A MERE PROFESSION NOT ENOUGH
There Must Be a Living Connection with the Vine—It Is Only When We Connect with the Head that He Can Supply Power to Direct Our Lives
"AND hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." The foregoing words are the concluding verses of the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. They are full of meaning to the one who reverently studies the word of God. The church is "His body." That is what the text plainly says. And while the body can never be the head, and can never usurp the functions of the head, yet it is always, if normal, in harmony with the head. It will always obey the will and commands of the head, and do it without murmuring. Every person who becomes a part of Christ's body is thereby made a member of His church. And the process by which we become members of His body is learned only by a study of His word, and by receiving that Word into the heart and life. The Word thus received into the life, being clothed with living energy through the agency of God's Spirit, becomes a transforming power, building our characters into the perfect likeness of the character of the Son of God, and actually grows that character into the members of His body, the church. It will readily be seen, then, that actually to be a member of the body, or the church, of Christ, is much more than a mere profession. It is much more than merely having the name enrolled on some church book. It means to be connected with Christ as the body is connected with the head, so that just as the head directs all the movements of the body, even so are we to be directed by Christ. We are to learn to accord the same prompt obedience to Him that the hand or the foot yields to the head. And this wonderful result of being connected with Christ so that we have and live His character, is all accomplished through faith by the power of His word. THE PASSPORT AT HEAVEN'S GATE
Actually to receive and live the real Christ-life is a thing that multitudes of professing Christians do not take into serious account. They seem to think that having their names on the church book is all they need for a passport into heaven. They want some kind of religion that will enable them to go to heaven when they die. If they did not expect to die sometime, they would not trouble themselves about church matters at all. They have not found the joys of Christian living. They are concerned only with the terror of having to die at some future day, and so they join the church "in order to be prepared to die." CHURCH-MEMBERS, BUT NOT CHRISTIANS
This accounts for the fact that so many persons are church-members without being real Christians. They belong to the visible, outward church, without being made a part of the body of Christ. They have not allowed themselves to become connected with Christ, the living Head of the church, and so He has no power to direct their lives in harmony with His divine will. They are not connected with Him except by the mere formality of taking His name through joining the church. To comply with the formality of merely taking the name of Christ by joining some church, is vastly different from becoming in reality a part of His spiritual body, the real spiritual church, through a close, living connection with Him. "I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He taketh it away; and every branch that beareth fruit, He cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit. Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch can not bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be My disciples. Even as the Father hath loved Me, I also have loved you: abide ye in My love. 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. These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full." John 15: 1-11. The foregoing scripture, so wonderful for its beauty, and so satisfying and helpful in the wealth of its promises, is the Master's139presentation of the living connection that exists between Himself and each member of His church. He is the vine. He supplies the life and the power that direct and keep us in righteous living. But that righteous living all depends upon our perfect connection with the Vine. We must be branches. We must be a living part of the true Vine. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch can not bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me," "for apart from Me ye can do nothing." There is no right thing that we can do apart from the life of the Master—apart from the living connection of the branch to the Vine. Then there is a far deeper significance to church-membership than merely to have the name on the church book. The church-membership that Christ, the Head of the church, recognizes, is a perfect union with Him. Anything short of this does not make us a part of the real church of Christ, no matter how indelible may be the ink with which our names have been enrolled on some church register, nor how prominent may be our professions or pretensions. Let us study, then, to be connected with Christ in reality, rather than to be merely a part of the outward profession that has none of the indescribable joys of real Christian living in it; for there is a joy in living the life of the Christian, and this joy is too full and complete to be described in words. It must be tasted, it must actually be experienced, in order to be understood and rightly prized.