Lordship of Christ. 3. That he relies upon the atonement made by Chri~t. 4. Thl\t he rooeh·es power from Christ every day and all tho day long. 6. That he lms no othor conception of a worthy object in life than that life should be wholly for Christ.. 6, That for life or death, for time or eternity, he commits his all to Christ. 7. And lastly, that the life ho lives now, that the lifo he hopes for hereafter, is received from Christ himself, and can be sustained by him alone. For there is no such hypothesis in the text as that a man can be out of Christ one moment and in him the next, and vice versa, thus alternating perpetually. The phrase is "abideth in him." It is not, however, necessarily supposed here that the man is in Christ. The only snpposition is that be decla,·es such to be the case. Hence the question arises-How is this decla- ration supposed to be made? Nothing can be clearer, both from the Gospels and the Epistles, that open confession of faith before the world was expected of believers, and "·as indeed the natural outcome of such faith.' There was the broader confession, when di~ciples were admitted to Christian training by the rite of baptism. There was the far fuller and deeper one when the ranks of believers gathered together around the table of the Lord, declaring that Christ was the Lifo of thoso that believe. In a word, while, in mingling with the world and in ordinary conversation, it was quite possible for a man openly to confess his Saviour, go where he would, yet the recognized public avowal of his faith and hope as a Christian was to be found in his taking his place among the ranks of the faithful, and in })]edging himself to be everywhere true to his Sa,iour and to his fellow-believers, when he gathered with them around the Eucharistic board! II. AN AVOWAL so GREAT DEMA!s'DS A COllRESPONDlNG WALK. "He that saith . .• ought himself," etc. 1. How ought he to walk 1 "Even as he walked." '!'he out- ward walk ought to correspond with the verbal avowal. But ,vho can suitably describe how Christ walked? Expansion of this is not possible within our assigned space. We can but hint. See Christ's purity, devotedness to God, love of communion with God, pity, benevolence, daring, patience, self-sacrifice, resistive force even to the death. A man who says he abides in Christ ought to reproduce that life in his own! We are not required to follow him in the waters of baptism, nor in the forty days' temp- tation, nor in his wondrous works; but in his Spirit and his life he has left us an example that we should follow his steps. He stands historically at the head of the human race, its most heavenly Inspirer, its noblest Figure, its most luminous Example. 2. Why ought the walk to be conjoined with the avowal 1 Dr. Westcott aptly calls our attention to the fact that the word here used is not 8ei', denoting a" must" in the nature of things, but o,pel>..,., which expregses a special, personal obligation. To whom, then, does the avower owe it to "live like him whom he avows as his Lord and his Life"? Certainly (1) he owes it to himself to be consistent with his dec~aration. (2) He owes it to his Christian brethren with whom be is in Church-fellowship_. (3) But supremely he owes it to bis Lord, whose holy Name he thus takes upon_ himself. For our Lord Jesus Christ is in some sort represented by the professors of his Name. Alas! alas! while in every age there have been very many who have" ador1;1ed the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things," who can reflect without many a sigh and many a tear of the numberless ways in which our Lord has been wounded in the house of his friends? Surely, surely our Lord endured suffering enough for us when he was on earth. Do not let him suffer from us now he is in heaven! And if even thus the argument should fail to impress, let two matters more be weighed: One, _that if the avowal is true, a man will make it his aim to live as Christ lived; for the life a man receirns from Chrillt cannot possibly be other than like his own. Another, that if a man is not living a Christ-like life, he is thereby disproving the truth of tht avowal he is making. The water in the stream cannot be muddy if it comes direct from the pure fountain-head. W c are well aware that a preacher's fidelity on this matter will lie met by-Objectio11 (1) such as this: "How ignorant of the ways of the world you preachers must be I Nothing can stand in our day against twenty-five per cent. profit." Reply: Our thesis is, if a man declares he is in Christ, he says he treads mammon underfoot_; an~ if he says it, he is exp~cted to show it. Objection (2): "Impossible I too high I' Reply: his too high for a. Christless man, but not for "a man in Christ.'' Note: 1 Let the following pa.sea.gee bP. compared : 1 Cor. xii. 8 ; Rom. x. 10. DR,-u.1-29.] THE FIRST EPIS'l'LE GENERAL OF JOHN. 33
When life and profession harmonize with each other, and both harmonize with a perfect ideal, the life is what it ought to be, and all that it can be.