NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 10
NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 10
There are two ministries, the gospel and the church. In the gospel we learn how Christ cleared away all that was against us. In the church - the mystery of His body - we have nothing of the flesh. The most beautiful quality of the first man is not acceptable to God; nothing is acceptable to God but Christ. He could love the young man so naturally amiable (Mark 10: 21); yet the Lord said unto him, “Take up the cross” (come to execution) “and follow me”. It is deep joy to every loving heart that Christ is in you the hope of glory; the more we are attached to Him, the more we rejoice that He is in us. I like the same things that He likes. I act as He would act. His glory is my hope. In Romans 8: 10, the same expression, “Christ in you”, is used, but there it is for your own side; the effect is, the body is dead because of sin. Christ [p. 52] in you - He acts and not your own will. In Colossians “Christ in you” is His side. If you do not know this as it is taught in Romans, you cannot know it as we get it in Colossians. It is not trying to put off the old man: you have done it if you are established in grace. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”, Galatians 2: 20. Every knowledge of Christ has an effect of its own, which could not be produced in any other way. If you know His work you give to Him, like Jonathan to David. “And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle”, 1 Samuel 18: 4. If you know Him as your life you suffer with Him. If you know Him as Priest you know where consolation is; the sorrow is here, the consolation is with Him, and there we are severed from the earth. When you know Him as Head you derive from Him according to His own life. Your acts, your manners, everything about you is of Christ. No human refinement can imitate this or apprehend it. It is as you are with Him that you grow into moral correspondence to Him. You cannot acquire His sense of things but as you are with Him. When you are with Him individually, you are learning Him for your own circumstances; when you are with Him in the assembly, you learn Him for His things.
There is no greater satisfaction to love than to be like Him; we shall be like Him to see Him. “When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is”, 1 John 3: 2.
May each of us rejoice that our blessed portion is to have “Christ in you the hope of glory”. The more you meditate or ruminate on it, the greater and fuller it will appear to you, and also the plainer it will become to you.