4. This glory, it should be noticed, is not simply heaven, and it is not entirely future. Chrisjb in us is the hope of the full manifestation of our character in love which never can be here ; but it begins here. We love at once, as soon as we recognize
^ E. H. Divall, A Believer's Songs, 86.
COLOSSIANS I. 27 443
that He first loved us. And St. Paul does not hesitate to call the Corinthians and Colossians with all their shortcomings, "saints." Their goodness was not very visible or, perhaps, actually very great, but the possession of Christ was the assurance that they would attain to glory ; and he salutes them on the way.
The immature faith of a Peter may fail and fall, but he can appeal from the very failure of his weakness to the heart of his love. " Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee." The victory is gradual. We " go from strength to strength " ; the " image of the earthly " is gradually effaced — the "image of the heavenly" is perfectly produced. In spiritual experience we are conscious of the indwelling Christ — in yearnings for God, in holy affections and growing sympathies, in passionate consecration, in pious, fervent, joyous worship, in ineffable communion. In our relations to our brother men, the indwelling of Christ is manifested in the purity, rectitude, and benevolence of all these relations. "He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit." The religious life that does not find expression in ways of piety, holiness, and unselfishness is spurious and worthless. " By their fruits ye shall know them."
^ Holiness means, in the first place, perfect disinterestedness, indifference to earthly and human interests. Again, it implies a mind one with God, over which no shadow of uncleanness or untruth ever passes, which seeks only to know His will, and, knowing it, to carry it out in the world. To purity and truth it adds peace and a certain dignity derived from independence of all things. It is heaven upon earth — to live loving all men, disturbed by nothing, fearing nothing. It is a temper of mind which is unshaken by changes of religious opinion, which is not dependent upon outward observances of religion. Such a character we may meet with once or twice in a long life, and derive a sort of inspiration from it. And oh ! that it were possible that some of us might, even in the days of our youth, find the blessedness of leading such a life in God's presence always.^
^ The inward experience of a new creation, the actual forma- tion of Christ, as the resident life within, " worked mightily " in Paul, and he called everybody to a similar experience. Few words
^ Benjamin Jowett.
444 CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY
have ever borne a more touching appeal than that intimate personal call to his wavering friends in Galatia: "My little children, I am travailing in birth pains again for you until Christ he formed in you." To the Eoman Christians he says : " If Christ he in you, the sinful body is dead." To the Corinthian believers he says : " Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you." . . . The Ephesian prayer carries us almost beyond what can be asked or thought — that " Christ may dwell in your hearts." And the Colossian letter declares that the riches of the glory of the Divine revelation is this : " Christ in you." It would be easy to multiply texts, but the mystical aspect of Paul's " Gospel " does not rest on isolated texts. It is woven into the very structure of his message. He cares not at all for the shell of religion. The survival of ceremonial practices are to him "nothing." Circumcision, which stands in his thought for the whole class of religious performances, " avails nothing." Every- thing turns on a " new creation." His aim is always the creation of a " new man," the formation of the " inward man," and this " inward man " is formed, not by the practice of rite or ritual, not by the laying on of hands, but by the actual incorporation of Christ — the Divine Life — into the life of the man, in such a way that he who is Joined to the Lord is one Spirit. Christ is resident within, and thereby produces a new spirit — a principle of power, a source of illumination, an earnest of unimagined glory.^
II.
The Hope of Gloky.
1. If we require a little explanation of the word " glory," do we not at least understand the word " hope " at once ? If one were to ask us if Christ is being formed in us, or if we are on the way to glory, what do we answer ? Very often, " I hope so." Is that the Apostle's hope when he says " Christ in you the hope of glory " ? No, nor is that the sense in which the word " hope " is ever used in the Bible of the Christian hope.
^ Joy and peace are the causes of hope. But if you look again you will see near the beginning of the chapter (Eom. xv.) another source of it — " patience and comfort of the scriptures " ; and I have always noted the combination of the two different occasions as full of blessed teaching. Not only the sunny and