) — "If any man have not the 
 spirit of Christ, HE is NONE of His " ! (Rom. viii. 9). 
 Without adverting to the disputed authorship of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, we have there at all events 
 this Pauline declaration — *' For we are made partakers 
 of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence 
 steadfast unto the end " (Heb. iii. 1 4). 
 
 These testimonies would be incomplete without 
 including another of "the glorious company of the 
 Apostles ; " — him whose own distinctive and favourite 
 ' monogram ' undoubtedly was, " God is love " : as if he 
 had no room for any other thought or test. Yet 
 listen to a few of His utterances as to Love's needful 
 and essential complement. " If we say that we have 
 fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and 
 do not the truth " ( i John i. 6). " Whosoever abideth 
 iii^Him sinneth not ; whosoever sinneth hath not seen 
 Him, neither known Him. Whosoever is born of 
 
AM I IN CHRIST? 259 
 
 God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in 
 him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God " 
 (i John iii. 6, 9). "And he that keepeth His com- 
 mandments, dwelleth in Him, and he in Him ; and 
 hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit 
 which He hath given us" (i John iii. 24). While 
 adopting in its glorious plenitude the formula of his 
 " beloved brother," the aged Seer of Ephesus may be 
 heard to sum up all in the earnest exhortation — " And 
 every man that hath this hope IN Him purifieth him- 
 self, even as He is pure " (i John iii. 3). 
 
 Thus, then, have we seen, in this and the foregoing 
 meditation, that Faith, Love, and Holiness are the 
 three consecrated occupants of the regenerated soul, 
 ministering Levites in the spiritual Temple — a trinity 
 of divine forces in the new nature of " the man in 
 Christ." And it is through the operation and develop- 
 ment of these three divine principles that the end and 
 object of Eedemption, in the case of each member of 
 the Church is attained — " That the name of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, 
 according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ " (2 Thess. i. 1 2). 
 
 But it may be said, and said truly, do we not, in 
 the assertion of these solemn verities 
 
 •• Soar too high, 
 For sinful man beneath the sky " ? 
 
 Does not the believer — he, whose peerless privilege 
 we have seen throughout to be in Christ — ever and 
 
'26o IN CHRISTO. 
 
 anon, by reason of his own backsliding— (faithless, and 
 loveless seasons), grievously imperil his spiritual and 
 everlasting safety ? 
 
 We have adverted to that same question more than 
 once in the course of this Volume. But the necessity 
 of guarding, alike against discouragement and misap- 
 prehension is so great, that we offer no apology for 
 recurring to the subject, in connection with the special 
 topic of this chapter. We reply then, as we have pre- 
 viously done, that, in the highest sense of the word, the 
 believer's standing-ground in his Saviour is unassail- 
 able. Blessed be God, in respect of the Great covenant 
 relation as ' the Eedeemed of the Lord, whom He hath 
 redeemed out of the hand of the enemy,' His people 
 cannot be finally relegated under the old bondage of 
 sin and death. Redeemed once, they are redeemed for 
 ever. " He hath broken the gates of brass, and cut 
 the bars of iron in sunder " (Ps. cvii. 1 6). In another 
 and sadder acceptation, however, there may be (in the 
 case of most there are) grievous relapses, it may even 
 be painful experiences and memories of guilt and short- 
 coming: — the consciousness of oft-abused mercies, 
 scorned grace. The sun may be there ; it is there ; but 
 his glorious disc is hidden and obscured by enfolding 
 clouds : clouds which our own faithlessness and sin 
 have gathered : — " Thou didst hide Thy face and I 
 was troubled " (Ps. xxx. 7). Oh ! it is surely no small 
 comfort to those who have undergone, or may be under- 
 going, these terrible experiences, that Christ Himself, 
 
AM I IN CHRIST? 261 
 
 — He who knowetli our frame, — who can enter, as no 
 other can, with sensitive tenderness into tlie frailties 
 of His tried and tempted people — recognises the pos- 
 sibility of such falls and collapses. Hear His own 
 words to those who were the most favoured recipients 
 of His presence and fellowship — " Behold the hour 
 Cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be scattered 
 every man to his own, and ye shall leave Me alone " 
 (John xvi. 32). The J did leave Him 'alone': — the 
 saddest and mournfulest hour of His and their history. 
 The hour when loyal allegiance and fidelity were most 
 needed and demanded ; then, yes, then, the very body- 
 guard of the Prince of Life, as we know well, turned rene- 
 gade, despite of a recent solemn appeal that might have 
 effectively rung its deterrent accents in their ears — ^ 
 *' Will ye also go away ? " They fled, panic-stricken, in 
 coward ingratitude, amid the moonlit groves of Olivet. 
 The Vessel that had so long and lovingly sheltered them, 
 they abandoned to the fury of the storm. How soon 
 had they forgotten the conditional promises which, as 
 we have seen, had so lately been addressed to them — 
 ■" If ye abide in Me ;" and its sad converse, " Without 
 Me!" 
 
 We repeat, it is, alas ! the too truthful rehearsal of 
 human experience still. " In Christ," and yet betrayed 
 into grievous sin ! Oh, how dreadful the character 
 which, in such case, that sin assumes ! Sin committed 
 IN Christ ! How abominable in the sight of " Him 
 that is Holy, Him that is True " — the defiling of that 
 
262 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 Temple '^ whose Temple are ye'''! Yes, and what a loud 
 call surely to the believer to exercise the most scru- 
 pulous watchfulness and vigilance, lest, in some un- 
 guarded moment, he may be led thus to inflict foul 
 dishonour on his Lord, as well as leave some indelible 
 stain on his own conscience : the soul, which ought to 
 be a mirror reflecting the Saviour's image, irretrievably 
 blurred and shattered ! 
 
 We have taken the saddest phase of spiritual aberra- 
 tion ; and even if there be no such overt, or positive 
 act of sin, faith and love and holiness may at times 
 be dimmed from other causes, too varied and numerous 
 to specify, — each heart, knowing its own bitterness. 
 But, be these experiences what they may ; even in the 
 lowest extremities, " in darkness and in the deeps," 
 cannot Hoipe, " the song-bird " — the nightingale of the 
 soul, — awake its reviving melody stUl, as of old, amid 
 the deepening shadows and surging waves — "Deep 
 calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy water-spouts : 
 all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me. Yet 
 the Lord will command His loving-kindness in the 
 daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, 
 and my prayer unto the God of my life. . . . Hope thou 
 in God : for I shall yet praise Him " (Ps. xlii. 7, 8, 11). 
 Note, it is prayer, the cry of the new creature IN" 
 Christ, which restores the joys of salvation. See in 
 that allegorical picture in the Song of Songs, how the 
 Bride found at last her long-forfeited Lord. She sim- 
 ply sought Him. Prayer was her resort. Leaving the 
 
AM I IN CHRIST? 263 
 
 darkened city, her footsteps carry lier from hill to 
 hill, and from valley to valley, wherever she deems 
 it likely her Gracious Shepherd may be. The cry 
 of a broken heart is heard. But observe too, it is 
 a cry of unquenched love (for even to the Heart- 
 Searcher she can own " whom my soul loveth ") : — 
 " Tell me, thou whom my soul loveth, where thou 
 feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon " 
 (Sol. Song i. 7). 
 
 If any eyes, dim with sadder than tears of bereave- 
 ment, trace these lines, do not despair. " Cast thy 
 burden " (the heaviest supposable one) " on the Lord, 
 He will sustain thee ; " He will release thee. The 
 enemy may do his best to drive thee to despondency ; 
 but take our monogram, as we find it in the lips of 
 the same Old Testament Saint — when " tears had been 
 his meat day and night ; " smarting under the cruel, 
 yet he felt merited sarcasm, of those who said unto 
 him, " Where is now thy God ? " They with their 
 philosophy of despair would have him leave his 
 covenant-shelter, and like a maimed and wounded 
 bird betake himself to other refuges. What is his 
 answer ? Confident of his position as a child of that 
 covenant, and with his perch, though all unworthy of 
 it, on the sheltering boughs of the Tree of Life — " In 
 THE LoKD," is his reply, " put I my trust : why say ye 
 to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain " ? (Ps. 
 xi. I.) 
 
 " Oh thou of little faith, wherefore dost thou doubt ? " 
 
264 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 God will not reject the sighings and aspirations of the 
 penitential spirit. The promise is ever sure — •" They 
 that seek shall find." It may be uphill struggle ; oft- 
 baffled purposes — 
 
 "An infant ciying in the night — 
 An infant crying for the light, 
 
 And with no language but a cry." 
 
 It may be the efforts of the chained eagle, flapping his 
 wings — straining his eye for blue vault and everlasting 
 hills. But " He satisfieth the longing soul : " and it is 
 only one of His thousand assured promises — " Even 
 the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young 
 men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the 
 Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall mount up 
 with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be 
 weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint " (Isa. 
 xl. 30, 31). "The waves," says Chrysostom, "are 
 many and the storm is furious; but I fear not to be 
 drowned, for I stand upon a Eock." It is by more 
 fully realising not only that we are on the Eock, but 
 in the Eock (in Christ), that the words become to us 
 an assurance as well as a precept — " Sin shall not have 
 dominion over you " (Eom. vi. 1 4). " The most effec- 
 tual way in which a Christian can get the better of 
 a particular fault, is by cultivating the root of all 
 holiness, hy endeavouring to obtain a closer union with 
 Jesus Christ, and to acquire more of that blessed Spirit 
 . . . which will enable him to conquer all his corrup- 
 
AM I IN CHRIST? 
 
 2C5 
 
 tions, and to improve and strengthen all his Christian 
 graces." ^ 
 
 " At that day," therefore, (may we once more employ 
 the Saviour's own utterance and say) — " At that day" 
 (the day of Faith and Love and Holiness ; it may be 
 added, the day of godly sorrow, the day which listens to 
 the meanings of the contrite in heart), " ye shall know 
 that I am in the Father, and ye IN Me, and I in you." 
 We may, in a similar spiritual acceptation, append words 
 spoken by the same Divine lips at the same solemn 
 time. What accents of comfort to every sorrowing 
 wanderer, bewailing, through his own self-forfeiture, 
 the loss of the Great Shepherd ! " And ye now there- 
 fore have sorrow ; but I will see you again, and your 
 heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from 
 you " (John xvi. 22). 
 
 ^ William Wilberforce's Letter to his Son. Life of Bishop Wilber- 
 force, vol. i. page 11. 
 
( 266 ) 
 
 XXXI. 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 "Now of the things \\hich we have spoken this is the sum.*'— . 
 Heb. viii. i. 
 
 "Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph IN 
 Christ."— 2 Cor. ii. 14. 
 
 N" this closing chapter or * Epilogue/ we may 
 appropriately sum up with the above com- 
 prehensive verse not yet included in our list 
 of the Apostle's Monogram, but which seems admirably 
 to focus, and gather into one, the preceding meditations. 
 It is a prolonged echo of the strain now so familiar to 
 us — " Thanks he unto God, which always causeth us to 
 triumph IN Christ." 
 
 "Victory IN Christ." 
 
 " This," says the Apostle John, " is the victory that 
 overcometh the world, even our faith." But faith is 
 not an abstraction. It derives its invincible power 
 from reposing on a living Person. The soldier on the 
 field may have many incentives to heroic deed : the 
 goodness of his cause, — the vantage-ground he occupies, 
 — the bravery of his comrades, — the precision and 
 
CONCLUSION. 267 
 
 superiority of his weapons, — the approval of his 
 country. But, after all, that which in the thick of the 
 fight best nerves his arm and imparts steadiness and 
 daring, is the confidence he reposes in his leader. 
 
 This too, in the noblest sense, is the source and 
 secret of the Christian's faith. " Behold," says Isaiah, 
 speaking of the great Captain of Salvation of a future 
 age, " I have given Him for a witness to the people, a 
 leader and commander to the people " (Isa. Iv. 4). 
 " Finally," says our Apostle, in preluding his enumera- 
 tion of the Christian's panoply — " Finally, my brethren, 
 be strong IN the Lord, and in the power of His might" 
 (Eph. vi. I o). " Thanks be to God, who giveth us the 
 victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." " We are 
 more than conquerors through Him (and IN Him) that 
 loved us." 
 
 In Paul's case, the thanksgiving embodied in our 
 motto-verse was, in the first instance, a grateful tribute- 
 offering for the blessing with which his Evangelical 
 labours had been crowned, as he carried the glad 
 tidings from city to city and kingdom to kingdom : — 
 "making manifest," as he adds, "the savour of His 
 knowledge by us in every place " : — a reference pro- 
 bably to the fragrant odour of flowers and aromatics 
 scattered by the hand of slaves in the triumphal 
 chariot of the earthly conqueror. But the words are 
 of general acceptation. They form a befitting piean 
 on the lips of all, whose lives, in the oft-quoted phrase 
 of previous chapters, are " hid with Christ in God.'* 
 
268 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 Let them suggest, as a brief recapitulation of our sub- 
 ject, these three successive experiences of triumph : — 
 
 Triumph IN Christ through Zife. Triumph in 
 Christ at death. Triumph in Christ through 
 Eternity. 
 
 I. Triumph in Christ through Life. This includ- 
 ing a double victory over life's temptations and life's 
 afflictions. Eegarding both may it be said — " Ye are 
 complete in Him." 
 
 'Temptations ! ' how manifold are these ! Their 
 name is legion. Assaulting and ensnaring too, as we 
 have found, when least dreamt of. It is indeed often, 
 — (generally) — when the sentinel is asleep or dallying 
 with his weapons, that the fatal blow is delivered: 
 and to the last hour of earth the soul bears too legibly 
 upon it the scars of battle. Like a wounded bird with 
 drooping wing, it is never again able to soar, as afore- 
 time, carolling up to heaven's gate. 
 
 What is one efficacious and potential safeguard 
 against such assaults, be they great or small ? It is 
 just taking Paul's motto and monogram as our watch- 
 word, not at specific times, but at all times, with 
 its energising motives and obligations — "/ am IN 
 CHEIST ! " To revert to the illustration and analogy 
 just employed. The chivalrous and faithful soldier 
 feels, that in his unfaltering courage is bound up, not 
 only his own honour, but in a broader sense the honour 
 of the army to which he belongs : he is animated by 
 what the sister language significantly expresses by the 
 
CONCLUSION. 269 
 
 well-known phrase — "Esprit de corps!' He feels that 
 any coward wavering — any tergiversation on his part, 
 would involve alike infidelity to his oath and alle- 
 giance, tamper with the prowess of his comrades, and 
 tarnish the fair fame of his leader. How it would 
 serve to keep us in the path of duty and rectitude, 
 and to avert many a moral disaster, if we were thus 
 more constantly to realise the soldier- feeling — " I am 
 not my own." " I have sworn unto the Lord, and I 
 will perform ! " When I was stretched on that bed ot* 
 sickness : — when I approached that Communion table 
 — when at that great crisis-hour of imminent peril, 
 confronting death in all its stern reality, I recorded the 
 resolve, in the spirit, if not in the words of Bunyan's 
 hero — " Put my name down, sir, for I too am to be 
 one of the host of the Lord ! " I am " in Christ '" — 
 enrolled in His army, with the vow of consecration to 
 be " His faithful soldier and servant to life's end " : — 
 and "they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh 
 with its affections and lusts." As such, how can I dare 
 violate my covenant engagements ? how can I dare 
 blot my escutcheon or surrender my standard ? " How 
 can I do this great wickedness and sin against God ? " 
 " In Christ : " — that, borne with us as a talisman in 
 every hour of the perilous warfare, would enable us 
 not only to triumph over the baser temptations of our 
 lower natures, but it would raise and elevate the whole 
 standard of life. It would lead to the scorn and 
 rejecting of all base compliances, and underhand deal- 
 
270 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 ings, and equivocal transactions. It would nurture 
 and foster purity of motive, calmness of temper, trans- 
 parency of purpose, rectitude and generosity of deed : — 
 in a word, ' the beauty of holiness/ And when temp- 
 tation, " the thorn in the flesh," whatever form that 
 assumes, comes to * buffet ' us, then we would meet the 
 assault, as Paul met it, with a deeper consciousness 
 alike of his own weakness and of his dependence on 
 the Saviour's promised strength — "I will make My 
 grace sufficient for thee ; I will perfect strength in 
 weakness." Secure within this unassailable stronghold, 
 he adds — " Most gladly therefore will I rather glory 
 in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest 
 upon me." "Thanks he unto God, which always causeth 
 us to triumph IN Christ ! " 
 
 What is true of the temptations of life, is true also 
 of the counterpart experience — ^its afflictions. 
 
 The believer cannot be said to triumph over them; 
 (many is " the deadly wound " that is never healed in 
 this world) — but he triumphs in them ; in and through 
 Christ. Yes, and though triumph be a joyful word, it 
 is not too jubilant a term to use when accepted thus. 
 Look at Paul's own case. His afflictions, though of 
 a peculiar cast — differing essentially from ours, were 
 nevertheless of the acutest as well as of the most 
 diversified character. Yet, listen how he speaks of 
 them! Here was a man who was denuded of all 
 personal comforts. His life has now, to us, a halo 
 of glory and grandeur thrown around it, — but, at 
 
CONCLUSION. 271 
 
 the time, to himself, it was a succession of painful 
 humiliations ; — a battle, single-handed, against serried 
 ranks ; — a history of captivity and dungeon and fast- 
 ing and shipwreck. He was beaten with lictor's 
 rods ; stoned by infuriated Jews ; exposed to burning 
 suns, and cutting winds, and winter seas ; denounced 
 as base and babbler, filth and offscouring ; neverthe- 
 less, see how in the sublime consciousness of union 
 and communion with his living Lord, he not only 
 rises himself, and exhorts his fellow- Christians to rise, 
 superior to all denunciation, — but he speaks of his 
 sufferings as being actual causes of rejoicing (Col. i. 24). 
 Or does he address others, his fellow-comrades in the 
 great fight of afflictions ? It is no dirge he puts into 
 their lips. It is rather a song of gratitude and thanks- 
 giving : — as if, despite of all its trials, life — being life 
 IN Christ — was a rich banquet of luxuries — a perpetual 
 feast. " I thank my God alway on your behalf, for 
 the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ 
 — that in everything ye are enriched hy Him" (i Cor. 
 
 i. 4, 5). 
 
 It is the same with the Eedeemer's sorrowing 
 people in every age. In their season of trial they are 
 assured of His tender exalted sympathy. " In all 
 their afflictions He is afflicted." "He alone," says 
 Augustine, " never losetli what is dear to Him ; to 
 whom all things are dear in Him who is never lost." 
 " If," is the testimony of another of later years, who 
 knew weU personally the joyful reality of which she 
 
272 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 speaks — " If we could realise anything of the height 
 and depth of that mysterious life — we should be kept 
 in peace, even though the sea should roar in its fulness. 
 The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many 
 waters : yea, and in His strength we too should be 
 strong : our vision would be, like His, eternal : we 
 should see and feel assured that all things are good." ^ 
 Then would what is called acquiescence in God's will 
 not be — as often it is — the reluctant submission of 
 the slave flogged to his cell — stoically accepting the 
 inevitable : — but the free, spontaneous resolving of our 
 own wills into the will of a Higher and Better and 
 Kinder: finding it a joy and privilege to have these 
 coincident with His : — through our tears able, calmly 
 and resignedly, to say — '^ Thanks he to God ivhich ahvccys' 
 — (yes, too, and in the gloomiest valleys of earth) — 
 " causeth us to triumph IN Cheist." 
 
 II. But this triumph is not only over the temptations 
 and afflictions of life. Keeping up the figure of our 
 motto- verse, it extends to the last — the closing hour 
 of the conflict, of which we have spoken in recent 
 chapters. It is triumph IN Christ over death. 
 
 Not always in the experience of the believer is 
 there triumph over the fear of death. We have known 
 many of God's saintliest and holiest who " through fear 
 of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." 
 
 1 •' Memorials of a Quiet Life," vol. ii. p. 254. 
 
CONCLUSION. 273 
 
 An illustrative case, through the long vista of bygone 
 years, rises to the memory of the writer. It was that 
 of one who in every sense might be called a ripe 
 Christian. Through the vicissitudes of a high-toned 
 consistent life she was " strong in faith — giving glory to 
 God." But the Valley-entrance could never be contem- 
 plated without dread. The brightness of ' the fields of 
 living-green' were obscured by the mists wliich hung 
 over the intervening border-river. In this case, how- 
 ever, as in all other kindred ones we have known, it was, 
 if not triumphant, at least calm and resolute faith and 
 joy at last. When the river-brink was reached — the 
 darkness was pa«t and the true light shone. The waves 
 divided before the Ark of the Covenant, and the once 
 trembling one went through dry-shod. Not before, 
 but when the supreme moment arrived, dying grace 
 was given for the dying day; and the unfailing pro- 
 mise (never more reliable than in the hour of depar- 
 ture) was made good — " As thy day is, so shall thy 
 strength be." 
 
 And what is the secret of that assured final triumph ? 
 It is, again, the glorious covenant-security — "in Christ." 
 All other hopes — all other grounds of confidence — are 
 then discarded. Every other weapon by which the 
 battles of the Lord have been fought are then sheathed : 
 the familiar words have a significance then they never 
 possessed before — 
 
 " On Christ the solid rock I stand ; 
 All other grounds are shifting sand." 
 
274 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 Mason Good's last utterance was, " The Lamb of God 
 who taketh away the sins of the world." Simeon of 
 Cambridge exclaims, seeking in life and in death the 
 habitual attitude of nearness to his Saviour — " This 
 is my one ambition; to live with one Mary at my 
 Saviour's feet, listening to His words ; and to die with 
 the other Mary, washing His feet with my tears and 
 wiping them with the hairs of my head" (Simeon's 
 Memoirs). The dying words of the great Indian mis- 
 sionary (though in the exhaustion of the final struggle 
 he was only able to whisper them) were these — " I 
 am very low and cannot say much — but I am living 
 habitually in Him." ^ Or, listen to the experience of 
 the greatest of missionaries. St. Paul's own death-cry, 
 (to use the earthly phrase) ' expiring in the arms of 
 victory,' was the same — "IN Christ." If, as the 
 closing hours of his mortal life were gathering around 
 him, — some would have been disposed to speak of 
 other apparently solid grounds of confidence and con- 
 gratulation, and to whisper in his ear — ' Think, faith- 
 ful man ! of all thy toils and sufferings : — thy priva- 
 tions and sacrifices : ever ready to be roused when the 
 bugle-notes summoned to duty and conflict. Think 
 (all for others and not for self) of thy perils of the sea 
 — thy perils of the wilderness — buffeting the ruder 
 storms of human violence and hate. Think of taunt 
 and curse willingly borne, — stocks and stripes and 
 
 ^ " Life of Alexander Duff, D.D.," vol. ii. p. 535. 
 
CONCLUSION. 275 
 
 chains and darkness; the hate of merchant prince, 
 the rage of imperial soldier : — the virulence of bigot 
 Jew : the contempt of philosophic prejudice and scorn. 
 Think of thy present noble resolve : the consecration 
 of a life about to be crowned and consummated by the 
 consecration of death, — willingly " pouring out exist- 
 ence," ^ as a libation on God's altar.' 
 
 * Away,' he would say, ' the impious thought.' I 
 glory alone in my old avowal. I am "a man IN 
 Christ." My confidence, — my trust, my hope, my 
 joy, — my last hymn of triumph is * in Him.' I have 
 overcome, — but it is " through the blood of the Lamb." 
 "I have fought the good fight," but it is IN Him. 
 *' I have finished my course," but it is in Him. " I 
 have kept the faith," but it is IN Him. "Hence- 
 forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
 ness," but it is IN Him. "The Zord, the righteous 
 Judge will give me on that day." And as the chariot 
 of fire has reached the gates of heaven, we seem to 
 catch as if the last word, ere he mingles his voice with 
 , that of ministering seraphim — "Thanks he to God, which 
 always causeth us to triumph IN Cheist." 
 
 This thought brings me to the last point. 
 
 III. Triumph IN Christ through Eternity. 
 
 The triumph of the believer is in one sense ended 
 
 ^ So is it in the original {airivSofmi), a word used by heathen 
 writers in connection with the oil and wine poured on the head of 
 sacrificial victims. 
 
276 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 at death. The true battle is then over : the weapons 
 of conflict laid aside : the armour ungirded : eternal 
 rest entered : " And there shall be no more death, 
 neither sorrow nor crying ; neither shall there be any 
 more pain, for the former things are passed away" 
 (Eev. xxi. 4). Be it so. But the notes of the victor's 
 song have no such ending. As with the Israelites, 
 who on crossing the Eed Sea and seeing Pharaoh's 
 hosts and his chariots submerged in its depths, made 
 its farther shores to re-echo with praise : so shall it be 
 with the Eedeemed from among men. In one of the 
 grandest glimpses we have of Heaven in the Book 
 of Eevelation — " the harpers on the glassy sea " are 
 heard uplifting their voices in a song, with a twofold 
 theme, to Him who has upon His head "many crowns." 
 It is an eternal Epinikion : — the song of Providence 
 and the song of Grace. " They sing the song of Moses 
 the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb " (Eev. 
 XV. 3). 
 
 In that same Book, alike in its opening and its 
 closing visions, is Christ made the object of adoration 
 and triumph by the countless multitudes which no 
 man can number. In the earlier vision, the triumphant 
 hymn is, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain " (Eev. 
 V. 1 2). In the later, the song of victory is represented 
 — not only as an everlasting paean — but deepening as 
 the ages on ages advance. As if each new cycle in 
 the eras of eternity evolved new matter and new 
 motive for praise. At first, it is heard as " the noise 
 
CONCLUSION. 277 
 
 of much people" — deeper still, as "the sound of a 
 great multitude " — till the augmenting volume becomes 
 as the roll of " many waters " and the roar of " mighty 
 thunderings " — " Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent 
 reigneth ! " (Eev. xix. 6). 
 
 We can imagine the strain of each solitary member 
 of that mighty chorus : — the joyful testimony of each 
 redeemed soul : as it recalls the past and links the past 
 with the boundless future. The successful resistance 
 of that fiery temptation — Thanks be to God for the 
 triumph IN Christ ! The manifestation of submission 
 under that desolating trial ; — the whispering through 
 hot tears of anguish, " Thy will be done " — Thanks 
 be to God for the triumph in Christ! The dis- 
 arming of the King of terrors — the dismissal of fear in 
 the hour of death and the calm entrance into the world 
 of spirits — Thanks be to God for the triumph IN 
 Christ ! And now, standing arrayed in these white 
 robes, and holding in my hand the evergreen palm — 
 the emblem and pledge of victory ; — the earthly battle- 
 field over and won ; and boundless ages before me — 
 these ages the purchase of dying, ever-living Love ; — 
 what else can I do but make the old ascription of 
 time the ascription of Eternity — " Thanks be to God, 
 which giveth me the victory through (in) our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 There will be other themes doubtless in the song of 
 the glorified Church, — other sources and experiences 
 of joy and gratulation. There will be the happy coii- 
 
278 IN CHRISTO. 
 
 sciousness of emancipation from ' the bondage of cor- 
 ruption/ — from all the ills and heartaches of a sin- 
 stricken, woe- worn world, — temptations no longer either 
 felt or dreaded; — deliverance even from the Jear of 
 fearful things ; — joyful communion and association with 
 unfaUen angels : the resumption of fellowship with ' the 
 loved and lost ' on earth, now the crowned and glorified. 
 But the one key-note of these minor strains — the 
 refrain and chorus of the unending song — will be 
 this — 
 
 " Thanks be to God 
 
 which always causeth us to tkiumph 
 
 m CHEIST." 
 
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