Christ had taught His disciples that to abide in Him was to abide in His love. Think first of the origin of that life of Christ in the Father. They were one in life and one in love. In this His abiding in the Father had its root. Though dwelling here on earth, He knew that He was one with the Father, that the Father’s life was in Him and His love on Him. Without this knowledge, abiding in the Father and His love would have been utterly impossible. Know that you are one with Him, in unity of nature. By His birth He became man and took your nature that He might be one with you. By your new birth, you become one with Him and are made a partaker of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). This is the great mystery “Christ in us the hope of Glory.”
The link that binds you to Him is as real and close as bound Him to the Father – the link of a divine life. Your claim on Him is as sure and always availing as was His on the Father. And as it is the union of a divine life, it is one of a infinite love. In His life of humiliation on earth He tasted the blessedness and strength of knowing Himself the object of an infinite love. Of dwelling in it all the day. From His own example He invites you to learn that herein lies the secret of rest and joy.
A Life of Subjection and Dependence
His was a life of subjection and dependence, and yet most blessed. To our proud self-seeking nature, the thought of dependence and subjection suggests the idea of humiliation and servitude. In the life of love that the Son of God lived, He invites us. They are the secret of blessedness. The Son is not afraid of losing anything by giving up all to the Father. For He knows that the Father loves Him and can have no interest apart from that of the beloved Son.
The believer who studies this life of Christ as the pattern and promise of what his may be, learns to understand how the “Without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5), is but the forerunner of “I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me” (Philippians 4:13). Dependence, subjection, self-sacrifice, are for the Christian, as for Christ, the blessed path of life. As Christ lived through and in the Father, even so the believer lives through and in Christ.
Abide in Christ’s Love
Because Christ gave Himself wholly to the Father’s will and glory, the Father crowned Him with glory and honour. He acknowledged Him as His only representative and made Him partaker of His power and authority. He exalted Him to share His throne as God. And even so will it be with him who abides in Christ’s love. If Christ finds us willing to trust ourselves and our interests to His love. In that trust we give up all care for our own will and honour. We make it our glory to exercise and confess absolute dependence of Him in all things, He will do for us what the Father did for Him. He will lay of HIs glory on us: as the name of our Lord Jesus is glorified in us, we are glorified in Him. (2 Thessalonians 1:12)
Before the Saviour speaks the word that invites us to abide in His love, He first tells us what that love is. “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is His very being. Love is not an attribute but the very essence of His nature. The centre around which all His glorious attributes gather. It was because He was Love that He was the Father, and that there was a Son. Love needs an object to whom it can give itself away, in whom it can lose itself, with whom it can make itself one. Because God is love, there must be a Father and a Son. The love of the Father to the Son is that divine passion with which He delights in the Son and speaks, “My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).
Many who Manifest the Image of One
He who abides in Christ, learns to know what it is to be crucified with Him. And in Him to be indeed dead unto sin. He who abides in Christ the Risen and Glorified One, becomes in the same way partaker of HIs resurrection life. The glory with which He has now been crowned in heaven. Unspeakable are the blessing that flow to the soul from the union with Jesus in His glorified life.
“Christ is the first-born Son among many Spirit-led sons of God” (Romans 8:14). The Father foreknow us and he also foreordained us to be conformed to the image of his Son. That he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Whom he foreordained them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Romans 8:29, 30). Here justification is seen to lead on to glory, a glory that is expressed not in one or more individuals but in a plurality. In many who manifest the image of One (Jesus).
As our communion with Him becomes more intimate and intense. And we let the Holy Spirit reveal Him to us in His heavenly glory. The more we realize how the life in us is the life of One who sits upon the throne of heaven. We feel the power of an endless life working in us. and we can taste the eternal life. We have the foretaste of the eternal glory.