The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 362

XXIV. Implanting

in Christ. " Having become one plant with Him."

—Rom.

vi. 5.

Having discussed regeneration as God's act wrought in a lost, we now examine the more sacred and

wicked, and guilty sinner, delicate question

:

How

does this divine act affect our relation to

Christ?

We consider

this point

more important than the

view of regeneration that does not do union with Christ

" is

first,

since every

full justice to the "

mystical

anti-Scriptural, eradicates brotherly love,

and

begets spiritual pride.

The holy

" I live,

yet not /, 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." * The idea that a saint can have life outside of the mystical union with Immanuel is but a fiction of the imagination. The regenerate can live no life but such as consists in union with Christ. Let this be firmly and strongly maintained. The Scriptural expressions, "one plant with Him"t and " branches of the Vine," which must be taken in their fullest significance, are metaphors entirely different from those which we use. We are confined to metaphors which express our meaning by analogy but they can not be fully applied nor express the being of the But the thing; hence the so-called third term of the comparison.

apostle declares

:

;

figures used

by the Holy

Spirit express a real conformity, a unity

of thought divinely expressed in the spiritual

Hence Jesus could say vine

is

but a figure.

:

" I

The

am

and

the true Vine," that

true, the real

Vine

am

I,

visible world.

is, "

and

every other I

alone."

Being exceedingly sober and choice in His metaphorical speech, the Lord Jesus does not say that a branch

is

grafted into the vine,

* St. Paul does not declare in these words that he received another

ego

;

ued f

on the contrary, he says emphatically that in his ego, which continbe his, it is no more I that live, but Christ. At least if the words "with Him " are original.

to

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