Christ. If the world would take that in, surely they would give up the baubles, and vanities, and follies they strive so after. We are chosen together with Christ, chosen in Him. We are blessed together, blessed in Him.

"In the beginning, God." We are dead to sin together with Christ, we are alive to God together. We are commanded to "reckon" it so; we are justified together. I have no justification apart from Christ. We are sanctified together. I have not a particle of sanctification apart from Christ. I do not desire it. I am sorry to ever hear anything about it. It puts me looking within where I have nothing but emptiness, and it disheartens and distresses me. I want to see all my sanctification in Jesus as much as I do my justification. We are raised up together; we are filled together; of His fulness have all we received. Is it a part of it? A modicum? Nay, nay, but " grace for grace," grace corresponding to every grace that is in Christ. We are about to be presented together in one spirit. We have our access (manuduction) to the Father by Jesus Christ. What about our faith in reference to these things? Brethren, it is a very great snare to listen to precious truth. I know it is precious truth I am privileged to set before you; but think of the sin of slighting it. If it is false, reject it; if it be true, for God's sake receive it, but do not let it lie neglected at your doors; if you do it will be to your condemnation instead of to your blessing. If we believe the word of God we are sitting together already at God's right hand in Christ Jesus. People wonder if they shall ever get to heaven. Why, we are there already practically if we are in Christ,

and your privilege is to be looking down at the passing things here below, as from the throne, instead of taking an occasional trembling look up to see if you will ever be there. If we be Christ's we are loved as Christ is loved, nothing less. "The love wherewith Thou hast loved. Me," He says; "Thou in them and I in them."

Now, brethren, it is very important to get a true idea of what the love of Christ means, but I do not think we get anything by trying to explain it. I doubt if the Lord explains it, and especially do I doubt that we can explain it. "The love wherewith Thou hast loved Me," that is the love. "These things have I spoken unto you that your joy may be full." "Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." Finally we are to be "glorified together." "If we suffer with Him we shall be glorified together." The mystical body of the Lord Jesus Christ has many various parts and members, and as the members of the natural body together make one body, "so also is the Christ, and the eye cannot say to the head, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you." If there is a poor soul here who has but touched the hem of His garment, let me tell him, Christ cannot be glorified without you. There would be a deficiency in His fulness. Till you are completed He cannot be complete, for no member can be wanting when the time comes to give you your place in the temple of His glory, and without your presence there, there can be no fulness of Christ. Let us try and believe what we cannot comprehend. There is no use attempting to explain this truth. I cannot, and I do not think anyone else can, but a faint and weary traveller may refresh himself from a roadside spring, though he be

not able to sound the depths of the ocean from which that fountain may have had its rise.

The Epistle to the Ephesians was written about the same time as the Epistle to the Colossians. The Epistle to the Colossians tells us what Christ is to His people. See the description we have in the 15th and following verses of the first chapter. There is affirmed Christ's relationship to the Godhead, His relationship to Nature, and His relationship to the Church. But the Epistle to the Ephesians tells us what His people in Christ are to God. This, I think, is summed up in two marvellous revelations. One in the 18th verse of the first chapter"God's inheritance is in His saints"; not, observe you, that our inheritance is in God, wonderful as that thought may be. The Holy Ghost speaks of God's inheritance in His saints. Have you ever believed individually that you are a part of God's inheritance in Christ? The other revelation to which I alluded you will find in chapter ii. 19 to end. God's saints individually "are being builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." And collectively and in Christ, "the whole building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." This vision seems to entrance the apostle, and he loses himself in the contemplation of "its breadth, and length, and depth, and height," as we shall see by and by. And first, with reference to our being God's inheritance, the apostle prays (verse 18) that "the eyes of their understandings being enlightened they may KNOW what is the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in His saints." Blessed knowledge. We are renewed in this knowledge. "We are given all things that pertain to life and godliness

through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue." "We are made partakers of the divine nature through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." (See 2 Peter i. 2-4.) There can be no true faith that is not grounded upon knowledge of the truth. He therefore prays for their spiritual illumination, "that they may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints (blessings on Him, God is not ashamed of His inheritance), and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe." Do you believe, my brethren and sisters? See the power operating in them that believe. "It is according to the working of the mighty power which God wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His right hand in the heavenly places." If you really believe in Christ, see where you are. See how all the other powers God has brought into operation upon all other things whatsoever is only equal to the power which He works in His people. See again in the second chapter of Ephesians at the nineteenth verse the other amazing revelation of God's love. "That we are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Each one an habitation, and all together an holy temple. in the Lord. You see the two unspeakable revelations. God's inheritance is in His saints, and they are singly and

collectively being builded upon and in Christ for the habitation of God. Now a parenthesis follows from verse I of the third chapter to verse 14, calling attention to the mercy bestowed upon the apostle by God.

And then again at verse 14 he returns to his theme, and prays for the believers of Ephesus. "For this cause he desires to discover to them and to us the glorious vision he has had of God's masterpiece. He would have us "comprehend with all saints breadth, length, depth, height." Of what? He seems to feel no need to mention. He stops there, and, as it were, entranced. Brethren, he is contemplating the spiritual habitation of the living God, grown up into an holy temple in the Lord. Its breadths and lengths, its depths and heights are before the gaze of his faith, but he does not attempt to measure them! What mortal mind can estimate the depths from which God's saints are being taken, of the heights into which they are exalted in Christ, or the breadths and lengths of that circumference of love into which God's grace shall have gathered them, when all together they shall have "grown up into an holy temple in the Lord." Meantime he prays that as it will include all saints, so they may be able to comprehend with all saints, and that they may know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, and that they may be filled with all the fulness of God. Three things he prays for as necessary qualifications. First, that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, would grant unto them" (oh, mark the measure of the gist, for He gives nothing less than according to this measure) according to the riches of His glory." That is God's

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