The figure of citizenship is, of course, originally drawn from the registers of the tribes of Israel. In that use, through not without a glance at some higher meaning, it appears in the Old Testament, where we read of "those who are written among them living in...
That is to say, they who on earth were His, consecrated and devoted to Him, and in some humble measure partaking even here of His reflected beauty and imparted righteousness, - these are they in whom He shall be glorified. They who "believed": poor, trembling, struggling, fainting souls,...
The transformation of men is the great miracle and marvel of Christ's power. "He shall come to be admired" - which word is employed in its old English signification, "to be wondered at" - "in all them that believe." So fair and lovely is He that He needs but to be recognised for what He is in...
The glorifying of men in Christ, which is the goal and highest end of Christ's Cross and Passion and of all God's dealings, is accomplished only because Christ dwells in the men whom He glorifies. And as is the Son with the Father, participant of mutual and reciprocal glorification, so is the...
The two Epistles to the Thessalonians, which are the Apostle's earliest letters, both give very great prominence to the thought of the second coming of our Lord to judgment. In the immediate context we have that coming described, with circumstances of majesty and of terror. He "shall be revealed .... with the...
The entrance of Jesus Christ into the opened heart is no mere metaphor, and it is not beweakened down to the presence in the spirit of the influence of His truth, or anything of that sort. There is a deep and substantial reality in the presence within a believing heart of Jesus Christ...
"If any man will open the door" - the door has no handle on the outside. It opens from within. Christ knocks; we open. I do not need to plunge into metaphysics: it is a plain fact that men can, and that men do, reject all this pleading love and meek...
Men that bear precious gifts for the world do not often need to beseech that they shall be accepted, but He comes to it and "prays us with much entreaty that we should receive the gift." We are mostly too proud to sue...
We have here the exalted Christ asking to be let in to a man's heart. The latter words of the verse suggest the image of a banqueting-hall. The chamber to which Christ desires entrance is full of feaster's. There is...
" This Man, if He were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him," says the unloving and self righteous heart, "for she is a sinner." Ah! there is nothing more beautiful than the difference between the thought about sinful...
The foundation of all God's love to us sinful men lies not in us, nor anything about us, not in anything external to God Himself. He, and He alone, is the cause and reason, the motive and the end, of His own love to our world. And unless we have grasped that...
In 1 Peter 1:13 we are exhorted to " set our hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought at the appearing of Jesus Christ." It is to be " brought unto you." Now, the margins of your Bibles give you a truer notion of the Apostle's meaning. He did not write "that is to be...
It is interesting to notice the various phases under which the future perfecting of the Christian life and felicity in Heaven is set forth in the New Testament. Sometimes we read of the object of our hope as being the resurrection from the dead; sometimes we read of the "hope of righteousness";...
Paul was as gentle as he was strong. Winsome courtesy and delicate considerateness lay in his character, in beautiful union with fiery impetuosity and undaunted tenacity of conviction. We have here a remarkable instance of his quick apprehension of the possible effects of his words, and of...