(3) We are made full in Him as regards our Christian character. Christianity is not the perfect religion in the sense of being revealed as a finished, rounded, symmetrical whole. It is not perfect in the sense of a closed circle, or a plastic form, which can be altered in nothing without being spoiled. It is not a perfection of proportion, of harmony, of symmetry. That is the Greek, pagan idea of perfection ; whereas in Christianity we enter the perfect life maimed. The pagan idea of perfection is balance, or harmony of parts with each other. It is self-con- tained and self -poised. The Christian idea is faith, or harmony of relations with the will of God. It is self -devoted, complete in Him ; the perfection not of finish but of faith. It is perfect, not because it presents us with perfection, but because it puts us in a perfect attitude to perfection.
Christian perfection is something which we are put in the perfect way to realize, in the sense that we realize a living, moving ideal of character and life. It is not something with which we are presented; it is not even something we are to believe ; but it is something into which we are redeemed. The perfection of Christianity is not even in the ideal of perfection it offers, but in the power of perfection it implants ; not in its ideal of a Son of God, but in the power it gives, with the Son of God, to become sons of God by believing in His name.
^ From every fresh manifestation of our self-incompleteness, we may retreat under cover to this gracious assurance, " Ye are
^ W. Adamson.
474 COMPLETE IN CHRIST
complete in him." We may sink into Christ when we cannot rise to Him. And thus we shall be made strong and victorious through apparent defeat, as again and again —
The steps of Faith Fall on the seeming void and find The rock beneath.^
Dear Lord, it is better that I
Should go through the world with one eye,
If Thou, Light and Guide, be but nigh.
It is better, 0 Saviour divine,
To lose this right hand of mine.
If Thou hold but the other in Thine.
Thou only canst make me complete ;
And to limp by Thy side were more sweet,
Than walking alone on both feet.^
3. We must be in vital connexion with Christ, if we are to be filled with His fulness. The Apostle goes on " and in him ye are made full," which sets forth two things as true in the inward life of Christians, namely, their living incorporation in and union with Christ, and their consequent participation in His fulness. Every one of us may enter into that most real and close union with Jesus Christ by the power of continuous faith in Him. So may we be grafted into the Vine, and builded into the Eock. If thus we keep our hearts in contact with His heart, and let Him lay His lip on our lips, He will breathe into us the breath of His own life, and we shall live because He lives, and in our measure, as He lives. All the fulness of God is in Him, that from Him it may pass into us. We might start back from such bold words if we did not remember that the same Apostle who here tells us that the fulness dwells in Jesus, crowns his wonder- ful prayer for the Ephesian Christians with that daring petition, " that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God." The treasure was lodged in the earthen vessel of Christ's manhood that it might be within our reach. According to our need it will shape itself, being to each what the moment most requires — wisdom, or strength, or beauty, or courage, or patience. Out of it will come 1 A. J. Gordon, In Christ, 118. " J. A. Torrey.
COLOSSIANS II. 9, lo 475
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, as Eabbinical legends tell us that the manna tasted to each man like the food he wished for most.
^ An aspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust, and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity. To have many of these is to be spiritually rich.^
Oh, Bearer of the key That shuts and opens with a sound so sweet
Its turning in the wards is melody, All things we move among are incomplete
And vain until we fashion them in Thee ! ^
^ What religion desires is not a truncated piece of a man, but a whole man, healthy, happy, natural, and free. Eeligion is not a January thaw of sentimentalism, but a clear, vigorous, frosty morning, which stirs one's energy and steadies one's nerves. Eeligion means not less life but more life, not subtraction of power but multiplication of power, not emptiness but fulness. I remember hearing it said of Phillips Brooks that he seldom preached a sermon without using in it the word " richness," and it was certainly a word most characteristic of him. Life to that great prophet was ineffably rich, and to realize and share the richness of experience, to accept the rich privilege of life with a chaste body, an alert mind, a sensitive imagination, and a steady will, — that was but to repeat the great promise of this passage, " Ye are complete in him." ^