But there is more than this. It is not enough to know that we are treading the divinely appointed path. We want to realize the divine presence. We want to have the precious words made good in our experience, "Surely I will be with thee." This completes the servant's equipment. The divine commission and the divine presence are all we want; but we must have these in order to get on. With these priceless realities it matters not who we are. The Lord can use a feeble woman, a left-handed man, a cake of barley meal, or a broken pitcher. The instrument is nothing. God is the workman. Unbelief may cry out, "O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold my family is _poor_ in Manasseh, and I am the _least_ in my father's house." Faith can cry out in reply, "What of all this if God be for us? Does He want the rich or the noble? What are riches or greatness to Him? Nothing." "Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence" (1 Cor. i. 26-29).
These are wholesome words for all of us. It is an unspeakable mercy for every dear servant of Christ to be kept in the abiding sense of his own utter nothingness--to be taught to realize, in some measure, the depth, fulness, and power of that one brief but most comprehensive statement, "Apart from Me ye can do nothing." There is not a single branch in all the vine, however imposing or wide-spreading it may seem to be, which, if separated from the parent stem by the thickness of a gold leaf, can produce the very smallest atom of fruit. There must be the abiding realization of our vital union with Christ,--the practical, living, abiding in Him, by faith, day by day, in order to bring forth any fruit that God can accept. It is as we abide in Christ that the living sap circulates freely through us, and gives forth the healthy bud, the green leaf, and the seasonable fruit.
Here lies the grand secret of power. It is abiding in the living Vine. "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is; for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river; and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit" (Jer. xvii. 7, 8).
All this is intensely personal. We must each, for himself and herself, cling by faith to Christ. It is of the very first importance for Christians to bear in mind that Christianity is a thoroughly individual thing. We are individual in our repentance, in our faith, in our salvation, in our communion, in our service, and in our reward. Look at the addresses to the seven churches in Rev. ii., iii. Hearken to those pointed words, "_He_ that hath an ear,"--"To _him_ that overcometh." What do they mean? Do they not set forth, in the most distinct and forcible manner, that blessed individuality of which we speak? Unquestionably. But do they touch unity? Not in the smallest degree. They leave its sacred domain wholly untouched. "There is one body and one Spirit." This must ever hold good, spite of all the ruin and failure of the professing Church. Nevertheless, the writings of John are pre-eminently individual.[22] From the opening lines of his Gospel to the closing sentence of his Apocalypse, we trace this feature. He shows us the Philips, the Simons, the Andrews, and the Nathanaels coming, in their individuality, to Jesus. He tells us of a Jewish ruler here, and a Samaritan sinner there, who were drawn by the Father to Jesus. He tells us of the good Shepherd who calleth His sheep by name. He tells us of the branches clinging to the living Vine. Thus it is in John's Gospel; and when we turn to his Epistles, we find the same principle running through them all. He writes to an elect lady, and to his beloved Gaius; and if he once speaks of "the Church," it is but to weep over its departed glory, and to raise amid its ruins that warning note for individual ears, "_Look to yourselves_." And as to the Revelation, it ends as it begins, with a solemn appeal "_to him that heareth_."
[22] Eternal life and its manifestations--first in our Lord, and then in the children of God--being the general line of truth in John's Gospel and epistles, is individual and personal. In Paul's epistles the unity of the saints as baptized by one Spirit into one body, with what flows from it, is brought out. [ED.]