'That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; ye being rooted and
grounded in love.'--Eph. iii. 17.
We have here the second step of the great staircase by which Paul's
fervent desires for his Ephesian friends climbed towards that wonderful
summit of his prayers--which is ever approached, never reached,--'that
ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.'
Two remarks of an expository character will prepare the way for the
lessons of these verses. The first is as to the relation of this clause
to the preceding. It might appear at first sight to be simply parallel
with the former, expressing substantially the same ideas under a
somewhat different aspect. The operation of the strength-giving Spirit
in the inner man might very naturally be supposed to be equivalent to
the dwelling of Christ in our hearts by faith. So many commentators do,
in fact, take it; but I think that the two ideas may be distinguished,
and that we are to see in the words of our text, as I have said, the
second step in this prayer, which is in some sense a result of the
'strengthening with might by the Spirit in the inner man.' I need not
enter in detail into the reasons for taking this view of the connection
of the clause, which is obviously in accordance with the climbing-up
structure of the whole verse. It is enough to point it out as the basis
of my further remarks.
And now the second observation with which I will trouble you, before I
come to deal with the thoughts of the verse, is as to the connection of
the last words of it. You may observe that in reading the words of my
text I omitted the 'that' which stands in the centre of the verse. I did
so because the words, 'Ye being rooted and grounded in love,' in the
original, do stand before the '_that_,' and are distinctly separated by
it from the subsequent clause. They ought not, therefore, to be shifted
forward into it, as our translators and the Revised Version have, I
think, unfortunately done, unless there were some absolute necessity
either from meaning or from construction. I do not think that this is
the case; but on the contrary, if they are carried forward into the next
clause, which describes the result of Christ's dwelling in our hearts by
faith, they break the logical flow of the sentence by mixing together
result and occasion. And so I attach them to the first part of this
verse, and take them to express at once the consequence of Christ's
dwelling in the heart by faith, and the preparation or occasion for our
being able to comprehend and know the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge. Now that is all with which I need trouble you in the way of
explanation of the meaning of the words. Let us come now to deal with
their substance.
I. Consider the Indwelling of Christ, as desired by the Apostle for all
Christians.
To begin with, let me say in the plainest, simplest, strongest way that
I can, that that dwelling of Christ in the believing heart is to be
regarded as being a plain literal fact.
To a man who does not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, of course
that is nonsense, but to those of us who do see in Him the manifested
incarnate God, there ought to be no difficulty in accepting this as the
simple literal force of the words before us, that in every soul where
faith, howsoever feeble, has been exercised, there Jesus Christ does
verily abide.
It is not to be weakened down into any notion of participation in His
likeness, sympathy with His character, submission to His influence,
following His example, listening to His instruction, or the like. A dead
Plato may so influence his followers, but that is not how a living
Christ influences His disciples. What is meant is no mere influence
derived but separable from Him, however blessed and gracious that
influence might be, but it is the presence of His own self, exercising
influences which are inseparable from His presence, and only to be
realised when He dwells in us.
I think that Christian people as a rule do far too little turn their
attention to this aspect of the Gospel teaching, and concentrate their
thoughts far too much upon that which is unspeakably precious in itself,
but does not exhaust all that Christ is to us, viz. the work that He
wrought for us upon Calvary; or to take a step further, the work that He
is now carrying on for us as our Intercessor and Advocate in the
heavens. You who listen to me Sunday after Sunday will not suspect me of
seeking to minimise either of these two aspects of our Lord's mission
and operation, but I do believe that very largely the glad thought of an
indwelling Christ, who actually abides and works in our hearts, and is
not only for us in the heavens, or with us by some kind of impalpable
and metaphorical presence, but in simple, that is to say, in spiritual
reality is in our spirits, has faded away from the consciousness of the
Christian Church.
And so we are called 'mystics' when we preach Christ in the heart. Ah,
brother! unless your Christianity be in the good deep sense of the word
'mystical,' it is mechanical, which is worse. I preach, and rejoice that
I have to preach, a 'Christ that died, yea! rather that is risen again;
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us.' Nor do I stop there, but I preach a Christ that is in us, dwelling
in our hearts if we be His at all.
Well, then, further observe that the special emphasis of the prayer here
is that this 'indwelling' may be an unbroken and permanent one. Any of
you who can consult the original for yourselves will see that the
Apostle here uses a compound word which conveys the idea of intensity
and continuity. What he desires, then, is not merely that these Ephesian
Christians may have occasional visits of the indwelling Lord, or that at
some lofty moments of spiritual enthusiasm they may be conscious that He
is with them, but that always, in an unbroken line of deep, calm
receptiveness, they may possess, and know that they possess, an
indwelling Saviour.
And this, I think, is one of the reasons why we may and must distinguish
between the apparently very similar petition in the previous verse,
about which we spoke in the last sermon, and the petition which is now
occupying us; for, as I shall have to show you, it is only as
'strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man' that we are
capable of the continuous abiding of that Lord within us.
Oh! what a contrast to that idea of a perpetual unbroken inhabitation of
Jesus in our spirits and to our consciousness is presented by our
ordinary life! 'Why shouldst Thou be as a wayfaring man that turneth
aside to tarry for a night?' may well be the utterance of the average
Christian. We might, with unbroken blessedness, possess Him in our
hearts, and instead, we have only 'visits short and far between' Alas,
alas, how often do we drive away that indwelling Christ, because our
hearts are 'foul with sin,' so that He
'Can but listen at the gate
And hear the household jar within.'
Christian men and women! here is the ideal of our lives, capable of
being approximated to (if not absolutely in its entirety reached) with
far more perfection than it ever has yet been by us. There might be a
line of light never interrupted running all through our religious
experience. Instead of that there is a light point here, and a great gap
of darkness there, like the straggling lamps by the wayside in the
half-lighted squalid suburbs of some great city. Is that your Christian
life, broken by many interruptions, and having often sounding through it
the solemn words of the retreating divinity which the old profound
legend tells us were heard the night before the Temple on Zion was
burnt:--'Let us depart?' 'I will arise and return unto My place till
they acknowledge their offences.' God means and wishes that Christ may
continuously dwell in our hearts. Does He to your own consciousness
dwell in yours?
And then the last thought connected with this first part of my subject
is that the heart, strengthened by the Spirit, is fitted to be the
Temple of the indwelling Christ. How shall we prepare the chamber for
such a guest? How shall some poor occupant of some wretched hut by the
wayside fit it up for the abode of a prince? The answer lies in these
words that precede my text. You cannot strengthen the rafters and lift
the roof and adorn the halls and furnish the floor in a manner befitting
the coming of the King; but you can turn to that Divine Spirit who will
expand and embellish and invigorate your whole spirit, and make it
capable of receiving the indwelling Christ.
That these two things which are here considered as cause and effect may,
in another aspects be considered as but varying phases of the same
truth, is only part of the depth and felicity of the teaching that is
here; for if you come to look more deeply into it, the Spirit that
strengtheneth with might is the Spirit of Christ; and He dwells in men's
hearts by His own Spirit. So that the apparent confusion, arising from
what in other places are regarded as identical being here conceived as
cause and effect, is no confusion at all, but is explained and
vindicated by the deep truth that nothing but the indwelling of the
Christ can fit for the indwelling of the Christ. The lesser gift of His
presence prepares for the greater measure of it; the transitory
inhabitation for the more permanent. Where He comes in smaller measure
He opens the door and makes the heart capable of His own more entire
indwelling. 'Unto him that hath shall be given.' It is Christ in the
heart that makes the heart fit for Christ to dwell in the heart. You
cannot do it by your own power; turn to Him and let Him make you temples
meet for Himself.
II. So now, in the second place, notice the open door through which the
Christ comes in to dwell--'that He may dwell in your hearts by faith.'
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.
And whilst that is true, remember, on the other hand, that a Christian
man can drive away his Master by evil works. The sweet song-birds and
the honey-making bees are said always to desert a neighbourhood before a
pestilence breaks out in it. And if I may so say, similarly quick to
feel the first breath of the pestilence is the presence of the Christ
which cannot dwell with evil. You bring Christ into your heart by faith,
without any work at all; you keep Him there by a faith which produces
holiness.
III. And the last point is the gifts of this indwelling Christ,--'ye
being,' or as the words might more accurately be translated, 'Ye having
been rooted and grounded in love.'
Where He comes He comes not empty-handed. He brings His own love, and
that, consciously received, produces a corresponding and answering love
in our hearts to Him. So there is no need to ask the question here
whether 'love' means Christ's love to me, or my love to Christ. From the
nature of the case both are included--the recognition of His love and
the response by mine are the result of His entering into the heart. This
love, the recognition of His and the response by mine, is represented in
a lovely double metaphor in these words as being at once the soil in
which our lives are rooted and grow, and the foundation on which our
lives are built and are steadfast.
There is no need to enlarge upon these two things, but let me just touch
them for a moment. Where Christ abides in a man's heart, love will be
the very soil in which his life will be rooted and grow. That love will
be the motive of all service, it will underlie, as its productive cause,
all fruitfulness. All goodness and all beauty will be its fruit. The
whole life will be as a tree planted in this rich soil. And so the life
will grow not by effort only, but as by an inherent power drawing its
nourishment from the soil. This is blessedness. It is heaven upon earth
that love should be the soil in which our obedience is rooted, and from
which we draw all the nutriment that turns to flowers and fruit.
Where Christ dwells in the heart, love will be the foundation upon which
our lives are builded steadfast and sure. The blessed consciousness of
His love, and the joyful answer of my heart to it, may become the basis
upon which my whole being shall repose, the underlying thought that
gives security, serenity, steadfastness to my else fluctuating life. I
may so plant myself upon Him, as that in Him I shall be strong, and
then my life will not only grow like a tree and have its leaf green and
broad, and its fruit the natural outcome of its vitality, but it will
rise like some stately building, course by course, pillar by pillar,
until at last the shining topstone is set there. He that buildeth on
that foundation shall never be confounded.
For, remember that, deepest of all, the words of my text may mean that
the Incarnate Personal Love becomes the very soil in which my life is
set and blossoms, on which my life is founded.
'Thou, my Life, O let me be
Rooted, grafted, built in Thee.'
Christ is Love, and Love is Christ. He that is rooted and grounded in
love has the roots of his being, and the foundation of his life fixed
and fastened in that Lord.
So, dear brethren, go to Christ like those two on the road to Emmaus;
and as Fra Angelico has painted them on his convent wall, put out your
hands and lay them on His, and say, 'Abide with us. Abide with us!' And
the answer will come:--'This is my rest for ever; here'--mystery of
love!--'will I dwell, for I have desired it,' even the narrow room of
your poor heart.