2 COR. V. 17 167
I wish a greater Knowledge than to attain The knowledge of my self; a greater Gain Than to augment my self; a greater Treasure Than to enjoy my self ; a greater Pleasure Than to content my self ; how slight and vain Is all Self-knowledge, Pleasure, Treasure, Gain; Unless my better Knowledge could retrieve My Christ; unless my better Gain to thrive In Christ; unless my better wealth grow rich In Christ; unless my better Pleasure pitch On Christ; or else my Knowledge will proclaim To my own heart, how ignorant I am : Or else my Gain, so ill improved, will shame My trade, and shew how much declined I am: Or else my Treasure will but blot my name With Bankrupt, and divulge how poor I am: Or else my Pleasures that so much inflame My thoughts, will blab how full of sores I am: Lord, keep me from my self, 'tis best for me, Never to own my self, if not in Thee.^
3. If, then, we are Christ's, we enter spiritually into "the fellowship of his sufferings," so that we are crucified with Him, dead with Him, buried with Him, and rise with Him, finding it a second nature thereafter to set our affections on things above. That is what the Apostle means when, after speaking of the Kisen Christ, he says : " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." His agnosticism is gone ; his guilt and condemnation are gone ; his bondage to lust and passion is gone ; his heart is set on higher things ; God is now the centre of his life, and not only is he himself a new creature, but there is around him a new creation. Earth is much smaller than it used to be, and the infinities of the great universe of God begin to open out to his spirit, even as they began to open out to the intellect of the astronomers after they followed Copernicus to the new centre he had found in the sun.
Nothing is more striking than the breadth of application which this principle of union with Christ has in the gospel. Christianity obliterates no natural relationships, destroys no human obligations, makes void no moral or spiritual laws. But
^ Fran(»s Quarles.
i68 IN CHRIST A NEW CREATION
it lifts all these up into a new sphere, and puts upon them this seal and signature of the gospel — " in Christ." So that while all things continue as they were from the beginning, all, by their readjustment to this Divine character and Person, become virtually new. Life is still of God, but it has this new dependency " in Christ." " Of him are ye in Christ Jesus." The obligation to labour remains unchanged, but a new motive and a new sanctity are given to it by its relation to Christ : " Forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." The marriage relation is stamped with this new signet, " Only in the Lord." Filial obedience is exalted into direct connexion with the Son of God : " Children obey your parents in the Lord." Daily life becomes " a good conversation in Christ." Joy and sorrow, triumph and suffering, are all in Christ. Even truth, as though needing a fresh baptism, is viewed henceforth " as it is in Jesus." Death remains, but it is robbed of its sting and crowned with a beatitude, because in Christ, " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."
^ " In Christ ! " How mighty the expression ! How singular, yet how exact the description ! " In Christ," then out of the world. "In Christ," then out of self! "In Christ," then no more in the flesh, no more in sin, no more in vanity, no more in darkness, no more in the crooked paths of the god of this world.^
4. But if we are to see how much St. Paul meant by being " in Christ," we must get at his meaning by an induction rather than a description.
(1) " The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death " (Eom. viii. 2). Here " in Christ Jesus " is a sphere of freedom ; and it is freedom of a well- known and recognizable type. It is the freedom by which a higher law and a more developed life-system superseded a lower and less developed one.
^ It used to be the proud boast of our countrymen that no slave could breathe under the British flag. By setting foot on British soil he ceased to be a slave. The law of freedom super- seded the laws of slavery as by a higher right. What our fathers claimed for British rule in the sphere of personal freedom St. Paul claimed for the person of Christ in the sphere of spiritual
' Horatius Bonar,
2 COR. V. 17 169
freedom. No man, however bound in bondage of sin by lusts, passions, habits, superstitions, worldHness, or selfishness could come into Christ without finding his bonds fall from him. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus would set him free from the law of sin and death. When Eliza, the slave-mother in Uncle Tom's Cabin, finds that she is sold to a new owner who is going to separate her from her child, she makes a desperate effort to escape. She has been sold in Kentucky : if she can get into Ohio she will be under other laws, and her child will be her own. She slips away from the inn where the sale has been transacted down to the river bank. But there is no boat to take her across ! She hides in terror till she hears the hounds baying on her track. Then, with the courage of despair, she leaps out on the floating ice floes in the river ; she passes from one to another, her child in her arms, her feet cut and bleeding, till she is almost across the river; then as she nears the other shore a stranger who has watched her flight reaches out a hand and she lands in safety — a free woman. The laws that bound her do not run here. They have ceased to have any authority over her.^