Christ in Us
**Abide in me and I in you.’’’* John xv: 3.
HE PASS now to the second thought, Christ in us.” It is not only that we look up to yonder heaven and see Him there surrounded by all His retinue, endued with all His infinite resources, and enthroned above all power and dominion. Yes; that is all mine; but there is something better. Having seen all the riches of yonder throne, we may go up there and bring Him down here with it all, and have Him erect that throne in our very heart, and make our heart a very heaven.
CHRIST IN HEAVEN.
If you read the Epistle to the Ephesians, you will see this. In the first chapter, the apostle prays that their eyes may look up in Heaven and see what He has. He says,
Brethren, put the glass to your eye; do you see that cloud? See how He ascends; He is above the gri.ve; He is above the fetters of the tomb, higher He ascends; He is above the forces of death and hell; He is above the forces of nature; He is above the ranks of angels; He is above all the things that could harm or hurt you.” And so he followed Him with the glass of faith, far above all principalities, and power, and all dominion, and every name that is named, until at last, weary with the dazzling glory, he pauses to behold his name written on all the glory he beholds, and cries: Beloved, that is all yours and mine.’-
CHRIST IN THE HEART.
That is one vision. But if you read further you will see another vision. He has prayed that we might see that great sight of Christ in heaven. But now, he says, “I pray that you may be strengthened with might in the inner man for something higher and grander.” ‘’What is it, Paul?
Can there be anything grander? “‘^ Oh yes, there is; that Tery Christ in all His kinghness and boundlessness will dwell in your heart 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 fullness of God. Now, unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus.” That is the other heaven. That is the heaven brought down from heaven and put into your heart. That is the second thought, Christ in you; the other thought is, with Christ up yonder. This is Christ and heaven descending out of heaven like a new Jerusalem, and making His dwelling in your inmost being. So we find this second picture, Christ in us, rising above the first all through these New Testament writings. I cannot elaborate it. This is a passing glance in the house of the interpreter, that the pilgrims may be comforted for another stage of the journey.
Let us read some of the passages about this indwelUng, for there is a foolish controversy about it among those who are so full of their own hoHness that they do not seem to be quite able to see that there is something greater than their goodness and grace.
GAL. IV: 19.
Here is one: * My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” That is his prayer for those who are already Christians, in Galatians iv: 19. My little children, you are Christians; but oh, I am travailing in birth now until there shall be something more, even the very person of Christ the living God, born right in you! That is more than your being new-born; of course you must be born; but being born from above, Christ Himself will be born in your new-born soul. That precious golden casket that has been put in your breast will open, and in its bosom will another treasure come brighter than the golden casket; the flashing jewel of Christ’s own living presence in your heart of hearts.
Little children, born you have been, but you want a greater one to come and dwell in you; and I travail in birth until Christ be formed in you; not until a new and higher character be formed, but until a Person comes and sits down and lives in you, and becomes so one with you that the government shall be on His shoulder, and you shall sing in the empire of the heart, Unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end. “It is the child Christ born in the heart, so that it becomes a Christ life; not only a converted life, but a Divine life. Not a mere Christian battling and struggling, but a Christian taking into his bosom the Lord, never to fight His own battles, but to just be the temple and vessel for God to dwell in; so that the Infinite One will say, ‘^I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.” It is not, ^’They shall be my people and I will be their God,” but it is I first; “I win be their God and they shall be my people.”
EZEKIEL XXXVI: 26.
Another passage is Ezek. xxxivi: 25, 26. ‘^ Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you,
and ye shall be clean A new heart
also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” This is the work of conversion. But now notice something far higher: “I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.” That is not the new heart merely; that is God coming in and working in the heart.
That is God adding His Spirit to your new spirit. It is Christ entering into the heart that He has regenerated, and causing it to walk in His commandments. It is a human spirit purified and regenerated, and then ed with the Holy Ghost, and the personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christian friends, have you risen to this plane? Do not deceive yourselves about it. Do not think you have all because you have learned to trust Christ. Have you received Him as the very life of your life?
Christ’s teachings.
Again, if you will turn to the New Testament, you will find Christ carrying this thought all through His deeper teachings. He did not venture to give it in the beginning, because His disciples were not ready. He tried to give it two years earlier in the sixth chapter of John, and they were offended. He said: ^’I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” They said: “What mystical stuff; we cannot understand Him.” A dear friend said to me that a learned theological man once told her, that all he saw in those words was the conv munion of the Lord’s supper. And a great many cannot see that He wants us to be so united to Him, that He really dwells in us. At this time a great many said: “This is a hard saying” and went away and walked with Him no more. They said this is transcendental, this is sentimental. But in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of John He unfolds this truth once more. He says: ^’If a man love me he will keep my words, and I will love him and will manifest myself unto him, and my Father will love him and we will come into him and make our abode with him.” And again in the fifteenth chapter: ‘^I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me aod I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be don« to you.” And again He says: ‘’The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” And then in the seventeenth chapter of John He speaks to His Father about it. He says: ‘’0 righteous Father, I pray for them that they may be one as we are one; they in me, and I in them.” And He adds: ‘’That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Did you ever notice that this was the last prayer Christ ever uttered for His people: “I in them?” That seventeenth chapter of John was the subhmest height of love Christ’s words ever reached in this world; and these three last words: ‘’I in them,” are most precious of all. Oh, if you want His prayer fulfilled, beloved, enter into the meaning of this message and never stop short of it.
THE EPISTLES.
So again and again throughout the latter epistles, we find the same truth repeated. In Colossians the apostle says, ‘The secret or mystery which has been hid for ages is now made manifest “Ho seems almost afraid to state it. Like some one goiog to tell us marvelously good news, he goes around it, and hesitates; it is so big, the mystery which has been hid through the ages, but is now made manifest to those to whom he has been sent to open, the secret, to take from His treasury the white stone with the name upon it which no man knoweth but him that receiveth it. Paul has been permitted to give the bride this signet ring. This is the secret; ‘’Christ in You the Hope of Glory.” Have you received it? Has it been opened to you? It is the sapphire jewel that will outfiash the glories of the New Jerusalem. It is Christ in you the hope of glory, whatever glory can eternally mean.
Paul says again to the Galatians (Gal ii;
20): ’ ‘I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the Mfe which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” That is the way Paul got it, by dying to his own life and taking Christ instead.
And one more reference, to show you how it runs through the Bible. This was years after His ascension, and after the first period of Christianity had passed away. He came back again to the Isle of Patmos, and told John what he thought of that Christi- .anity. In that chapter of Revelation we have Christ’s message not to the Apostolic age, but to the modern church, for the Apostolic times had passed. This is what He said: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man will hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him and he with me. “Do you see the vision? A moment ago we looked, and heaven was full of His glory; and again we looked and heaven had come down to the heart of the disciple. But here is the heart of a disciple too, for it is written to the church of Laodicea; the people that called themselves the church of God, but their heart was barred and closed; inside, self was sitting on the throne. ‘*I am rich,” they say, “and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” And outside of that heart. His locks wet with the dew of the morning, stands the pleading form of Jesus Himself at the threshold of the Christian’s door, knocking and waiting in the chill, damp hours and saying: “Will you let me into my own house, the soul for which I died? Still I am willing and ready to come if you will open the door. I will come in and sup with you and you with me.” Oh, is it not a pa thetic picture, a shameful picture? And remember it is made to the last of the seven churches, the closing representative of modern Christianity; made perhaps, to the church of to-day, to the nominal Christian of to-day. He outside the door, and you satisfied inside to have him there. And He saying: “Thou knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and Mind and naked;” while you say, ‘’I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.”
JESUS ONLY.
A friend sent me lately a paper containing a letter from a minister of the Gospel who represents what is called the holiness movement in a sense, and claims to be a teacher and an exponent of entire sanctification. In his letter he was pleased to do like a good many other people, viz., use some very strong language concerning my own teachings with regard to the Christian life. In these strictures he took occasion to say that this talk about Jesus only was an injury to the doctrine of sanctification, and that it was not sanctification at all; it was a backward step and not a forward one; that we had got beyond Jesus only altogether, and that we were in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, which, to his mind, seemed to be more than Jesus only. I read the letter several times to get his meaning, and I am quite sure I have not misrepresented it. He said Jesus only was for the Transfiguration, but now we have the Spirit to lead us into this holiness life. But as I read anew the words of Jesus, I found He taught, that, when the Holy Ghost should come in the Christian dispensatioq with all His power, that was to be the time, the very time, when Jesus would be revealed and brought into the heart in all His fullness, and that until the Holy Ghost should come, and until after Jesus should ascend to the Father, we could not have Him in all His fullness.
On the mount of Transfiguration they saw what they would afterwards have forever; just a little vision in advance. But now the vision has come into our hearts; and it is not only there when with weary step we ascend the mountain height, but it is here morning, noon and night, and will be more and more bright forever and evermore. This is what Jesus says: When this dispensation, which is about to be fully ushered in after my departure, is established, ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. And then shall this be fulfilled, He that loveth me shall he loved of my Father and I will love him, and I will manifest myself to him.^^ ‘What do you mean, “they asked. They did not then understand it. They were not spiritual enough, and seemed to be afraid of it; they could not take in the great truth. And He said: ‘When He, the Spirit, is come. He shall make you understand and lead you into it.” And then He answers Judas and says: ^’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. We will come and live with him; we will enter his heart as we would a home, and we will make his heart our constant abiding place; we will bring our retinue; and our throne, and our joy with us, and dwell there.” Now, for any man to say that this is a step backward, makes one feel sorry that there should be such an inability to understand the very promise of the Spirit.
CHRIST’S OWN DEPENDENCE.
When you remember what Christ said in the 5th chapter of John, you will see that Jesus Christ had no life of His own on the earth, but was constantly dependent on His Father for every word, and breath, and act. The life which we are trying to hold up in these teachings, is the very life that Christ lived on this earth. Is it not absolutely overwhelming to hear Him say, with all His resources, ‘The Son can do nothing of Himself. I can of mine own self do nothing. As I hear, so I judge.” Jesus who walked this earth as our Example, was absolutely helpless to do an act or to think a thought of Himself. And He never tried to, but He constantly hung on His Father’s life; He drew His being from His Father, and just lived in Him all the time. ‘’As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.” And so He just wants you to live on Him. He is just duplicating the life He lived when He trod the hills of Galilee; utterly dependent, an empty vessel receiving all from above. So now, He requires you and me to be empty vessels, receiving all from Him. “In that day.” What day? “When the Spirit of Truth is come.” What will He bring? Will He bring something that will make you important; something that will make you so beautiful and pure that you will sit down and look at your holiness? Not a bit of it. Now, this is just what happens when the Holy Spirit comes into the heart. “In that day ye shall kaow that I am in the Father.” You shall understand how I have been linked with the Father and hung on Him for my very life. And ye shall learn thus to hang upon Me. “In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” You will not know that you are good and strong; but you will know that I am good and strong, and in you, as your purity and strength; and my being in you will bring the Father. He represents this union by the double figure of the sunrise, and the home, First, I will shine forth gloriously like the sunrise. The word ‘manifest myself” is a Greek word used in connection with light, conveying the same idea as Isaiah does when he says: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” This is what Jesus means when He says: “I will manifest myself to him.” This was the closing promise of the Old Testament. ‘Unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.”
The other figure is that of home. ‘We will come and abide with him;” we will make his heart our dwelling place; every faculty shall be a chamber that we will occupy, and the once sad and sinful heart shall become the palace of a king, where you forever shall dwell under the shadow of His presence