Christ Jesus

‘AposTLE of Christ Jesus.’ Let us look at these words once again, to take note of the blessed Name itself, and to ask what it may mean for us as a spiritual message here.

‘Christ ‘Curist Jesus. Such here is the order of the

Nal two words in the best supported reading of the Greek. It is an order peculiar to St. Paul, and very frequent with him. His brethren, Peter, John, James and Jude, all write always ‘Jesus Christ.’ I do not pretend to offer any assured account of the difference; but it has long seemed to me, I scarcely know how, that this Pauline order breathes a certain feeling of worshipping while intimate affection towards the blessed Lord. It may be a precarious conjecture, but at the worst it lies in the direction of St. Paul’s heart and thought; it adapts itself to a sense of attachment mingled with adoration on the one hand and the magnetic force of a consciousness of infinite obligation to the adored One on the other. ‘The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me’ (Gal. ii. 20): — that is the deep melodious keynote of the whole Pauline presentation of ‘ Christ Jesus’ to other hearts.

Ubiquity of Observe again, in these two opening verses of our

the Name. etter, the recurrence of this beloved Name. It is written three times over within these two or three

Christ Jesus

lines : — ‘ An apostle of Christ Jesus’; ‘The promise 2 Tim. i. 1. of the life which is in Christ Jesus’; ‘Grace, mercy and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Here again is a note intensely characteristic of St. Paul; this ubiquity of the Lord throughout his whole thought and writing. But indeed it is essentially characteristic of the New Testament at large. Take almost at random any great portion of the Book, and mark there with a pencil the recurrence of the mentions of Him and of the references to Him. A certain exception appears in the Epistle of St. James, where the Name occurs relatively seldom, though the few mentions are full of weight and power. But the rule is far otherwise; in a New Testament so marked the pages will continually be found starred and scored in every part.

Now to us, with our long familiarity with the Bible Its Signifiand the Gospel, this phenomenon may easily fail to 7° look as impressive as it is. Try then to open the Book with something of the feeling which you would bring to a new-found document, disinterred by literary explorers last year from some Hgyptian or Sinaitic concealment, and then read these endless references to that Name again. Forget for the moment the particular assertions about this wonderful ‘Christ Jesus’: does not the mere unwearied reiteration of His name, taken by itself, bear a witness as deep as can be borne to His supreme greatness and glory in the writers’ hearts? They cannot move, they cannot think, they cannot feel, without Him. He is the beginning and end of their arguments and appeals. He is the life-blood of their own spirits. He is the one great secret, the vast

2 Tim. i. 1, ‘unsearchable riches’ (Eph. iii. 8), which they are bent upon imparting to others. Upon Him as their redemption, their peace, their security, they rest. By Him, joined to their very being, and living in their hearts, they move. When they look up to the silent heavens, He is there, their Priest, Advocate, King, Friend, Forerunner; ‘at the right hand of the majesty on high.’ When they look round upon the Church, the believing Congregation, He is there, ‘Christ in them, the hope of glory’ (Col. i. 27), ‘Christ all, and in them all’ (Col. iii. 11). When they contemplate Creation, He is its cause and law, its corner-stone, its end (Col. i. 16, 17). When they think themselves into the vast future, He is there, ready to return, ‘this same Jesus,’ ‘appearing without sin unto salvation ’ (Heb. ix. 28).

In Him they know God. From Him they have the eternal Spirit. And the eternal Spirit’s delight is, according to their teaching, to glorify Christ to them, to reveal God’s Son in them, to join them to the Lord (Gal. i. 15, 1 Cor. vi. 17).

Even if the Bible contained no express statement that Christ Jesus is God, what short of that supreme truth could this inexhaustible abundance of His Name, in the very Book of God, really mean? Everywhere in that Book He is the manifestation of God, the way to God. Yes, and such a manifestation, such a way, that we never get beyond Him, never dispense with Him. Lib is ‘all our salvation and all our desire,’ blessed be His Name. Therefore He must needs be One with Him whom He makes our own.

He was all this to the dying Apostle. He is to be all this for our living selves to-day.