Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. JohnMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Ephesians -- Commentaries; Bible. Epistle of John, 1st -- Commentaries; Bible. Peter -- Commentaries
More accurately we may render 'through faith' and might even venture to
suppose that the thought of faith as an open door through which Christ
passes into the heart, floated half distinctly before the Apostle's
mind. Be that as it may, at all events faith is here represented as the
means or condition through which this dwelling takes effect. You have
but to believe in Him and He comes, drawn from heaven, floating down on
a sunbeam, as it were, and enters into the heart and abides there.
Trust, which is faith, is self-distrust. 'I dwell in the high and holy
place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.' Rivers do
not run on the mountain tops, but down in the valleys. So the heart that
is lifted up and self-complacent has no dew of His blessing resting upon
it, but has the curse of Gilboa adhering to its barrenness; but the low
lands, the humble and the lowly hearts, are they in which the waters
that go softly scoop their course and diffuse their blessings. Faith is
self-distrust. Self-distrust brings the Christ.
Faith is desire. Never, never in the history of the world has it been or
can it be that a longing towards Him shall be a longing thrown back
unsatisfied upon itself. You have but to trust, and you possess. We open
the door for the entrance of Christ by the simple act of faith, and
blessed be His name! He can squeeze Himself through a very little chink,
and He does not require that the gates should be flung wide open in
order that, with some of His blessings, He may come in.
Mystical Christianity of the false sort has much to say about the
indwelling of God in the soul, but it spoils all its teaching by
insisting upon it that the condition on which God dwells in the soul is
the soul's purifying itself to receive Him. But you cannot cleanse your
hearts so as to bring Christ into them, you must let Him come and
cleanse them by the process of His coming, and fit them thereby for His
own indwelling. And, assuredly, He will so come, purging us from our
evil and abiding in our hearts.
But do not forget that the faith which brings Christ into the spirit
must be a faith which works by love, if it is to keep Christ in the
spirit. You cannot bring that Lord into your hearts by anything that you
do. The man who cleanses his own soul by his own strength, and so
expects to draw God into it, has made the mistake which Christ pointed
out when He told us that when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man he
leaves his house empty, though it be swept and garnished. Moral
reformation may turn out the devils, it will never bring in God, and in
the emptiness of the swept and garnished heart there is an invitation to
the seven to come back again and fill it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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