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النشر الإلكتروني

LECTURE LXIV.

SANCTIFICATION.

(51.) Christ is our Shield. By this name or in this relation he has always been known to the saints. God said to Abraham, I am thy Shield.-Gen. 15: 1. Ps. 33: 20: The Lord is my Shield. Prov. 30: 5: He is a Shield to them that put their trust in him. A shield is a piece of defensive armor used in war. It is a broad plate made of wood or metal, and borne upon the arm and hand, and in conflict presented between the body and the enemy to protect it against his arrows or his blows. God is the christian's shield in the spiritual warfare. This is a most interesting and important relation. He who does not know Christ in this relation, and has not embraced and put him on as one would buckle on a shield, is all exposed to the assaults of the enemy and will surely be wounded if not slain by his fiery darts. This is more than a figure of speech. No fact or reality is of more importance to the christian than to know how to hide himself behind and in Christ in the hour of conflict. Unless the christian has on his shield and knows how to use it, he will surely fall in battle. When Satan appears, the soul must present its shield, must take refuge behind and in Christ or all will be defeat and disgrace. When faith presents Christ as the shield, Satan retires vanquished from the field in every instance. Christ always makes way for our escape and never did a soul get wounded in conflict who made the proper use of this shield. But Christ needs to be known as our protection, as ready on all occasions to shield us from the curse of the law and from the artillery of the enemy of our souls. Be sure to truly know him and put him on in this relation, and then you may always sing of victory.

(52.) The Lord is "the Portion" of his people.

I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward," said God to Abraham. As the reward or portion of the soul we need to know and embrace Christ as the condition of abiding in him. We need to know him as "our exceeding great portion," a present, all-satisfying portion. Unless we so know

Christ as to be satisfied with him as all we can ask or desire, we shall not of course abstain from all forbidden sources of enjoyment. Nothing is more indispensable to our entire sanctification than to apprehend the fullness there is in Christ in this relation. When the soul finds in him all its desires and all its wants fully met, when it sees in him all that it can conceive of as excellent and desirable, and that he is its portion, it remains at rest. It has little temptation to go after other lovers or after other sources of enjoyment. It is full. It has enough. It has an infinitely rich and glorious inheritance. What more can it ask or think? The soul that understands what it is to have Christ as its portion, knows that he is an infinite portion, that eternity can never exhaust or even diminish it in the least degree; that the mind shall to all eternity increase in the capacity of enjoying this portion, but that no increase of capacity and enjoyment can diminish ought of the infinite fullness of the Divine Portion of our souls.

(53.) Christ is our Hope. 1 Tim. 1: 1: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our Hope." Col. 1: 27: "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you the hope of glory." Our only rational expectation is from him. Christ in us is our hope of glory. Without Christ in us we have no good or well-grounded hope of glory. Christ in the gospel, Christ on the cross, Christ risen, Christ in heaven is not our hope; but Christ in us, Christ actually present, living and reigning in us as really as he lives and reigns in glory, is our only well-grounded hope. We can not be too certain of this, for unless we despair of salvation in ourselves or in any other, we do not truly make Christ our hope. The soul that does not know and spiritually know Christ in this relation has no well-grounded hope. He may hope that he is a christian. He may hope that his sins are forgiventhat he shall be saved. But he can have no good hope of glory. It can not be too fully understood or too deeply realized that absolute despair of help and salvation in any other possible way except by Christ in us, is an unalterable condition of our knowing and embracing Christ as our hope. Many seem to have conceived of Christ as their hope only in his outward relation, that is, as an atoning Savior, as a risen and ascended Savior. But the indispensable necessity of having Christ within them ruling in their hearts and estab

lishing his government over their whole being, is a condition of salvation of which they have not thought. Christ can not be truly and savingly our hope any farther than he is received into and reigns in our souls. To hope in merely an outward Christ is to hope in vain. To hope in Christ with the true christian hope implies,

[1] The ripe and spiritual apprehension of our hopeless condition without him. It implies such an apprehension of our sins and governmental relations as to annihilate all hope of salvation upon legal grounds.

[2.] Such a perception of our spiritual bondage to sin as to annihilate all hope of salvation without his constant influence and strength to keep us from sin.

[3.] Such a knowledge of our circumstances of temptation as to empty us of all expectation of fighting our own battles or of in the least degree making headway against our spiritual foes in our own wisdom and strength.

[4.] A complete annihilation of all hope from any other

source.

[5.] The revelation of Christ to our souls as our hope by the Holy Spirit.

[6.] The apprehension of him as one to dwell in us and to be received by faith to the supreme control of our souls.

[7.] The hearty and joyful reception of him in this relation. The dethroning of self or the utter denial or rejection of self and the enthroning and crowning of Christ in the inner When Christ is clearly seen to be the only hope of the soul, and when he is spiritually received in this relation, the soul learns habitually and constantly to lean upon him, to rest in him, and make no efforts without him.

man.

(54.) Christ is also our Salvation. Ex. 15: 2: "The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation, he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him." Ps. 27: 1: "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" Ps. 38: 22: "Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation." Ps. 62: 7: "In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God." Ps. 114: "The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation." Isa. 12: 2: "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation." Isa. 49: 6: "And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise

up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the carth." Luke 2: 30: "For mine eyes have seen thy salvation." These and multitudes of similar passages present Christ not only as our Savior, but as our Salvation. That is, he saves us by becoming himself our salvation. Becoming our salvation includes and implies the following things:

[1.] Atonement for our sins.

[2] Convincing us of and converting us from our sins. [3.] Sanctifying our souls.

[4.] Justifying or pardoning and accepting or receiving us to favor.

[5.] Giving us eternal life and happiness.

[6.] The bestowment of himself upon us as the portion of

our souls.

[7.] The everlasting union of our souls with God.

All this Christ is to us and well he may be regarded not only as our Savior, but as our salvation.

Nothing is or can be more important than for us to apprehend Christ in the fulness of his relations to us. Many seem to have but extremely superficial apprehensions of Christ. They seem in a great measure blind to the length, and breadth, and height, and depth of their infinite necessities. Hence they have never sought for such a remedy as is found in Christ. The great mass of christian professors seem to conceive of the salvation of Christ as consisting in a state of mind resulting not from a real union of the soul with Christ, but resulting merely from understanding and believing the doctrines of Christ. The doctrine of Christ as taught in the bible was designed to gain for Christ a personal reception to dwell within and to rule over us. He that truly believes the gospel, will receive Christ as he is presented in the gospel, that is, for what he is there asserted to be to his people, in all the relations he sustains to our souls, as fast as these relations are revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.

The newly converted soul knows Christ in but few relations. He needs trials and experience to develop his weakness and to reveal to him his multiplied necessities and thus lead him to a fuller knowledge of Christ. The new convert embraces Christ so far as he knows him, but at first he knows but little of his need of him except in his governmental relations. Subsequent experience is a condition of his knowing Christ in all his fullness. Nor can he be effectually taught

the fulness there is in Christ any faster than his trials develop his real necessities. If he embraces all he understands of Christ, this is the whole of present duty in respect to him; but as trials are in his way he will learn more of his own necessities, and must learn more of Christ and appropriate him in new relations, or he will surely fall.

(55.) Christ is also the Rock of our Salvation:

Ps. 19: 14: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength [margin, Rock,] and my Redeemer.

28: 1: Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me; lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

31: 2. Bow down thine ear to me. deliver me speedily, be thou my strong rock, for a house of defence to save me. 3. For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore, for thy name's sake, lead me, and guide me.

42: 9. I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

61: 2. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.

73: 26. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength [margin, Rock,] of my heart, and my portion for

ever.

78: 35. And they remembered that God was their Rock, and the high God their Redeemer.

89: 26. He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.

94: 22. But the Lord is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge.

95: 1. O come, let us sing unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation.

Isa. 17: 10. Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the Rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips.

32: 2. And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

It is deeply interesting and affecting to contemplate the relations in which Christ revealed himself to the Old Testament saints. He is a rock of salvation, a strong hold or place of

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