Life in Christ
WTH what life do they come for:h from baptism, who have put on Christ? Even with that twofold life of which baptism is the seal and the foreshadowing, — the crucified life of the first Adam, and the risen life of the second Adam.
In a deeper sense than he meant it, is that striking utterance of Lacordaire true, — “The Church is born crucified!’ For not only as born of the Spirit has she been brought into fellowship with the sufferings of Christ; but as born of water she has been stamped with the cross of Christ, the birth-mark of her redemption, to be worn till death. And being “begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” she has also the new and glorified life of her Lord.
The prescribed course of Christian growth and development then is exactly according to that type of doctrine to which we have been committed in baptism. “Ye are dead’,’^ is the doctrinal statement of the believer’s status before the law.” Mortify therefore your members which are up07i the earth,’’ is the practical inference to be worked out in holy living. ‘’Ye are risen with Christ“‘^ is the other side of the same doctrinal statement.” Seek those things which are above!’ is the corresponding exhortation to practical holiness. And so we see the truth of the axiom of a former chapter, that Christian experience is the making real in ourselves what is already true for us in Christ.
Of Jesus we might almost say that He never wholly ceases to be anything that He has once been; there is such an unchanging permanency and vitality in every event of his redemption. Of the believer who is in Him, this is certainly true. He is one that not only has died with Christ, but one who in that very fact is bound to ‘’die daily” with Him so long as he is in the flesh. He is one who not only has been made a “new creature “in Christ, but one whose inward man is * renewed day by day.” And so the cross and the resurrection extend their influence and exert their power over the Christian’s entire earthly history.
Of the twofold life in which this twofold experience is carried on, let us consider a moment.
We cannot regard it as a double phase of one and the same life, but rather as the manifestation of two distinct natures, one of which we derive from Adam, and the other from Christ: natures which mingle and interpenetrate indeed in the same soul, as air and moisture occupy the same space in the sky, but between which there can be no unity of life. “That which is born of the flesh is fleshy The degenerate seed can only reproduce itself. It holds no germs or possibilities of a divine life.” That which is borji of the Spirit is spirit!’ The seed of God can unfold only in the life of God, and through all its endless reproductions, it is still ‘^ the incorruptible seed!’ So that while in the Scriptures we have several distinct enumerations of the fruits of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit, we never find the mention of such an anomaly as a natural grace or a spiritual imperfection, the offspring of the two in their amalgamation. Aye, more. Not only is there no possible community of life between these two, but an irreconcilable enmity. “For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other.”
Here, in this awakened antagonism of grace and nature, is the sword which Christ’s coming brings to every soul, — a sword which, like that of the old crusader, proves upon inspection to be only the cross changed from a symbol of faith into a weapon of conquest, and which we must take up daily in following Christ. For the old nature, though judged and condemned and deposed in the death of Christ, is forever revolting against its sentence, and struggling to regain its lost supremacy. And the new man from above, is set to no less a task than his total overthrow and reduction.
In the seventh of Romans we see the battle in progress between these two; we watch the advance and retreat of the forces of each. Now we hear the groan of the wour.ded, “O, wretched man that I am;” and n pw, clear 1 Gal. V. 17.
and strong above the conflict, we catch the shout of assured victory, — “I thank God through Jesus Christ.” But it is a victory yet delayed. For the battle closes with both antagonists still alive and hostile. “So with my mind I myself serve the law of God, but with tht. Jlesh the law of sin.”
And yet, though there can be no truce to this conflict this side the grave, there can be no doubt as to its ultimate issue. “Old Adam is too strong for young Melancthon,” said the Reformer. Btct he is not too strong for Christy and it is Christ that is in us, and we in Him. The very defeats of the believer therefore are victories, since, driven back from the outposts of self, a retreat into Christ becomes inevitable. Not as those who go to this warfare at their own charges, and carry it on from their own resources, does he contend. That is but Adam against Adam; the natural man attempting to conquer himself; a conquest which must always end in failure. He who is in Christ fights from victory in his very attempt to fight for victory. And therefore he is never so strong as when, from some fierce sortie upon the flesh, he retires into his fortress, confessing with renewed humility that the Lord is his refuge and his strength.
If the life of the believer were a unit, the ’ natural man improved merely, the old Adam renewed and put in better dress, would there not be something more than a paradox, — would there not be a hopeless contradiction in those words of the Apostle Paul, “When I am weak then am I strong “? One cannot even by a figure be in two opposite conditions at the same time. And within the same sphere and in the same subject it is hardly possible that strength should find its highest perfection in weakness. But this contradiction vanishes when we read the words in the light of that true expression of the believer’s nature, —” / live yet not /, but Christ liveth in me!* There are two Fs now, if we may say so; the positive and the negative, — the one from earth, and the other from heaven. The first has his name as well as his nature, from the Head of the race, man, one in Adam; the second derives both his name and his nature from the Head of the Church, Christian, one in Christ. And these two, at present dwelling together, are yet constantly at war; the weakness and defeat of the one always equivalent to the strength and conquest of the other.
Will some one take up the proverb then against the doctrine: “A house divided against itself shall fall “? And so it must. “We know that our earthly house of this tabernacle shall be dissolved.” And this is our victory. For thus only can this troublesome tenant, the carnal man, be ejected, and we, ceasing our self-conflicts and mortifications, enter into that “building of God, that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Meanwhile the believer’s whole care and striving must be directed to this end, the causing of the house of Adam to wax weaker and weaker day by day, and the house of Christ to wax stronger and stronger.
Thus we see that the development of the Christian towards perfection lies always in these two opposite directions: the subjecting, repressing, and mortifying of the natural man on the one hand; the nourishing, developing, and renewing of the spiritual man on the other.
,Let us consider these two duties in detail.
The first is not, as many seem to deem it, self-crucifixion, something to be begun and carried on by ourselves and in ourselves. i Nay, it is the crucifixion which the believer has undergone in Christ’s person actualized, prolonged, and reiterated in his own person. As it is the office of faith to bring us into doctrinal relationship to our Lord’s dying, so. it is the office of love and obedience to bring ] us into experimental relationship to it. For deep as is the mystery, and as far below the soundings of ordinary Christian consciousness, there is such a thing as realizing I Christ’s death, and making it our own. We! know that even two human souls may have ’ become so identified by mutual love and the fellowship of common suffering, that one is made a sharer in the other’s death. What a touching illustration of this we have in the lament of Eugenie de Guerin over the death j of her idolized brother! “My soul lives in a ] coffin. Oh, yes, buried, interred with thee, my brother. Just as I used to live in thy life, I am dead in thy death, dead to all happiness, I all hope below.”
Doubtless this is the expression of what was sadly real to the heart of her who uttered the words; but not more so than that con- I fession of a divine kindredship in suffering i which Paul makes, when he declares that the world is crucified unto him, and he unto the world, and that he is “always bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus,” — statements so deep in their suggestion of spiritual intimacy as to make it seem almost as though his very consciousness had become identified with that of his Lord.
But while there may be something in this which few can hope to imitate or even comprehend, there is also that which is very plain and practical. The mortifying of the flesh, the daily subduing of its sinful aifections and lusts, the bringing of the whole body under the dominion of the cross, is not this most ‘ital to the believer’s growth in holiness y For our jtistificatioii, the crucifixion ended indeed in Christ; but for our sanctification it must be prolonged and perpetuated in ourselves. Besides his heritage of peace in the death of Jesus, every faithful disciple recognizes another legacy, even “tJiat ivJiich is behind in the afflictions of Christ’,’ and which he is “to fill up in his flesh for his body’s sake, which is the Church.” And this spiritual birthright he is never to part with. What a fearful ofifense then is his who makes the cross a
I Col. i. 24-
lOO IN CHRIST.
reprieve for the flesh instead of an instrurment for its subjection, who reasons that because Christ has suffered in the flesh, therefore he may live without suffering in the flesh. Quite contrary is this to the Scripture doctrine. “Forasmuch, then, as Christ hath suffered in the arm yourselves likewise with the same mind*’^ “The saint, as having been judged in the person of Christ, and knowing that Christ for him has borne the cross, follows on by that cross, to judge and mortify all that he finds in himself still contrary to his Lord. The flesh is contrary to that Holy One; the flesh in him therefore must die.”^ Its perverse affections must suffer daily denial; its cries for unholy indulgence must be answered with stern refusals; its high thoughts and proud ambitions must be made to endure the cross and despise the shame of constant humiliations. So that if we embrace the cross only that Vve may be borne above the reach of pain and loss, that human nature may be spared instead of slain by it, we have learned Christ but imperfectly. Not by thrusting away the atonement alone, but by “minding earthly things,” living for I Pet. iv. I. 2 Andrew Jukes.
them instead of being dead to them, do we place ourselves among the “enemies of the cross of Christ.” While therefore the voice of the merely superficial disciple is, “Let us go to Christ that we may escape suffering and death,” the voice of the true disciple is ever that of Thomas,” Let us go that we may die with Him!’
Die with Him! Both suffering and death, while they are the common and inevitable heritage of the race, may in the believer’s case be so linked into union with the cross and passion of his Lord, that they shall in a certain sense be transformed from inflictions into sacrifices. If he joyfully puts his free-will into the dispensations of God’s sovereign will, and thus takes up the cross instead of enduring it like Simon the Cyrenean by compulsion, he has become an offerer instead of a victim, prolonging in his own body the sufferings of his Lord whereby he is perfected. He has taken chastisement out of the hand of blind adversity, and made it an instrument of self-discipline. So that the disciple may find his needed cross without imposing selfappointed austerities upon himself, even in
1 Phil iii. 1 8.
the willing acceptance of that which is against the natural will, but which God sends upon him in labors and in humiliations, in sickness and in trials, in privations and in death.
But how hard it is for Christians to learn this lesson, that salvation is not according to the will of the flesh, but contrary to it; not from death, but through it. The Master’s word is, “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” And yet when called to endure this loss in giving up some dearest joy or some “other self” according to the flesh, we wonder and demur, perhaps count ourselves forsaken of our Master, and take up Martha’s plaintive cry, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” To which Jesus only answers, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Not to give us immunity from death, but to lead us through it to life; not to save us from the cross, but to bring us by way of it to a blessed crown, is our Lord’s purpose concerning us.
Were this crucial test of discipleship, the willing surrender of self in all its forms, its will, its pleasure, its righteousness, insisted on in the Church as it is in the gospel, we fear it would be found that the offense of the cross had not ceased. But on the other hand, were all who are Christ’s to show the holy triumph there is in giving up all for Him, the deep joy in being partakers of his sufferings, the blessed life that comes through daily death in Him, how powerfully would the ancient glory of the cross be vindicated.
For the love of our Lord, then, let not the doctrine of the cross, and the endurance of the cross be separated in our lives, that so we may forsooth be saved by crucifixion and yet S2iVQ,d.from crucifixion.
Is that instrument of our Redeemer’s suffering more beautiful to Him, as when carved in wood or stone it stands as a symbol of faith, or as when wrought into an ordinance it serves as a sacrament of allegiance, than when, reproduced in a mortified life, it is made the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit .^ To trace its outlines in a self-surrendered will; to show its transfigured form in the daily yielding of our reluctant flesh to hard service for our Lord; to exhibit its marks in a wounded but unresisting pride; to show a carnal mind always delivered up to death by it for Christ’s sake, this will be the disciple’s life-long work, if he truly understand his callino:.
To some this may seem a hard doctrine, and to others a contemptible one. Even while we write we seem to hear such words as asceticism and pietism whispered against it. But we can only ask, Has the old man grown better during these eighteen hundred years, so that, whereas the primitive saints were to put him off with his deeds, we may be allowed to spare him and indulge him? Has the body of the flesh become so kind and so helpful to the Spirit, that we have no need, like Paul, to keep it under and bring it into subjection lest we be castaways? If there were no answer from revelation to this question, there is one from universal human experience. None has ever yet found untempered self-gratification compatible with strong spiritual growth. None has ever yet discovered how to give nature all it asks, without defrauding grace. Whether it be the “lust of the flesh” restraining the body from chastened self-control; or the “lust of the eyes” withdrawing the vision from single contemplation of Jesus Christ; or the “pride of life” lifting up the heart in vain glory, the testimony of experience is at one with that of Scripture, that “fleshly lusts war against the soul.” Never can they be turned into allies; never will they consent to be mere neutrals in the field.
Surely, therefore, the loyal believer will not count it treason against human nature to take up arms against himself at the call of Christ, if it is by self-subjection that the kingdom of God is to be set up in him. Nor will suffering be deemed an anomaly after the sufferings of Jesus finished for us, nor death a redundancy after his dying endured for us, if the life of God within the soul only reaches its triumph in the casting out of the life of nature. Rather will he rejoice to carry on a warfare which Jesus Christ begun, not ended for us; and to bend his will to a necessity which He has sanctified, not abohshed for us.^
But as we have intimated, there is another element in the Christian life that forms the exact counterpart to this which we have been considering; namely, that abiding in Christ, and that growing up in all things into Him
“• “Jesus Christ has not abolished our sufferings and oui mortality, but He has made them what they never could have been without Him, a bitter dew which develops and matures in our souls the blessed germ of faith.” — V’inet.
who IS the Head, which is the end and object of this withdrawing from self and this mortifying in all things of our members which are on the earth. A negative process is not adequate to accomplish a positive result. And no amount or kind of self-denial can make one holier, unless this be the means of bringing him -into more intimate fellowship with Christ. Every retreat from the life of the flesh must be followed by a deeper entering into the life of the Spirit. Self-denial is, according to its degree, a parting company with Adam that we may not walk after the flesh; but prayer and faith and love and obedience must accompany, as the means of joining ourselves more entirely to Christ, and of abiding in Him, that we may so walk even as He walked.
Now is it not painfully common for Christians to rest satisfied with the fact that they have life in the risen Jesus, without any strivmgs for higher degrees in that life t Just as we are prone to end our crucifixion with Christ’s cross, we are prone to end our seeking of those things which are above, in the fact that we are risen with Christ. “He that hath the Son hath life” indeed. But let hira not forget that his blessing is only begun in this possession, since Jesus’ work is only begun in this gift.” I am come that they might have life, and that they a night have it inore abundantly The seed of God must not abide alone. The soil of human nature has been furrowed to no purpose by chastisement, and softened without use by mortification, if this kernel of divine life be not thereby helped to reproduce itself in more abundant harvest. Life begets life continually. Nay more, the life of God must be daily replacing within the soul what death has taken away, filling each void made by self-denial with some positive blessing, and causing every spot from which a natural affection has been uprooted, to spring up with some divine affection.
Herein, if we mistake not, has been the radical defect in the whole system of monastic penance and discipline. Its destructive work has far exceeded its constructive. It has not builded into the rents which it has made in human nature with a better material, nor been careful to heal over the deep wounds which it has inflicted upon the carnal man with a new growth from the Spirit. Hence the type of life which it has generally presented has been that of ever increasing brokenness rather than that of growing wholeness of being, and its ideal saints have been those most thoroughly uprooted and torn away from nature, rather than those most truly” rooted and built tip in Christ!’
But what will it profit one to lose the whole world, if he does not gain his own soul? gain it in that only way in which it can be gained, by bringing it more and more into communion with the Kfe of Christ? As it was the supreme mission of Jesus to give eternal life, so it is the supreme calling of the believer to appropriate that life. And for this something more than an empty heart is demanded. There must be a hungering and a thirsting heart, a believing and a praying heart — a heart ever longing after God, and seeking to know more of God.
Self-denial is of the nature of self-discovery, since it enables one to look more deeply into human nature through the very void it has refused to fill. But “know thyself is not the gospel precept for the attainment of eternal life.” This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God and jFesus
Christ whom Thou hast sent’* And how “know,” except by that daily acquainting ourselves with Him which comes through faith and prayer, through a diligent searching of the Scriptures, through a constant walking in the Spirit, and through a strenuous exercise of vital godliness? Every duty indeed of the Christian has a direct relation to this result.
Communion, the constant partaking of the divine life through the appetites and organs which that life has supplied, is the knowing of God through identification with the nature of God. As between man and man, thought is the medium of life, and the words of intimate conversation serve to transmit the subtle essence of intelligence, affection, and feeling, from one to another; so between the renewed soul and God. Spiritual converse is the means to a community of spiritual life. But as in the one case, so in the other, such knowledge is possible only because of the possession of a common spirit. “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him .? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.” And this spirit in the believer is no IN CHRIST.
the interpreter to God of his longings, making intercession for him with groanings that cannot be uttered, and the revealer to him of the things of Christ, which He taketh and showeth unto him.
And meditation serves the same end; for from the devout contemplation of the character of Christ, his image is insensibly reproduced in the life of the believer. And so, as by communion one enters into fellowship with Jesus Christ, by meditation he enters into conformity to Him. And these two are the principal requisites to our attainment of the fullness of the stature of Christ, his life constantly imparted, and his character constantly reflected. Through the one, obedience tends more and more to become the spontaneous law of our being, and service the unconstrained fulfillment of God’s word; and through the other, likeness to the Lord Jesus grows more and more towards realized oneness with Him, while, “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.”
Now while we have said elsewhere that the.
1 2 Cor. iii. 18. negative process of self-mortificatioii is not adequate to the positive result of conformity to Christ, the opposite is not true. Communion with Jesus is a certain means to the excommunication of sin. Growth in grace can never fail to promote the subjection of nature. If we have striven in vain to root out the tares which the enemy has sown in the heart, we may yet rejoice to know that they cannot endure the burning heat of Christ’s unclouded presence. The offending eye which we have not succeeded in plucking out, we may yet so dazzle by a continued looking unto Jesus, that it shall be blind to its former allurements.
We shall not wait then till we have perfected our self-denial before we begin our growth into Christ. The two processes must ever be going on together. How striking the significance of that twofold exhortation of Paul so constantly repeated, ^’ Put ye off” and” Put ye on’’
“Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man.” This is the ideal saint, — the man in Christ whom God has fully justified. And
1 Col. iii. 9, 10.
the whole course of the Christian life must consist in the transferring of this ideal into the actual, in progressive sanctification. So must we be ever putting off all that belongs to the old man, — “Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of the mouth;” and putting on all that belongs to the new man, — “an heart of pity, kindness, lowliness of mind, meekness, long suffering, and above all things love, which is the bond of perfectness.”
If there is something painful in such a process, this life-long clothing and unclothing of the soul, we know that it will have an end. When death shall have disrobed us of our mortality, we shall cease from our putting off, and fold up and lay aside for the last time that garment which we have striven in vain to keep unspotted from the world. And when we awake in the morning of our redemption, our putting on will be also consummated, even “when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality.”
1 Col. in. 14.