Christ's Claim upon Us. The Way to Full Surrender VIII Contents Chap
In connection with the indifference to mission work that prevails, it is often said that it is owing to the fact of Christians being utterly unconscious of the claim Christ has on them. At conversion the attention was so directed to the one desire of salvation from punishment, and of grace to help them to a better life, that the thought that Christ had purchased them as a people of His own, zealous in good works, that through them He might from heaven continue and carry on the work He had begun on earth, never entered their minds. They knew that they ought to do good works in proof of their love, but never understood that these good works were service that Christ actually needed for the extension of His King dom, and that their whole life, with all their powers, was to be at His disposal for that purpose.
If there is to be any deep missionary revival it will have to begin here, that God’s children who are striving to serve Him, must get a new and far deeper insight into the blessedness of this claim of Christ, so as to be able to tell of it and testify what it is that is the moving spring of their life. From them there can then pass on a power that will rouse Christians who have hitherto lived the selfish life, to a new thought they never had before of the real blessedness of belonging to Christ. It will only be thus that the world will know that the love of God in heavenly measure and power dwells in them.
May God, by His Holy Spirit, open our eyes to see what this wonderful claim of Christ means.
What is the ground upon which it rests? That He is our God and Creator? This is but the beginning of it, and its power has been so obliterated by sin that something else was needed. And what a stupendous miracle was wrought, when the Son of God came to earth to unite Himself with us in all our sin and suffering, to bear not only the suffering as we endured it, but as God in His holiness made His judgment to rest upon it in Him. Yes, so completely did He identify Himself with us, that He stooped to bear our curse, and gave His life and His blood on our behalf. And so eternally did He make us one with Himself in His resurrection and ascension, and the glory into which He entered upon the throne of God, that through the whole universe we shall be known as His body, the inseparable companion and sharer of His place in the bosom of the Father.
One needs to give room to thoughts like these if the question is to be answered in a power that constrains the heart: What is the ground on which Christ’s claim rests? Is He not worthy that every thought, and every power, shall be yielded to be His wholly and His alone?
That brings the answer to the second question, What is really Christ’s claim? Nothing less than that as completely as He gave Himself for us and to us shall we give ourselves for Him and to Him. In Chapter II. of our book we had the expression — we cannot forget it, though we cannot grasp it — “The measure of the surrender of Christ for us and our salvation, is the measure of our surrender to Him and to His service.” Or, as it was expressed by Professor Denney, “We must seek to persuade men that a love like Christ’scan only be answered by a love in kind, and that for a Saviour Who came not only in water but in blood, there can be no adequate response, which is bloodless. There must be a passion in the answer of the soul of Christ that answers to the passion of His love to us.” As we take in these words we shall feel that Christ’s claim means nothing less than this, that just as He lived on earth, and now lives in heaven, in the fulness of a love to us that passeth knowledge, so nothing can now satisfy His heart, or our own, but a love that on our part seeks to live every moment in His presence and for His pleasure.
And just as His love showed itself in a life of intense and unceasing action, so our love must be ready to wait on His will, and to place our powers at His disposal. We shall be constantly on the lookout “to see, not how much we can manage to keep for ourselves, but what else we can find to give Him Who has given His all so unreservedly for us.” There will then be no need of pleading for missionaries or for money. The only question in a company that loves Him will be the eager volunteer offer of anything that the Master may desire.
And now comes the third question, of the power thus to yield to Christ’s claim and to maintain a life in unbroken surrender to it. The thought comes so easily: it may be a very beautiful ideal, but how impossible to carry it out. Listen to what Christ’s answer is. He undertakes Himself to settle all claims that He has upon us. The love that gave itself on the Cross with the one thought of getting complete possession of us, is the love that in all its intensity and power watches over and works in us every hour of the day. When He gave Himself for us He gave Himself to us. Surely the lost sheep could count upon the shepherd with all his strength to bear it back to its home. No less can each one of us count upon the whole Christ, and that without intermission, to carry us, and to prove how entirely He is ready to keep us from sin and to work out in us all the good pleasure of His will.
If the question be asked, But why do we so little experience it? The answer is simple. We do not know it, we do not believe it, we do not yield ourselves to it. The feeble action of the Holy Spirit, hindered as He is by the spirit of the world, is the one cause of our failure. Christ calls for a passion of love to Him, corresponding to His towards us. No power but His own love dwelling in the heart and working there, can for a moment think of giving what He claims. He Himself, by His abiding presence, by His indwelling Spirit, by His unceasing working in us, must do all.
And this brings us to the fourth great question: How a soul, that longs to yield itself wholly to Christ’s claim, can make good its claim on Christ Himself to carry out all His work in us? The answer is simple and yet beyond the power of the human mind to grasp aright. Nothing less is needed than that the Spirit shall glorify Christ in His claim on us, and our claim on Him. It is when we see how impossible it is to man to know and love Christ a right, that we shall come in our helplessness to cast ourselves at His feet and believe in the power of His Word to work a full faith in Him, and all He has done and still is to do. As we turn away from the world and from self, and consent to be crucified with Him, we shall find in the fellowship of His death, the power through which He conquers sin, and in His resurrection, the heavenly life through which He dwells in us, becomes one with us, and works out all His blessed purpose. In law they speak of a claim in contravention. This is just what is perfectly fulfilled in the life of true love. Love cannot rest until it has possession of the heart of the beloved one by its Divine power. It draws our love to itself, and does not rest until that love has perfectly responded.
And now, this claim of Christ must be proclaimed in the Church with a new power from on high, i.e. by those people who have yielded themselves wholly to it, who have given their lives here at home to let Christ work in them all that He wills, and are seeking with their whole heart, even in the midst of conscious imperfection, that Christ shall have His own in the full acknowledgment of His claim in the Church around them — it is when the number of those who profess to make this their one object, begin to give themselves to prayer and supplication that Christ’s claim may be acknowledged throughout the Church, that hearts will begin to be touched. Men, whether ministers or not, will begin to feel that for a Church so feeble and unspiritual and impotent to be roused for the great work of really making Christ’s claim known to the heathen, nothing less is needed than the mighty power of the Spirit ruling in the hearts and lives of God’s children. And every thought of the State of the Home Church, and the crying need of the heathen world, will be swallowed up in the one thought: Christ claims the world, and Christ claims that every one who has learned to know that claim, shall yield himself so wholly to it, as to live only to make it known.