Now, that continuous operation of Jesus Christ in the midst of men is not to be weakened down to the mere continued influence of the truths which He proclaimed, or the Gospel which He brought. There is something a great deal more than the diminishing vibrations of a force long since set in operation, and slowly ceasing to act. Dead teachers do still 'rule our spirits from their urns'; but it is no dead Christ who, by the influence of what He did when He was living, sways the world and comforts His Church; it is a living Christ who to-day is working in His people, by His Spirit. Further, He works on the world through His people by the Word; they plant and water, He 'gives the increase.' And He is working in the world, for His Church and for the world, by His wielding of all power that is given to Him, in heaven and on earth. So that the work that is done upon earth He doeth it all Himself; and Christian people unduly limit the sphere of Christ's operations when they look back only to the Cross, and talk about a 'finished work' there, and forget that that finished work there is but the vestibule of the continuous work that is being done to-day.
Christian people! The present work of Christ needs working servants. We are here in order to carry on His work. The Apostle ventured to say that he was appointed 'to fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ'; we may well venture to say that we are here mainly to apply to the world the benefits resulting from the finished work upon the Cross. The accomplishment of redemption, and the realisation of the accomplished redemption, are two wholly different things. Christ has done the one. He says to us, 'You are honoured to help Me to do the other.' According to the accurate rendering of a great saying of the Old Testament, 'Take no rest, and give Him no rest, till He establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth, Christ's work is finished; there is nothing for us to do with it but trust it. Christ's work is going on; come to His help. Ye are fellow-labourers with and to the Incarnate Truth.
III. I need not say more than a word about the third thought, suggested by these texts--viz., the completion of the work which began on the Cross.
'It is done!' That lies, no man knows how far, ahead of us. As surely as astronomers tell us that all this universe is hastening towards a central point, so surely 'that far-off divine event' is that 'to which the whole creation moves.' It is the blaze of light which fills the distant end of the dim vista of human history. Its elements are in part summed up in the context--the tabernacle of God with men, the perfected fellowship of the human with the divine, the housing of men in the very home and heart of God; 'a new heaven and a new earth,' a renovated universe; the removal of all evil, suffering, sorrow, sin, and tears. These things are to be, and shall be, when He says 'It is done!'
Brethren! nothing else than such an issue can be the end of Creation, for nothing else than such is the purpose of God for man, and God is not going to be beaten by the world and the devil. Nothing else than such can be the issue of the Cross; for 'He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied,' and Christ is not going to labour in vain, and spend His life, and give His breath and His blood for nought.
Nothing but the work finished on the Cross guarantees the coming of that perfected issue. I know not where else there is hope for mankind, looking on the history of humanity, except in that great message, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come, has died, lives for ever, and is the world's King and Lord.