968. Life in Christ

No. 968-17:1. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Morning, January 1, 1871, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

Because I live, you shall live also. {Joh 14:19}1

1. This world saw our Lord Jesus for a very little time, but now it sees him no more. It only saw him with the outward eye and in a physical manner so that when the clouds received him and concealed him from bodily vision, this spiritually blind world lost sight of him altogether. Here and there, however, among the crowds of the sightless, there were a few chosen men who had received spiritual sight; Christ had been light to them; he had opened their blind eyes, and they had seen him as the world had not seen him. In a high and full sense, they could say, “We have seen the Lord,” for they had, in some degree, perceived his Godhead, understood his mission, and learned his spiritual character. Since spiritual sight does not depend on the physical presence of its object, those people who had seen Jesus spiritually saw him after he had gone out of the world to the Father. We who have the same sight still see him. Read the words of the verse carefully before us: “Yet a little while, and the world does not see me any more; but you see me.” It is a distinguishing mark of a true follower of Jesus that he sees his Lord and Master when he is not to be seen by the bodily eye; he sees him intelligently and spiritually; he knows his Lord, discerns his character, apprehends him by faith, gazes at him with admiration, and looks to him for all his needs.

2. Now, my brethren, remember that just as our first sight of Christ brought us into spiritual life, for we looked to him and were saved, so it is by the continuance of this spiritual sight of Christ that our spiritual life is consciously maintained. We lived by looking. We still live by looking. Faith is still the medium by which life comes to us from the life-giving Lord. It is not only on the first day of the Christian’s life that he must look to Jesus only, but every day of that life, even until the last, his motto must be, “Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” The world does not see him anymore, for it never saw him properly, but you have seen him and lived, and now, through still continuing to see him, you remain in life. Let us always remember the intimate connection between faith and spiritual life. Faith is the life-look. We must never think that we live by works, by feelings, or by ceremonies. “The just shall live by faith.” We dare not preach to the ungodly sinner a way of obtaining life by the works of the law, and neither dare we hold up to the most advanced believer a way of sustaining life by legal means. We should, in such a case, expect to hear the apostle’s expostulation, “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?” Our glorying is that our life is not dependent on ourselves but is safe in our Lord. As says the apostle, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Because he lives, we live, and shall live forever. May God grant that our eye may always be clear towards Jesus, our life. May we have no confidence except in our Redeemer; may our eye be so fixed on him that no other object may in any measure or degree block our view of him as our all in all.

3. The text contains in it very much weighty truth, far more than we shall be able to draw out from it this morning. First, we see in it a life; secondly, that life preserved; and thirdly, the reason for the preservation of that life: “Because I live, you shall live also.”

4. I. First, we have LIFE spoken of here.

5. We must not confound this with existence. Indeed, it would be to reduce a very rich text to a poverty-stricken sentence if we read it, “Because I exist, you shall exist also.” We could not say of such a use of words that the water of ordinary speech was turned to wine, but rather that the wine was turned to water. Before the disciples believed in Jesus, they existed, and altogether apart from him as their spiritual life, their existence would have been continued; it was something far other and higher than mortal existence that our Lord was dealing with here.

6. Life, what is it? We know practically, but we cannot tell in words. We know it, however, to be a mystery of different degrees. Just as all flesh is not the same flesh, so all life is not the same life. There is the life of the vegetable, the cedar of Lebanon, the hyssop on the wall. There is a considerable advance when it comes to animal life — the eagle or the ox. Animal life moves in quite a different world from that in which the plant lives — sensation, appetite, and instinct are things to which plants are dead, though they may possess some imitation of them, for one life mimics another. Animal life rises far above the experience and apprehension of the flower of the field. Then there is mental life, which all of us possess, which introduces us into quite another realm from what is inhabited by the mere beast. To judge, to foresee, to imagine, to invent, to perform moral acts, are not these new functions that the ox does not have? Now, let it be clear to you that far above mental life, there is another form of life of which the mere carnal man can form no more idea than the plant about the animal or the animal about the poet. The carnal mind does not know spiritual things because it has no spiritual capacities. Just as the beast cannot comprehend the pursuits of the philosopher, so the man who is only a natural man cannot comprehend the experience of the spiritually minded. Thus says the Scripture: “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are only understood by the spiritual man. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no man.” There is in believers a life which is not to be found in other men — nobler, more divine by far; education cannot raise the natural man into it, neither can refinement reach it; for at its best, “what is born of the flesh is flesh,” and the humbling truth must be spoken to all, “You must be born again.”

7. It is to be observed concerning our life in Christ that it is the removal of the penalty which fell on our race for Adam’s sin. “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die,” was the Lord’s threat to our first parent, who was the representative of the race. He ate of that fruit, and since God is true, and his word never fails, we may be sure of this: that in that very same day, Adam died. It is true that he did not cease to exist, but that is quite another thing from dying. The threat was not that he should ultimately die, but “In the day you eat from it you shall surely die”; and it is beyond all doubt that the Lord kept his word to the letter. If the first threatening was not carried out, we might take liberty to trifle with all others. Rest assured, then, that the threat was fulfilled on the spot. The spiritual life departed from Adam; he was no longer at one with God, no more able to live and breathe in the same sphere as the Lord. He fell from his first estate; if he should enter into spiritual life, he needed to be born again, even as you and I must be. As he hides himself from his Maker and utters vain excuses before his God, you see that he is dead to the life of God, dead in trespasses and sins. We also, being heirs of wrath even as others, are dead because of the fall, dead in trespasses and sins; and if we are ever to possess spiritual life, it must be said of us, “And he has quickened you.” We must be as “those who are alive from the dead.” The world is the valley of dry bones, and grace raises the chosen into newness of life. The fall brought universal death, in the deep spiritual sense of that word, over all mankind, and Jesus delivers us from the consequences of the fall by implanting in us a spiritual life. By no other means can this death be removed: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life: and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God rests on him.” The work of regeneration, in which the new life is implanted, effectively restores the ruin of the fall, for we are born again “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and remains for ever.” But you remind me that sin still remains in us after we have received the divine life. I know it does, and it is called “the body of this death”; and it is this which the new life has to struggle with. There is a contention that rages within between the power of the death in the first Adam and the power of the life of the second Adam, but the heavenly life will ultimately overcome the deadly energy of sin. Even today, our inner life groans after deliverance, but with its groan of “Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” it mingles the thankful song, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

8. This life is of a purely spiritual kind. We find analogies and resemblances of it in the common mental life, but they are only analogies. The spiritual life is far and high above the carnal life and altogether out of sight of the fleshly mind. Scarcely are there words in which it can be described. To know this life, you must have it; it must pulsate within your own heart, for no explanations of others can tell you what this life is; it is one of the secrets of the Lord. It would not be possible for us with the greatest skill to communicate to a horse any conception of what imagination is; neither could we, by the most diligent use of words, communicate to carnal minds what it is to be joined to the Lord in order to be one spirit. One thing we know of it — namely, that the spiritual life is intimately connected with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul. When he comes, we are “born again from above,” “born by the Spirit.” While he works in us mightily, our life is active and powerful; if he withdraws his active operations, our new life becomes faint and sickly. Christ is our life, but he works in us through his Holy Spirit, who dwells in us forevermore.

9. Further, we know that this life very much consists in union with God. “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Death concerning the body consists of the body being separated from the soul; the death of the soul lies mainly in the soul’s being separated from its God. For the soul to be in union with God is the soul’s highest life; in his presence, it unfolds itself like an opening flower; away from him, it pines and loses all its beauty and excellence until it is like a destroyed thing. Let the soul obey God, let it be holy, pure, gracious, then it is happy, and truly living; but a soul separated from God is a blighted, killed, destroyed soul; it exists in a dreadful death; all its true peace, dignity, and glory are gone; it is a hideous ruin, the mere corpse of manhood. The new life brings us near to God, makes us think of him, makes us love him, and ultimately makes us like him. My brethren, it is in proportion as you get near to God that you enter into the full enjoyment of life — that life which Jesus Christ gives you and which Jesus Christ preserves in you. “In his favour is life.” {Ps 30:5} “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.” {Pr 14:27} To turn to God is “repentance to life.” To forget God is for a man to be “dead while he lives.” To believe the witness of God is to possess the faith which overcomes the world. “He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself: he who does not believe God has made him a liar because he does not believe the record that God gave concerning his Son. And this is the record that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life, and he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

10. This life within the soul bears fruit on earth in righteousness and true holiness. It blooms with the sweetest flowers of fellowship with God below, and it is made perfect in the presence of God in heaven. The life of glorified spirits above is only the life of justified men here below; it is the same life, only it is delivered from encumbrances and has come to the fulness of its strength. The life of heaven is in every believer even now. The moment a sinner believes in Jesus, he receives from God that very same life which shall look down serenely on the conflagration of earth and the passing away of these lower skies. Blessed is that man who has everlasting life, who is made a partaker of the divine nature, who is born again from above, who is born of God by a seed which remains in him, for he is the man on whom the second death has no power, who shall enjoy eternal life when the wicked go away into everlasting punishment.

11. So much concerning this life, we now have to ask each of you whether you have received it. Have you been born, not by blood, nor by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, but by God? Was there a time with you when you passed from death to life, or are you abiding in death? Do you have the witness in yourself that you have been operated on by a divinely spiritual power? Is there something in you that was not once there, not a faculty developed by education, but a life implanted by God himself? Do you feel an inward craving unknown to carnal minds, a longing desire that this world could neither arouse nor gratify? Is there a strange tenant within this body of yours, a prince incognito, an exiled spirit sighing for a land as yet unseen, of which it is a native and for which it yearns? Do you walk among the sons of men as a being of another race, not from the world, even as Christ was not from the world? Can you say, with the favoured apostle, “We know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, so that we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”? Oh! Then, thank God for this, and thank God even more that you have an infallible guarantee that your life shall be continued and perfected, for so says the text, “Because I live, you shall live also.”

12. II. Our second point concerns LIFE PRESERVED. “Because I live, you shall live also.” There stands the promise, “You shall live also.” This heavenly life of yours which you have received shall be preserved in you.

13. Concerning this sentence, let me draw your attention, first of all, to its fullness: “You shall live.” I think I see in that much more than lies on the surface. Whatever is meant by living shall be ours. All the degree of life which is secured in the covenant of grace, believers shall have. Moreover, all your new nature shall live, shall thoroughly live, shall eternally live. By this word, it is secured that the eternal life implanted at regeneration shall never die out. Just as our Lord said, so shall it be. “Whoever drinks from the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be a well of water in him springing up into everlasting life.” We may be tempted, but we shall not be so led astray as to cease to live in Christ. It may be that we shall decline in grace, a thousand sorrows that it should be so! But we shall not so decline as to become utter apostates or sons of perdition. “He who is begotten by God keeps himself, and that evil one does not touch him.” So says the Redeemer to you, you trembling children of God, “You shall live.” you shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck you out of his hands.

14. May I not view this precious word as referring to all the essential spiritual graces that make up the new man? Not even, in part, shall the new man die. “You shall live” applies to all the parts of our new-born nature. If there is any believer here who has not lived to the full extent as he might have done, let him lay hold on this promise, and since it secures the preservation of all his new nature, let him have the courage to seek a higher degree of spiritual health. “I am come,” says Christ, “that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.” There is no reason, Christian, why your love for Jesus should not become flaming, ardent, and conquering, for it lives and must always live. Concerning your faith, it also has immortal vitality in it, and although it is weak just now and staggering, lift up the hands that hang down and confirm the feeble knees, for your faith shall not die out. Here, in your Lord’s promise, the enduring nature of the vital faculties of your spirit is guaranteed. There is no stint to the fullness of life which is given to you in Christ Jesus. I do not know who shall tell me what it must be to live in all the fullness of Christian life. Beneath the skies, I would labour to attain it, but in this is my joy, that it shall be most surely mine, for this word is faithful and true. Just as surely as I have eternal life today by reason of faith in Christ Jesus, so surely shall I reach its fullness when Christ, who is my life, shall appear.

15. Even here on earth, I have the permit to seek the fullest development of this life. Indeed, I have a precept in this promise asking me to seek after it. “You shall live” means that the new life shall not be destroyed — no, not concerning any of its essentials. All the members of the spiritual man shall be safe; we may say of it as of the Lord himself, “Not a bone of him shall be broken.” The shield of Christ’s own life covers all the faculties of our spiritual nature. We shall not enter into life halted or maimed, but he will present us faultless before the presence of his glory, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, much less any dead limbs or decayed faculties. It is a grand promise and covers the spiritual nature as with the wings of God, so that we may apply to it the words of David in the ninety-first Psalm: “Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the noxious pestilence. He shall cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you shall trust: his truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flies by day; nor for the pestilence that walks in darkness; nor for the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near to you.”

16. The text secures that the death penalty of the law shall never fall on believers. The quickened man shall never fall back into the old death from which he has escaped; he shall not be numbered with the dead and condemned either in this life or the next. Never shall the spiritually living become dead again in sin. Just as Jesus, being raised from the dead, dies no more, death has no more dominion over him; even so, sin shall not have dominion over us again. Once, through the offence of one, death reigned in us; but now, having received an abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, we shall reign in life by one, Christ Jesus. {Ro 5:17} “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” {Ro 5:10}

17. We are united to Christ today by bands of spiritual life, which neither things present nor things to come can separate. Our union with Jesus is eternal. It may be assailed, but it shall never be destroyed. The old body of this death may prevail for a while, and like Herod, it may seek the young child’s life, but it cannot die. Who shall condemn to death what is not under the law? Who shall kill what rests under the shadow of the Almighty? Even as sin reigned to death, even so must grace reign to eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.

18. Observe carefully the continuance insisted on in this verse. Continuance is indeed the main element of this promise — “You shall live.” It certainly means that during our abode in this body, we shall live. We shall not be again reduced to our death state during our sojourn here. Ten thousand attempts will be made to bring us under dominion to the law of sin and death, but this one word baffles it all. Your soul may be so assailed that it shall seem as if you could not keep your hold on Christ, but Christ shall keep his hold on you. The incorruptible seed may be crushed, bruised, or buried, but the life within it shall not be extinguished; it shall still arise. “You shall live.” When you see ten thousand elements of death all around you, think, believers, how grand this word is, “You shall live.” No falling from grace for you, no being cast out of the covenant, no being driven from the Father’s house and left to perish. “You shall live.”

19. Nor is this all, for when the natural death comes, which indeed for us is no longer death, our inner life shall suffer no harm whatever; it will not even be suspended for a moment. It is not a thing that can be touched by death. The shafts of the last enemy can have no more effect on the spiritual than a javelin on a cloud. Even in the very crisis, when the soul is separated from the body, no damage shall be done to the spiritual nature. And in the awful future, when the judgment comes, when the thrones are set, and the multitudes are gathered, and to the right the righteous, and to the left the wicked, let what may of terror and of horror come out, the begotten of God shall live. Onward through eternity, whatever may be the changes which still are to be disclosed, nothing shall affect our God-given life. Like the life of God himself — eternal and ever-blessed, it shall continue. Should all other things be swept away, the righteous must live on; I mean not merely that they shall exist, but they shall live in all the fullness of that far-reaching, much-comprehending word “life.” Bearing the nature of God as far as the creature can participate in it, the begotten from the dead shall prove the certainty of the promise, “You shall live.”

20. Let me further call to your attention that the fact stated here is universal in application to all spiritual life. The promise is, “You shall live,” that is to say, every child of God shall live. Everyone who sees Christ as the world does not see him is living and shall live. I can understand such a promise given to eminent saints who live near to God, but my soul would prostrate herself before the throne in reverent loving wonder when she hears this word spoken to the very least and lowliest of the saints, “You shall live.” You are not exempted. You whose faith is only as a smoking flax, you shall live. The Lord bestows security on the least of his people as well as on the greatest. It is plain that the reason given for the preservation of the new life is as applicable to one saint as to another. If it had been said, “Because your faith is strong, you shall live,” then weak faith would have perished, but when it is written, “Because I live,” the argument is as powerful in one case as in the other. Take it home for yourself, my brother, however heavy your heart or dim your hope, Jesus lives, and you shall live.

21. Notice yet again that this text is very broad. Observe its breadth and see how it overcomes everything to the contrary and overturns all the hopes of the adversary. “You shall live.” Then, the inbred corruption that rises within us shall not stifle the new creature. Chained as the spirit seems to be to the loathsome and corrupt body of this death, it shall live in spite of its hideous companionship. Though besetting sins may be as arrows and fleshly lusts like drawn swords, still grace shall not be slain. Neither the fever of hasty passion, nor the palsy of timorousness, nor the leprosy of covetousness, nor any other disease of sin, shall so break out in the old nature as to destroy the new. Nor shall outward circumstances overthrow the inner life. “For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” If providence should cast you into a godless family, where you dwell as in a sepulchre, and the air you breathe is laden with the miasma of death, you shall still live. A bad example shall not poison your spirit; you shall drink this deadly thing, and it shall not harm you; you shall be kept from giving way to evil. You shall not be deceived by fair temptation; you shall not be cowed by fierce persecution: mightier is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Satan will attack you, and his weapons are deadly, but you shall foil him at all points. To you, it is given to tread on the lion and adder; you shall trample underfoot the young lion and the dragon.

22. If God should allow you for a while to be severely tried, as he did his servant Job, and if the devil should have all the world to help him in his attempt to destroy your spiritual life, yet even on the dunghill of poverty, and in the wretchedness of sickness, your spirit shall still maintain its holy life, and you shall prove it is so by blessing and magnifying God, notwithstanding it all. We little dream what may be reserved for us; we may have to climb steeps of prosperity, slippery and dangerous, but we shall live; we may be called to sink in the dark waters of adversity. All God’s waves and billows may go over us, but we shall live. We may traverse pestilent swamps of error or burning deserts of unbelief, but the divine life shall live amid the domains of death. Let the future be bright or black; we need not wish to turn the page; what we prize best, namely, our spiritual life, is hidden with Christ in God, beyond the reach of harm, and we shall live. If old age shall be our portion, and our crown shall be delayed until we have fought a long and weary battle, yet nevertheless we shall live; or if sudden death should cut short the time of our trial here, yet we shall have lived in the fulness of that word.

23. III. Our third point is THE REASON FOR THE SECURITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.

24. The reason given is this, “Because I live, you shall live also.” Christ has life essentially as God. Christ, as man, having fulfilled his life work, having offered full atonement for human sin, dies no more; death has no more dominion over him. His life is communicated to us and becomes the guarantee for us that we shall live also.

25. Observe, first, that this is the only reason for the believer’s spiritual life. “Because I live, you shall live also.” The means by which the soul is pardoned is found in the precious blood of Jesus; the cause of its obtaining spiritual life at first is found in Christ’s finished work, and the only reason why the Christian still continues to live after he is quickened, lies in Jesus Christ, who lives and was dead and is alive for evermore. When I first come to Christ, I know I must find everything in him, for I feel I have nothing of my own, but all my life, I am to acknowledge the same absolute dependence; I am still to look to him for everything. “I am the vine, you are the branches: he who remains in me, and I in him, the same produces much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.” The temptation is, after we have looked to Jesus and found life there, to imagine that in future time, we are to sustain ourselves in spiritual existence by some means within ourselves or by extra supplies and apart from Christ. But it must not be so; all for the future, as well as all for the past, is wrapped up in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus. Because he died, you are pardoned; because he lives, you live; all your life still lies in him, who is the way, the truth, and the life.

26. Does not the Christian’s life depend on his prayerfulness? Could he be a Christian if he ceased to pray? We reply, the Christian’s spiritual health depends on his prayerfulness, but that prayerfulness depends on something else. The reason why the hands of the clock move may be found first in a certain wheel which operates on them, but if you go to the primary cause of everything, you reach the mainspring, or the weight, which is the source of all the motion. Many secondary causes tend to sustain spiritual life; but the primary cause, the first and foremost, is because Jesus Christ lives. “All my springs are in you.” While Jesus lives, he sends the Spirit; the Spirit being sent, we pray; our prayer becomes the evidence of our spiritual life. “But are not good works essential to the maintenance of the spiritual life?” Certainly, if there are no good works, we have no evidence of spiritual life. In its season the tree must produce its fruit and its leaves; if there is no outward sign we suspect that there is no circulation of the sap within. Still, to the tree the fruit is not the cause of life, but the result of it, and to the life of the Christian, good works bear the same relationship, they are its outgrowth, not its root. If then my spiritual life is low, what am I to look to? I am not to look to my prayers, I am not to find comfort in my works. I may from these discover how declining I am; but if I want my life to be reinvigorated, I must flee to the fountain of my life, even Jesus, for there, and only there, shall I find restoration. Do let us remember this, so that we are not saved because of anything that we are, or anything that we do; and that we do not remain saved because of anything we are or can be. A man is saved because Christ died for him; he continues to be saved because Christ lives for him. The sole reason why the spiritual life remains is because Jesus lives. This is to get on a rock, above the fog which covers all things down below. If my life rests on something within me, then today I live, and tomorrow I die; but if my spiritual life rests in Christ, then in my darkest days — indeed, and when sin has most raged against my spirit — I still live in the ever-living One, whose life never changes.

27. Secondly, it is a sufficient cause for our life. “Because I live, you shall live also.” It must be enough to make believers live that Christ lives; for first, Christ’s life is a proof that his work has accomplished the absolution of his people from their sins. He would have been in the tomb to this hour had he not made a complete satisfaction for their sins, but his rising again from the dead is the testimony of God that he has accepted the atonement of his dear Son; his resurrection is our full acquittal. Then if the living Christ is our acquittal, how can God condemn us to die for sins which he has by the fact of Christ’s resurrection declared to be for ever blotted out? If Jesus lives, how can we die? Shall there be two deaths for one sin, the death of Christ and the death of those for whom he died? God forbid that there should be any such injustice with the Most High. The very fact that Jesus lives, proves that our sin has been atoned for, that we are absolved, and therefore cannot die.

28. Jesus is the representative of those for whom he is the federal head. Shall the representative live, and yet those represented die? How shall the living represent the dead? But in his life I see my own life, for as Levi was in the loins of Abraham, so is every saint in the loins of Christ, and the life of Christ is representatively the life of all his people.

29. Moreover, he is the surety for his people, under bonds and pledges to bring his redeemed safely home. His own declaration is, “I give to my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hands.” Will he break his covenant bonds? Shall his suretyship be cast to the winds? It cannot be. The fact that Jesus lives guarantees our life for all eternity. Remember, that if any of his people for whom he died, to whom he has given spiritual life, should after all die, Christ would be frustrated in his intent, which supposition involves the grossest blasphemy. What he came to do he will do. As many as his Father gave to him, so many shall he have for his reward. The purchase price shall not be given in vain; a redemption so marvellous as what he has presented on the tree, shall never in any degree become a failure. His life, which proves his labour to be over, guarantees to himself his reward, and that is to be found in the salvation of his people. Do you not know, my brethren, that if one of those to whom Christ has given spiritual life should after all fall from it and die, it would argue either that he had a lack of power to keep them, or a lack of will to do so. Shall we conceive him to be devoid of power? Then how is he the mighty God? Is he devoid of will to keep his people — is that conceivable? Cast out the traitorous thought! He must be as willing as he is able, and as able as he is willing. While he was in the world he kept his people; having loved his own, he loved them to the end; he is “the same yesterday, today, and for ever,” he will not permit one of these little ones to perish.

30. Remember, and this perhaps will cheer you most of all, that all who have spiritual life are one with Christ Jesus. Jesus is the head of the mystical body, they are the members. Suppose one of the members of the mystical body of Christ should die, then from that moment, with reverence may it be spoken, Christ is not a complete Christ. What would the head be without the body? A most ghastly sight. What would the head be with only some of the members? Certainly not perfect. Every member must be present to make a complete body. Therefore we gather that you, brother, although you think yourself the lowliest part of the body, are nevertheless essential to its perfection; and you, sister, though you imagine yourself to be one of the uncomely portions of the body, yet you must be there, or else the body cannot be perfect, and Christ cannot be a complete Christ. From him, the head, the life streams into all the members, and while that head lives as a perfect head of a perfect body, all the members must live also. As we have often said, as long as a man’s head is above water you cannot drown his limbs; as long as our head is above the reach of spiritual death we also are the same — no weapons can harm, no poison can destroy, not all hell’s fires could burn, nor all earth’s floods could drown, the spiritual life within us: it must be safe because it is indissolubly one with Jesus Christ the Lord. What comfort, then, lies in this, the sole but sufficient reason for the eternal maintenance of the new-born life within us, is this, “Because I live, you shall live also.”

31. And may it be remembered that this reason is an enduring reason — “Because I live, you shall live also” — a reason which has as much force at one time as another. From variable causes the effects are variable; but fixed causes produce permanent effects. Now Jesus always lives. Yesterday, dear brother, you were exalted in fellowship with him, and stood on the mountain top; then your heart was glad, and your spirit rejoiced, and you could say, “I live in Christ.” Today darkness has intervened, you do not feel the motions of the inner life as you did yesterday, but do not therefore conclude that the life is not there. What is to be your sign; what is to be the rainbow of the covenant for you? Why, that Jesus lives. Do you doubt that he lives? You dare not! You trust him, then do not doubt that you live, for your life is as certain as his. Believe also that you shall live, for that also is as certain as the fact that he lives. God gave to Noah a sign that he would not destroy the earth — it was the rainbow: but then the rainbow is not often seen; there are particular circumstances before the rainbow is seen in the cloud. You, brother, you have a sign of God’s covenant given to you in the text which can always be seen, neither sun nor shower are required for its appearance. The living Christ is the sign that you live too. God gave to David the sign of the sun and the moon; he said if the ordinances of day and night should be changed, then he would cast off the seed of David. But there are times when neither sun nor moon appear, but your sign is plain when these are hidden. Christ lives at all times. When you are lowest, when you cannot pray, when you can hardly groan, when you do not seem to have enough spiritual life even to heave a desire, still if you cling to Jesus this life is as surely in you as there is life in Christ himself at the right hand of the Father.

32. And lastly, it is a most instructive cause. It instructs us in many ways: let us hint at three. It instructs us to admire the condescension of Christ. Look at the two pronouns, “you” and “I”; shall they ever come into contact? Yes, here they stand in close connection with each other. “I” — the I AM, the Infinite; “you” the creatures of an hour; yet I, the Infinite, come into union with you, the finite; I, the Eternal, take you up, the fleeting, and I make you live because I live. What? Is there such a bond between me and Christ? Is there such a link between his life and mine? Blessed be his name! May his infinite condescension be adored!

33. Next it demands from us abundance of gratitude. Apart from Christ we are dead in trespasses and sins; look at the depth of our degradation! But in Christ we live, live with his own life. Look at the height of our exaltation, and let our thankfulness be proportioned to this infinity of mercy. Measure if you can from the lowest hell to the highest heaven, and so let your thankfulness be great to him who has lifted you from death to life.

34. Let the last lesson be, see the all-importance of close communion with Jesus. Union with Christ makes you live; keep up your enjoyment of that union, so that you may clearly perceive and enjoy your life. Begin this year with the prayer, “Nearer to you, my Lord, nearer to you.” Think much of the spiritual life and less of this poor carnal life, which will be over so soon. Go to the source of life for an increase of spiritual life. Go to Jesus. Think of him more than you have done, pray to him more; use his name more believingly in your supplications. Serve him better, and seek to grow up into his likeness in all things. Make an advance this year. Life is a growing thing. Your life only grows by getting nearer to Christ; therefore, get under the beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Time brings you nearer to him, you will soon be where he is in heaven; let grace bring you nearer also. You taste more of his love as fresh mercies come, give him more of your love, more of your fellowship. Abide in him, and may his word abide in you from now on and for ever, and all shall be to his glory. Amen.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Col 3]

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