DAY 222 – IN CHRIST ---------------------------- Noah’s Ark was a model of Christ. The animals that were preserved from the flood passed through the door into the ark, the LORD shut them in, and they floated in perfect safety. We are in Christ in the same sense. Christ is the ark of God provided against the Day of Judgment. We, by faith, believe him to be capable of saving us. We come and trust him, we risk our souls with him, believing that there is no risk. Giving up every other hope or shadow of hope, we trust in what Jesus did, is doing, and is in himself, and therefore he becomes to us our ark, and we are in him – in the ark. The LORD Jesus represents us as being in him as the branch is in the vine. The branch derives all its nourishment, its juice, its life, its fruit-bearing power, from the stem in which it is united. It would be of no use if the branch is placed next to the trunk of the tree, it would be useless even to tie it next to the stem side by side – it must be actually in it by union. There must be sap-streams flowing at the proper season into it, life-floods gushing into it from the parent stem. In the same manner there is a mysterious union between Christ and his people, not to be explained but to be enjoyed, not to be defined but to be experienced, in which the very life of Christ flows into us, and we by virtue of what comes out of him into us, become like him, and bring about a bunch of good fruit into his honour and to God’s glory. Friends, I hope many of you know what this means. May you be one with Jesus, bonded to him, united to him never to be separated for ever. We may be in Christ also, just like the stone is in the building. The stone is built into the wall and is part of it. The stones and the cement become one rock, one wall, one building. That is what it is to be in Christ: it is to trust him for salvation as Noah trusted the ark. To be in Christ is to derive real life from him as the branch does from the stem. It is to be united to him as the stone leans on the foundation and becomes an integral part of the whole building. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.” “In Christ,” has a weight of meaning in it. One might ask, “How do I come to be ‘in Christ?’” Well, our union to Christ is wrought in us by faith, when a person gives himself to Christ to sink or swim, when he inclines his soul completely on the LORD, when he depends on Christ and on Christ alone, not on good works or ceremonies but on Christ Jesus – then such a man is in Christ. Also he is in Christ when he loves Jesus, when the heart having trusted is moved with deep and warm affection to the Crucified Saviour, so that the soul clings to Christ, embracing him with fervent love, and Christ becomes the bridegroom, and the heart becomes his spouse, and they are married in a union which no divorce can never separate. When love and faith come together, then there is a blessed sweet communion. These two become the double channel through which the Holy Spirit’s influence flows forth daily, making the believer to grow up more fully unto Christ Jesus into all things. The mature the believer becomes, the nearer to the glory, the closer to the promised perfection, the more completely will he think and act, live and move, in Christ his Master, being one with Jesus in all things. Every believer is in Christ. Every true Christian is in Christ. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.”
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 19:50:45 +0000
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