“How Vast the Resources of His Power …” No. 3

CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY

It is not enough to say that our faith should be Christ-centered, for in fact our blessed Lord should be not only the center but the whole of our religion. Our concern is for Christianity, not churchianity. True, we are to love the church, but only in the sense that it is the church of Christ. As important as the Bible is, it is not to be the object of our faith, nor even the source of our faith, for the Christ is both the object and the source of our faith. We must guard against being bibliolatrists (worshippers of a book), though this may not be a serious hazard among us. It is always the Christ that the Bible reveals that we worship. It is the wonderful person of the Bible that makes that book precious to us.

The apostle Paul puts it this way: “Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11) , or as Phillips renders it: “Christ is all that matters.” Again Paul says: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philip. 1:21). Phillips puts it: “For living to me means simply ‘Christ’, and if I die I should merely gain more of him.” To gain the more of him! Those who were closest to Jesus had this desire above all others. In a humble gesture Peter insisted that the Son of God would never wash his feet. When the Christ replied that if He did not wash him he would have no part with Him, Peter urged: “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head” (John 13:8-9).

Paul saw the Christian life as “hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3), and he thus thought of his “old I” as crucified with Christ. And so he could say: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). He further declares: “All of us who are Christians have no veils on our faces, but reflect like mirrors the glory of the Lord. We are transfigured by the Spirit of the Lord in ever-increasing splendor into his own image.” (2 Cor. 3:18, Phillips)

Transfigured into his own image! This we can say is God’s purpose for us: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29) This is both for now and forever: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49). It is being like Christ, bearing His image, that is the surest means of identifying the Christian: “By this we may be sure that we are in him: he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (l John 2:5-6).

This experience of “Christ in you” or Christ-likeness is “God’s great secret” of the ages, to use Phillips again. It is “the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now made manifest in his saints” (Col. 1:26). God’s great secret is that men should become transformed into His own image through the Christ. Not simply men (for the Jews would see only Jewish men here) but any man, including the poorest and most despised. Yea, even the Gentiles, who were but dogs to orthodox Jewry.

That is something like telling a man prejudiced against Negroes that the great secret of Heaven is that the poor and ignorant black man is to be transfigured into the glorious image of God Himself. It was to lowly Gentiles that “the apostle to the Gentiles” could write with such joy: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). It should be emphasized: Christ in you! The gospel is so glorious that it embraces even those that men reject. Christ is in the Gentiles too!

This is more than telling a poor man that the riches of earth are at his disposal. It is rather the revealing to a man who has no hope of immortality that all the glories of heaven are his. It is telling him that he too may bear the likeness of God in this world and forever. Let us read it in Phillips: “They are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendor of his secret plan for the sons of men. And the secret is simply this: Christ in you! Yes, Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all the glorious things to come.”

Color should not divide men like it does. After all, we are all but varying shades of brown. A “white man” wearing a white shirt has a face that is not really white like his shirt, but rather a shade of brown. The “black man” wearing a black suit has a face quite different in color from his suit, for it too is a shade of brown. And so with all the races. We have made far too much of color. It is “Christ in you” that really matters, which transcends all color.

Booker T. Washington in his book Up From Slavery tells of riding in a railway car that was properly segregated with signs posted “For Colored” and “For Whites”. There was a man asleep in the white section that appeared to be a little too brownish to be a white man, and when the conductor came by he paused to look the man over. Booker T. was watching, interested in how the conductor would handle the matter. The conductor kept studying the sleeping passenger, and finally he quietly lifted his trouser leg for a look at a different part of the anatomy and decided that the man must be white, and left him with his dreams.

The Christian sees the man, whether he looks at his face or his legs (and admittedly some men watch legs more than they do faces), as bearing the likeness of God, at one degree of glory or another. All men are created in God’s image, and they should be respected because of this; but some have been recreated into the likeness of Christ, which is still a higher degree of glory.

Differences in viewpoint should not divide men either, for we are all much more alike by nature than we realize. Our needs, drives, impulses, emotions, and instincts are similar in all of us. The margin of differences is wholesome; variety adds spice to life. Men are not to be judged as Methodists, Roman Catholics, or Campbellites, but as individuals who are responding to the same needs that we all have. The “image of Christ” eclipses all the racial and sectarian prejudices that separate men into warring factions. We are slow to learn that men who seem ever so different in race, color and opinion can together “bear the image of the man of heaven.”

That which really divides men, then, is the choice they make between flesh and Spirit. They can be conformed to the world or they can be transformed by the renewing of their minds, and thus become like the Christ. What a tragedy it is that so many do not respond to God’s great secret plan to have His Son dwelling in all men! “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would.” (Gal. 5:17) It is this, and only this, that should ever divide men.

The apostle even uses the word hostility in regard to the divisive nature of flesh and Spirit: “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom. 8:7 -8) He points out that the way of the flesh, by which he means carnality, is death, while the way of the Spirit is life and peace.

We may conclude, therefore, that the Spirit makes men one. Oneness or unity is indeed the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22), and this is what makes men like Christ. The carnal man, on the other hand, is hostile toward both God and the man who is transformed to God’s image, for his desires are of the flesh. For factions among men to exist because of differences of race, color, or opinion is a travesty against God’s eternal purpose, for His love transcends all such differences. God has already determined what shall divide men. It is the same thing that divides heaven and earth and God and Satan. It is the eternal hostility between flesh and Spirit.

“If Christ be in you …” Paul says in Rom. 8:10. This is what makes the difference between men. Each man is free to choose for himself the way of carnality or the way of the Spirit. The apostle shows that it is the difference between life and death. What a tragedy that so many are dead even while they live!

Jesus uses the figure of wholeness and sickness to describe this conflict. “They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Lk. 5:31-32) So there is the sickness of sin and the wholeness of the Spirit that distinguishes between the human family. In our time Hitler has come to be thought of as the very embodiment of evil, but his case is but an exaggerated example of what the sickness of sin does to men. Whether one is murdering millions of Jews or manifesting bitterness toward his wife, it is the carnality that creates hostility.

Oh, but to think of the transforming power of the gospel of God! If in his youth Hitler could have been taken in hand by someone of the Spirit, who would have shown insight and sympathy, what a difference it would have made in this world and throughout eternity. Hitler’s genius and oratorical powers might have been devoted to preaching the Christ instead of stirring up hatred. What a contrast! Hitler, a man of the Spirit, and the Hitler we know in history. It is this same difference in flesh and Spirit that divides men everywhere in varying degrees. And it is this same difference even within ourselves, for the hostility between the carnal and the spiritual is ever present.

Christ in you, the hope of glory! What a resource of power for living in this troubled world! “Yes, Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all the glorious things to come.” Man has no greater source of strength than glorious expectation. We find this true in some of the humble experiences of life, whether it be the expectation of a son returning home from war or the hope that surgery will remove a malignancy from the bosom of a loved one. And when that son steps upon the porch from the field of battle, whole and smiling, and when the surgeon returns from the operating room and says, “Your mother is going to be a well woman now,” that is glory. Without such triumphs in this world life becomes unbearable, for it would be a life without any glory.

The schoolboy struggles hard to make his grade. He fears he might fail the examination and not be able to graduate and go to college. On the day of reckoning the teacher lays a hand on his shoulder and says, “John, you’ve been a loyal, faithful student. You’ve worked hard, and you have pleased me very much. You made a good grade on the exam. John, you are going to graduate!” That is his glory!

Every child longs to be praised. We have three little adopted children in our home, and we are constantly reminded of their craving for praise. One of them will say, “How am I doing, Daddy?”, as he helps me in the yard. I simply cannot praise him too much. And when I do ... that is his glory!

Glory can be thought of in terms of both fame and luminosity. The world certainly has glory to offer those who seek it. Our recent President of the United States became something of a symbol of earthly glory, for he had youth, fame, riches, position, power, wisdom, and even a lovely wife. And he enjoyed all these to a degree approaching the ultimate. And as sad as it is to all of us, he likewise illustrates the futility of the glory the world has to give. The poet, Thomas Gray, puts it in these words:

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Await alike the inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Luminosity is also suggestive of glory. We speak of the glorious sunlight and of a glorious moon, and even the Bible uses this kind of language: “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.” (l Cor. 15:41)

Paul could say: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Rom. 8:18) Paul’s hope of glory can be thought of as both fame and luminosity, but only as heaven can bestow. Daniel surely included the great apostle when he promised: “Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.” (Dan. 12:3)

This is another way of saying that God is going to accept us and make us a part of heaven forever. We shall shine like the stars throughout eternity, sharing the likeness of God Himself. That will be our glory!

And all of us, like that schoolboy and like my little children, long to be praised by the One we worship. We are rejected in this cold world. We are strangers here. Like the Christ we serve, we do not seek the honors that men can give. But how we do long for the honors that only God can give! Once we pass from a world that is unjust and that misunderstands, and stand in His presence and hear Him say: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master,” that will be our glory.

Such glorious thoughts of God’s children shining like stars and ruling like kings should enhance our respect for each other. When we are tempted to slight a brother, we should remind ourselves that he may someday shine like a star in God’s eternal heaven. We reject the brother while God appoints him to a position of honor to rule forever. Now that doesn’t make sense, does it? When we are tempted to look down on a man because of the garb he wears or the infirmity he bears, we should recall that he may someday experience such heavenly glory that we would be inclined to worship him if we should behold him in such majesty. We thus ignore one in this world who may someday shine with such brightness that if we could see him now as he will be then, we might wish to bow before him with breath-taking adoration. It is something to think about, isn’t it? Let’s look at a man in terms of his potential glory.

Christ in you, the hope of glory! Such a realization gives inspiration to the dullest and most uninteresting experiences of life, for Christ in you becomes life itself. —the Editor