In Christ Jesus, or, The Sphere of the Believer's Life

HKRK is in a Russian palace, a famous *’ Saloon of Beauty,’* wherein are hung over eight hundred and fifty portraits of young maidens. These pidlures were painted by Count Rotari, for Catharine the Second, the Russian empress; and the artist made a journey, through the fifty provinces of that vast empire of the north, to find his models.

In these superb portraits that cover the walls of this saloon, there is said to be a curiously expressed compliment to the artist’s royal patron, a compliment half concealed and half revealed. In each separate pidlure, it is said, might be detedled, by the close observer, some hidden, delicate reference to the empress for whom they were painted. Here a feature of Catharine vi iTn Cbrfet 5e0U6

appears; there an attitude is reproduced, some adl, some favorite adornment or environment, some jewel, fashion, flower, style of dress, or manner of life — something peculiar to, or charadleristic of, the empress — so that the walls of the saloon are lined with just so many silent tributes to her beauty, or compliments to her taste. So inventive and ingenious is the spirit of human flattery when it seeks to glorify a human fellow-mortal, breaking its flask of lavish praise on the feet of an earthly monarch.

The Word of God is a pidlure-gallery, and it is adorned with tributes to the blessed Christ of God, the Savior of mankind. Here a prophetic portrait of the coming One, and there an historic portrayal of Him who has come, here a typical sacrifice, and there the bleeding Lamb to whom all sacrifice looked forward; here a person or an event that foreshadowed the greatest irntro&uctorig vii

of persons and the events that are the turning-points of history; now a parable, a poem, an objecft-lesson, and then a simple narration or exposition or explanation, that fills with divine meaning the mysteries that have hid their meaning for ages, waiting for the key that should unlock them. But, in whatever form or fashion, whatever guise of fadt or fancy, prophecy or history, parable or miracle, type or antitype, allegory or narrative, a discerning eye may everywhere find Him — God’s appointed Messiah, God’s anointed Christ. Not a human grace that has not been a faint forecast or reflec5lion of His beauty, in whom all grace was enshrined and enthroned — not a virtue that is not a new exhibition of His attrac5liveness. All that is glorious is but a phase of His infinite excellence, and so all truth and holiness, found in the Holy Scripture, are only a new tribute to Him

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who is the Truth, the Holy One of God.

This language is no exaggeration; on such a theme not only is exaggeration impossible, but the utmost superlative of human language falls infinitely short of His divine worth, before whose indescribable glory cherubim and seraphim can only bow, veiling their faces and covering their feet. The nearer we come to the very throne where such majesty sits, the more are we awed into silence. The more we know of Him, the less we seem to know, for the more boundless and limitless appears what remains to be known. Nothing is so conspicuous a seal of God upon the written Word, as the facft that everywhere, from Genesis to Revelation, we may find the Christ; and nothing more sets the seal of God upon the living Word than the fadl that He alone explains and reveals the Scriptures.

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Our present undertaking is a verysimple one. We seek to show, by a few examples, the boundless range and scope of one brief phrase of two or three short words: in Christ, or, in Christ Jksus. a very small key may open a very complex lock and a very large door, and that door may itself lead into a vast building with priceless stores of wealth and beauty. This brief phrase — a preposition followed by a proper name — is the key to the whole New Testament.

Those three short words,” in Christ Jesus y are, without doubt, the most important ever written, even by an inspired pen, to express the mutual relation of the believer and Christ. They occur, with their equivalents, over one hundred and thirty times. Sometimes we meet the expression, in Christ, or in Christ Jesus, and again in Him, or in Whom, etc. And sometimes this sacred name, or its equiva-

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lent pronoun, is found associated with other prepositions — through, with by; but the thought is essentially the same. Such repetition and variety must have some intense meaning. When, in the Word of God, a phrase like this occurs so often, and with such manifold applications, it can not be a matter of accident; there is a deep design. God’s Spirit is bringing a truth of the highest importance before us, repeating for the sake of emphasis, compelling even the careless reader to give heed as to some vital teaching.

What that teaching is, in this case, it is our present purpose to inquire, and, in the light of the Scripture itself, to answer.

First of all, we should carefully settle what this phrase, in Christ, or in Christ Jesus, means.

If there be one truth of the Gospel that is fundamental, and underlies all else, it is this: A new life in Christ

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Jesus. He, Himself, clearly and forcibly expressed it in John xv: 4: * ‘Abide in Me and I in you.” By a matchless parable our I^ord there taught us that all believers are branches of the Living Vine, and that, apart from Him, we are nothing and can do nothing, because we have in us no life. This truth finds expression in many ways in the Holy Scripture, but most frequently in that short and simple phrase we are now considering — in Christ Jesus.

Such a phrase suggests that He is to the believer thk sphkrK of this NKW LIFE) OR BFiNG. Let US obscrvc — a sphere rather than a circle. A circle surrounds us, but only on one plane; but a sphere encompasses, envelopes us, surrounding us in every direction and on every plane. If you draw a circle on the floor, and step within its circumference, you are within it only on the level of the floor. But, if that circle could become a sphere, and you xii iTn Cbrfet 5e0us

be within it, it would on every side surround you — above and below, before and behind, on the right hand and on the left. Moreover, the sphere that surrounds you also separates you from whatever is outside of it. Again, in proportion as such a sphere is strong it also proteSls whatever is within it from all that is without — from all external foes or perils. And yet again, it supplies y to whomsoever is within it, whatever it contains. This may help us to understand the great truth taught with such clearness, especially in the New Testament. Christ is there presented throughout as the sphere of the believer’s whole life and being, and in this truth are included these conditions:

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