2, St. Paul clearly makes the indwelling of Christ a matter of definite experience after the first knowledge of Christ, Witness his petition on behalf of the Church at Ephesus, " that Christ
* Thomaa 0. Upham, Life of Madame Guyon, 492,
GAL. II. 20 357
may dwell in your hearts by faith," based upon the petition that God would grant them, " according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man." TJ^us ■the etrengtbening work of the Holy— Spirit. His confirming U8_in
dwelling-XIhriaL An ungrieved Holy Spirit is to work mightily until there shall be nothing in us contrary to the Saviour's will, so that our obedient hearts may be a pleasant abiding-place for the Holy Christ. Then dormant powers shall be aroused and shall troop forth out of their graves, powers of holy perception and holy desire, and holy sympathy, and holy faculty for service. Old powers shall be renewed, and they shall be like anaemic weaklings who have attained a boisterous vitality. Our powers are far from their best until they become united to Christ. If we want to see what love really is, and will, and conscience, and chivalry, we must see them at home, in their native clime, rooted and grounded in the life and love of the eternal Lord.
^ Just as the glad sunny waters of the incoming tide fill the empty places of some oozy harbour, where all the ships are lying as if dead and the mud is festering in the sunshine, so into the slimy emptiness of our corrupt hearts there will pour the flashing sunlit wave, the ever-fresh rush of His power; and everything will live whithersoever it cometh, and we shall be able to say in all humility, and yet in glad recognition of Christ's faithfulness to this His transcendent promise, " I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me : and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God."i
3. "We TmiRh Tint fail to notice that St JBaul's^/a^Y^ is th6_c^^ ^ttootiing linli J;i&twocn him and tht? apidtual life. " The life which I now live." If any man may be said to have literally lived his life, that man was St. Paul. As far as we can trace back his history, we find him no dreamer, but in intense activity on what- soever path he moved. In his early devotion to Judaism, no less than in his later loyalty to the Christian religion, there was, above all, intensity. But no one can fail to see in the man a great change after he had the revelation of his crucified and risen Master. He still lived his life; he was still intense, energetic, persevering, consistent, but the principle of action was changed.
' A. Maclaren, 2Tie Holy of Holiet.
358 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
New light had burst upon him ; a new power had taken posses- sion of him ; the life that he henceforth lived, he lived by the faith of the Son of God. He is the concrete example of the true principle of a noble Christian life — " faith in the Son of God."
^ That unpretending but celebrated book, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, was intended to throw light upon questions concerning consolation to the individual sinner through his personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith (it should be remembered) not only believes a doctrine but welcomes a person, a personal deliverer or saviour. It takes Christ, who is actually offering Himself in the gospel to every sinner who has ears to hear. A believer cleaves to Christ as his living Saviour, brother, and friend ; and all this, through his private personal dealing with the Saviour, not through a notion of the safety of the company of believers and of himself as one of them. " The Ufe that I live in the flesh," said Paul, *' I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Therefore the most scriptural theologians tell us that in the nature of true faith there is an actual appropriation. And (says a modern writer) " The Marrow- men wanted to bring back the appropriating persuasion still more strongly put by many Eeformation theologians." ^
4. For this, then, Christ our Saviour was content to suffer death on the cross — not that the Father might be made to love us, but that we might have life, and have it in abundance. And those who have that life, and feel it leaping up within them unto life eternal, tell us with one voice that it flows from the cross of Christ. Search through the ages, search through every land, and wherever you can find one who verily knows the powers of another world, he will tell you with St. Paul, " I have been crucified with Christ ; yet I live ; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me j and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me."
^ I want to realize more and more in my own experience the truth of these words, " Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." What an honour, what a privilege, to have Christ by His Spirit dwelling within us, the motive power and main- spring of our life ! To have Christ within, nailing our corruptions and selfishness in all its forms to His cross, working in us and speaking through us, so that our whole lives may be a testimony