KenH
Well-Known Member
"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." 1 John 5:11
How often we are looking diligently but in vain for life within ourselves. True it is that if God has quickened our souls we are partakers of life divine, of life spiritual, of life eternal, of the life that is in Christ and comes from Christ; and yet how often we vainly seek to find it warm and glowing in our breasts. If once given it never dies; but it is often hidden beneath the ashes, and thus though it slowly burns and dimly glows, yet the ashes hide it from view, and we only know it is there by some remains of warmth. "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God," (Colossians 3:3); and therefore not only hidden as treasured and stored up safely in God, but hidden from the world, and even hidden from the eyes of its possessor.
Christ is our life. There is no other. To look, then, for life in ourselves independent of and distinct from the fountain of life is to look for that in the creature which is lodged in the divine Creator; it is to look for that in man which dwells in the God-man. To look for that in self which is out of self, embosomed in the fullness of the Son of God, is folly.
Further, it is not merely that our life is in him, but he is the life itself. As the sun not only has light and heat, but is itself light and heat, so the blessed Lord not only grants life, but he himself is what he grants. As a fountain not only gives water, but is itself all water, so Christ not only gives what he is, but is all that he gives. Not only, therefore, is he the "resurrection," centering in himself everything, both for time and eternity, which resurrection contains and resurrection implies, but he is "the life," being in himself a fountain of life, out of which he gives from his own fulness to the members of his mystical body.
- J.C. Philpot, Daily Portions, August 18
How often we are looking diligently but in vain for life within ourselves. True it is that if God has quickened our souls we are partakers of life divine, of life spiritual, of life eternal, of the life that is in Christ and comes from Christ; and yet how often we vainly seek to find it warm and glowing in our breasts. If once given it never dies; but it is often hidden beneath the ashes, and thus though it slowly burns and dimly glows, yet the ashes hide it from view, and we only know it is there by some remains of warmth. "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God," (Colossians 3:3); and therefore not only hidden as treasured and stored up safely in God, but hidden from the world, and even hidden from the eyes of its possessor.
Christ is our life. There is no other. To look, then, for life in ourselves independent of and distinct from the fountain of life is to look for that in the creature which is lodged in the divine Creator; it is to look for that in man which dwells in the God-man. To look for that in self which is out of self, embosomed in the fullness of the Son of God, is folly.
Further, it is not merely that our life is in him, but he is the life itself. As the sun not only has light and heat, but is itself light and heat, so the blessed Lord not only grants life, but he himself is what he grants. As a fountain not only gives water, but is itself all water, so Christ not only gives what he is, but is all that he gives. Not only, therefore, is he the "resurrection," centering in himself everything, both for time and eternity, which resurrection contains and resurrection implies, but he is "the life," being in himself a fountain of life, out of which he gives from his own fulness to the members of his mystical body.
- J.C. Philpot, Daily Portions, August 18
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