CHRIST WITHIN by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 20, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 47.

CHRIST WITHIN

By G.

TO THE Pharisees Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” Luke 17:21, R. V., margin. When He sent out teachers, they were to say to the people, even to those who rejected the message, “The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.” Luke 10:9, 11. This was a great blessing to them, altho they did not appreciate it. Yet how much more enduring is the visitation to those who accept the Gospel. “If a man love Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.” John 14:23. This thought is reiterated by the apostle Paul in these words: “Know ye not that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price; glorify God therefore in your body.”

Note that Christ, the Head of the kingdom that is now “in the midst of” the people of this world, comes as an unsolicited offering. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” But He can not take up His abode within the individual unless His love be reciprocated. As long as the old man dominates the heart, the new man finds no place there. Two can not walk together unless they are agreed. The condition of Christ’s abiding presence in the heart is love. “God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.” 1 John 4:16. The preceding verse says that “whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God.”

The idea of this abiding presence is further, and we might say more fully, shown in Christ’s own experience as a man in this world. He said to His disciples, “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.” How we may abide in His love is illustrated in these words: “If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.” Here we have the secret of the whole matter; the covenant is a reciprocity of love, the supreme manifestation of which on the part of the Father was the sacrifice of His Son, and on the part of Christ the sacrifice of Himself. The love due from every individual is the same as that which was manifested by the Son of God. It is thus defined: “This is the love of God, that ye keep His commandments.” Having the law of God written in the heart, is having Christ enthroned within, “the hope of glory.”

Christ is to-day standing and knocking at the door of impenitent hearts, and saying, “If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” Will you not open the door, and let Him in? However anxious He is, however much He longs to enter in and give you everlasting peace with God, He can not become an unwelcome guest. He can not come in unbidden.