1 J. H. Jowett.
360 THE WAGES AND THE GIFT
me." That is the apprehension of God; the singing basal consciousness that the Lover is in the house ! It is "deep calling unto deep " ; it is the sympathetic vibration of those who partake of the same nature, and that nature is Divine.1
It will not meet us where the shadows fall Beside the sea that bounds the Evening Land;
It will not greet us with its first clear call
When Death has borne us to the farther strand.
It is not something yet to be revealed — The everlasting life — 'tis here and now;
Passing unseen because our eyes are sealed With blindness for the pride upon our brow.
It calls us 'mid the traffic of the street,
And calls in vain, because our ears are lent
To these poor babblements of praise that cheat The soul of heaven's truth, with earth's content.
It dwells not in innumerable years;
It is the breath of God in timeless things — The strong, divine persistence that inheres
In love's red pulses and in faith's white wings.
It is the power whereby low lives aspire
Unto the doing of a selfless deed, Unto the slaying of a soft desire,
In service of the high, unworldly creed.
It is the treasure that is ours to hold
Secure, while all things else are turned to dust ;
That priceless and imperishable gold
Beyond the scathe of robber and of rust.
It is a clarion when the sun is high,
The touch of greatness in the toil for bread,
The nameless comfort of the Western sky, The healing silence where we lay our dead.
And if we feel it not amid our strife, In all our toiling and in all our pain —
This rhythmic pulsing of immortal life — Then do we work and suffer here in vain.2
1 J. H. Jowett. 2 P. C. Ainsworth, Poems and Sonnets, 9.
ROMANS vi. 23 361
iv. In Christ Jesus our Lord.
" The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." That is where we are to seek and find the inheritance, " in Christ Jesus our Lord." And this is the reasoning of the sacred word, that eternal life is in the Son. The life that was in Jesus was of the eternal order, and of that sort of life the risen Lord is the reservoir and fountain. Get the music of these three great passages : " In him was life " ; "I am the life " ; " He that hath the Son hath life." So what we have got to do in order to get our legacy is to get the legator Himself. " He that hath the Son hath life." The " free gift " is " in Christ Jesus our Lord." We need trouble about nothing else except to become one with the Lord. " Having him we possess all things." If we become one with Him, His life becomes ours.
1. The gift from God of eternal life is not merely through Christ Jesus (as in the Authorized Version), it is in Christ Jesus. What a mystery is this, that we, poor and weak and sinful as we are, can ever be incorporated into Christ — that in Him we can, again, be made living souls inspired by God's Spirit ; and more wonderful still that while we are yet on earth this mighty change can be realized. But it is so written for our learning, and let us rejoice with all reverence while we believe that we may live in Christ as very members of His body ; that we may claim as ours the righteousness which He has wrought, the sorrow which He has suffered. At the same time, we must remember that there is a fearful contrast to all this. The Christian has eternal life now only so far as he is one with Christ, and to be cut off from Him, to be without Him, to know Him not, that is real death — death more terrible than our darkened minds can understand at present.
^f Is it a matter of indifference whether we say " the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus " or " through Christ Jesus " ? To me, I confess, it makes a fundamental difference in the whole conception of Christianity whether we regard life as something which Christ has won for us apart from Himself, or something which is absolutely bound up with Himself, and realized only in vital fellowship with Him. And I shall hold ten years of life well spent [as one of the Eevisers] if I have been enabled to help in any degree in bringing this thought home to English-speaking people in years to come. The phrase represents, if you please, a
362 THE WAGES AND THE GIFT
Hebrew idiom — a Hebrew mode of conception. What then ? It was the mode of conception which God was pleased to choose for conveying His truth to the world. Let it, then, be carefully- guarded. Let it be faithfully rendered. Let it be offered to our common people, that they may, by patient reflexion, grasp the fulness of the lesson.1
Christ, the Wisdom and the Power! From our labour's fleeting hour To that timeless age of bliss Which shall crown the toil of this, Grant that all our life may be Hidden and revealed " in Thee."