The Personal Christ
“i!”HE expression has been made to me by f a returned missionary, that in China and Japan they are getting to find the difference between Christians and the friends
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of Jesus. For a time they were deceived by the name Christian. Every sailor and foreign resident in these parts called himself a Christian, as distinguished from heathens. And so, as the natives found many of these men fairly outrivalling heathen co”^ruption, they became disgusted. They said if these drinking, blasphemous sailors and grasping merchants are Christians, we do not want Christianity. He said they were now calling true Christians
Jesus’ people, and all the others were merely Christians. They meant that these were Christ’s friends and had His resemblance in person and character. This is the distinction I would bring before you — the Christian life and the Christ life. There is all the difference between them that there is between a system of truth and a living person; all the difference there is between ideas and living, loving hearts. Christian life raay be a hf e conformed or committed to certain principles of truth. But Christ life is a living thing and a divine thing. Christian life may be your own earnest attempt to imitate Christ, and act consistently with the teachings of His Word, but Christ life is Christ’s own life in your heart and life, made real in you, and overcoming in you what your own strength could not overcome. This may be a new thought to some, but let me tell you it is the oest thought in the universe It is nearly all I know that is effectual in the blessed Gospel; that which brings into the heart ana life the Saviour
Himself. Let us look at it more deliberately, and linger over some of the points we should not hasten past.
PERSONALITY.
The first thought that comes up in connection with this is the thought of personality. The things we value in history are not the records of events, the geographical or historical information, but what they reveal of the men and women that have lived. That which makes a country great is not its lofty mountains and beautiful plains, its magnificent scenery and its Eden-like climate, for many of the fairest scenes of earth may claim all this, and yet they are waste and desolate for want of men. That which makes a country great is glorious men and women, far more than things or events, resources or incomparable advantages. That is what we cherish in our annals, — not our art, poetry and traditions and memories, but our heroes.
And so again, if we come down to the nearer realm of our own life, what do we value most? Not our houses and lands, our commerce and wealth, nor our earthly advantages. You would give everything on earth for one frail little life for which others would not give a farthing. There is more to you in one human heart than in all the world. And this morning your treasures are in your friends, those that have become in some sense your own. Personality, then, is the dearest and most precious thing in the world.
THE PERSONAL GOD.
And if this be so in secular things, now easy it is to rise to the thought of personality in God! I am so glad He is revealed to us as a person, and not a doctrine — a living being that we can touch somehow with the susceptibility of our spirit, that we can take in the arms of trust and love, that we can know in the depths of our consciousness, a good, and glorious and divine reality, even more than any other individual. The other day in Minneapolis, I met a dear friend just recovering from the terrible snare of Christian Science, who had been under its power until her heart and spirit were almost drawn away from Christ. “How strange,” she said, ’ that I never thought; they taught me that Christ was a principle. I might as well try to love a grape vine on my wall as to love a principle. And with gladness and joy she added, ^’Oh, it is a person; He is my blessed Saviour.” Read the story of His life, and back of the events shines out most vividly the Man Himself; not only the character that is so beautiful; not only that crystallization of all that was wise, and gentle and lovely, but behind all that was the Christ Himself, the living One, whom our thought, our very consciousness can grasp and gather out of all the story. So vivid it is that even infidelity has been compelled to say that the most remarkable thing in the Bible and the hardest thing to explain away, is not the Bible itself, but the Christ in the Bible.
Christ’s individuality.
So again, in His own words, no other man has left so much of Himself. Other men talk in the abstract; but He is always living and concrete; it is always I. There are no other records of human utterances so full of the personal pronoun as the sentences of the Lord Jesus Christ. It would be disgusting; it would be the most egregious egotism in anybody else but Jesus to find in every sentence the constant recurrence of I, I, I; and yet it comes from Him with such a consciousness of His majesty, of His right to do it, with such a sense thrown upon you that He is entitled to speak of Himself, that the personality is greater than the truth He has revealed, and the truth would be valueless without Him behind it. And so you feel it is all right. Look at His address to His disciples: ^I and my Father are one. I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. Without me ye can do nothing.” It is the living Christ all through.
And not only is it the historical Christ that stands out from His teaching, but it is the Christ who is as real and living still. It is not only a memory of the past; a Christ, the most vivid person in the past, but it is the Christ who is still alive, and who, instead of being an historical figure, instead of being a cherished memory, is as near to-day as when He walked through Galilee, and taught and wrought His miracles.
The healing of His seamless gobe, <Aa^6
Is by our beds of pain, We touch Him ‘mid life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.
Of no one else is this true. Some believe that the spirits of the past are near. Men can talk of others who have crossed the ocean of time as coming back to us here; but we know there is something that separates them from our touch, and our physical humanity. But we know this Christ is still as real as when Mary touched His feet. We know that not only is that tender heart throbbing still, but those hands are still real. That face is still human. The flesh and bones are still tangible if we could draw near enough, and that Jesus Christ is a risen and immutable person, the same yesterday, to-day and forever. His resurrection has opened the tomb, and crystalHzed forever all that was true of Him then. And so this Sabbath morning as we gather round our communion table we know while we partake of these sacred emblems, that they are a reality, and not a memory only; that not only did He institute these memorials, but somehow His own hand is put- 4 ting this cup to our lips, and making His flesh vital and actual to our physical and spiritual needs.
It may be difficult for us to make Him as real as if we saw Him, but we know that in human affairs the absent can be real, the distant brought near. I know that while on the Pacific coast, as often as you gathered here, I was conscious of your presence, andj perhaps, you were of mine. I know as the usual services of the consecration hour were going forward there fell on me a sense of the prayer and the burdens that were coming to you, and almost a sense of the blessings that were making your hearts thrill; the needs brought to be relieved, and the joy and praise when the burdens rolled away. We were far apart, but space was annihilated; unity of thought and spirit made us one. And, if far apart on earth human hearts can meet, how much greater is His ability to make Himself real!
This living Christ then, beloved, is not the person that was, but the person that still is your living Lord; intensely real this beautiful Sabbath morning to every heart that has a spiritual sense, and will allow Him to bring you a spiritual vision, and to know and to recognize your dear Brother. At Preston Pans, near Edinburgh, I looked on the field where in the olden days armies were engaged in contest. In the crisis of the battle a chieftain fell, wounded. His men were about to shrink away from the field when they saw their leader’s form go down, and their strong hands held the claymore with trembling grip, and they faltered for a moment. Then the old chieftain rallied strength enough to rise on his elbow and cry: ‘^1 am not dead, my children, I am only watching you to see my clansmen do their duty.” And so from the other side of Calvary He is speaking; we cannot see Him, but He says, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world;” and He puts it, ‘’I am;” an uninterrupted and continuous presence. Not ‘^ I will be,” but the unbroken presence of Him who could not die, but still is with us forevermore.
I pass from this thought of Christ’s personality to notice how real this is made through all the account of redemption. Our salvation is grouped around this personality, and not His teachings. The whole of creation is crystallized around it. This is an endless subject. The Old Testament is always pointing to the person who will come; ‘’The Lord will come and dwell among you.” In the very morning of creation it is the seed of the woman who is to come. To Abraham the promise is the seed of his hne. The person descending of his Hneage is the Hope of Jacob. To Moses the promise is a personal, living prophet. And all through the inspired utterances as they grow more real and glowing, we find Him presented as a person. So gloriously did this shine out through their prophets, that they expected some wonderful Messiah; and they could not believe that little babe and the lowly carpenter could be the Coming One!
Notice, too, how He speaks of Himself. He says,^^^God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever belie veth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” And again, “This is eternal life,” not that you go to heaven when you die, but ^Hhat you should know Christ.” Eternal life is Jesus Himself. All through redemption it is a person. ^’He that hath the Son, hath life.” Not he that hath the church, the knowledge, the character, but “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son hath not life.” “He who spared not his own Son but delivered him up, shall he not also freely give us all things?” ^’Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift.”
OUR UNION WITH HIM.
Again, our Christian life is not regarded as a character, but Christ in us. Not Christ giving us life, but being life to us. Our human body is anatomized, and He is called the Head, and we the members. Can there be anything more beautiful? Why, the very existence of the members depends upon the head, and the head upon the body. This is a union so complete that one needs the other, and vice versa. And so we have the figure of growth, ‘^ rooted and built up in Him,” growing in Him as the rootlets grow in the soil; the soil has no use without the roots, or the roots without the soil We are bound up in His being. So we have the figure of the building. What is the corner-stone without the superstructure? So He says that we as living stones are built up into Him who is the Head, to show forth the excellencies of ^’Him that hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.” So again, Adam is used as a type of Him. Adam propagates a physical race, and transfers to them his qualities. Christ propagates a new race and transmits to them His fullness and glory. There is as real a descent from Christ as there was from Adam. Our spiritual life comes as fully in Christ, as our physical life in Adam. And ^’as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all live.” So He is represented as the Head of the race.
The vine and the branches are so familiar, it is not necessary to explain; only the branches and the vine are one. The line does not say, I am the central trunk running up, and you are the little branches; but, I am the whole thing, and you are the whole thing. He counts us partakers of His nature. ‘^Ai)art from me ye can do nothing.” It must be you and me together. The husband and the wife, and many more figures contribute to this marvelous Christ teaching, which has no parallel, no precedent in any other teaching under the sun: that Christ is the life of His people, and that we are absolutely linked with and dependent upon Him. All other systems teach how much a man is and may become. Christianity shows how a man must lose all he is if he would come into full unity with Christ in His life.
THE SOURCE OF SALVATION.
So Christ is to us personally the source of salvation. Dear friends, it is not what you become that is going to save you, but how you become united to Jesus. Is there anybody here trying to work out a personal salvation? You cannot do it. Oh, touch Him, and His life enters you, and your standing becomes the same as His. 0 blessed facility of ascending to the very v, heights of glory, not by cKmbing, but stepping on this car of ascension. I had the pleasure, a few weeks ago, of crossing the Rocky Mountains about two-and-a-half miles above the level of the sea. It would have almost killed me to cross them on foot. There was a time when man had to cross over those heights by dizzy paths, but we only had to sit in our car and enjoy the outlook, and find ourselves eleven thousand feet above the sea. How beautiful! Beloved, you have not to cross the dizzy heights yourself, but at the door stands One who is ready to transport you. Is there one here who wants to know the secret? It is to become one with Christ. He has done His part, and only asks you to consent to fully receive Him. He is the ground of your salvation. It is not effort and struggle, but it is receiving Him in His holiness, in His power and victory, and letting Him transfer to you day by day, step by step, His own excellencies. His own i graces, grace for grace. “Christ is made to you of God sanctification.”
20 CHRIST LIiaE.
THE SOURCE OF HEALING.
Or, shall we apply it to physical healing? It is not your trying to tone it up by false stimulants. But it is by breathing into it His strength; receiving from without and above the supernatural, vital forces that must uplift you because they do not come from you, but from Him that came to be our life, that we might ha- e it more abundantly. And even when He shall come again, we shall have nothing without Him. What would the millennial glory be with Christ left out? Even there it is, ^’I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
I have just sketched this outline; now let me add these thoughts as we gather up the lesson.
. HIS FULLNESS.
How wonderfully Christ is adapted to all this; for we are told in these words of the epistle, that God has put all the fullness of the Godhead in Him. “In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” God has put in Christ everthing in Himself that man can ever need. God has just concentrated and personified in this blessed Man all his own strength, lo e, and help, for you and me. God could not get it to us without this. Some one tells us how in the Vatican at Rome, there is a beautiful paint- ed ceihng placed so high up that it is impossible to see it; the visitor strains his eyes in vain to it. A while ago to meet this difficulty, they constructed a mirror, so reflecting it to the floor, that all you have to do is to walk up to a little glass, and there is the scene; the minutest touches are there right under your eye; and yet it is in the dizzy heights above. So He took His glory, and beauty, and help, and put it down on the level of human ignorance and helplessness; He just put it all in the mirror, Jesus Christ, - and said, ‘Look at it. Is there anything in God you need? There it is in miniature.” And then He puts it in your hand, and says it is yours. I have put in Jesus all I am, and now I give Him to you, so you can claim Him for your own; so you can feel that Christ does not own Himself, but is all yours; and as the mother has no right to keep back the nourishment of her breast from her child, so you have the right to draw from Christ the utmost need of your hungry hearts.
^. THE IDEAL MAN.
Not only is this blessed Christ the treasury of God’s riches, but He is the pattern and sample of what men ought to be. One man has lived right, and only one. With tender pathos God says in one of the prophets, ‘^I searched for a man; I looked for a man among all the people, and I found none.” He looked for some one that could meet the requirements of human character, and found none. But at last there came One, and He looked again, and said with delight: ‘“• This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” “Behold my servant whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth.” He met God’s expectation, and became a pattern for all men. So there has lived one on earth who has idealized manhood and womanhood and childhood; the sample of a beautiful character; of a woman’s heart; of a man’s manhood; a pattern for the workmen at the bench; for the preacher, for the teacher, for the friend, for the sufferer, for the tempted one; wherever a man may be placed Jesus has been.
OUR VERY LIFE.
And now this blessed Man is given to you. He says, ‘Accept me; not as an example to follow afar off, but as a life to come into you, and impart to you His very nature, and make it second nature to your heart, spontaneous in your choice, victorious in your will, and interwoven with all your emotional life.” This is what is meant by the Christ life. Dear friends, this is the Christ that comes to you to-day, and offers His personal fullness and all-sufficiency.
IN HARMONY WITH OUR NATURE.
A lady asked me the other day, a thoughtful, intelligent woman who was not a Christian, but had the deepest hunger for that which is right: “How can this be so and we not lose our individuality? This will destroy our personality, and it violates our responsibilities as individuals, I said. “Dear sister, your personahty is only half without Christ. Christ was made for you, and you were made for Christ, and until you meet you are not complete, and He needs you as you need Him.” I said, “Suppose that gasjet should say ‘If I take this fire in, the gas loses its individuality.’” Oh no, it is only when the fire comes in that the gas fulfills its very purpose of being. Suppose the snowflake should say, ‘’What shall I do? If I drop on the ground I shall lose my individuality.” But it falls and is absorbed by the soil, and the snowflakes are seen by-and-by in the primroses and daisies. It is a glorious individuality to lose ourselves and rise again in new life in Christ
CREATED FOR HIM
As we crossed over the immense plains, I was surprised at their extent and value. It took us days behind a swift engine to get over the barren plains of the great West. Day by day, nothing was seen but sand, and sage brush growing along the track. When I came to ask about it I found this was the most magnificent soil in the country; where the sage brush grows, anything will grow; it is the test of good soil. The soil possesses the greatest fertihty. Only one thing was lacking. What is it? Every once in a while we came to an oasis, the grass greener than you ever saw it here; and by-and-by we found the most fruitful regions in the world — the fruits of the tropics, the fig tree and the orange groves. What made the difference? Why, as we walked around the farms we found a little ditch which had caught the mountain stream, and f ertiUzed the land by covering it with water. And sometimes we found the little fields where they had let the water in for a few days, and everything would go on with the most astonishing fertihty. It needed but one thing to bring it out. So I have thought, you may have all the possibilities, but you come to nothing until you let in the water, and become fruitful. The desert needs the water, and the water needs the desert. You need Christ, and Christ needs you. It is this union, this abiding in Him, and He in you, which will bring forth much fruit, for He has said, Without me ye can do nothing.*’
This is enough to show you how natural and true this hf e is. Oh, again this morning, let us make room; let us cease from everything but Him; let us open wide the doors and let Him enter now. Only as He is our life, and links His own life with ours, shall there come forth the fruit of holiness and service which will glorify Him, bless the world, and make our life fulfill all its lost promise.