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THE MANIFESTATION OF THE LIFE OF JESUS IN OUR BODY

I have been thinking of the difference between the new birth and the manifestation of the life of Jesus in the body. I think the tendency is to satisfy the conscience with the fact of new birth, without being set on the manifestation of the life of Jesus in the body. The new man is the jewel and the body the casket, but the purpose of the apostle was, that the casket should bear on its surface the beauties of the jewel - of the treasure. I feel people often rest satisfied or rather try to borrow satisfaction from the known and assured fact of possessing the diamond, and the mere fact of possession is their comfort, and they enjoy a meeting, or waiting on the Lord, according to the amount of brilliancy in which it shines, that is, the joyful consciousness of their possession. Now if this be the habit and the conscience has been taught to submit, then there will be indifference to the external manifestation of the treasure. The pleasures of the flesh and of the mind will get a place without offence to the conscience. It is from this that the saying has arisen, ‘Religion is a thing within, you must not parade it’. How many who would not go to the extent of these statements yet really give way to the practice which results from it.

It ought not to satisfy my conscience that I am the Lord’s, however true and happy I may be in my relationship through grace; but that if I am dead in His cross, I am now to be bodily the exemplification of the life which He lived on earth. Everything in the mind and in the flesh is to be suppressed according to His will. This is sanctification. Every bud and leaf of the crab tree is to be rubbed off, not suffered to grow, though ^[p. 122] they may be very like those of the apple tree. So that the question is, not whether they are good or bad, but whether they are of the crab tree or of the apple tree. I am to make no excuse for myself because of temperament, or education, or position; because the more there is to be overcome, the greater the vigour of life in overcoming it, and hence the greater gain. The greatest victory has the greatest prize. I believe the reason why the saint does not feel the incongruity between his own words and thoughts and habits, and Christ’s, is that he has not been enough with Him to see the difference. We see in 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 that there is the beholding Him first, before there is the carrying about the dying of Him. As I see Him in glory, I am transformed into the same image. It is not a mere quality I imbibe, but it is a personal state, life in its development in Christ in glory. It is not merely that I possess the diamond, but I am invested with a “new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4: 24). I cannot suffer the old man to continue unrebuked and uncrucified as I am consciously invested with the moral tastes of the new man, and then it is that I carry about in my body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in the body. There is a sense within of the nature of the leaf that ought to be visible, and there is no true answer to the inner existence, unless there be a conformation in sentiment and manner answering to it, and it is wounded if there be not this practical answer.

The gardener is not satisfied without a certain colour in the flower; and the rarer it is, the more careful is he that the true tints should be expressed; and if they are not, he does not say that there is no life in the flower, but it has not the sun suitably to extract the proper tints.

Thus two things are necessary; first I must know the true tints, and these I can only know by seeing them in their perfection in Christ. There is no use ^[p. 123] in a country gardener trying for the tints of a flower which he has never seen in blossom, which is the case if they be rare tints. A common gardener is satisfied with any that are new and pleasing; but their being new or pleasing does not make them like the original. Well then the gardener must know the original first. You must know Christ in His moral beauty before you can know the tints and touches of Him which you would manifest in your body. And the next thing is that you cannot put up with anything inferior to the original. The cherubim were wrought in needlework on the veil: Christ in the most minute way set forth the attributes of God. Let us not say, ‘This is the flower which is natural to this corner of the garden, this is my habit, it is natural to me to say and think and do after this and that fashion’. But now my garden is to bear the rarest flowers. I have seen the originals, I have buds and slips of each of them planted in me, and now I cannot suffer any of the old habits and tastes, even be they flowers, or make any excuse for them if they appear, any more than a gardener would suffer a nettle to grow beside a tulip. It is not only that the Master will be dissatisfied, but one who is in His mind could not endure to see weeds where the beautiful flowers of self-control and patience and forbearance should grow. One must be much impressed within with the perfect original, in order to be duly and heartily repugnant to everything that is not in keeping with the perfections of Christ. As our joy and delight in the original increase, there will be in each of us more bearing about of the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body; and thus the casket will answer to the diamond.

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