The Test of the Spirit's Abidingness

“« And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him; and hereby we know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which He hath given us.” — x JOHN iii. 24.

I have ventured to alter the punctuation both of the Authorised and of the Revised Version.

2 HE most beautiful thing to St. John was abidingness. Peter was a man of gleams and flashes; he liked to walk upon the waves. But John’s ideal of happiness was lying on the bosom; he was a man of the even way, a man of rest. He valued not the momentary flash; he trusted not the instantaneous gleam; he wanted an abiding calm for morning, noon and night. And he said that he had found it; he professed to have secured on the Master’s bosom a place for ever. What was his evidence for this bold claim? How did he know that Christ was abiding in him by that Spirit which He had given? Was it by the increased power to rest? No; strange to say, it was by the increased power to work.

He says that his evidence for the Spirit’s rest is the strength he gets for unwearied action; “He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him.” The Spirit’s permanence is proved by its activity; the Spirit’s rest is recognised by its waking; the Spirit’s calm is vindicated by the storms that sweep over it in vain. Only he that lieth in Christ’s bosom is able to compass Christ’s work; only His Spirit’s rest will help me to keep His commandments.

My soul, has Christ become to thee an abiding Spirit — a principle of inward rest? How shalt thou know it? Shalt thou go with the Brahman into the wilderness to make thyself still? Shalt thou retire with the hermit into the solitude to avoid the strife? Shalt thou repair with the mystic into the cloister to be free from noise? That would not be a test of Christ’s Spirit; other spirits as well as His can abide there. It is not in the stillness but in the thoroughfare that thou must prove the permanence of His rest, “He that keepeth Hits commandments dwelleta in Him.” Wouldst thou know the permanence of His presence, the abidingness of His rest? test it by the struggles of the common day. Test it by thy courage in danger, by thy fortitude in temptation, by thy strength in conflict, by thy calm in storm, by thy patience in sorrow, by thy gentleness in

P rebuke. Test it by the justice of the forum, by the integrity of the counting-house, by the unity of the family circle, by the brotherhood of human souls. Test it by thy power to do the right in a world where men do the wrong — to be stable amid the wavering, to be steadfast amid those that succumb. Then shalt thou have a test which the hermit never knew, for there is nothing but inward rest that can stand the outward fight; hereby shalt thou know His indwelling, if thou canst keep His commandments.