All Sufficiency in Christ
IN Jesus Christ is all sufficiency. "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." "In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." And the inspired prayer of his apostle is that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." Having him, we have all; for says the apostle, "Ye are complete in him." All that is needed to bring this completeness to every man is simple faith in the record which God has given of his Son. FAITH in Christ connects man with God. He can then say, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Thus it is that the individual becomes united with Christ. The Spirit of God, Christ's representative, forms the bond of union, imparting life, vigor, and instruction through God's word. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." THE many individuals thus united in Christ form the body, or church, of Christ. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." This body is the church of Christ, of which Christ is the head in all things; for God "hath put all things under his [Christ's] feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body." From him, therefore, will the church receive her all. All her instruction, all her aid, all her power, comes from him. To him she is betrothed; union with the world or with the State is spiritual fornication, or adultery, and this is death. Her weapon of aggressive warfare is the word of God; her shield is faith; her helmet, hope; her feet are shod with the sandals of peace, her heart covered with the breastplate of righteousness. THE mission of such a church—and such a church only is the church of the New Testament—is not to compel men, but to win them. It is not to make law or enforce law, but to proclaim the gospel, or good news of liberty from the bondage of sin. It is not to enlist the State in her schemes, but to bring salvation to the individual soul. It is not to hold the wicked and the sinful away by the constant appeal to civil law to suppress them, but to seek the sinful and the lost, in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not to glorify and exalt the rich and wise of earth, but to lift up the Man of Calvary. This is the mission of the church of Christ; and this is the mission of every individual member of that church, or else he is not a part of it. Reader, are you a member of Christ's body? Are you living his life?