Chapter XI, Concluding Thoughts, Continued.
iii. In the practice of daily life, in the derivation from the risen Lord of the power of “new obedience,” let me and my reader recollect steadily, and weave into one cord - a cord that at once binds and knits - two sacred facts of our state as believers. First, we BELONG to the Lord; secondly, we are JOINED to Him.
“Whether we live, we live unto the Master; whether we die, we die unto the Master.” Let the words “I BELONG” be written, in redeeming blood, across your whole life. Wake up with that fact in recollection; not that feeling but that fact. Carry it into morning, noon, and night. Lie down upon your bed with it. We have dwelt on this side of truth already, elsewhere.* But let it be pressed home on heart and will once more. Everything else tends to fall abroad and into pieces without it. Nature fears it, but when by the grace of God a man has looked it in the face, or far rather has looked in the face THE MASTER who makes the claim, it is peace and rest to surrender, quite at discretion, to that Ownership. “To this end,” that He might be Master, “He died and rose again.” This must be, this is, a very blessed “end” - for Possessor and possessed!
“I love, I love my Master; I will not go out free;
For He is my Redeemer; He paid the price for me.”
Happy, happy, the human will that is bound with this chain. It is free indeed. Make proof, on the Master’s warrant, and “thou shalt know.”
But again, we are “JOINED to the Lord,” So says the Spirit. The passage and context are full of the essence of the new Life and its exercise. We gather there, that the believer belongs to Christ not merely as a man’s watch, for instance, but as his hand, belongs to him. And observe that this is true for every “limb” of the blessed Head; not for the highly developed member only, but for the member; yes, as the whole passage shows, even for the member struggling with the force of the crudest and basest temptation. For the disheartened, aye, for the falling Christian, this word is written: “you are joined to the Lord” now; you are “one Spirit” now. It is not reward of obedience, but gift of God. The word is not “you ought,” but “you possess.” It is not “you feel it,” but “thus it is.” What have you, thus united, to do with sin? What need temptation do against you, thus united?
The man who recollects his belongingness to Jesus Christ, his irrevocable lot and state of bond service to Him, and who recollects along with it his living union with Him, is the man who may humbly, calmly, and with restful expectation say with St. Paul, “I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me." "Nothing shall in any wise hurt him." Shall we take our place, in the name of the Lord Jesus, among these people, and go forward in this blessed double recollection, not into some imagined path of duty and patience, but into our own?
Very real, very great, is the power and preciousness of the holy Supper of the Lord, in the light of this combination of truths. Our redemption to be the property of our beloved Saviour, and our mystical Union with Him as our Head, are there, in the same divine act, "visibly signed and sealed" by HIMSELF, the true Master of the Table, to each true disciple. What certainties of assurance, what warrants of strength and peace, lie in that fact!
* In the author's "Thoughts on Christian Sanctity," ch. iv.
“Whether we live, we live unto the Master; whether we die, we die unto the Master.” Let the words “I BELONG” be written, in redeeming blood, across your whole life. Wake up with that fact in recollection; not that feeling but that fact. Carry it into morning, noon, and night. Lie down upon your bed with it. We have dwelt on this side of truth already, elsewhere.* But let it be pressed home on heart and will once more. Everything else tends to fall abroad and into pieces without it. Nature fears it, but when by the grace of God a man has looked it in the face, or far rather has looked in the face THE MASTER who makes the claim, it is peace and rest to surrender, quite at discretion, to that Ownership. “To this end,” that He might be Master, “He died and rose again.” This must be, this is, a very blessed “end” - for Possessor and possessed!
“I love, I love my Master; I will not go out free;
For He is my Redeemer; He paid the price for me.”
Happy, happy, the human will that is bound with this chain. It is free indeed. Make proof, on the Master’s warrant, and “thou shalt know.”
But again, we are “JOINED to the Lord,” So says the Spirit. The passage and context are full of the essence of the new Life and its exercise. We gather there, that the believer belongs to Christ not merely as a man’s watch, for instance, but as his hand, belongs to him. And observe that this is true for every “limb” of the blessed Head; not for the highly developed member only, but for the member; yes, as the whole passage shows, even for the member struggling with the force of the crudest and basest temptation. For the disheartened, aye, for the falling Christian, this word is written: “you are joined to the Lord” now; you are “one Spirit” now. It is not reward of obedience, but gift of God. The word is not “you ought,” but “you possess.” It is not “you feel it,” but “thus it is.” What have you, thus united, to do with sin? What need temptation do against you, thus united?
The man who recollects his belongingness to Jesus Christ, his irrevocable lot and state of bond service to Him, and who recollects along with it his living union with Him, is the man who may humbly, calmly, and with restful expectation say with St. Paul, “I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me." "Nothing shall in any wise hurt him." Shall we take our place, in the name of the Lord Jesus, among these people, and go forward in this blessed double recollection, not into some imagined path of duty and patience, but into our own?
Very real, very great, is the power and preciousness of the holy Supper of the Lord, in the light of this combination of truths. Our redemption to be the property of our beloved Saviour, and our mystical Union with Him as our Head, are there, in the same divine act, "visibly signed and sealed" by HIMSELF, the true Master of the Table, to each true disciple. What certainties of assurance, what warrants of strength and peace, lie in that fact!
* In the author's "Thoughts on Christian Sanctity," ch. iv.
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