January 25

"That the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." 2 Corinthians 4:10

It is in this earthen vessel, our poor mortal body, that both the death of Jesus and the life of Jesus are manifested. In the trouble, the perplexity, the being cast down, is the dying of Jesus. In not being distressed, in not being in despair, in not being forsaken, in not being destroyed, is the life of Jesus. Thus in the same body there is a dying Christ and a living Christ, Christ in his cross in his weakness--and Christ at the right hand of God in his power. To know these two things is to know the power of Christ's resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, those two divine blessings which the soul of Paul so longed to realize and experience.

In the knowledge then, the experimental knowledge, I mean, for all other knowledge is of no avail, of Christ crucified and Christ risen, consists the spiritual life of a child of God. So to live is to live a life of faith in the Son of God. So to live is to be baptized with that Spirit with which Paul was baptized when he said, "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."

The present life of Christ at the right hand of God the Father, is the source and foundation of all our present life. "Because I live, you shall live also," was his gracious promise when here below; and he has gone up on high, to fulfill that promise and make it effectual. He is "our life," and this life must be made manifest in our mortal flesh, manifest to ourselves, and manifest to others; manifest to ourselves by the communication of light, life, liberty, and love, manifest to others by the fruits of a life and conversation adorning the gospel, and by walking in all holy obedience to its precepts.

January 25