To be near unto God - pagina 575

to be daily in spiritual touch with such in one's town, in order to strengthen the faith and in behalf of mutual edification. Only, common fellent

lowship with the godly is altogether different from the sense of sharing a common lot *'with all saints." With "the saints" the Scripture does not speak of subjective, personal piety, but of objective sanctification through and in Christ. "The saints" are the redeemed, they who have been drawn unto eternal life. Not your choice, but the choice of God here counts. Not a fellowship with those whom you think are godly, but sharers in a common lot with those who have been effectively called of

Thus the

God.

circle of the saints is

provisional, not local, but it no one can number, in all

not narrow, not

a multitude which parts of the world,

is

here and up yonder, from the days of Paradise until

now, and from now on to

all

eternity.

As

the Te Deum: "The holy church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee."

we

sing

in

Hence, "with all saints" means fellowship with those who have been and will be redeemed bj' the blood of Christ in your immediate surroundings, in your whole land, in your church, in other churches, in other lands, both in the present, in the past and in the future. It is the whole "body of Christ" with all its members, not one excepted. all

With the patriarchs and prophets, the apostles and martyrs from of old, with your redeemed relatives and family members and acquaintances, who have gone before into eternity, with those who 567

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