LIFE IN CHRIST – Charles Spurgeon
LIFE IN CHRIST
Introduction: A Life in Christ
“Because I live, you shall live also.” John 14:19. This world saw our Lord Jesus for a very short time, but now it sees Him no more. It only saw Him with the outward eye, and in a carnal way. So, when the clouds received Him and concealed Him from bodily vision, this spiritually blind world lost sight of Him altogether. However, among the crowds of the sightless, there were a few chosen men who had received spiritual sight. Christ had been Light to them; He had opened their blind eyes, and they had seen Him in a way the world had not. In a high and full sense, they could say, “We have seen the Lord,” for they had, to some degree, perceived His Godhead, understood His mission, and learned His spiritual character.
Since spiritual sight does not depend upon the bodily presence of its object, those who had seen Jesus spiritually continued to see Him even after He had gone out of the world and unto the Father. We, too, who have the same sight, continue to see Him. Read carefully the words of the verse before us: “Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more; but you see Me.” It is a distinguishing mark of a true follower of Jesus that he sees his Lord and Master when He is not to be seen by the bodily eye. He sees Him intelligently and spiritually; he knows his Lord, discerns His character, apprehends Him by faith, gazes upon Him with admiration, and looks to Him for all he needs.
Now, my brothers and sisters, remember that as our first sight of Christ brought us into spiritual life—when we looked to Him and were saved—so it is by the continuance of this spiritual sight that our spiritual life is consciously maintained. We lived by looking, and we still live by looking. Faith is still the medium by which life comes to us from the life-giving Lord. It is not only upon the first day of the Christian’s life that he must look to Jesus alone, but every day of that life, even until the last. His motto must be, “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.” The world sees Him no more, for it never saw Him aright, but you have seen Him and lived, and now, through continuing to see Him, you remain in life!
Let us always remember the intimate connection between faith and spiritual life. Faith is the life-look. We must never think that we live by works, by feelings, or by ceremonies. “The just shall live by faith.” We dare not preach to the ungodly sinner a way of obtaining life by the works of the Law, nor hold up to the most advanced believer a way of sustaining life by legal means. We should expect to hear the Apostle’s rebuke: “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?” Our glorying is that our life is not dependent on ourselves but is safe in our Lord, as the Apostle says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives 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.” Because He lives, we live, and shall live forever!
The Spiritual Life
God grant that our eyes may always be clear toward Jesus, our life. May we have no confidence but in our Redeemer; may our eyes be so fixed upon Him that no other object may, in any measure, shut out our view of Him as our All in All. The text contains very weighty truths, far more than we can fully bring forth in one sitting. First, we see a life, secondly, that life preserved, and thirdly, the reason for the preservation of that life: “Because I live, you shall live also.”
I. Life: What Is It?
We must not confuse life with mere existence. It would be a grave mistake to reduce this rich truth to the mere phrase, “Because I exist, you shall exist also.” Before the disciples believed in Jesus, they existed. Apart from Him, their existence would have continued; it was something far other and higher than immortal existence that our Lord was dealing with.
What is life? We know practically, but we cannot always explain it in words. There are various degrees of life: the life of the vegetable, like the cedar of Lebanon or the hyssop on the wall, and then the life of the animal, such as the eagle or the ox. These forms of life operate in different realms. Then there is mental life, which allows us to judge, foresee, imagine, invent, and perform moral acts—things that the ox does not do.
Above mental life exists a form of life that the carnal man cannot fully comprehend. The carnal mind cannot understand spiritual things because it has no spiritual capacities. As the beast cannot understand the pursuits of the philosopher, so the natural man cannot understand the experience of the spiritually minded. The Scripture says, “The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
There is in believers a life which is not to be found in other men—nobler and far more divine. Education cannot raise the natural man into it, nor can refinement. It is said that “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and to all must the humbling truth be spoken: “You must be born again.”
The New Life in Christ
This life in Christ is the removal of the penalty that fell upon humanity for Adam’s sin. “In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die” was the Lord’s threat to Adam, who was the representative of humanity. He did eat of the fruit, and in that very day, Adam died. He did not cease to exist, but his spiritual life departed.
We, too, are dead in trespasses and sins until we are quickened by the life of Christ. We must be born again to experience this new spiritual life. Jesus delivers us from the consequences of the Fall by implanting in us this spiritual life. We are born again “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever.”
However, you may remind me that sin still remains within us after we have received divine life. Yes, it does, and it is called “the body of this death.” This is the struggle—the conflict between the power of sin in the first Adam and the power of life in the Second Adam. But the heavenly life will ultimately overcome the deadly energy of sin.
Even today, our inner life groans after deliverance, but with its groan of “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” it mingles the thankful song, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This life is of a purely spiritual kind. To truly know it, you must have it yourself. It is one of the secrets of the Lord.
II. Life Preserved: The Promise of Eternal Life
We now turn to life preserved. The promise of Jesus is clear: “You shall live also.” The heavenly life you have received shall be preserved. In this promise, we see a fullness of assurance. Whatever living means, all the degree of life secured in the Covenant of Grace will be yours.
The life you now have in Christ shall never die out. As Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” We may be tempted, but we will not cease to live in Christ. Though we may decline in grace, we will not fall into apostasy. The text assures us that “You shall live,” and this speaks to the preservation of all that is essential to the new nature.
No believer should doubt the preservation of their new life in Christ. Even if your faith feels weak, remember that this life is immortal. Lift up your hands and confirm your faith. Christ has promised to keep His hold on you.
Conclusion: The Everlasting Life
As we continue our journey in Christ, we must hold fast to the promise that we shall live because He lives. The life we have in Christ is eternal, and nothing will separate us from His love. The life that has begun in us will be brought to fullness in Him. Let us embrace this life and live it fully, for it is a life that will never end. Because He lives, we shall live also—forever!
LIFE IN CHRIST: THE INCORRUPTIBLE SEED AND SPIRITUAL SECURITY
The Incorruptible Seed
The incorruptible seed may be crushed, bruised, buried, but the life within it shall not be extinguished; it shall yet arise. “You shall live.” When you see all around you thousands of elements of death, think, believers, how grand is this Word of God: “You shall live.” No falling from grace for you! No being cast out of the Covenant! No being driven from the Father’s house and left to perish. “You shall live.” Nor is this all, for when the natural death comes, which indeed to us is no longer death, our inner life shall suffer no hurt whatsoever; it will not even be suspended for a moment. It is not a thing which can be touched by death. The shafts of the last enemy can have no more effect upon the spiritual than a javelin upon a cloud! Even in the very crisis, when the soul is separated from the body, no damage shall be done to the spiritual nature. And in the awful future, when the Judgment comes, when the thrones are set, and the multitudes are gathered, and to the right the righteous, and to the left the wicked—let what may of terror and of horror come forth, the begotten of God shall live! Onward through eternity, whatever may be the changes which yet are to be disclosed, nothing shall affect our God-given life; like the life of God Himself—eternal, and ever-blessed, it shall continue! Should everything else be swept away, the righteous must live on! I mean not merely that they shall exist—but they shall live in all the fullness of that far-reaching, much-comprehending word “life.” Bearing the nature of God as far as the creature can participate in it, the begotten from the dead shall prove the sureness of the promise, “You shall live.”
The Universality of the Promise
Let me further call to your notice that the fact here stated is universal in application to all spiritual life. The promise is, “You shall live,” that is to say, every child of God shall live; everyone who sees Christ, as the world sees Him not, is living and shall live. I can understand such a promise given to eminent saints who live near to God, but my soul would prostrate herself before the throne in reverent loving wonder when she hears this word spoken to the very least and meanest of the saints, “You shall live.” You are not exempted, you whose faith is but as a smoking flax, you shall live! The Lord bestows security upon the least of His people as well as upon the greatest. It is plain that the reason given for the preservation of the new life is as applicable to one saint as to another. If it had been said, “Because your faith is strong, you shall live,” then weak faith would have perished; but when it is written, “Because I live,” the argument is as powerful in the one case as in the other! Take it home to yourself, my brothers and sisters—however heavy your heart, or dim your hope, Jesus lives, and you shall live!
Victory Over Corruption and Trials
Note yet again that this text is exceedingly broad. Mark its breadth and see how it meets everything to the contrary, and overturns all the hopes of the adversary. “You shall live.” Then the inbred corruption which rises within us shall not stifle the new creature! Chained as the spirit seems to be to the loathsome and corrupt body of this death, it shall live in spite of its hideous companionship! Though besetting sins may be as arrows, and fleshly lusts like drawn swords, yet grace shall not be slain; neither the fever of hasty passion, nor the palsy of timorousness, nor the leprosy of covetousness, nor any other disease of sin shall so break forth in the old nature as to destroy the new! Nor shall outward circumstances overthrow the inner life, “For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways; they shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
If providence should cast you into a godless family where you dwell as in a sepulcher, and the air you breathe is laden with the fog of death, yet shall you live! Evil example shall not poison your spirit, you shall drink this deadly thing and it shall not hurt you; you shall be kept from giving way to evil; you shall not be decoyed by fair temptation; you shall not be cowed by fierce persecution—mightier is He that is in you than he which is in the world. Satan will attack you, and his weapons are deadly, but you shall foil him at all points; to you is it given to tread upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shall you trample underfoot. If God should allow you for a while to be sorely tried, as He did His servant Job, and if the devil should have all the world to help him in his attempt to destroy your spiritual life—yet even on the dunghill of poverty, and in the wretchedness of sickness, your spirit shall still maintain its holy life, and you shall prove it so by blessing and magnifying God, notwithstanding all!
We little dream what may be reserved for us; we may have to climb steeps of prosperity, slippery and dangerous, but we shall live! We may be called to sink in the dark waters of adversity; all God’s waves and billows may go over us, but we shall live! We may traverse pestilent swamps of error, or burning deserts of unbelief, but the divine life shall live amid the domains of death! Let the future be bright or black, we need not wish to turn the page; that which we prize best, namely, our spiritual life, is hid with Christ in God, beyond the reach of harm, and we shall live! If old age shall be our portion, and our crown shall be delayed till we have fought a long and weary battle—nevertheless we shall live; or if sudden death should cut short the time of our trial here, yet we shall have lived in the fullness of this word.
The Reason for the Security of the Spiritual Life
The reason assigned is this, “Because I live, you shall live also.” Christ has life essentially as God. Christ, as man, having fulfilled His life-work, having offered full atonement for human sin, dies no more; death has no more dominion over Him; His life is communicated to us, and becomes the guarantee to us that we shall live also.
Observe, first, that this is the sole reason for the believer’s spiritual life. “Because I live, you shall live also.” The means by which the soul is pardoned is found in the precious blood of Jesus; the cause of its obtaining spiritual life at first is found in Christ’s finished work, and the only reason why the Christian continues to live after he is quickened lies in Jesus Christ, who lives and was dead, and is alive forevermore. When I first come to Christ, I know I must find all in Him, for I feel I have nothing of my own, but all my life long I am to acknowledge the same absolute dependence; I am still to look for everything to Him. “I am the vine, you are the branches: he that abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing.”
The temptation is after we have looked to Jesus and found life there, to fancy that in future times we are to sustain ourselves in spiritual existence by some means within ourselves, or by supplies extra and apart from Christ, but it must not be so—all for the future as well as all for the past is wrapped up in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus! Because He died, you are pardoned; because He lives, you live; all your life still lies in Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Does not the Christian’s life depend upon his prayerfulness? Could he be a Christian if he ceased to pray? We reply, the Christian’s spiritual health depends upon his prayerfulness, but that prayerfulness depends on something else! The reason why the hands of the clock move may be found first in a certain wheel which operates upon them, but if you go to the primary cause of all, you reach the main-spring, or the weight, which is the source of all the motion. Many secondary causes tend to sustain spiritual life, but the primary cause, the first and foremost, is because Jesus Christ lives. “All my fresh springs are in You.” While Jesus lives, He sends the Spirit; the Spirit being sent, we pray; our prayer becomes the evidence of our spiritual life.
The Sufficiency and Security of Life in Christ
“But are not good works essential to the maintenance of the spiritual life?” Certainly, if there are no good works, we have no evidence of spiritual life! In its season the tree must bring forth its fruit and its leaves; if there is no outward sign, we suspect that there is no motion of the sap within. Still, to the tree, the fruit is not the cause of life, but the result of it, and to the Christian, good works bear the same relationship—they are its outgrowth, not its root. If then my spiritual life is low, what am I to look to? I am not to look to my prayers! I am not to find comfort in my works! I may from these discover how declining I am, but if I want my life to be renovated, I must fly to the fountain of my life—Jesus Christ, for there, and there only, shall I find restoration! Do let us remember this, that we are not saved because of anything that we are, or anything that we do; and we do not remain saved because of anything we are or can be!
A man is saved because Christ died for him; he continues saved because Christ lives for him. The sole reason why the spiritual life abides is because Jesus lives! This is to get upon a rock, above the fogs which cover all things down below; if my life rests on something within me, then today I live, and tomorrow I die; but if my spiritual life rests in Christ, then in my dark frames—yes, and when sin has most raged against my spirit—still I live in the ever-living One, whose life never changes.
The Comfort and Assurance of Life in Christ
Secondly, it is a sufficient cause for our life. “Because I live, you shall live also.” It must be enough to make believers live that Christ lives, for first, Christ’s life is a proof that His work has accomplished the absolution of His people from their sins. He would have been in the tomb to this hour had He not made a complete satisfaction for their sins; His rising again from the dead is the testimony of God that He has accepted the atonement of His dear Son; His resurrection is our full acquittal. Then if the living Christ is our acquittal, how can God condemn us to die for sins which He has, by the fact of Christ’s resurrection, declared to be forever blotted out? If Jesus lives, how can we die? Shall there be two deaths for one sin—the death of Christ and the death of those for whom He died? God forbid that there should be any such injustice with the Most High!
The Eternal Nature of Christ’s Life
The very fact that Jesus lives proves that our sin has been atoned for, that we are absolved, and therefore cannot die. Jesus is the representative of those for whom He is the federal head. Shall the representative live and yet those represented die? In His life, I see my own life, for as Levi was in the loins of Abraham, so is every saint in the loins of Christ, and the life of Christ is representatively the life of all His people. Moreover, He is the surety for His people, under bonds and pledges to bring His redeemed safely home. His own declaration is, “I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hands.” Will He break His covenant bonds? Shall His suretyship be cast to the winds? It cannot be; the fact that Jesus lives guarantees our life to all eternity!
The Comfort of Eternal Life
Remember, that if any of His people for whom He died, to whom He has given spiritual life, should after all die, Christ would be disappointed of His intent, which supposition involves the grossest blasphemy! What He came to do, He will do; as many as His Father gave Him, so many shall He have for His reward; the purchase-price shall not be given in vain. A redemption as marvelous as that which He has presented upon the Cross shall never in any degree become a failure! His life, which proves His labor to be over, guarantees to Himself His reward, and that is to be found in the salvation of His people.
Know you not, my brothers and sisters, that if one of those to whom Christ has given spiritual life should after all fall and die, it would argue either that He had a lack of power to keep them, or a lack of will to do so? Shall we conceive Him to be devoid of power? Then how is He the Mighty God? Is He devoid of will to keep His people—is that conceivable? Cast out the traitorous thought! He must be as willing as He is able, and as able as He is willing! While He was in the world He kept His people; having loved His own, He loved them to the end. He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” He will not allow one of these little ones to perish.
The Body of Christ and the Assurance of Life
Remember, and this perhaps will cheer you most of all, that all who have spiritual life are one with Christ Jesus. Jesus is the head of the mystical body, they are the members. Suppose one of the members of the mystical body of Christ should die, then from that moment—with reverence I speak, Christ is not a complete Christ. What were the head without the body? A most ghastly sight! What were the head with only a part of the members? Certainly not perfect! There must be every member present to make a complete body; therefore we gather that you, Brother, though you think yourself the meanest part of the body, are nevertheless essential to its perfection. And you, Sister, though you fancy yourself to be one of the uncomely portions of the body, yet you must be there or else the body cannot be perfect, and Christ cannot be a complete Christ!
From Him, the head, the life streams into all the members—and while that Head lives as a perfect Head of a perfect Body, all the members must also live! As we have often said, as long as a man’s head is above water, you cannot drown his limbs; as long as our Head is above the reach of spiritual death, we also are the same—no weapons can hurt, no poison can destroy, not all Hell’s fires could burn, nor all earth’s floods could drown the spiritual life within us—it must be safe because it is indissolubly One with Jesus Christ the Lord!
Conclusion: Living in Christ
What comfort, then, lies in this, the sole but sufficient reason for the eternal maintenance of the new-born life within us—“Because I live, you shall live also.” And let it be remembered that this reason is an abiding reason—“Because I live, you shall live also”—a reason which has as much force at one time as another. From causes variable the effects are variable; but remaining causes produce permanent effects. Jesus always lives. Yesterday, dear brothers and sisters, you were exalted in fellowship with Him, and stood upon the mountaintop; then your hearts were glad, and your spirits rejoiced, and you could say, “We live in Christ.” Today darkness has intervened, you do not feel the motions of the inner life as you did yesterday, but do not, therefore, conclude that the life is not there. What is to be your sign—what is to be the rainbow of the Covenant to you? Why, that Jesus lives! Do you doubt that He lives? You dare not! You trust Him; doubt not then that you live—for your life is as sure as His! Believe also that you shall live—for that also is as sure as the fact that He lives.
God gave to Noah a token that He would not destroy the earth—it was the rainbow, but the rainbow is not often seen; there are peculiar circumstances before the rainbow is placed in the clouds. You, brothers and sisters, you have a token of God’s covenant given you in the text which can always be seen! Neither sun nor showers are necessary for its appearance; the living Christ is the token that you live too. God gave to David the token of the sun and the moon; He said if the ordinances of day and night should be changed, then would He cast off the seed of David. But there are times when neither sun nor moon appears, but your token is plain when these are hidden; Christ lives at all times! When you are lowest, when you cannot pray, when you can hardly groan, when you do not seem to have spiritual life enough even to heave a desire, still if you cling to Jesus, this life is as surely in you as there is life in Christ Himself at the right hand of the Father.
And lastly, it is a most instructive cause. It instructs us in many ways: let us hint at three. It instructs us to admire the condescension of Christ. Look at the two pronouns, “you” and “I”; shall they ever come into contact? Yes, here they stand in close connection with each other. “I”—the I AM, the Infinite; “you,” the creatures of an hour; yet I, the Infinite, come into union with you, the finite; I, the Eternal, take you, the fleeting, and I make you live because I live. What? Is there such a bond between me and Christ? Is there such a link between His life and mine? Blessed be His name! Adored be His Infinite Condescension! It demands of us next abundance of gratitude. Apart from Christ we are dead in trespasses and sins; look at the depth of our degradation! But in Christ we live, live with His own life. Look at the height of our exaltation, and let our thankfulness be proportioned to this infinity of mercy. Measure if you can from the lowest Hell to the highest Heaven, and so great let your thankfulness be to Him who has lifted you from death to life. Let the last lesson be, see the all-importance of close communion with Jesus. Union with Christ makes you live; keep up your enjoyment of that union, that you may clearly perceive and enjoy your life. Begin this year with the prayer, “Nearer to You, my Lord, nearer to You.” Think much of the spiritual life and less of this poor carnal life which will so soon be over. Go to the Source of life for an increase of spiritual life. Go to Jesus. Think of Him more than you have done, pray to Him more; use His name more believingly in your supplications; serve Him better, and seek to grow into His likeness in all things. Make an advance this year. Life is a growing thing. Your life only grows by getting nearer to Christ; therefore, get under the beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Time brings you nearer to Him, you will soon be where He is in Heaven; let grace bring you nearer also. You taste more of His love as fresh mercies come, give Him more of your love, more of your fellowship. Abide in Him, and may His Word abide in you from now on and forever, and all shall be to His glory. Amen.
Portion of Scripture Read Before Sermon—Colossians 3
Charles Spurgeon