CHRIST IN US | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 13, 1877

CHRIST IN US.

Few Christians have attained to that intimate and complete union with Christ of which he spoke in the last interview with his disciples before his crucifixion, “Abide in me, and I in you.” It is not merely trusting in Christ, or walking with Christ; it is living in him, and having his presence ever in the soul. As two friends, though separated, live in each other’s thoughts and affections, and possess one spirit, seek each other’s happiness, rejoice in each other, and often without consultation come, as it were, instinctively to the same course of life, so Christ and the true believer are one.

Paul, in one of those sententious sayings which contain an epitome of the gospel, declares that the grand revelation of the New Testament is “Christ in you the hope of glory.” Oh! the preciousness of such a union with Christ! of such a real presence of the Saviour in the soul! And yet it is to be feared that many of his followers know but little of it.

Some have merely a historic Christ—others have a dogmatic Christ, the Christ of the catechisms and schools. What we need, in order to know the full power of Christ, the power of his life, the power of his doctrine, the power of his death, the power of his resurrection—is to have Christ in us as the object of thought, of trust, of affection, of desire, of hope, of joy—to be in sympathy with his feelings and his work—to be swayed by his spirit.—Sel.