<
Abide
In Christ by Andrew Murray
Day
31
The
Glorified One
“Your
life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life
appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:3,4)
He
who abides in Christ the Crucified One learns to know what it is to
be crucified with Him, and in Him to be indeed dead unto sin. He who
abides in Christ the Risen and Glorified One, becomes in the same way
partaker of His resurrection life, and of the glory with which He has
now been crowned in heaven. Unspeakable are the blessings which flow
to the soul from the union with Jesus in His glorified life.
This
life is a life of perfect victory and rest. Before His death, the Son
of God had to suffer and to struggle, could be tempted and troubled
by sin and its assaults. As the Risen One, He has triumphed over sin;
and, as the Glorified One, His humanity has entered into
participation of the glory of Deity.
The
believer who abides in Him as such is led to see how the power of sin
and the flesh are indeed destroyed. The consciousness of complete and
everlasting deliverance becomes increasingly clear, and the blessed
rest and peace, the fruit of such a conviction that victory and
deliverance are an accomplished fact, take possession of his life.
Abiding in Jesus, in whom he has been raised and set in the heavenly
places, he receives of that glorious life streaming from the Head
through every member of the body.
This
life is a life in the full fellowship of the Father's love and
holiness. Jesus often gave prominence to this thought with His
disciples. His death was His going to the Father. He prayed: 'And
now, O Father, glorify me together with Yourself, with the glory
which I had with You before the world was" (John 17:5). As the
believer, abiding in Christ the Glorified One, seeks to realize and
experience what His union with Jesus on the throne implies, he begins
to comprehend how the unclouded light of the Father's presence is His
highest glory and blessedness, and in Him the believer's portion too.
He learns the sacred art of always dwelling in the secret of the
Father's presence, in fellowship with His exalted Head, Further, when
Jesus was on earth, temptation could still reach Him. In glory,
everything is holy, and in perfect harmony with the will of God. And
so the believer who abides in Him experiences that in this high
fellowship, his spirit is sanctified into growing harmony with the
Father's will. The heavenly life of Jesus is the power that casts out
sin.
This
life is a life of loving benefit and activity. Seated on His throne,
He dispenses His gifts, bestows His Spirit, and never ceases in love
to watch and to work for those who are His. The believer cannot abide
in Jesus, the Glorified One, without feeling himself stirred and
strengthened to work: the Spirit and the love of Jesus breathe the
will and the power to be a blessing to others. Jesus went to heaven
with the very object of obtaining power there to bless abundantly. He
does this as the heavenly Vine only through the medium of His people
as His branches. Whoever, therefore, abides in Him, the Glorified
One, bears much fruit, for he receives of the Spirit and the power of
the eternal life of his exalted Lord, and becomes the channel through
which the fullness of Jesus, who has been exalted to be a Prince and
a Savior, flows out to bless those around him.
There
is one more thought in regard to this life of the Glorified One, and
ours in Him. It is a life of wondrous expectation and hope. It is
also this way with Christ. He sits at the right hand of God,
expecting until all His enemies are made His footstool, looking
forward to the time when He will receive His full reward, when His
glory will be made manifest, and His beloved people are ever with Him
in that glory. The hope of Christ is the hope of His redeemed: "I
will come again and take you to myself, that where I am there you may
be also” (John 14:3). This promise is as precious to Christ as it
ever can be to us. The joy of meeting is surely no less for the
coming Bridegroom than for the waiting bride. The life of Christ in
glory is one of longing expectation: the full glory only comes when
His beloved are with Him.
The
believer who abides closely in Christ will share with Him in this
spirit of expectation. Not so much for the increase of personal
happiness, but from the spirit of enthusiastic allegiance to his
King, he longs to see Him come in His glory, reigning over every
enemy, the full revelation of God's everlasting love. "Until He
comes," is the watchword of every true-hearted believer. "Christ
shall appear, and we shall appear with Him in glory."
There
may be very serious differences in the exposition of the promises of
His coming. To one it is plain as day that He is coming very speedily
in person to reign on earth, and that speedy coming is his hope and
his stay. To another, loving his Bible and his Savior no less, the
coming can mean nothing but the Judgment Day — the solemn
transition from time to eternity, the close of history on earth, the
beginning of heaven; and the thought of that manifestation of his
Savior's glory is no less his joy and his strength. It is Jesus,
Jesus coming again, Jesus taking us to Himself, Jesus adored as Lord
of all, that is to the whole Church the sum and the center of its
hope.
It
is by abiding in Christ the Glorified One that the believer will be
quickened to that truly spiritual looking for His coming, which alone
brings true blessing to the soul. There is an interest in the study
of the things which are to be, in which the discipleship of a school
is often more marked than the discipleship of Christ the meek; in
which contendings for opinions and condemnation of brethren are more
striking than any signs of the coming glory. It is only the humility
that is willing to learn from those who may have other gifts and
deeper revelations of the truth than we do, and the love that always
speaks gently and tenderly of those who do not see as we do, and the
heavenliness that shows that the Coming One is indeed already our
life, that will persuade either the Church or the world that this our
faith is not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. To
testify of the Savior as the Coming One, we must be abiding in and
bearing the image of Him as the Glorified One. Not the correctness of
the views we hold, nor the earnestness with which we advocate them,
will prepare us for meeting Him, but only the abiding in Him. Then
only can our being manifested in glory with Him be what it is meant
to be - a transfiguration, a breaking out and shining forth of the
indwelling glory that had been waiting for the day of revelation.
Blessed
life! "the life hidden with Christ in God," "set in
the heavenlies in Christ," abiding in Christ the glorified! Once
again the question comes: Can a feeble child of dust really dwell in
fellowship with the King of glory? And again the blessed answer has
to be given: To maintain that union is the very work for which Christ
has all power in heaven and earth at His disposal. The blessing will
be given to him who will trust his Lord for it, who in faith and
confident expectation ceases not to yield himself to be wholly one
with Him. It was an act of wondrous though simple faith, in which the
soul yielded itself at first to the Savior. That faith grows up to
clearer insight and faster hold of God's truth that we are one with
Him in His glory. In that same wondrous faith, wondrously simple, but
wondrously mighty, the soul learns to abandon itself entirely to the
keeping of Christ's almighty power, and the actings of His Eternal
Life. Because it knows that it has the Spirit of God dwelling within
to communicate all that Christ is, it no longer looks upon it as a
burden or a work, but allows the Divine life to have its way, to do
its work. Its faith is the increasing abandonment of self, the
expectation and acceptance of all that the love and the power of the
Glorified One can perform. In that faith unbroken fellowship is
maintained, and growing conformity realized. As with Moses, the
fellowship makes partakers of the glory, and the life begins to shine
with a brightness not of this world.
Blessed
life! It is ours, for Jesus is ours. Blessed life! We have the
possession within us in its hidden power, and we have the prospect
before us in its fullest glory. May our daily lives be the bright and
blessed proof that the hidden power dwells within, preparing us for
the glory to be revealed. May our abiding in Christ the Glorified One
be our power to live to the glory of the Father, our fitness to share
in the glory of the Son.
AND
NOW, LITTLE CHILDREN, ABIDE IN HIM, THAT, WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR, WE
MAY HAVE CONFIDENCE, AND NOT BE ASHAMED BEFORE HIM AT HIS COMING. (1
John 2:28)
No comments:
Post a Comment