 18th day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ in his use of Scripture. That all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning me. Luke chapter 24 verse 44. What the Lord Jesus accomplished here on earth as man he owed greatly to his use of the Scriptures. He found in them the way marked in which he had to walk, the food and the strength on which he could work, the weapon by which he could overcome every enemy. The Scriptures were indeed indispensable to him through all his life and passion. From beginning to end his life was the fulfilment of what had been written of him in the volume of the book. It is scarcely necessary to adduce proofs of this. In the temptation and the wilderness it was by his it is written that he conquered Satan. In his conflicts with the Pharisees he continually appealed to the word what saith the Scripture. Have you not read? Is it not written? In his intercourse with the disciples it was always from the Scriptures that he proved the certainty and necessity of his sufferings and resurrection. How otherwise can the Scriptures be fulfilled? And in his intercourse with his Father in his last sufferings it is in the words of Scripture that he pours out the complaint of being forsaken and then again commends his spirit into the Father's hands. All this has a very deep meaning. He was himself the living word. He had the spirit without measure. If ever anyone he could have done without the written word and yet we see that it is everything to him. More than anyone else he thus shows us that the life of God in human flesh and the word of God in human speech are inseparably connected. Jesus would not have been what he was, could not have done what he did had he not yielded himself step by step to be led and sustained by the word of God. Let us try and understand what this teaches us. The word of God is more than once called seed. It is the seed of the divine life. We know what seed is. It is that wonderful organism in which the life, the invisible essence of a plant or tree, is so concentrated and embodied that it can be taken away and made available to impart the life of the tree elsewhere. This use may be twofold. As fruit we eat it, for instance, in the corn that gives us bread, and the life of the plant becomes our nourishment and our life. Or we sow it, and the life of the plant reproduces and multiplies itself. In both aspects the word of God is seed. True life is found only in God, but that life cannot be imparted to us unless set before us in some shape in which we know and apprehend it. It is in the word of God that the invisible divine life takes shape and brings itself within our reach and becomes communicable. The life, the thoughts, the sentiments, the power of God are embodied in His words. And it is only through His word that the life of God can really enter into us. His word is the seed of the heavenly life. As the bread of life we eat it, we feed upon it. In eating our daily bread the body takes in the nourishment which visible nature, the sun and the earth, prepared for us in the seed corn. We assimilate it, and it becomes our very own, part of ourselves, it is our life. In feeding upon the word of God the powers of the heavenly life enter into us, and become our very own. We assimilate them, they become a part of ourselves, the life of our life. Or we use the seed to plant. The words of God are sown in our heart. They have a divine power of reproduction and multiplication. The very life that is in them, the divine thought or disposition or powers that each of them contains, takes roots in the believing heart and grows up. And the very thing of which the word was the expression is produced within us. The words of God are the seeds of the fullness of the divine life. When the Lord Jesus was made man, he became entirely dependent upon the word of God. He submitted himself wholly to it. His mother taught it him. The teachers of Nazareth instructed him in it. In meditation and prayer, in the exercise of obedience and faith, he was led during his silent years of preparation to understand and appropriate it. The word of the Father was to the Son, the life of his soul. What he said in the wilderness was spoken from his inmost personal experience. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that precedes out of the mouth of God. He felt he could not live but as the word brought him the life of the Father. His whole life was a life of faith, a depending on the word of the Father. The word was to him not instead of the Father, but the vehicle for the living fellowship with the living God. And he had his whole mind and heart so filled with it that the Holy Spirit could at each moment find within him all ready for use the right word to suggest just as he needed it. Child of God, would you become a man of God, strong in faith, full of blessing, rich in fruit to the glory of God? Be full of the word of God. Like Christ, make the word your bread. Let it dwell richly in you. Have your heart full of it. Feed on it. Believe it. Obey it. It is only by believing and obeying that the word can enter into our inward parts, into our very being. Take it day by day as the word that precedeth not has preceded, but precedeth is proceeding out of the mouth of God as the word of the living God, who in it holds living fellowship with his children and speaks to them in living power. Take your thoughts of God's will and God's work and God's purpose with you and the world, not from the church, not from Christians around you, but from the word taught you by the Father, and like Christ you will be able to fulfill all that is written in the Scripture concerning you. In Christ's use of Scripture the most remarkable thing is this. He found himself there. He saw there his own image and likeness, and he gave himself to the fulfilment of what he found written there. It was this that encouraged him under the bitterest sufferings and strengthened him for what the most difficult work. Everywhere he saw, traced by God's own hand, the Divine Waymark, a rough suffering to glory. He had but one thought, to be what the Father said he should be, to have his life correspond exactly to the image of what he should be as he found it in the Word of God. Disciple of Jesus, in the Scriptures thy likeness too is to be found, a picture of what the Father means thee to be. Seek to have a deep and clear impression of what the Father says in his Word that thou shouldest be. If this is once fully understood it is inconceivable what courage it will give to conquer every difficulty. To know it is ordained of God, I have seen what has been written concerning me in God's book. I have seen the image of what I am called in God's counsel to be. This thought inspires the soul with a faith that conquers the world. The Lord Jesus found his own image not only in the institutions, but especially in the believers of the Old Testament. Moses and Aaron, Joshua, David, and the prophets were types. And so he is himself again the image of believers in the New Testament. It is especially in him and his example that we must find our own image in the Scriptures. To be changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord we must in the Scripture glass gaze on that image as our own. In order to accomplish his work in us the Spirit teaches us to take Christ as in very deed our example and to gaze on every feature as the promise of what we can be. Blessed the Christian who has truly done this, who has not only found Jesus in the Scriptures, but also in his image the promise and example of what he is to become. Blessed the Christian who yields himself to be taught by the Holy Spirit not to indulge in human thoughts as to the Scriptures and what it says of believers, but in simplicity to accept what it reveals of God's thoughts about his children. Child of God, it was according to the Scriptures that Jesus Christ lived and died. It was according to the Scriptures that he was raised again. All that the Scriptures said he must do or suffer he was able to accomplish because he knew and obeyed them. All that the Scriptures had promised that the Father should do for him, the Father did. O give thyself up with an undivided heart to learn in the Scriptures what God says and seeks of thee. Let the Scriptures in which Jesus found every day the food of his life be thy daily food and meditation. Go to God's Word each day with the joyful and confident expectation that through the blessed Spirit who dwells in us the Word will indeed accomplish its divine purpose in thee. Every word of God is full of a divine life and power. Be assured that when thou dost seek to use the Scriptures as Christ used them they will do for thee what they did for him. God has marked out the plan of thy life in his word. Each day thou wilt find some portion of it there. Nothing makes a man more strong and courageous than the assurance that he is just living out the will of God. God himself who had thy image portrayed in the Scriptures will see to it that the Scriptures are fulfilled in thee, if, like his son, thou wilt but surrender thyself to this as the highest object of thy life. O Lord my God, I thank thee for thy precious word, the divine glass of all unseen and eternal realities. I thank thee that I have in it the image of thy Son who is thy image and also, O wonderful Grace, my image. I thank thee that as I gaze on him I may also see what I can be. O my Father, teach me rightly to understand what a blessing thy word can bring me. To thy Son, when here on earth it was the manifestation of thy will, the communication of thy life and strength, the fellowship with thyself. In the acceptance and the surrender to thy word, he was able to fulfill all thy counsel. May thy word be all this to me, too. Make it to me each day of fresh through the unction of thy Holy Spirit, the word proceeding from the mouth of God, the voice of thy living presence speaking to me. May I feel with each word of thine that it is God coming to impart to me somewhat of his own life. Teach me to keep it hidden in my heart as a divine seed, which in its own time will spring up and reproduce in me in divine reality the very life that was hid in it, the very thing which I at first only saw in it as a thought. Teach me above all, O my God, to find in it him who is its center and substance, himself the eternal word. Finding him and myself in him as my head and exemplar, I shall learn like him to count thy word, my food and my life. I ask this, O my God, in the name of our blessed Jesus Christ. Amen. End of 18th day. 19th day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ in forgiving. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Colossians chapter 3, verse 18. In the life of grace, forgiveness is one of the first blessings we receive from God. It is also one of the most glorious. It is the transition from the old to the new life, the sign and pledge of God's love. With it we receive the right to all the spiritual gifts which are prepared for us in Christ. The redeemed saint can never forget, either here or in eternity, that he is a forgiven sinner. Nothing works more mightily to inflame his love, to awaken his joy or to strengthen his courage than the experience continually renewed by the Holy Spirit as a living reality of God's forgiving love. Every day, yes, every thought of God reminds him, I owe all to pardoning grace. This forgiving love is one of the greatest marvels in the manifestation of the divine nature. In it God finds his glory and blessedness. And it is in this glory and blessedness God once has redeemed people to share when he calls upon them as soon and as much as they have received forgiveness also to bestow it upon others. Have you ever noticed how often and how expressly the Lord Jesus spoke of it? If we read thoughtfully our Lord's words in Matthew 6, verses 12 and 15, chapter 18, verses 2 to 25, Mark, chapter 11, verse 25, we shall understand how inseparably the two are united, God's forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others. After the Lord was ascended to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins, the scriptures say of him just what he had said of the Father, we must forgive like him. As our text expresses it, even as Christ has forgiven you, so also do ye. We must be like God, like Christ in forgiving. It is not difficult to find the reason for this. When forgiving, love comes to us. It is not only to deliver us from punishment. No, much more, it seeks to win us for its own, to take possession of us and to dwell in us. And when, thus, it has come down to dwell in us, it does not lose its own heavenly character and beauty. It still is forgiving love, seeking to do its work, not alone towards us, but in us and through us, leading and enabling us to forgive those who sin against us. So much so is this the case that we are told that not to forgive is a sure sign that one has himself not been forgiven. He who only seeks forgiveness from selfishness and as freedom from punishment, but has not truly accepted forgiving love to rule his heart and life, proves that God's forgiveness has never really reached him. He who, on the other hand, has really accepted forgiveness, will have in the joy with which he forgives others a continual confirmation that his faith in God's forgiveness of himself is a reality. From Christ to receive forgiveness, and like Christ to bestow it on others, these two are one. Thus the scriptures and the church teach, but what do the lives and experience of Christians say? Alas! How many there are who hardly know that thus it is written, or who, if they know it, think it is more than can be expected from a sinful being, or who, if they agree in general to what has been said, always find a reason in their own particular case why it should not be so. Others might be strengthened in evil. The offender would never forgive had the injury been done to him. There are very many eminent Christians who do not act so. Such excuses are never wanting. And yet the command is so very simple, and its sanctions so very solemn, even as Christ has forgiven you, so also do ye. If ye forgive not, neither will your Father forgive you. With such human reasonings the word of God is made of none effect, as though it were not just through forgiving love that God seeks to conquer evil, and therefore forgives even unto seventy times seven, as though it were not plain that not what the offender would do to me, but what Christ has done must be the rule of my conduct. As though conformity to the example not of Christ himself, but of pious Christians, were the sign that I have truly received the forgiveness of sins. Alas! What church or Christian circle in which the law of forgiving love is not grievously transgressed! How often, in our church assemblies, in philanthropic undertakings, as well as in ordinary social intercourse, and even in domestic life, proof is given that to many Christians, to call to forgive just as Christ did, has never yet become a ruling principle of their conduct. On account of a difference of opinion, or opposition to a course of action that appeared to us right, on the ground of a real or fancied slight, or the report of some unkind or thoughtless word, feelings of resentment or contempt or estrangement have been harboured instead of loving and forgiving and forgetting like Christ. In such the thought has never yet taken possession of mind and heart that the law of compassion and love and forgiveness, in which the relation of the head to the members is rooted, must rule the whole relation of the members to each other. Beloved followers of Jesus called to manifest his likeness to the world, learn that as forgiveness of your sins was one of the first things Jesus did for you, forgiveness of others is one of the first that you can do for him. And remember that to the new heart there is a joy even sweeter than that of being forgiven, even the joy of forgiving others. The joy of being forgiven is only that of a sinner and of earth. The joy of forgiving is Christ's own joy, the joy of heaven. Oh, come and see that it is nothing less than the work that Christ himself does, and the joy with which he himself is satisfied that thou art called to participate in. It is thus that thou canst bless the world. It is as the forgiving one that Jesus conquers his enemies and binds his friends to himself. It is as the forgiving one that Jesus has set up his kingdom and continually extends it. It is through the same forgiving love not only preached but shown in the life of his disciples that the church will convince the world of God's love. If the world sees men and women loving and forgiving as Jesus did, it will be compelled to confess that God is with them of a truth. And if it still appear too hard and too high, remember that this will only be as long as we consult the natural heart. A sinful nature has no taste for this joy and can never attain it, but in union with Christ we can do it. He who abides in him walks even as he walked. If you have surrendered yourself to follow Christ in everything, then he will, by his Holy Spirit, enable you to do this too. ere you ever come into temptation, accustom yourself to fix your gaze on Jesus in the heavenly beauty of his forgiving love as your example, beholding the glory of the Lord we are changed into the same image from glory to glory. Every time you pray or thank God for forgiveness, make the vow that to the glory of his name you will manifest the same forgiving love to all around you. Before ever there is a question of forgiveness of others, let your heart be filled with love to Christ, love to the brethren, and love to enemies. A heart full of love finds it blessed to forgive. It in every little circumstance of daily life, when the temptation not to forgive might arise, the opportunity be joyfully welcomed to show how truly you live in God's forgiving love, how glad you are to let its beautiful light shine through you on others, and how blessed a privilege you feel it to be, thus too to bear the image of your beloved Lord. To forgive like thee, blessed son of God, I take this as the law of my life. Thou who has given the command, giveest also the power. Thou who hath love enough to forgive me, wilt also fill me with love and teach me to forgive others. Thou who disgive me the first blessing in the joy of having my sins forgiven, wilt surely give me the second blessing, the deeper joy of forgiving others as thou has forgiven me. O fill me to this end with faith in the power of thy love in me, to make me like thyself, to enable me to forgive the seventy times seven, and so to love and bless all around me. O my Jesus, thy example is my law, I must be like thee, and thy example is my Gospel too. I can be as thou art, thou art at once my law and my life. Watch thou demandest of me by thy example, thou workest in me by thy life. I shall forgive like thee. Lord only lead me deeper into my dependence on thee, into the all sufficiency of thy grace and the blessed keeping which comes from thy indwelling. Then shall I believe and prove the all prevailing power of love. I shall forgive even as Christ has forgiven me. Amen. End of nineteenth day. Twentieth day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ in Beholding Him. But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Moses had been forty days on the mount in communion with God. When he came down, his face shone with divine glory. He did not know it himself, but Aaron and the people saw it, Exodus 34 verse 30. It was so evidently God's glory that Aaron and the people feared to approach him. In this we have an image of what takes place in the New Testament. The privilege Moses there alone enjoyed is now the portion of every believer. When we behold the glory of God in Christ in the glass of the Holy Scriptures, his glory shines upon us and into us and fills us until it shines out from us again. By gazing on his glory the believer is changed through the Spirit into the same image. Beholding Jesus makes us like him. It is a law of nature that the eye exercises a mighty influence on mind and character. The education of a child is carried on greatly through the eye. He is molded very much by the manners and habits of those he sees continually. To form and mold our character the Heavenly Father shows us his divine glory in the face of Jesus. He does it in the expectation that it will give us great joy to gaze upon it, and because he knows that gazing on it we shall be conformed to the same image. Let everyone who desires to be like Jesus note how he can attain to it. Look continually to the divine glory as seen in Christ. What is the special characteristic of that glory? It is the manifestation of divine perfection in human form. The chief marks of the image of the divine glory in Christ are these too, his humiliation and his love. There is the glory of his humiliation. When you see how the Eternal Son emptied himself and became man, and how as man he humbled himself as a servant and was obedient even unto the death of the cross, you have seen the highest glory of God. The glory of God's omnipotence as Creator and the glory of God's holiness as King is not so wonderful as this, the glory of grace which humbled itself as a servant to serve God and man. We must learn to look upon this humiliation as really glory. To be humbled like Christ must be to us the only thing worthy the name of glory on earth. It must become in our eyes the most beautiful, the most wonderful, the most desirable thing that can be imagined, a very joy to look upon or to think of. The effect of thus gazing upon it and admiring it will be that you will not be able to conceive of any glory greater than to be and act like Jesus and will long to humble yourself even as he did. Gazing on Jesus, admiring and adoring him, will work in us the same mind that there was in him and so we shall be changed into his image. Inseparable from this is the glory of his love. The humiliation leads you back to the love as its origin and power. It is from love that the humiliation has its beauty. Love is the highest glory of God. But this love was a hidden mystery until it was manifest in Christ Jesus. It is only in his humanity, in his gentle, compassionate and loving intercourse with men, with foolish, sinful, hostile men that the glory of divine love was first really seen. The soul that gets a glimpse of this glory and that understands that to love like Christ is alone worthy the name of glory will long to become like Christ in this. Beholding this glory of the love of God in Christ he is changed to the same image. You would be like Christ? Here is the path, gaze on the glory of God in him. In him, that is to say, do not look only to the words and the thoughts and the graces in which his glory is seen, but look to himself, the living, loving Christ. Behold him. Look into his very eye, look into his face as a loving friend, as the living God. Look to him in adoration, bow before him as God. His glory has an almighty living power to impart itself to us, to pass over into us and to fill us. Look to him in faith, exercise the blessed trust that he is yours and that he has given himself to you and that you have a claim to all that is in him. It is his purpose to work out his image in you. Behold him with the joyful and certain expectation, the glory that I behold in him is destined for me. He will give it to me as I gaze and wonder and trust I become like Christ. Look to him with strong desire. Do not yield to the slothfulness of the flesh that is satisfied without the full blessing of conformity to the Lord. Pray God to free you from all carnal resting content with present attainments and to fill you with the deep, unquenchable longing for his glory. Pray most fervently the prayer of Moses, show me thy glory. Let nothing discourage you, not even the apparently slow progress you make, but press onwards with ever-growing desire after the blessed prospect that God's word holds out to you. We are changed into the same image from glory to glory. And as you behold him, above all, let the look of love not be wanting. Tell him continually how he has won your heart, how you do love him, how entirely you belong to him. Tell him that to please him the beloved one is your highest, your only joy. Let the bond of love between you and him be drawn continually closer. Love unites and makes like. Like Christ we can be it, we shall be it, each in our measure. The Holy Spirit is the pledge that it shall be. God's holy word has said we are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. This is the Spirit that was in Jesus and through whom the Divine Glory lived and shone on him. This Spirit is called the Spirit of Glory. This Spirit is in us as in the Lord Jesus and it is His work in our silent, adoring contemplation to bring over into us and work within us what we see in our Lord Jesus. Through this Spirit we have already Christ's life in us with all the gifts of His grace. But that life must be stirred up and developed. It must grow up, pass into our whole being, take possession of our entire nature, penetrate and pervade it all. We can count on the Spirit to work this in us if we but yield ourselves to Him and obey Him. As we gaze on Jesus in the Word He opens our eyes to see the glory of all that Jesus does and is. He makes us willing to be like Him. He strengthens our faith that what we behold in Jesus can be in us because Jesus Himself is ours. He works in us unceasingly the life of abiding in Christ, a wholehearted union and communion with Him. He does according to the promise, the Spirit shall glorify me, for He shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. We are changed into the image on which we gaze from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. Let us only understand that the fullness of the Spirit is given to us and that He who believingly surrenders Himself to be filled with Him will experience how gloriously He accomplishes His work of stamping on our souls and lives the image and likeness of Christ. Brother, beholding Jesus and His glory, you can confidently expect to become like Him. Only trust yourself in quietness and restfulness of soul to the leading of the Spirit. The Spirit of glory rests upon you. Focus on and adore the glory of God in Christ. You will be changed with divine power from glory to glory. In the power of the Holy Ghost the mighty transformation will be wrought by which your desires will be fulfilled, and like Christ will be the blessed God-given experience of your life. O my Lord, I do thank thee for the glorious assurance that while I am engaged with thee in my work of beholding thy glory the Holy Spirit is engaged with me in His work of changing me into that image and of laying thy glory on me. Lord grant me to behold thy glory aright. Moses had been forty days with thee when thy glory shone upon him. I acknowledge that my communion with thee has been too short and passing that I have taken too little time to come under the full impression of what thine image is. Lord teach me this. Draw me in these my meditations too to surrender myself to contemplate and adore until my soul at every line of that image may exclaim, this is glorious, this is the glory of God. O my God, show me thy glory. And strengthen my faith, blessed Lord, that even when I am not conscious of any special experience the Holy Spirit will do His work. Moses knew not that his face shone. Lord keep me from looking at self. May I be so taken up only with thee as to forget and lose myself in thee. Lord it is he who is dead to self who lives in thee. O my Lord, as often as I gaze upon thine image and thine example I would do it in the faith that thy Holy Spirit will fill me, will take entire possession of me, and so work thy likeness in me that the world may see in me somewhat of thy glory. In this faith I will venture to take thy precious word from glory to glory as my watchword, to be to me the promise of a grace that grows richer every day, of a blessing that is ever ready to surpass itself and to make what has been given only the pledge of the better that is to come. Precious Saviour, gazing on thee it shall indeed be so, from glory to glory. Amen. Note, I have left the preceding piece as it was originally published in Dutch. The English revised version translates, but we all, with unveiled face reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit, and gives in the margin, beholding as in a mirror. It is difficult to settle which is the better translation, as the original can bear both I confess that beholding appears to me to better suit the passage, the reflecting the image can only come after we have been, or at least as we are being, transformed into the same image. It is only as we are transformed into it we can reflect it. The means of transformation appear to be almost better expressed by beholding than reflecting. However, this may be, even if we prefer to translate reflecting, what has been said on beholding does not lose its force. It is the intent, longing, loving, adoring gaze on the glory of God in the face of the beloved Son that transforms. What rich instruction in regard to the divine photography of which the text speaks there is in what we see in the human art. In the practice of the photographer we see two things, faith in the power and effects of light and the wise adjustment of everything in obedience to its laws, with what care the tenderly sensitive plate is prepared to receive the impression, with what precision its relative position to the object to be portrayed is adjusted, how still and undisturbed it is then held face to face with that object. Having done this the photographer leaves the light to do its wonderful work, his work is indeed a work of faith. May we learn the precious lessons. Let us believe in the light, in the power of the light of God to transcribe Christ's image on our heart. We are changed into the same image as by the Spirit of the Lord. Let us not seek to do the work the Spirit must do. Let us simply trust Him to do it. Our duty is to seek the prepared heart, waiting, longing, praying for the likeness, to take our place face to face with Jesus, studying, gazing, loving, worshiping and believing that the wonderful vision of that crucified one is the sure promise of what we can be, and then putting aside all that can distract in stillness of soul, silent unto God, just allow the blessed Spirit as the light of God to do the work. Not less surely or wonderfully than in the light printing which is done here on Earth will our souls receive and show the impress of that wonderful likeness. I feel tempted to add one thought, what a solemn calling that of ministers as the servants of this heavenly photography, ministers of the Spirit in his work see 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6, to lead believers on and point them to Jesus and every trait in that blessed face and life as what they are to be changed to, to help them to that wistful longing, that deep thirsting for conformity to Jesus which is the true preparation of soul, to teach them how both in public worship and private prayer they have just to place themselves face to face with their Lord and give him time as they unbear and expose their whole inner being to the beams of his love and his glory to come in and take possession by his Spirit to transform them into his own likeness. Who is sufficient for these things? Our sufficiency is of God who hath made us able ministers of the Spirit. End of 20th day. 21st day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This LibriVolk's recording is in the public domain. Like Christ in his humility. In lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself. Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God emptied himself, taking the form of a servant being made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself becoming obedient unto death yea the death of the cross. Philippians chapter two verses three to eight revised version. In this wonderful passage we have a summary of all the most precious truths that cluster round the person of the blessed Son of God. There is first his adorable divinity in the form of God equal with God. Then comes the mystery of his incarnation in that word of deep and inexhaustible meaning he emptied himself. The atonement follows with the humiliation and obedience and suffering and death whence it derives its worth. He humbled himself becoming obedience unto death even the death of the cross. And all is crowned by his glorious exaltation. God has highly exalted him. Christ as God. Christ becoming man. Christ as man in humiliation working out our redemption and Christ in glory as Lord of all such are the treasures of wisdom this passage contains. Volumes have been written on the discussion of some of the words the passage contains and yet sufficient attention has not always been given to the connection in which the Holy Spirit gives this wonderful teaching. It is not in the first place as a statement of truth for the refutation of error or the strengthening of faith. The object is a very different one. Among the Philippians there was still pride and want of love. It is with the distinct view of setting Christ's example before them and teaching them to humble themselves as he did that this portion of inspiration was given in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself. Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus. He who does not study this portion of God's word with the wish to become lowly as Christ was has never used it for the one great purpose for which God gave it. Christ descending from the throne of God and seeking his way back there as man through the humiliation of the cross reveals the only way by which we ever can reach that throne. The faith which with his atonement accepts his example too is alone true faith. Each soul that would truly belong to him must in union with him have his spirit his disposition and his image. Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God emptied himself and as a man humbled himself. We must be like Christ in his self-emptying and self-humiliation. The first great act of self-abnegation in which as God he emptied himself of his divine glory and power and laid it aside was followed up by the no less wondrous humbling of himself as man to the death of the cross. And in this amazing twofold humiliation the astonishment of the universe and the delight of the Father holy scripture with the most utmost simplicity tells us we must as a matter of course be like Christ. And does Paul and do the scriptures and does God really expect this of us? Why not or rather how can they expect anything else? They know indeed the fearful power of pride and the old Adam in our nature but they know also that Christ has redeemed us not only from the curse but from the power of sin and that he gives us his resurrection life and power to enable us to live as he did on earth. They say that he is not only our surety but our example also so that we not only live through him but like him and further not only our example but also our head who lives in us and continues in us the life he once led on earth. With such a Christ and such a plan of redemption can it be otherwise? The follower of Christ must have the same mind as was in Christ he must especially be like him in his humility. Christ's example teaches us that it is not sin that must humble us. This is what many Christians think. They consider daily falls are necessary to keep us humble. This is not so. There is indeed a humility that is very lovely and so of great worth as the beginning of something more consisting in the acknowledgement of transgression and shortcomings. But there is a humility which is more heavenly still even like Christ which consists even when grace keeps us from sinning in the self-abasement that can only wonder that God should bless us and delights to be as nothing before him to whom we owe all. It is grace we need and not sin to make and keep us humble. The heaviest laden branches always bow the lowest. The greatest flow of water makes the deepest riverbed. The nearer the soul comes to God the more his majestic presence makes it feel its littleness. It is this alone that makes it possible for each to count others better than himself. Jesus Christ the Holy One of God is our example of humility. It was knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God that he washed the disciples feet. It is the divine presence the consciousness of the divine life and the divine love in us that will make us humble. It appears to many Christians an impossibility to say I will not think of self I will esteem others better than myself. They ask grace to overcome the worst ebullitions of pride and vain glory, but an entire self-renunciation such as Christ is too difficult and too high for them. If they only understood the deep truth and blessedness of the word he who humbles himself will be exalted. He who loses his life shall find it. They would not be satisfied with anything less than entire conformity to their Lord in this. And they would find that there is a way to overcome self and self-exaltation, to see it nailed to Christ's cross and there keep it crucified continually through the Spirit, Galatians 5-24, Romans 8-13. He only can grow to such humility who heartily yields himself to live in the fellowship of Christ's death. To attain this two things are necessary. The first is a fixed purpose and surrender, henceforth to be nothing and seek nothing for oneself, but to live only for God and our neighbour. The other is the faith that appropriates the power of Christ's death in this also as our death to sin and our deliverance from its power. This fellowship of Christ's death brings an end to the life where sin is too strong for us. It is the commencement of a life in us where Christ is too strong for sin. It is only under the teaching and powerful working of the Holy Spirit that one can realise, accept and keep hold of this truth. But God be thanked, we have the Holy Spirit. Oh, that we may trust ourselves fully to His guidance. He will guide us, it is His work. He will glorify Christ in us. He will teach us to understand that we are dead to sin and the old self, that Christ's life and humility are ours. Thus Christ's humility is appropriated in faith. This may take place at once, but the appropriation in experience is gradual. Our thoughts and feelings, our very manners and conversation have been so long under the dominion of the old self that it takes time to imbue and permeate and transfigure them with the heavenly light of Christ's humility. At first the conscience is not perfectly enlightened, the spiritual taste and the power of discernment have not yet been exercised. But with each believing renewal of the consecration in the depth of the soul I have surrendered myself to be humble like Jesus. Power will go out from Him to fill the whole being until in face and voice and action the sanctification of the Spirit will be observable and the Christian will truly be clothed with humility. The blessedness of a Christ-like humility is unspeakable. It is of great worth in the sight of God. He giveth grace to the humble. In the spiritual life it is the source of rest and joy. To the humble all God does is right and good. Humility is always ready to praise God for the least of His mercies. Humility does not find it difficult to trust. It submits unconditionally to all that God says. The two whom Jesus praises for their great faith are just those who thought least of themselves. The Centurion had said, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof. The Syru Phoenician woman was content to be numbered with the dogs. In intercourse with men it is the secret of blessing and love. The humble man does not take offense and is very careful not to give it. He is ever ready to serve his neighbour because he has learned from Jesus the divine beauty of being a servant. He finds favour with God and man. Oh, what a glorious calling for the followers of Christ, to be sent into the world by God to prove that there is nothing more divine than self-humiliation. The humble glorifies God. He leads others to glorify Him. He will at last be glorified with Him. Who would not be humble like Jesus? Oh, thou who didst descend from heaven and didst humble thyself to the death of the cross, thou callest me to take thy humility as the law of my life. Lord, teach me to understand the absolute need of this. A proud follower of the humble Jesus, this I cannot, I may not be. In the secrecy of my heart and of my closet, in my house, in presence of friends or enemies, in prosperity or adversity, I would be filled with thy humility. Oh, my beloved Lord, I feel the need of anew a deeper insight into thy crucifixion and my part in it. Reveal to me how my old proud self is crucified with thee. Show me in the light of thy spirit how I, God's regenerate child, am dead to sin and its power, and how in communion with thee sin is powerless. Lord Jesus, who has conquered sin, strengthen in me the faith that thou art my life, and that thou wilt fill me with thy humility if I will submit to be filled with thyself and thy holy spirit. Lord, my hope is in thee. In faith in thee I go into the world to show how the same mind that was in thee is also in thy children, and teaches us in lowliness of mind each to esteem others better than himself. May God help us. Amen. He died unto sin once. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans chapter 6, verses 5, 10 and 11. It is to the death of Christ we owe our salvation. The better we understand the meaning of that death, the richer will be our experience of its power. In these words we are taught what it is to be one with Christ in the likeness of his death. Let everyone who truly longs to be like Christ in his life seek to understand or write what the likeness of his death means. Christ had a double work to accomplish in his death. The one was to work out righteousness for us, the other to obtain life for us. When Scripture speaks of the first part of this work it uses the expression Christ died for our sin. He took sin upon himself bore its punishment, so he made atonement and brought in a righteousness in which we could stand before God. When Scripture speaks of the second part of this work it uses the expression he died to sin. Dying for sin has reference to the judicial relation between him and sin. God laid our sin upon him. Through his death atonement is made for sin before God. Dying to sin has reference to a personal relation. Through his death the connection in which he stood to sin was entirely dissolved. During his life sin had great power to cause him conflict and suffering. His death made an end of this. Sin had now no more power to tempt or hurt him. He was beyond its reach. Death had completely separated between him and sin. Christ died to sin. Like Christ the believer too has died to sin. He is one with him in the likeness of his death. And as the knowledge that Christ died for sin as our atonement is indispensable to our justification, so the knowledge that Christ and we with him in the likeness of his death are dead to sin is indispensable to our sanctification. Let us endeavour to understand this. It was as the second Adam that Christ died. With the first Adam we had been plotted together in the likeness of his death. He died and we with him and the power of his death works in us. We have in very deed died in him as truly as he himself died. We understand this. Just so we are one plot with Christ in the likeness of his death. He died to sin and we in him and now the power of his death works in us. We are indeed dead to sin as truly so as he himself is. Through our first birth we were made partakers in Adam's death. Through our second birth we become partakers in the death of the second Adam. Every believer who accepts of Christ is partaker of the power of his death and is dead to sin. But a believer may have much of which he is ignorant. Most believers are in their conversion so occupied with Christ's death for sin as their justification that they do not seek to know what it means that in him they are dead to sin. When they first learn to feel their need of him as their sanctification, then the desires awaken to understand this likeness of his death. They find the secret of holiness in it that as Christ so they also have died to sin. The Christian who does not understand this always imagines that sin is too strong for him, that sin still has power over him and that he must sometimes obey it. But he thinks this because he does not know that he, like Christ, is dead to sin. If he but believed and understood what this means, his language would be, Christ has died to sin, sin has nothing more to say to him. In his life and death sin had power over him. It was sin that caused him the sufferings of the cross and the humiliation of the grave. But he is dead to sin. It has lost all claim over him. He is entirely and forever freed from its power. Even so I as a believer. The new life that is in me is the life of Christ from the dead, a life that has been begotten through death, a life that is entirely dead to sin. The believer as a new creature in Christ Jesus can glory and say, like Christ I am dead to sin, sin has no right or power over me whatever, I am freed from it, therefore I need not sin. And if the believer still sins, it is because he does not use his privilege to live as one who is dead to sin. Through ignorance or unwatchfulness or unbelief he forgets the meaning and the power of this likeness of Christ's death and sins. But if he holds fast what his participation with Christ's death signifies, he has the power to overcome sin. He marks well that it is not said sin is dead. No, sin is not dead. Sin lives and works still in the flesh. But he himself is dead to sin and alive to God. And so sin cannot for a single moment without his consent have dominion over him. If he sins it is because he allows it to reign and submits himself to obey it. Beloved Christian, who seekest to be like Christ, take the likeness of his death as one of the most glorious parts of the life you covet. Appropriate it, first of all, in faith. Reckon that you are indeed dead to sin. Let it be a settled thing. God says it to every one of his children, even the weakest. Say it before him too. Like Christ I am dead to sin. Fear not to say it, it is the truth. Ask the Holy Spirit earnestly to enlighten you with regard to this part of your union with Christ so that it may not only be a doctrine, but power and truth. Endeavour to understand more deeply what it says to live as dead to sin, as one who, in dying, has been freed from its dominion and who can now reign in life through Jesus Christ over it. Then there will follow upon the likeness of his death, accepted in faith, the conformity to his death, Philippians chapter 3, something that is gradually and increasingly appropriated as Christ's death manifests its full power in all the faculties and powers of your life. The likeness of Christ's death in Romans chapter 6 precedes the likeness of his resurrection. No one can be made alive in him who has not given himself up to die with him. The conformity to Christ's death in Philippians chapter 3 is spoken of as coming after than knowing him in the power of his resurrection. The growth of the resurrection life within us leads to a deeper experience of the death. The two continually act and react. And in order to have the full benefit of this likeness of Christ's death, notice particularly two things. The one is the obligation under which it brings you. How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein? Endeavour to enter more deeply into the meaning of this death of Christ into which you have been baptized. His death meant rather die than sin, willing to die in order to overcome sin, dead and therefore released from the power of sin. Let this also be your position. Know ye not that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Let the Holy Spirit baptize you continually deeper into his death until the power of God's word, dead to sin, until the conformity to Christ's death is discernible in all your walk and conversation. The other lesson is this. The likeness of Christ's death is not only an obligation but a power. O Christian, longing to be Christ-like, if there be one thing you need more than and above all else it is this, to know the exceeding greatness of God's power that worketh in you. It was in the power of eternity that Christ in his death wrestled with the powers of hell and conquered. You have part with Christ in his death. You have part in all the powers by which he conquered. Yeild yourself joyfully and believingly to be laid more deeply into the conformity to Christ's death, then you cannot but become like him. O my Lord, how little I have understood thy grace. I have often read the words planted into the likeness of his death, and seen that as thou didst die to sin, so it is said to thy believing people, likewise also ye. But I have not understood its power. And so it came that, not knowing the likeness of thy death, I knew not that I was free from the power of sin, and as a conqueror could have dominion over it. Lord, thou hast indeed opened to me a glorious prospect. The man who believingly accepts the likeness of thy death, and according to thy word, reckons himself dead to sin, sin shall not have dominion over him. He has power to live for God. Lord, let thy Holy Spirit reveal this to me more perfectly. I wish to take thy word in simple faith, to take the position thou assignest me, as one who in thee is dead to sin. Lord, in thee I am dead to sin. Teach me to hold it fast, or rather to hold thee fast in faith, until my whole life is a proof of it. O Lord, take me up, and keep me in communion with thyself, that abiding in thee, I may find in thee the death unto sin, and the life unto God. Amen. As a meeting of ministers, where these words in Romans 6 verse 11 were being discussed, the question was asked by the reader, which of the five different thoughts of the verse was the most important. He pointed out what these thoughts were. The first, likewise also ye, suggesting the complete likeness to him of whom it has just been said, in that he died, he died unto sin once, in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. The second, reckon yourselves, the command in which the duty of a large but simple faith is laid upon us. Then, dead indeed to sin, the truth in which the teaching of the previous verses is summed up. Next, alive unto God, the never-failing accompaniment and the blessing of the death to sin. And then, through Jesus Christ our Lord, in him who is ever root and centre of all scripture teaching. Which of these clauses must be considered as that the right understanding of which is most essential to the full experience of the whole? The first answer was at once given, dead unto sin. It is certainly this expression, the leader remarked, that above all has created such deep interest in this verse, and stirred so much earnest striving to realise what it implies. And yet it does not appear to me the most important. Alive unto God was the answer of the second, for it is the life of Jesus given to us in regeneration that makes its partakers of his death and its power over sin. Dead unto sin is only the negative aspect of what we have as a positive reality in being alive unto God. If we looked more at the alive unto God, the dead unto sin would be better understood. Reckon yourselves was suggested by a third. Is not this command to act faith in what has been prepared for us of God, the chief thought of the verse, and that, therefore, to which our chief attention must be given? Another brother now said, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Our leader said, I think I have lately been taught that this is indeed that on the right apprehension of which the power of the whole verse depends. How many have been looking most earnestly for the full insight into the blessedness of being dead unto sin and alive unto God, and yet have failed. How often have we heard them pray, Lord, we are not yet utterly dead, but we long to be so. Many others who have better understood the text and have seen that everything depends on the Reckon yourselves to be dead upon the faith that accepts God's statement of what is already true and sure, yet confess their faith is not followed by the power and the blessing they hoped for. The mistake has been this. They have been more occupied with the blessings to be had in Jesus, dead unto sin, alive unto God, and the question as to their experience of them, or even with the effort to exercise a strong abiding faith in these blessings as theirs, than with Jesus himself in whom both the blessings and the faith that sees them are ours. To death unto sin, the life unto God, are his, see verse 10, are in him, accomplished, living, actual, mighty realities. It is as we are in him and know ourselves to be in him, and so come away out of ourselves to be and abide in him only and always, that the blessings which there are in him will, in the most simple and natural way possible, spontaneously become ours in experience, and that we shall be strengthened in faith to claim and enjoy them. It must be Christ Jesus first and Christ Jesus last. He must be all. See how clearly this comes out in the third verse of the chapter. Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. The baptism into Jesus Christ was the first thing that they had understood and accepted. The baptism into his death followed from it. This they were now yet to learn the meaning of. The Lord Jesus had been baptized with water and with the Holy Spirit, and yet he spoke of a baptism yet to come. The full outcome of his first baptism was to be the death of the cross. Even so it is with us. When baptized into Christ we put on Christ, Galatians chapter 3 verse 27. We are made partakers of him and all that he is and was of his death too. But it is only in course of time that we got to understand this and really to claim the power of his death unto sin and his living unto God. But we can do this successfully only as we hold fast the initial all comprehensive blessing, baptized into Christ. It is the faith that goes away out to take its abode consciously and permanently in Jesus that will have the power to say, in Christ Jesus we are dead unto sin and alive unto God. In Christ Jesus. We do boldly reckon ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God. Baptized into his death, what a word! The death of our Lord Jesus was the chief thing about him. It gives him his beauty, his glory, his victory, his power. In the complete conformity to this the highest privilege of the Christian consists. To be immersed, plunged into, steeped in the death of Christ, the whole being penetrated with the spirit of that death, its obedience, its self-sacrifice, its utter giving up of everything that is of nature that has been in contact with sin, to pass through the death into the new life that God gives. This must be the highest longing of the Christian. He has been baptized into the death. He yields himself to the Holy Spirit to have all that it contains unfolded and applied. And he does this in simple faith. He knows that in Christ Jesus he is dead unto sin and alive unto God. Just as the life unto God is a complete and perfect thing and yet subject to the law of growth and increase, so that he goes on to life more abundant, so with the death to sin. In Christ he is dead to sin, completely and entirely, and yet the full enjoyment of what that death means and works in all its extent is a matter of growing intelligence and experience. But let us beware of wearying ourselves, how often we have done so, with trying more to comprehend exactly and to realize feelingly what this death to sin is and what the conscious reckoning ourselves dead is, than to remember that all this comes only as we are and abide in Christ Jesus, in whom alone these blessings are ours. I may be so occupied with the blessings and their pursuit that I lose sight and hold of him in whom I must be abiding most entirely if I am to enjoy them. Let my first aim be in wholehearted faith and obedience to dwell in Jesus, in whom are the death unto sin and the life unto God. The whole state of being which is implied in these words is his. He lives it, it is his alone. As I lose myself in him, I may rest assured that the blessing I long for will come, or rather I shall know that in him I have the thing itself, that divine life out of death working in me, even when I know not exactly to describe it in words. And I shall see how the whole power and blessedness of the command gathers itself into the closing claws. Likewise also ye reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God, in Christ Jesus. In Christ is the root of like Christ. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans chapter 6, verses 5 and 4. On the likeness of his death there follows necessarily the likeness of his resurrection. To speak alone of the likeness of his death, of bearing the cross and of self-denial, gives a one-sided view of following Christ. It is only the power of his resurrection that gives us strength to go on from that likeness of his death as what we receive at once by faith, to that conformity to his death which comes as the growth of the inner life. Being dead with Christ refers more to the death of the old life to sin and the world which we abandon. Risen with Christ refers to the new life through which the Holy Spirit expels the old. To the Christian who earnestly desires to walk as Christ did, the knowledge of this likeness of his resurrection is indispensable. Let us see if we do not hear get the answer to the question as to where we shall find strength to live in the world as Christ did. We have already seen how our Lord's life before his death was a life of weakness. As our surety, sin had great power over him. It had also power over his disciples so that he could not give them the Holy Spirit or do for them what he wished. But with the resurrection all was changed. Raised by the almighty power of God, his resurrection life was full of the power of eternity. He had not only conquered death and sin for himself but for his disciples, so that he could from the first day make them partakers of his Spirit, of his joy, and of his heavenly power. When the Lord Jesus now makes us partakers of his life, then it is not the life that he had before his death, but the resurrection life that he won through his death. A life in which sin is already made an end of and put away, a life that has already conquered hell and the devil, the world and the flesh, a life of divine power in human nature. This is the life that likeness to his resurrection gives us. In that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Ye also likewise reckon yourselves alive unto God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. O that through the Holy Spirit God might reveal to us the glory of the life in the likeness of Christ's resurrection. In it we find the secret of power for a life of conformity to him. To most Christians this is a mystery, and therefore their life is full of sin and weakness and defeat. They believe in Christ's resurrection as the sufficient proof of their justification. They think that he had to rise again to continue his work in heaven as mediator. But that he rose again in order that his glorious resurrection life might now be the very power of their daily life of this they have no idea. Hence their hopelessness when they hear of following Jesus fully and being perfectly conformed to his image. They cannot imagine how it can be required of a sinner that he should in all things act as Christ would have done. They do not know Christ in the power of his resurrection or the mighty power with which his life now works in those who are willing to count all things but loss for his sake. Philippians 3, verse 8, Ephesians 1, verses 19 and 20. Come, all ye who are weary of a life unlike Jesus and long to walk always in his footsteps, who begin to see that there is in the Scriptures a better life for you than you have hitherto known. Come and let me try to show you the unspeakable treasure that is yours in your likeness to Christ in his resurrection. Let me ask three questions. The first is, are you ready to surrender your life to the rule of Jesus and his resurrection life? I doubt not that the contemplation of Christ's example has convinced you of sin in more than one point. In seeking your own will and glory instead of God's, in ambition and pride and selfishness and want of love towards man, you have seen how far you are from the obedience and humility and love of Jesus. And now it is the question whether, in view of all these things, in which you have acknowledged sin, you are willing to say, if Jesus will take possession of my life, then I resign all right or wish ever in the least to have or to do my own will. I give my life with all I have and am entirely to him, always to do what he, through his word and spirit, commands me. If he will live and rule in me, I promise unbounded and hearty obedience. For such a surrender faith is needed. Therefore, the second question is, are you prepared to believe that Jesus will take possession of the life entrusted to him and that he will rule and keep it? When the believer entrusts his entire spiritual and temporal life completely to Christ, then he learns to understand or write Paul's words, I am dead, I live no more, Christ liveth in me. Dead with Christ and risen again, the living Christ in his resurrection life takes possession of and rules my new life. The resurrection life is not a thing that I may have if I can undertake to keep it. No, this is just what I cannot do. But, blessed be God, Jesus Christ himself is the resurrection and the life, is the resurrection life. He himself will from day to day and hour to hour see to it and ensure that I live as one who is risen with him. He does it through that Holy Spirit who is the spirit of his risen life. The Holy Spirit is in us and will if we trust Jesus for it maintain within us every moment the presence and power of the risen Lord. We need not fear that we can never succeed in leading such a holy life as becomes those who are temples of the living God. We are indeed not able, but it is not required of us. The living Jesus who is the resurrection has shown his power over all our enemies. He himself who so loves us he will work it in us. He gives us the Holy Spirit as our power and he will perform his work in us with divine faithfulness if we will only trust him. Christ himself is our life. And now comes the third question. Are you ready to use this resurrection life for the purpose for which God gave it him and gives to you as a power of blessing to the lost? All desires after the resurrection life will fail if we are only seeking our own perfection and happiness. God raised up an exalted Jesus to give repentance and remission of sins. He ever lives to pray for sinners. Yield yourself to receive his resurrection life with the same aim. Give yourself holy to working and praying for the perishing. Then you will become a fit vessel and instrument in which the resurrection life can dwell and work out its glorious purposes. Brother, thy calling is to live like Christ. To this end thou hast already been made one with him in the likeness of his resurrection. The only question is now whether thou art desirous after the full experience of his resurrection life, whether thou art willing to surrender thy whole life that he himself may manifest resurrection power in every part of it. I pray thee, do not draw back. Offer thyself unreservedly to him with all thy weakness and unfaithfulness. Believe that as his resurrection was a wonder above all thought and expectation, so he, as the risen one, will still work in the exceeding abundantly above all that thou couldst think or desire. What a difference there was in the life of the disciples before Jesus' death and after his resurrection. Then all was weakness and fear, self and sin. With the resurrection all was power and joy, life and love and glory. Just as great will the change be when a believer who has known Jesus' resurrection only as the ground of his justification but has not known of the likeness of his resurrection discovers how the risen one will himself be his life and in very deed take on himself the responsibility for the whole of that life. O brother, who has not yet experienced this, who are troubled and weary because thou art called to walk like Christ and can't not do it, come and taste the blessedness of giving thy whole life to the risen Saviour in the assurance that he will live it for thee. O Lord, my soul adores thee as the prince of life. On the cross thou didst conquer each one of my enemies, the devil, the flesh, the world, and sin. As conqueror thou didst rise to manifest and maintain the power of thy risen life in thy people. Thou hast made them one with thyself in the likeness of thy resurrection. Now thou wilt live in them and show forth in their earthly life the power of thy heavenly life. Praise be thy name for this wonderful grace. Blessed Lord, I come at thy invitation to offer and surrender to thee my life with all it implies. Too long I have striven in my own strength to live like thee and not succeeded. The more I sought to walk like thee, the deeper was my disappointment. I have heard of thy disciples who tell how blessed it is to cast all care and responsibility for their life on thee. Lord, I am risen with thee, one with thee in the likeness of thy resurrection. Come and take me entirely for thy own and be thou my life. Above all I beseech thee, O my risen Lord, to reveal thyself to me as thou didst to thy first disciples in the power of thy resurrection. It was not enough that after thy resurrection thou didst appear to thy disciples. They knew thee not till thou didst make thyself known. Lord Jesus, I do believe in thee. Be pleased or be pleased to make thyself known to me as my life. It is thy work, thou alone canst do it. I trust thee for it. And so shall my resurrection life be like thine own, a continual source of light and blessing to all who are needing thee. Amen. Note I add here an extract from Marshall on sanctification in which the reality of our being partakers with Jesus of the very nature in which he lived and died and rose again is very clearly put. I have often regretted that the somewhat antiquated style of this writer and the introduction of questions not of immediate interest to the soul seeking the path of holiness prevents his book from being as well known as it deserves to be. It is on all hands acknowledged to be the one standard work on the subject. It has been given him by God's spirit with wonderful simplicity to set forth the great truth that holiness is a new life, a new nature, prepared for us in Christ Jesus, and that therefore every step in the pathway of holiness whether in the use of the means of grace or in obeying God's commands must be one of faith. I have thought that an abridgement of the work in which all that is essential is provided in the autozone words would supply a real want and might be a blessing to many. I have prepared such an abridgement which has been issued by the publishers of the present work under the title of The Highway of Holiness. Quote, The end of Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection, was to prepare and form an holy nature and frame for us in himself to be communicated to us by union and fellowship with him, and not to enable us to produce in ourselves the first original of such an holy nature by our own endeavours. One, by his incarnation there was a man created in a new holy frame after the holiness of the first Adam's frame had been marred and abolished by the first transgression, and this new frame was far more excellent than ever the first Adam's was because man was really joined to God by a close inseparable union of the divine and human nature in one person, Christ, so that these natures had communion with each other in their actings, and Christ was able to act in his human nature by power proper to the divine nature wherein he was one God with the Father. Why was it that Christ set up the fallen nature of man in such a wonderful frame of holiness in bringing it to live and act by communion with God living and acting in it? One great end was that he might communicate this excellent frame to his seed that should by his spirit be born of him and be in him as the quickening spirit, that as we have borne the image of the earthly man so we might also bear the image of the heavenly, 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 45 and 49, in holiness here and in glory hereafter. Thus he was born Immanuel, God with us, because the fullness of the Godhead with all his holiness did first dwell in him bodily, even in his human nature, that we might be filled with that fullness in him. Matthew chapter 1 verse 23, Colossians chapter 2 verses 9 and 10. Thus he came down from heaven as living bread, that as he liveth by the Father, so those that eat him may live by him, John chapter 6 verses 51 and 57, by the same life of God in them that was first in him. 2. By his death he freed himself from the guilt of our sins imputed to him, and from all that innocent weakness of human nature which he had borne for a time for our sakes, and by freeing himself he prepared a freedom for us from our whole natural condition, which is both weak as his was, and also polluted with our guilt and sinful corruption. Thus the corrupt natural state which is called in Scripture the old man was crucified together with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed, and it is destroyed in us not by any wounds which we ourselves can give it but by our partaking of that freedom from it and death unto it that is already wrought out for us by the death of Christ, as is signified by our baptism wherein we are buried with Christ by the application of his death to us. Romans chapter 6 verses 2, 3, 4, 10 and 11. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin, or by a sacrifice for sin as in the margin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Romans chapter 8 verses 3 and 4. Observe here that though Christ died that we might be justified by the righteousness of God and of faith not by our own righteousness which is of the law Romans 10 verses 4 to 6, Philippians chapter 3 verse 9, yet he died also that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us and that by walking after his Spirit as those that are in Christ Romans chapter 8 verse 4. He is resembled in his death to a corn of wheat dying in the earth that it may propagate its own nature by bringing forth much fruit. John chapter 12 verse 24. To the Passover that was slain that a feast might be kept upon it, and to bread broken that it may be nourishment to those that eat it, 1 Corinthians 5 verses 7 and 8 and chapter 11 verse 24. To the rock smitten that water might gush out of it for us to drink, 1 Corinthians 10 verse 4. He died that he might make of Jew and Gentile one new man in himself, Ephesians 2 verse 15, and that he might see his seed i.e. such as derive the holy nature from him, Isaiah 53 verse 10. Let these scriptures be well observed and they will be sufficiently evidence that Christ died not that we might be able to form and holy nature in ourselves but that we might receive one ready prepared and formed in Christ for us by union and fellowship with him. 3. By his resurrection he took possession of spiritual life for us as now fully procured for us and made to be our right and property by the merit of his death and therefore we are said to be quickened together with Christ. His resurrection was our resurrection to the life of holiness as Adam's fall was our fall into spiritual death and we are not ourselves the first makers and formers of our new holy nature any more than of our original corruption but both are formed ready for us to partake of them and by union with Christ we partake of that spiritual life that he took possession of for us at his resurrection and thereby we are enabled to bring forth the fruits of it as the scripture showeth by the similitude of a married union Romans chapter 7 verse 4 we are married to him that is raised from the dead that we might bring forth fruit on to God end quote end of 23rd day 24th day of like Christ by Andrew Murray this Librivox recording is in the public domain like Christ being made conformable to his death that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death Philippians chapter 3 verse 10 we know that the death of Christ was the death of the cross we know that the death of the cross is his chief glory without that death he would not be the Christ the distinguishing characteristic the one mark by which he is separated here in earth and in heaven from all other persons both in the divine being and in God's universe is this one he is the crucified son of God of all the articles of conformity this must necessarily be the chief and most glorious one conformity to his death that is what made it so attractive to Paul what were Christ's glory and blessedness must be his glory too he knows that the most intimate likeness to Christ is conformity to his death what that death had been to Christ it would be to him as he grew conformed to it Christ's death on the cross had been the end of sin during his life it could tempt him when he died on the cross he died to sin it could no more reach him conformity to Christ's death is the power to keep us from the power of sin as I by the grace of the Holy Spirit am kept in my position as crucified with Christ and live out my crucifixion life as the crucified one lives it in me I am kept from sinning Christ's death on the cross was to the father a sweet smelling sacrifice infinitely pleasing oh if I want to dwell in the favour and love of the father and be his delight I am sure there is nothing gives such deep and perfect access to it as being conformable to Christ's death there is nothing in the universe to the father so beautiful so holy so heavenly so wonderful as this sight the crucified Jesus and the closer I can get to him and the likeer the more conformed to his death I can become the more surely shall I enter into the very bosom of his love Christ's death on the cross was the entrance to the power of the resurrection life the unchanging life of eternity in our spiritual life we often have to mourn the breaks and failures and intervals that prove to us that there is still something wanting that prevents the resurrection life asserting its full power the secret is here there is still some subtle self-life that has not yet been brought into the perfect conformity of Christ's death we can be sure of it nothing is needed but a fuller entrance into the fellowship of the cross to make us to the full partakers of the resurrection joy above all it was Christ's death on the cross that made him the life of the world gave him the power to bless and to save john chapter 12 verses 24 and 25 in the conformity to Christ's death there is an end of self we give up ourselves to live and die for others we are full of the faith that our surrender of ourselves to bear the sin of others is accepted of the father out of this death we rise with the power to love and to bless and now what is this conformity to the death of the cross that brings such blessings and wherein does it consist we see it in Jesus the cross means entire self-abnegation the cross means death of self the utter surrender of our own will and our life to be lost in the will of God to let God's will do with us what it pleases this was what the cross meant to Jesus it cost him a terrible struggle before he could give himself up to it when he was so amazed and very heavy and his soul exceeding sorrowful unto death it was because his whole being shrank back from that cross and its curse three times he had to pray before he could fully say yet not my will but dine be done but he did say it and his giving himself up to the cross is to say let me do anything rather than that God's will should not be done I give up everything only God's will must be done and this is being made conformable to Christ's death that we so give away ourselves and our whole life with its power of willing and acting to God that we learn to be and work and do nothing but what God reveals to us as his will and such a life is called conformity to the death of Christ not only because it is somewhat similar to his but because it is himself by his Holy Spirit just repeating and acting over again in us the life that animated him in his crucifixion were it not for this the very thought of such conformity would be akin to blasphemy but now it is not so in the power of the Holy Spirit as the spirit of the crucified Jesus the believer knows that the blessed resurrection life has its power and its glory from its being a crucifixion life begotten from the cross he yields himself to it he believes that it has possession of him realizing that he himself has not the power to think or do anything that is good or holy nay that the power of the flesh asserts itself and defiles everything that is in him he yields and holds every power of his being as far as his disposal of them goes in the place of crucifixion and condemnation and so he yields and holds every power of his being every faculty of body soul and spirit at the disposal of Jesus the distrust and denial of self in everything the trust of Jesus in everything mark his life the very spirit of the cross breathed through his whole being and so far is it from being as it might appear a matter of painful strain and weary effort thus to maintain the crucifixion position to one who knows Christ in the power of his resurrection for Paul puts this first and so is made conformed to his death it is rest and strength and victory because it is not the dead cross nor self self-denial nor a work in his own strength that he has to do with but the living Jesus in whom the crucifixion is an accomplished thing already passed into the life of resurrection i have been crucified with Christ Christ live within me this it is that gives the courage and the desire for an ever-growing ever deeper entrance into the most perfect conformity with his death and how is this blessed conformity to be attained paul will give us the answer what things were gained to me these i counted loss for christ yay doubtless i count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of jesus christ my lord that i may know him being made conformed to his death the pearl is of great price but oh it is worth the purchase let us give up all yes all to be admitted by jesus to a place with him on the cross and if it appear hard to give up all and then as our reward only have a whole lifetime on the cross oh let us listen again to paul as he tells us what made him so willingly give up all and so intently choose the cross it was jesus christ jesus my lord the cross was the place where he could get into fullest union with his lord to know him to win him to be found in him to be made like to him this was the burning passion that made it easy to cast away all that gave the cross such mighty attractive power anything to come nearer to jesus all for jesus was his motto it contains the twofold answer to the question how to attain this conformity to christ's death the one is cast out all the other and let jesus come in all for jesus yes it is only knowing jesus that can make the conformity to his death at all possible but let the soul win him and be found in him and know him in the power of the resurrection and it becomes more than possible a blessed reality therefore beloved follower of jesus look to him look to him the crucified one gaze on him until thy soul has learned to say oh my lord i must be like thee gaze until thou has seen how he himself the crucified one in his ever-present omnipotence draws an eye to live in thee and breathe through thy being his crucifixion life it was through the eternal spirit that he offered himself unto god that spirit brings and imparts all that that death on the cross is and means and effected to thee as thy life by that holy spirit jesus himself maintains in each soul who can trust him for it the power of the cross as an abiding death to sin and self and a never ceasing source of resurrection life and power therefore once again look to him the living crucified jesus but remember above all that while thou hast to seek the best and the highest with all thy might the full blessing comes not as the fruit of thy efforts but unsought a free gift to whom it is given from above it is as it pleases the lord jesus to reveal himself that we are made conformable to his death therefore seek and get it from himself oh lord such knowledge is too wonderful for me it is high i cannot attain to it to know thee in the power of thy resurrection and to be made conformable to thy death these are of the things which are hid from the wise and prudent and are revealed unto babes unto those elect souls alone to whom it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom oh my lord i see more than ever what utter folly it is to think of likeness to thee as an attainment through my effort i cast myself on thy mercy look upon me according to the greatness of thy loving kindness and of thy free favor reveal thyself to me if thou wilt be pleased to come forth from thy heavenly dwelling place and to draw nigh to me and to prepare me and take me up into the full fellowship of thy life and death oh my lord then will i live and die for thee and the souls thou hast died to save blessed savior i know thou art willing thy love to each of thy redeemed ones is infinite oh teach me draw me to give up all for thee and take eternal possession of me for thyself and oh let some measure of conformity to thy death in itself sacrifice for the perishing be the mark of my life amen end of 24th day