Our text speaks of it as being according to the measure of the gift of
Christ, and that phrase may either mean the gift which Christ receives
or that which He gives. Probably the latter is the Apostle's meaning
here, as seems to be indicated by the following words that 'when He
ascended on high, He gave gifts unto men,' but what He gives is what He
possesses, and the Apostle goes on to point out that the ultimate issue
of His giving to the Church is that it attains to the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ.
It may cast some light on this point if we note the remarkable variety
of expressions in this epistle for the norm or standard or limit of the
gift. In one place the Apostle speaks of the gift bestowed upon
believers as being according to the riches of the Father's glory; then
it has no limit short of a participation in the divine fulness. God's
glory is the transcendent lustre of His own infinite character in its
self-manifestation. The Apostle labours to flash through the dim medium
of words the glory of that light by blending incongruously, but
effectively, the other metaphor of riches, and the two together suggest
a wonderful, though vague thought of the infinite wealth and the
exhaustless brightness which we call Abba, Father. The humblest child
may lift longing and confident eyes and believe that he has received in
very deed, through his faith in Jesus Christ, a gift which will increase
in riches and in light until it makes him perfect as his Father in
heaven was perfect. It was an old faith, based upon insight far inferior
to ours, which proclaimed with triumph over the frowns of death. 'I
shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.' Would that those
who have so much more for faith to build on, built as nobly as did
these!
The gift has in itself no limit short of participation in the likeness
of Christ. In another place in this letter the measure of that might
which is the guarantee of Christian hope is set forth with an abundance
of expression which might almost sound as an unmeaning accumulation of
synonyms, as being 'according to the working of the strength of His
might which He wrought in Christ'; and what is the range of the working
of that might is disclosed to our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus,
and the setting of Him high above all rule and authority and power and
lordship and every creature in the present or in any future. Paul's
continual teaching is that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was wrought
in Him, not as a mere human individual but as our head and
representative. Through Him we rise, not only from an ethical death of
sin and separation from God, but we shall rise from physical death, and
in Him the humblest believer possessing a vital union with the Lord of
life has a share in His dominion, and, as His own faithful word has
promised, sits with Him on His throne, even as He is set down with the
Father on His throne.
That gift has in itself no limit short of its own energy. In another
part of this epistle the Apostle indicates the measure up to which our
being filled is to take effect, as being 'all the fulness of God' and in
such an overwhelming vision breaks forth into fervent praise of Him who
is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, and
then supplies us with a measure which may widen and heighten our
petitions and expectations when He tells us that we are to find the
measure of God's working for us, not in the impoverishment of our
present possessions, but in the exceeding riches of the power that
worketh in us--that is to say, that we are to look for the limit of the
limitless gift in nothing short of the boundless energy of God Himself.
In the Epistle to the Colossians Paul uses the same illustration with an
individual reference to his own labours. In our text he associates with
himself all believers, as being conscious of a power working in them,
which is really the limitless power of God, and heartens them to
anticipate that whatever limitless power can effect in them will
certainly be theirs. God does not leave off till He has done and till He
can look upon His completed work and pronounce it very good.
III. This boundless grace is in each individual case bounded for the
time by our own faith.
When I lived near the New Forest I used to hear much of what they called
'rolling fences.' A man received or took a little piece of Crown land on
which he built a house and put round it a fence which could be
judiciously and silently pushed outwards by slow degrees and enclosed,
year by year, a wider area. We Christian people have, as it were, our
own small, cultivated plot on the boundless prairie, the extent of which
we measure for ourselves and which we can enlarge as we will. We have
been speaking of the various aspects under which the boundlessness of
the gift is presented by the Apostle, but there is another 'according
to' in Christ's own words, 'According to your faith be it unto you,' and
that statement lays down the practical limits of our present possession
of the boundless gift. We have as much as we desire; we have as much as
we take; we have as much as we use; we have as much as we can hold. We
are admitted into the treasure house, and all around us lie ingots of
gold and vessels full of coins; we ourselves determine how much of the
treasure should be ours, and if at any time we feel like empty-handed
paupers rather than like possible millionaires, the reason lies in our
own slowness to take that which is freely given to us of God. His word
to us all is, 'Ye are not straitened in Me, ye are straitened in
yourselves.' It is well for us to keep ever before us the boundlessness
of the gift in itself and the working limit in ourselves which
conditions our actual possession of the riches. For so, on the one hand,
should we be encouraged to expect great things from God, and, on the
other hand, be humbled by the contrast between what we might be and what
we are. The river that rushes full of water from the throne can send but
a narrow and shallow trickle through the narrow channel choked with much
rubbish, which we provide for it. It is of little avail that the sun in
the heavens pours down its flood of light and warmth if the windows of
our hearts are by our own faults so darkened that but a stray beam,
shorn of its brightness and warmth, can find its way into our darkness.
The first lesson which we have to draw from the contrast between the
boundlessness of the gift and the narrow limits of our individual
possession and experience of it, is the lesson of penitent recognition
and confession of the unbelief which lurks in our strongest faith. 'Lord
I believe, help Thou mine unbelief,' should be the prayer of every
Christian soul.
Not less surely will the recognition that the form and amount of the
grace of God, which is possessed by each, is determined by the faith of
each, lead to tolerance of the diversity of gifts. We have received our
own proper gift of God, that which the strength and purity of our faith
is capable of possessing, and it is not for us to carp at our brethren,
either at those in advance of us or at those behind us. We have to
remember that as it takes all sorts of people to make up a world, so it
takes all varieties of Christian character to make a church. It is the
body and not the individual members which represents Christ to the
world. The firmest adherence to our own form of the universal gift will
combine with the widest toleration of the gifts of others. The white
light appears when red, green, and blue blend together, not when each
tries to be the other. 'Every man hath his own proper gift of God, one
after this fashion and another after that,' and we shall be true to the
boundlessness of the gift and to the limitations of our own possession
of it, in the measure of which we combine obedience to the light which
shines in us, with thankful recognition of that which is granted to
others.
The contrast between these two must be kept vivid if we would live in
the freedom of the hope of the glory of God, for in the contrast lies
the assurance of endless growth. A process is begun in every Christian
soul of which the only natural end is the full possession of God in
Christ, and that full possession can never be reached by a finite
creature, but that does not mean that the ideal mocks us and retreats
before us like the pot of gold, which the children fancy is at the end
of the rainbow. Rather it means a continuous succession of our
realisations of the ideal in ever fuller and more blessed reality. In
this life we may, on condition of our growth in faith, grow in the
possession of the fulness of God, and yet at each moment that possession
will be greater, though at all moments we may be filled. In the
Christian life to-morrow may be safely reckoned as destined to be 'as
yesterday and much more abundant,' and when we pass from the
imperfections of the most perfect earthly life, there will still remain
ever before us the glory, which, according to the measure of our
capacity, is also in us, and we shall draw nearer and nearer to it, and
be for ever receiving into our expanding spirits more and more of the
infinite fulness of God.