me, and I in you." When these words were uttered, our Lord's disciples did not know these things as they were to know them. They had heard these statements again and again from the lips of their Lord, and they had likely some misty general conception of what they referred to; but they had no distinct clear apprehension of the truths, which the outpouring of the Spirit, leading to the writing of the apostolic epistles, has enabled us to state, and which are plainly folded up in his words. But the time was approaching-was, indeed, very near at hand-when their views should be enlarged, and their faith confirmed, and, in a number of the points referred to, experience should be called in to the aid of faith. They would, by the influence of the Spirit shedding light both on events and doctrines, and by changes wrought in them and by them, be made intelligent and firm believers of these sublime truths, so far beyond the reach of the natural mind, and so come to know and be sure that Christ was in the Father, and the Father in Christ-that they were in Christ, and that Christ was in them.

§ 3. The fulfilment of the promise.

It only remains that we very shortly show how this declaration of our Lord was fulfilled, and how, in that day -in the day of the gospel dispensation, beginning with the resurrection from the dead, and reaching to our Lord's second coming-Christians have indeed been made to know that Christ is in the Father, and they in Christ, and Christ in them.

The resurrection to some extent cleared the minds of the disciples as to some of these points. They saw that their Master was in the Father, most intimately connected with him. He was powerfully declared by the resurrection, to be the Son of God, "according to the Spirit of holiness,”— i. e., probably according to his divine nature.' The whole apostles were so impressed with this, that they worshipped

their risen Lord; and even doubting Thomas was constrained to exclaim, "My Lord, and my God." 1

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit went still farther in extending their views and confirming their faith. How wonderful the difference between the state of Peter's mind, as to the meaning and evidence of these words, at the time they were uttered and six weeks afterwards, when, to a great assembly of his countrymen, he proclaimed, "The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus"-"Ye denied the Holy One and the Just; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead." Then he knew that Christ was in the Father, and the Father in Christ.

2

And when he who had quailed at the voice of a woman, was enabled before the incensed Sanhedrim to declare, "we ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, and hanged on a tree him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things; Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to

and so is also the them that obey him." How must he have known and felt within himself, that he now knew that Christ was in him, and he was in Christ! All the apostles with one voice could declare, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ." Their writings make us understand their knowledge of "the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ." And, not satisfied with their knowledge, so far as it was experimental, they were still seeking a larger measure of this excellent knowledge, that they might so know their Lord as to "win him and be found in him,— not having their own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness that is by the faith of Christ,-the righteousness of God by faith, that they might know

Matth. xxviii. 17. John xx. 28.

2 Acts ii. 13.

3 Acts v. 29-32.

him in the power of his resurrection, and fellowship of his sufferings." 1

And all the true followers of our Lord, in every country and every age, find that he is faithful who hath promised; and that this promise, as well as all the rest is, "Yea, and amen, to the glory of God by them."" They are all made to know, by the teaching of his Spirit through the word, and the working of the Spirit in their hearts,—that Christ is in the Father, and the Father in Christ, that they are in Christ, and Christ is in them. These doctrines lie at the very foundation of all their hopes, and all their holiness. As they gradually rise to the world of light, they grow in their knowledge of God, of Christ, and of themselves. And in that better world, where they see not "through a glass, darkly, but face to face," they see God glorified in Christ, and Christ glorified in God,-and Christians glorified in God and in Christ, and God and Christ glorified in them, in a way which it never had entered into their hearts to conceive. There they understand the meaning of these wonderful words which are a commentary on our text: "The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; I in them, and thou in me, that they may made perfect in one; that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me."

"3

be

And at the great day of doom, when he comes in his own glory, and in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels, -when he sits on the throne of universal judgment, and all created beings stand before his tribunal, and all the powers of created nature wait to execute his sentences,-then they shall know that he is in the Father, and the Father in him. And when they find themselves clothed in bodies fashioned like unto his glorious body,-ranged at his right hand,

11 John i. 3. Eph. iii. 4. Col. ii. 2. Phil. iii. 8-10. 3 John xvii. 22, 23.

2 2 Cor. i. 20.

their harps of gold to the honour of the wisdom, and faithfulness, and mercy, of the Father and the Son. The counsel of peace is, was, will be, between them both." Salvation to our God, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever."

XI. THE CHARACTER AND PRIVILEGE OF TRUE CHRISTIANS, AND THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE.

JOHN XIV. 21-24.-" He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him (not Iscariot), Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me."

These words form a part of the exhortation which was addressed by "the Master" to his disciples, after the first administration of the Lord's Supper, and though peculiarly appropriate to them, in their, in many respects, singular circumstances, they are well fitted to minister to the spiritual edification of us, who now, after a lapse of more than eighteen hundred years, have observed that holy ordinance,1 and to that of all our brethren, who in future times, shall, after the due order, "show the Lord's death till he come" the second time, not as a sin-offering, but for the complete salvation of all who are looking for him.

To relieve his disciples from that extreme depression of spirit, into which the annunciation of his speedily approaching departure from them had plunged them, our Lord, among other things, had assured them that though a season of orphanhood awaited them, that season should be a very short one. They were not to be "left orphans." He was 66 come to them," and they were to see him, and were to be partakers of that life into which we have to enter by

to

1 What follows was the substance of a discourse after the administration of the Lord's Supper.

dying, and the result of his return to them, and their seeing him, and becoming partakers with him of his life, was to be their knowing, in a way in which as yet they did not know, "that he was in the Father, and they in him, and he in them."

To prevent misapprehension which might have occasioned perplexities and doubts afterwards, to show them that what he had said of his coming to them, and being seen by them, and of the results of this coming on his part, and vision on theirs, was not to be understood only or chiefly of his bodily return to them after his resurrection, and their bodily vision of him, both of which were to continue only for a few weeks, till he had sufficient opportunity to present them with infallible proofs of his being alive after his passion, and give the apostles whom he had chosen commandments respecting their conduct, till they had received the Holy Ghost-the promise of the Father, he, in the words before us, intimates to them that his presence with them, and his manifestation of himself to them, and their vision of him, and their perception of the union of the Father and him, and of him and them, were all of them to be of a spiritual kind, and were to depend on their having and maintaining that love to him, which is based on knowing and believing his truth, and is manifested by living under the influence of this truth, and is equally the object of the complacential regard of his Father and himself. "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." 1

Our Lord's words were probably but very imperfectly understood by the apostles. It was plain to them, however, that, as formerly when he said, "the world seeth me no more, but ye see me," he was speaking of some kind of manifestation

1 John xiv. 21.