1932.] Christ Is All In All. 27

Mark then, I pray you, how entirely salvation is of grace from first to last. You have seen what provision God has made for us in our low estate. You have seen what he has laid up for us in Christ, and what Christ is made unto us, even all that we stand in need of. But you have not seen how it is that Christ is made all this to the believing soul. It is by our being " in Christ Jesus :" " Of him are ye in Christ Jesus" Now we must be engrafted into Christ as scions, before we can partake of any of these things : we must be cut off from the old stock whereon we grew in our natural state, and be made living branches of Him the living Vine. And who, I beg leave to ask, can do this for us ? It can be done by none but God, the great husbandman, who has himself ordained this as the only way of saving our ruined race. And this is twice marked in my text with very peculiar force and emphasis : " Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who OF God is made unto us wisdom, and righteous- ness, and sanctification, and redemption." Now I ask, who was it that gave the Saviour to us, or us to him? Who was it that accepted him in our behalf? Who was it that, after accepting his sacrifice in our behalf, constituted him our living Head, and trea- sured up in him such a fulness of all that we stood in need of? And who was it that cut us off from our old stock and grafted us into him ? And who was it that by this mysterious process actually made us partakers of all these benefits ? Hear it, and forget it not : " It is of God that ye are in Christ Jesus : and of God that Christ is made unto you all that you stand in need of." Let God then have all the glory. This was the very end for tvhich he did all this, as he tells us both in the words that precede my text, and in the words that follow it : '' God, says the Apostle, has chosen things which are not, to bring to nought things which are, that no flesh should glory in his -presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that, according as it is z&ritten, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."