possessor of life, spiritual and eternal, in our name. And this may be
described in a variety of instances, according to the various parts, as
well as the several advancing degrees of our spiritual life, and the
perfection of it in life eternal. When his human nature was first formed
complete in holiness, it was a pledge and assurance, that we should be
one day completely holy too; for, as is the head so must the members be.
In the original sanctification of his spirit, flesh, and blood, we may
read the certain future sanctification of every believing soul, with its
body too; See John xvii. 19. and Heb. ii. 11.
Again; when his body was raised from the dead, it was a pledge and
pattern of our being raised from a death in sin, unto the spiritual life
of a saint, as well as a certain assurance of the resurrection of our
bodies into future glory. The first is evident from Eph. ii. 6. _When we
were dead in sin, he hath quickened us together with Christ._ And Rom.
vi. 4. _As Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so we must also walk in newness of life; for we are planted
in the likeness of his resurrection_; ver. 5. And in 1 Cor. xv. 12, &c.
the apostle builds his whole argument of the resurrection of the bodies
of saints who are dead, from the rising of our Lord Jesus Christ out of
his grave: _For Christ being risen from the dead_; ver. 20. _is become
the first-fruits of them that slept_. And as all that are united to
Adam, by having him for their head must die; so all who are one with
Christ, and have him for their head, shall be made alive: which seems to
be the meaning of the 22d verse: _As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall
all be made alive._
When he ascended into the heavens, it was not merely in his own name,
but in ours too, to take possession of the inheritance for the saints in
light. Heb. vi. 20. Our hope enters within the vail, whither Jesus the
forerunner is for us entered. And when he sat down at the right-hand of
God in the heavenly places, it was as the great exemplar of our future
advancement, and thereby gave us assurance, that we should sit down
there too: and therefore the apostle, in the language of faith,
anticipates these divine honours, and applies them to the Ephesians
beforehand: _God hath raised us up together_, says he, _with Christ, and
hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus_.
It was _through the blood of the everlasting covenant_, that Jesus _the
great Shepherd of the sheep, was brought again from the dead_; and it
was _the God of peace_ who raised him; Heb. xiii. 20. And it is by
virtue of his own blood, and righteousness, that he, who once took our
sins upon him, is now discharged: It is through his own sufferings that
he appears with acceptance before the throne, and enjoys a divine life
in the unchangeable favour of God; and all this as our head, surety, and
representative, giving us assurance hereby, that we, through the blood
of the same covenant, shall be brought again from the dead too: that we
through the virtue of the same righteousness, and all-sufficiency of the
same sacrifice, shall appear hereafter before God in glory, and stand in
his eternal favour; and as an earnest of it, we enjoy a life of holy
peace and acceptance with God in this world, through the same
all-sufficient blood and righteousness: For he _appears in the holy of
holies, in_ heaven itself, _in the presence of God for us_; Heb. ix. 24.
He secures all the glories and blessings of spiritual and eternal life
for us, as he has taken possession of them in our name.
2. Our life of grace, and especially our life of glory, may be said to
be hidden with Christ, because he dwells in heaven, where God resides in
glory; God, in whom is our life. He is set down on the right-hand of the
Majesty on high; Heb. xii. 2. There our eternal life is. The things
which are above, are the objects of our joyful hope, _where Christ is at
the right-hand of God_; Col. iii. 1. It is the short, but sublime
description of our heaven, that we shall be _present with the Lord_, we
shall be where Christ is, to _behold his glory_; 2 Cor. v. 8. and John
xvii. 24. And shall possess all that unknown and rich variety of
blessings which are reserved for us in heavenly places, whither Christ
our Lord is ascended. Thus I have endeavoured to explain, in the largest
and most comprehensive sense, what we are to understand by the life of a
christian hidden with Christ in God: It is reserved in the
all-sufficiency, the purposes, and the engagements of God, under the
care of the Mediator, and in the presence of Christ.
[This sermon may be divided here.]
The use I shall make of this doctrine, is, to draw four inferences from
it for our instruction, and three for our consolation.
The inferences for our instructions are such as these:
1st Instruction. What a glorious person is the poorest, meanest
christian? He lives by communion with God the Father and the Son; for
his life is hid with Christ in God; 1 John i. 3.—“Truly our fellowship
is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things
write we unto you, that your joy may be full; the joy that you may
justly derive from so glorious an advancement.”
A true christian does not live upon the creatures, but upon the infinite
and almighty Creator: upon God who created all things by Jesus Christ.
Created beings were never designed to be his life and his happiness;
they are too mean and coarse a fare for a christian to feed upon, in
order to support his best life: He converses with them indeed, and
transacts many affairs that relate to them in this lower world: While he
dwells in flesh and blood, his heavenly Father has appointed these to be
a great part of his business; but he does not make them his portion and
his life. They possess but the lower degrees of his affection: He
rejoices in the possession of them, as though he rejoiced not; and he
weeps for the loss of them, as though he wept not: He enjoys the dearest
comforts of life, as though he had them not; and buys with such a holy
indifference, as though he were not to possess; 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30. for
the fashion of them passes away: But the food of his life is infinite
and immortal. It is no wonder that a man of this world lets loose all
the powers of his soul in the pursuit and enjoyment of creatures, for
they are his portion and his life. But it is quite otherwise with a
christian: he has a nobler original, and sustains a higher character:
His divine life must have divine food to support it.
Let our thoughts take a turn to some bare common, or to the side of a
wood, and visit the humble christian there; we shall find him cheerful,
perhaps, at his dinner of herbs, with all the circumstances of meanness
around him: But what a glorious life he leads in that straw-cottage, and
poor obscurity! The great and gay world shut him out from them with
disdain: He lives, as it were, hidden in a cave of the earth; but the
godhead dwells with him there. The high and lofty one that inhabits
eternity, comes down to dwell with the humble and contrite soul; Is.
lvii. 15. God, who is the spring of life, comes down to communicate
fresh supplies of this life continually. _He that dwelleth in love,
dwelleth in God_; 1 John iv. 16. He is not alone, for the Father is with
him; John xvi. 32. The Father and the Son come and manifest themselves
unto him, within the walls of that hovel, in so divine a manner, as they
never do to the men of this world, in their robes and palaces: John xiv.
22, 23. And that he may have the honour of the presence of the blessed
Trinity, his _body is the temple of the Holy Ghost_; 1 Cor. iii. 16. and
vi. 19. O! the wonderful condescensions of divine grace, and the
surprizing honours that are done to a humble saint! How is this
habitation graced! Heaven is there, for God and Christ are there; and
who knows what heavenly guards surround him! what flights of attending
angels? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent down to minister unto
them that shall be heirs of salvation? Heb. i. 14. But our Lord Jesus
Christ is now unseen, God and angels are unseen; the christian’s company
belong to the invisible world: He lives a hidden, but a divine life; his
life is hid with Christ in God.
IId Instruction. See how it comes to pass that christians are capable of
doing such wonders, at which the world stands amazed. The spring of
their life is almighty; it is hid in God. It is by this divine strength
they subdue their sinful natures, their stubborn appetites, and their
old corrupt affections: It is by the power of God, derived through Jesus
Christ, they bend the powers of their souls unto a conformity to all the
laws of God and grace; and they yield their bodies as instruments to the
same holy service, while the world wonders at them, that they should
fight against their own nature, and be able to overcome it too.
And as they deny themselves in all the alluring instances of sinful
pleasure, under the influence of almighty grace, so they endure
sufferings, in the sharpest degree, from the hands of God, without
murmuring. And when they have laboured night and day, and performed
surprizing services for God in the world, they are yet contented to
submit to smarting and heavy trials from the hands of their heavenly
Father, without being angry at their God: they know he loves them, and
he designs all things shall work together for their good.
Besides all this, they bear dreadful persecutions, cruel mockings, and
scourings, and tortures, from the hands of men, and go through all the
sorrows of martyrdom. What noble instances and miracles of this kind did
the primitive age furnish us with, so that their tormentors were amazed?
They saw not the secret springs of divine life which supported them;
they knew not the grace of God and the power of Christ, by which the
christians were upheld in all their labours and their sufferings. The
spring of their life was almighty, but it was hidden from the eyes of
men: It was concealed and reserved with Christ in God.
Read the labours and the sufferings of St. Paul; 2 Cor. xi. 23. “In
stripes above measure, in prisons frequent, in deaths often: He was
beaten with rods, he was stoned, he suffered shipwreck, in perpetual
perils by land and sea, in weariness, in painfulness, in watchings and
fastings, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness.” One would think
his bones were iron, and his flesh were brass. He was invisibly
supported by Christ the spring of his life. Read his wondrous virtues
and self-denial; Phil. iv. 11, 12, 13. I know how to be abased and how
to abound; I can be full, and be hungry; I can possess plenty, and I can
suffer want: I can do all things through Christ strengthening me. This
was the fountain of his life and strength. I acknowledge, says he, in
another place, that I am nothing, I have no sufficiency of myself to
think so much as one good thought: But all my sufficiency is of God, in
whom my life is hid; 2 Cor. iii. 5. And with what a devout zeal does he
ascribe his life to Christ, in that glorious amassment of spiritual
paradoxes! Gal. ii. 20. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I
live: yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and
gave himself for me.” Therefore I can be delivered to death daily for
Jesus Christ’s sake; troubled and perplexed, and yet not in despair; be
cast down, and not be destroyed; because I believe that the life of
Jesus must be made manifest in my mortal flesh, and he which raised up
the Lord Jesus, shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us
with you; 2 Cor. iv. 14.
IIId Instruction. See whither a dead sinner must go to attain spiritual
and eternal life, and whither a decaying dying christian must go for the
recruit of his fainting life too; it is to God by Jesus Christ, for it
is all hidden with Christ in God.
In vain shall a man who is dead in trespasses and sins, toil and labour,
and hope to attain life any other way. God is the spring of all life,
and he has trusted it to the hands of Jesus Christ: _I am the way, the
truth and the life_, says our Saviour; John xiv. 6. No man can have life
without coming to the living Father; and no man cometh to the Father but
by me. Seneca and Plato, with their moral lectures, and the writings of
human philosophy, may give a man new garments, may make his outward life
appear much better than before; they may teach him, in some measure to
govern his passions too, and subdue some of the fleshly appetites; but
they cannot raise him to the love of God, to the hatred of every sin, to
the well grounded hopes of the favour of God, the blessed expectation of
a holy immortality, and a preparation for heaven. They cannot give the
man a new life: He must be born again of the Spirit of Christ, or he can
never become a living christian.
And in vain would the poor backsliding christian, with his withering
decaying graces, recruit and renew his divine life, without applying
himself afresh to Jesus Christ: While he forgets Christ, he must go on
to wither and decay still. There is nothing in earth or heaven can
supply the utter absence of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the stream of
spiritual life ebbs or runs low, it is not to be quickened, recovered,
and increased, but by new supplies from the fountain which is on high.
Remember, O degenerate christian, remember whence it was you derived
your first life, when you were once dead in trespasses and sins; fly to
the Saviour by new exercises of faith and dependance, mourning, in all
humility, for your unwatchful walking, and your absence from the Lord.
Commit your soul afresh to his care, exert your utmost powers, and beg
of him renewed instances of the living Spirit, that the face of your
soul may be like a watered garden, and the beauty of the divine life may
be recovered again.
IVth Instruction. See the reason why a lively christian desires and
delights to be so much, and so often, where God and Christ are; for his
life is with them.
This was the divine temper and practice of the saints under a much
darker dispensation than what we enjoy. How does the holy soul of David
pant and long for the presence of God! and he brings even his animal
nature, the very ferments of his flesh and blood, into his devotions;
Ps. lxiii. 1. _My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee._
Ps. lxxxiv. 2. _My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God._ In
all the various and fervent language of sacred passion and transport, he
breathes after God, who is the strength of his life and his salvation;
Ps. xxvii. 1. The Jewish saints cleaved to the Lord, _for he was their
life, and the length of their days_; Deut. xxx. 20.
And what sweet delight does St. Paul take in mentioning the very name of
Christ? How does he dwell upon it in long sentences, and loves to repeat
the blessed sound! How often does he rejoice in the hope of dwelling
with him hereafter, and persuades the Colossians, in this context, to be
much with him here; ver. 1. If ye are risen with Christ, and have
derived a quickening virtue from him to work a divine life in you, let
your affections ascend above, where Christ your life is.
Is not a man, whose very soul and life is wrapped up in honour and
ambition, desirous ever to be near the court! His life flourishes under
the sunshine of the prince’s eye, and therefore he would fain dwell
there. Does not the covetous wretch love to be near his hoards of gold
or silver? He has put up his life in his bag, among his treasures, and
he is not willing to be far distant, nor long separated from them.
Whatever a man lives upon, he would willingly be ever near it, that so
he may have the pleasure of feeding upon what is his greatest delight,
and be refreshed and nourished by that which he feels to support him.
Now, what honour is to the ambitious, what money is to the covetous,
what all the various delights of sense are to the men of carnal
pleasure; that is God to the saint, that is Christ Jesus to the
christian; and therefore he is ever desirous of such further
manifestations of God and Christ, that may invigorate his spiritual
life, and give him the pleasing relish of living. Then a man feels that
he lives, when he is near to the spring of his life, and derives fresh
supplies from it every moment.
Thence it is, that in every distress or danger, the saints fly to God
for refuge and relief: He is their great _hiding place_; Ps. xxxii. 7.
And Christ Jesus is represented in prophecy under the same character;
Is. xxxii. 2. This man, in whom the _Godhead dwells bodily_, shall be a
hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest. The name of
God in Christ, _is a strong tower; the righteous run into it_, to hide
themselves, _and are safe_; Prov. xviii. 10. Their life is in God, in
the keeping of Christ, and they can defy deaths and dangers, when their
faith is strong, and their thoughts are fixed above.
They know the meaning of that tender and divine language; Is. xxvi. 20.
_Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about
thee; hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the
indignation be over-past._ In a time of public terror, and spreading
desolation, they retire to their secret places of converse with God, and
are secured, at least from the terror, if not from the destruction too.
When the arrows of death fly thick around them by day, and the
pestilence walks through the streets in darkness, when a thousand fall
at their side, and ten thousand at their right-hand, they make the Lord
their refuge, even the Most High their habitation, and dwelt at ease in
his secret place. He covers them from evil, or he gives them courage, so
that they are not afraid: They place themselves under the protection of
his name; they find shelter in his attributes: These are their secret
chambers; they hide within the curtains of his covenant, they wrap their
souls, as it were, in a sheet, or rather in[23] a volume of promises;
that ancient volume that has secured the saints in all ages; and though
death be near them, they know that their better life is safe: He gives
his angels charge over them, to keep them on earth, or to bear them up
to heaven, where their life is; Ps. xci. 11, 12.
Thence it comes to pass that we see christians, searching after God in
ordinances, and seeking for the Lord Jesus Christ in sermons, in
prayers, in the closet, and in the sanctuary; for they live upon him. A
holy soul pursues after the presence of his God, and his Saviour, with
the same zeal of affection and fervent desire, that the men of this
world indulge in their pursuit of created good: _My soul followeth hard
after thee_; Ps. lxiii. 8. Carnal persons are contented to be absent
from God, for he is not their life: They can satisfy themselves with a
shew of religion, without the power of it; and with empty forms of
ordinances, without Christ in them, because they are not born again,
their life is not spiritual. The sinner lives upon visible creatures,
and these awaken his warmest affections. A saint lives upon hidden and
invisible things, upon the hopes of futurity, and upon the glories that
are concealed in the promises: He lives upon the righteousness and the
intercession of Jesus his Mediator, upon the strength and grace of
Christ, who is his head in heaven; upon the word, the promise, and the
all-sufficiency of a God; and therefore these are objects of his
meditation and his desire.
I proceed now to the three inferences for our consolation.
1st Consolation. If our life be hidden with God, and our Lord Jesus
Christ, then it is in safe hands. The wisdom and mercy of God have
joined together, to appoint, shall I say, such a secret repository for
our spiritual life, that it might be for ever secure. What can we have,
or what can we desire more for the safety of our best life, than that
God himself should undertake to reserve it in himself for us, and
appoint his own eternal Son, in our nature, to be the great Trustee and
Surety, for his exhibition of it in every proper season?
Our original life was hid in the first Adam; it was intrusted with man,
poor, feeble, inconstant man, and he lost it: He was of _the earth_,
_earthy_, and our life with him goes down to the dust. Our new life is
intrusted with Christ; it is hidden in God, who is almighty and
unchangeable; and therefore it can never be lost. The second Adam is
_the Lord from heaven_, a quickening Spirit; 1 Cor. xv. 45, &c. And _he
that believeth on him, though he were dead in_ nature, _yet shall he
live_ by grace, for _Christ is the resurrection and the life_: And if he
be once made spiritually alive by Christ, he shall live for ever. This
is the language of Christ himself; John xi. 25, 26.
What an unreasonable thing is it then for a christian to fear what men
or devils can do against him, for they cannot hurt his best life! It is
above the reach of all the assaults of earth or hell. Our Lord Jesus
teaches us not to be afraid of them who only can kill the body; for the
soul is not in their reach; nor is it possible for them to prevent the
body from partaking of its share, in the glorious life appointed for a
christian at the great rising-day.
We see here upon what firm grounds the doctrine of a christian’s
perseverance is built, Christ is his life, _Jesus, the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever_. The all-sufficient God, and his eternal Son, have
undertaken for the security of it; John x. 28, 29, 30. _I give unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me, is greater than all, and
none is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are
one._ God hath sworn by his holiness, that the seed of Christ shall
endure for ever; Ps. lxxxix. 35, 36. and that his loving-kindness shall
not be utterly taken away from his own children: And our Lord Jesus
Christ doth little less than swear to the perseverance of his disciples,
when he says; John xiv. 19. _Because I live, ye shall live also_: for,
as I live, is the oath of God.
Why art thou cast down, O believer, and why is thy soul disquieted
within thee? Hope in God thy life, for thou shalt yet praise him, how
many and great soever thine adversaries are, and how difficult soever
thy path and duty may be, and how loud soever thy foes threaten thy
destruction. There may be many things in thy travels through this world,
that may hurt or hinder the growth of thy spiritual life, and may for a
season interpose, as it were, between thee and thy God: but neither
life, nor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, shall ever separate thee entirely from him, whose love
is secured in Jesus Christ; Rom. viii. 38, 39. The disciples were much
to blame, that they were overwhelmed with terror in the midst of the
storm, while Jesus Christ was with them in the same ship; and ye should
chide your own souls, when you feel yourselves under such unbelieving
fears as our Lord Jesus Christ chid in his fearful followers: “O ye of
little faith, wherefore did ye doubt?”
2nd Consolation. What a comfortable thought must it be to a poor feeble
christian, that God and Christ know all the state of his spiritual life?
for it is hid with them. Though the life of a saint has a cloud upon it,
though it is entirely hidden from men, and sometimes too much hidden
from himself too, yet the Father and the Saviour know every circumstance
of it, how low it is, how feeble, what daily obstacles it meets with,
what hourly enemies assault it. Christ our Lord well knows when our life
is in danger, and what are the necessary supplies.
This is very encouraging to a poor trembling believer, when he hardly
knows how to address the throne of grace himself in such a manner, as to
represent all his wants, and all his spiritual sorrows and difficulties
to God in prayer; but our Lord Jesus Christ, who is a compassionate
high-priest, who is our Head, and near a-kin to us his members, is
perfectly acquainted with our state: And the christian, mourning under
the decays of grace, can look up to Christ with hope, he can mingle new
exercises of faith and dependance, among his sighs and groans, and
commit his case afresh to Jesus his Saviour, with a humble and a holy
acquiescence in him. Christ himself, who is the believer’s life, must
know and will take care of all affairs which relate to his spiritual and
eternal welfare.