“CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY.”
-COLOSSIANS
1:27.-
LANGUAGE is but a
medium for the communication of thought, and words are but symbols of ideas.
When words are so framed in sentences as to express an impossibility or an
absurdity, when considered literally, but do forcibly illustrate a known truth
when symbolically interpreted, we instinctively recognize the figure, and are
instructed by it. In this way many of the deep things of God-the spiritual
things-are expressed to us, since they are often forcibly illustrated by things
familiar to us on the natural plane. Thus, for instance, the resurrection,
both natural and spiritual, finds an illustration in the processes of
vegetation (1 Cor. 15:35-38); and the processes of the beginning, development
and final perfecting of the spiritual sons of God find a remarkable
illustration in the begetting, quickening and birth of the natural man. (James
1:18; Eph. 2:1; John 3:3.) But if, when we read these symbols or illustrations
of spiritual things, we pervert and dishonor our God-given reason by accepting
palpable absurdities as their interpretation, we deceive ourselves, and in so
doing are not blameless. In parables and dark, symbolic sayings our Lord
opened his mouth and taught his disciples, expecting them to use their common
sense in either interpreting them themselves, or in judging of the correctness
of any interpretation offered by others as they should become meat in due
season. And when on one occasion, instead of using their brains to draw from
it the implied lesson, the disciples asked for the interpretation of a parable,
Jesus suggestively and reprovingly replied, “How then will ye know all
parables?” (Mark 4:13.) He would have us think, consider and put our God-given
mental faculties to their legitimate use.
Bearing in mind these wholesome reflections, together with the fact that
the Scriptures abound in these symbolic expressions of truth, let us consider
the Apostle’s meaning when he speaks of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” He
uses the same figure again in his letter to the Galatians (Gal. 4:19), saying,
“My children, whom I am bearing again, till Christ be formed in you,” etc.
Here the Apostle is likening his care and labor and endurance for those who had
been begotten by the Truth to the new nature, to the physical endurance of a
mother in nourishing and sustaining the germ of human life until the new human
creature is formed and able to appropriate for itself the life-sustaining
elements of nature, independent of her life. So the Apostle sought to nourish
and sustain those germs of spiritual being with his own spiritual life until,
apart from his personal work and influence, they would be able to appropriate
for themselves the God-given elements of spiritual life contained in the Word
of Truth;-until the Christ-character should be definitely formed in them.
In no other reasonable sense could the Apostle bear those Galatian
Christians; and in no other reasonable sense could Christ be formed in them, or
in us. The thought is that every true child of God
must have a definite individual Christian character which is not dependent for
its existence upon the spiritual life of any other Christian. He must from the
Word of Truth, proclaimed and exemplified by other Christians, draw those
principles of life, etc., which give him an established character, a spiritual
individuality of his own. So positive and definite should be the spiritual
individuality of every one, that, should even the beloved brother or sister
whose spiritual life first nourished ours and brought us forward to
completeness of character fall away (which the Apostle shows is not
impossible-Heb. 6:4-6; Gal. 1:8), we would still live, being able to
appropriate for ourselves the spirit of Truth.
Paul feared, and had reason to fear, that the Galatian Christians
had not yet come to this condition of established character-that the
Christ-life was not yet definitely formed in them. He said, “I am afraid of
you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain” (Gal. 4:11); for already they
were giving heed to seducing teachers and departing from the faith, showing
that they were not established in the Truth, and consequently not established
in the spirit of the Truth, which is the spirit of Christ, and, hence, that
Christ was not yet formed in them.-Verse 19.
Alas, how often we see among those who bear the name of Christ, and who
have truly received the spirit of adoption as sons of God, that Christ is not
yet formed in them! that they have not yet reached that degree of development
which manifests a distinct spiritual individuality! They depend largely upon
the spiritual life of others, and if their spiritual life declines these dependent
ones suffer a similar decline; if they go into error, these follow, as did many
of those Galatian Christians to whom Paul wrote. How is it, beloved, in your
several cases? Apply the question to yourselves-Is Christ formed in you so
fully that none of these things move you? that, however they may grieve you at
heart, they cannot affect your spiritual life? This is what it is to have
“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
A cloak of mystery and superstition has been thrown around this expression
of the Apostle, evidently by the great Adversary of the Truth and the Church,
to the effect that in some secret way, known only to the initiated, Christ
personally comes into the consecrated soul and uses that soul simply as a
machine; and that, consequently, the machine is about infallible, because
Christ is using it; that for them to speak, or think, or act, or interpret the
Scriptures, is for Christ to do it, in whose hands they are merely the passive
agents. With this idea they generally go further, and claim that Christ
personally talks with them and teaches them independently of his Word; and some
go so far as to claim that they have visions and special revelations from the
Lord. Some speak of this presence as Christ; some as the holy Spirit; and some
speak of them interchangeably.
While there is a semblance of truth in all this, and while we remember
that Jesus said, “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them...shall be
loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him;...and
we will come unto him and make our abode with him” (John 14:21,23), it is true
that a more serious error could scarcely be entertained than this idea of
personal infallibility because of the supposed mysterious presence of another
being within.
Notice that this promise of the abiding presence of the Father and the Son
is to those who have and keep the commandments of the Lord
Jesus. Those, therefore, who ignore the Word of the Lord and have not his
commandments-who do not know what they are, and hence cannot keep them, but who
hearken to the voice of their own imaginations and note all the changing states
of their own feelings, mistaking them for the voice of the Lord and follow the
impressions arising from this source, instead of the commandments or teachings
of the Lord-are quite mistaken in claiming this promise. Under their delusion
they are following another spirit than the spirit of Truth; and unless
recovered from the snare they must inevitably plunge deeper and deeper into
superstition and error.
The first difficulty we meet in attempting to dispel this delusion from
the midst of those infatuated with it, is the claim that this is a higher
attainment in the spiritual life, up to which we have not yet measured. If the
testimony of the Scriptures bearing on the subject is brought forward they say,
“Oh, I see you have the head-knowledge, but you have not the Spirit, you have
not Christ in you.” They then proceed to tell how Christ is in them, and that
he is “teaching them wonderful things,” which we shortly discover to be quite
out of harmony with the Word of God. The case is indeed a sad one when all
Scripture testimony contrary to their belief is set aside with claims of
superior revelations of Christ or the holy Spirit which other children of God
do not enjoy, and that Christ personally dwells in them, etc., etc.
Who but these deceived ones cannot see that, if their theory be true-if
God talks with them and answers all their queries aside from his written Word,
the Bible, through mental inspiration, or by dreams, or by audible sound-then
the Bible is to such a useless book, and time spent in its study is so much
time wasted. Who would “search the Scriptures” as for hid treasures, as the
Lord enjoined and as all the apostles searched, if they could shut their eyes,
or kneel, and have God make a special revelation to them, respecting the
information desired. Surely any sensible person would prefer a special
revelation on a subject, rather than to spend days and months and years examining
and comparing the words of our Lord and the apostles with those of the prophets
and the Book of Revelation (“searching what or what manner of time the spirit
did signify”), if they could ask and have an inspired and infallible answer in
a moment. None of God’s consecrated ones should be thus misled of the
Adversary. It is the stepping-stone to pride and every evil work;-to pride,
because those who are thus deceived soon feel themselves honored of God above
the apostles, who even in conference judged of the mind of the Lord as read in
his Word and in his providential leadings in harmony with his Word (Acts
15:12-15); to every evil work, in that those thus puffed up fancy
themselves infallible, and, separated from the anchor of truth, the Bible,
Satan can soon lead them rapidly into the outer darkness of the world, or into
yet darker delusions.
But the testimony of the Scriptures is quite contrary to this vaunting
spirit. Paul says, “Know ye not...that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be
reprobates?” and then he exhorts that we examine ourselves whether we be in the
faith, or whether we have rejected the faith and thus become reprobates- no
longer acceptable to God. (2 Cor. 13:5.) Every true child of God has
respect to the commandments of God: he searches the Scriptures that he may know
them, and is not left in ignorance of them; and, learning them, he endeavors to
keep them, and the abiding presence of the Father and the Son is with all such
so long as they continue to hold and to keep (obey) his commandments-to hold
the Truth in righteousness.
To have the Truth and to keep it is not merely to accept it on the
recommendation of some friend, and because it gives some comfort and costs
nothing, and to hold it until some other presumed friend dazzles the unsettled
mind with some fanciful theory. The promise of the abiding presence of the
Father and the Son is not to such. Christ is not in them; Christ is in the
humble and sincere ones. He and the Father love and abide with them.
But how? To illustrate-a friend accompanying another to a railway station
said, as he was about to board the train, “Remember, I will be with you all the
way.” He meant that his thoughts would be with his friend and that he would be
concerned for his welfare, etc. In a similar, and yet in a fuller and broader
sense, the Lord is ever present with his people. He is
always thinking of us, looking out for our interests, guarding us in danger,
providing for us in temporal and spiritual things, reading our hearts, marking
every impulse of loving devotion to him, shaping the influences around us for
our discipline and refining, and hearkening to our faintest call for aid or
sympathy or fellowship with him. He is never for a moment off guard, whether
we call to him in the busy noon hours or in the silent watches of the night.
And not only is the Lord Jesus thus present, but the Father also. How blessed
the realization of such abiding faithfulness! And no real child of God is
devoid of this evidence of his adoption. Sometimes it is more manifest
than at others; as, for instance, when some special trial of faith or patience
or endurance necessitates the special call for special help, and forthwith
comes the grace sufficient with a precious realization of its loving source.
Thus
“E’en sorrow, touched by heaven, grows bright,
With more than rapture’s ray,
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day.”
Every true child of God has these precious evidences of sonship, and the
roughest places in his pathway are so illuminated with divine grace that they
become the brightest, and memory continues to refer to them with thankfulness;
and faith and hope and love grow strong and inspiring.
Our Lord always links the progress and
development of our spiritual life with our receiving and obeying the Truth, and
every child of God should beware of that teaching which claims to be in advance
of the Word, and that Christ or the holy Spirit speaks to such advanced
Christians independently of the Word. The snare is a most dangerous one. It
cultivates spiritual pride and boastfulness, and renders powerless the warnings
and expostulations of the sacred Scriptures because the deluded ones think they
have a higher teacher dwelling in them. And Satan, taking advantage of the
delusion, leads them captive at his will.
These symbolic expressions of the Scriptures must be interpreted as
symbols, and to force any unreasonable interpretation upon them manifests a
culpable wilfulness in disregarding the divinely appointed laws of our mind,
and the result is self-deception. When we read, “He that dwelleth in love
dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 Jno. 4:16), the only reasonable
interpretation is that we dwell in the love and favor, and in the spirit or disposition
of God; and that his spirit or disposition dwells in us. Thus God by his
indwelling spirit works in us to will and to do his good pleasure (Phil. 2:13);
and we are reckoned as not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if the Spirit of
God dwells in us.-Rom. 8:8,9.
Let us endeavor to have more and more of the mind, the Spirit of God-to
have his Word abide in us richly (John 15:7; Col. 3:16)-to have and to keep his
commandments, that the abiding presence of the Father and the Son may be with
us; and that, realizing that the Christ-character and life are definitely
formed in us, the hope of glory may be ours; for our Lord said, “Not every one
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21.) How
careful then should we be in seeking both to know and to do the will of God.
Many indeed will come forth with the plea of their wonderful works, hoping to
be admitted into the Kingdom, but only those will be recognized who have done
the will of the Lord, and who have no theories or works of their own whereof to
boast.