Verse 10.—“And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” God's presence is his working. His presence in a soul by his Spirit is his working in such a soul in some special manner, not common to all men, but peculiar to them whom he hath chosen. Now his dwelling is nothing else but a continued, familiar and endless working in a soul, till he hath conformed all within to the image of his Son. The soul is the office house, or workhouse, that the Spirit hath taken up, to frame in it the most curious piece of the whole creation, even to restore and repair that masterpiece, which came last from God's hand, ab ultima manu, and so was the chiefest. I mean, the image of God, in righteousness and holiness. Now, this is the bond of union between God and us: Christ is the bond of union with God, but the Spirit is the bond of union with Christ. Christ is the peace between God and us, that makes of two one, but the Spirit is the link between Christ and us, whereby he hath immediate and actual interest in us, and we in him. I find the union between Christ and soul shadowed out in scripture, by the nearest relations among creatures, (for truly these are but shadows, and that is the body or substance,) and because an union that is mutual is nearest, it is often so expressed, as it imports an interchangeable relation, a reciprocal conjunction with Christ. The knot is cast on both sides to make it strong. Christ in us, and we in him; God dwelling in us, and we in him, and both by this one Spirit, 1 John iv. 13. “Hereby we know that God dwelleth in us, and we in him, by his Spirit which he hath given us.” You find it often in John, who being most possessed with the love of Christ, and most sensible of his love could best express it: “I in them, and they in me. He that keepeth his commands dwelleth in him, and he in him,” as the names of married persons are spelled through other, so doth he spell out this indwelling; it is not cohabitation but inhabitation: neither that alone singly, but mutual inhabitation, which amounts to a kind of penetration, the most intimate and immediate presence imaginable. Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith; and we dwell in Christ by love, Eph. iii. 17 , and 1 John iv. Death bringeth him into the heart; for it is the very application of a Saviour to a sinful soul. It is the very applying of his blood and sufferings to the wound that sin made in the conscience; the laying of that sacrifice propitiatory to the wounded conscience, is that which heals it, pacifies it, and calms it. A Christian, by receiving the offer of the gospel cordially and affectionately brings in Christ offered into his house, and then salvation comes with him. Therefore believing is receiving, (John i.) the very opening of the heart to let in an offered Saviour; and then Christ, thus possessing the heart by faith, he works by love, and “he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.” Love hath this special value in it, that it transports the soul in a manner out of [pg 225] Now, this being the bond of union betwixt Christ and us, it follows, necessarily, that whosoever hath not the Spirit of Christ, “he is none of his;” and this is subjoined for prevention or removal of the misapprehensions and delusions of men in their self-judgings; because self-love blinds our eyes, and maketh our hearts deceive themselves. We are given to this self-flattery,—to pretend and claim to an interest in Jesus Christ, even though there be no more evidence for it than the external relation that we have to Christ, as members of his visible body, or partakers of a common influence of his Spirit. There are some external bonds and ties to Christ, which are like a knot that may easily be loosed if any thing get hold of the end of it; as by our relations to Christ by baptism, hearing the word, your outward covenanting to be his people; all these are loose unsure knots; it is as easy to untie them as to tie them, yea, and more easy; and yet many have no other relation to Christ than what these make. But it is only the Spirit of Christ given to us that entitles and interesteth us in him, and him in us. It is the Spirit working in your souls mightily and continually, making your hearts temples for the offering of the sacrifice of prayer and praises, casting out all idols out of these temples, that he alone may be adored and worshipped, by the affectionate service of the heart, purging them from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. It is the Spirit, I say, thus dwelling in men that maketh them living members of the true body of Christ, lively, joined to the Head,—Christ. This maketh him yours and you his; by virtue of this he may command you as his own, and you may use and employ him as your own. Now, for want of this, in most part of men, they also want this living saving interest in Christ. They have no real but an imaginary and notional propriety and right to the Lord Jesus; for Christ must first take possession of us by his Spirit before we have any true right to him, or can willingly resign ourselves to him, and give him right over us. What shall it profit us, my beloved, to be called Christians, and to esteem ourselves so, if, really, we be none of Christ's? Shall it not heighten our condemnation so much the more that we desire to pass for such and give out ourselves so, and yet have no inward acquaintance and interest in him whose name we love to bear? Are not the most part shadows and pictures of true Christians, bodies without the soul of Christianity, that is, the Spirit of Christ, whose hearts are treasures of wickedness and deceit, and storehouses of iniquity and ignorance? It may be known what treasure fills the heart by that which is the constant and common vent of it, as our Saviour speaks, Matt. xv. 19; and xii. 34, 35, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” the feet walk, and the hand works. Consider, then, if the Spirit of God dwelleth in such unclean habitations and dark dungeons; certainly no uncleanness or darkness of the house can hinder him to come in; but it is a sure argument and evidence that he is not as yet come in, because the prince of darkness is not yet cast out of many souls, nor yet the unclean spirits that lodge within; these haunt your hearts, and are as familiar now as ever. Sure I am, many souls have never yet changed their guests, and it is as sure that the first guest that taketh up the soul is darkness and desperate wickedness, with unparalleled deceitfulness. There is an accursed trinity, instead of that blessed Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and when this holy Trinity cometh in to dwell, that other of hell must go out. Now, my beloved, do you think this a light matter, to be disowned by Jesus [pg 226] Verse 10.—“And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin,” &c. All the preceding verses seem to be purposely set down by the apostle for the comfort of Christians against the remnants of sin and corruption within them, for in the preceding chapter, he personates the whole body of Christ militant, showing, in his own example, how much sin remains in the holiest in this life, and this he rather instances in his own person than another that all may know that matter of continual sorrow and lamentation is furnished to the chiefest of saints, and yet, in this chapter, he propounds the consolation of Christians more generally, that all may know that these privileges and immunities belong even to the meanest and weakest of Christians,—that, as the best have reason to mourn in themselves, so the worst want not reason to rejoice in Jesus Christ. And this should always be minded that the amplest grounds of the strongest consolation are general to all that come indeed to Jesus Christ, and are not restricted unto saints of such and such a growth and stature. The common principles of the gospel are more full of this milk of consolation, if you would suck it out of them, than many particular grounds which you are laying down for yourselves. God hath so disposed and contrived the work of our salvation, that in this life he that hath gathered much, in some respect, hath nothing over—that is to say, hath no more reason to boast than another, but will be constrained to sit down and mourn over his own evil heart, and the emptiness of it, and he that hath gathered less hath, in some sense, no want. I mean, he is not excluded and shut out from the right to these glorious privileges which may express gloriation and rejoicing from the heart, that there might be an equality in the body, he maketh the stronger Christian to partake with the weaker in his bitter things, and the weaker with the stronger in his sweet things, that none of them may conceive themselves either despised, or alone regarded, that the eunuch may not have reason to say, “I am a dry tree,” Isa. lvi. 3. For, behold the Lord will give, even to such, “a place” in his house, and “a name better than of sons and daughters.” The soul that is in sincerity aiming at this walk, and whose inward desires stir after more of this Holy Spirit, he will not refuse to such that name and esteem that they dare not take to themselves because of their seen and felt unworthiness. Now, in this verse he proceeds further to the fruits and effects of sin dwelling in us, to enlarge the consolation against that too. Now, If Christ be in you, the body, &c. Seeing the word of God hath made such a connection between sin and death, and death is the wages of sin, and that which is the just recompense of enmity and rebellion against God, the poor troubled soul might be ready to conceive that if the body be adjudged to death for sin, that the rest of the wages shall be paid, and sin having so much dominion as to kill the body, that it should exerce198 its full power to destroy all. Seeing we have a visible character of the curse of God [pg 227] |