On what must self-examination be brought to bear? This question is distinctly answered in the text. The points to be settled are—Am I “in the faith?” and is “Jesus Christ in me?” But, though they may be thus distinctly stated, each of them is involved in the other, and they may be viewed as one. You cannot be “in the faith” unless “Jesus Christ is in you,” and in searching yourselves it is the evidence you find, in proof of Christ being in you, that avails to assure you of your being “in the faith.”
And what is it to “be in the faith?” It is not said “whether faith be in you.” Faith, therefore, in this text does not point to the grace implanted by the Spirit in the soul—it points rather to the doctrine of faith in the gospel. This not infrequently, is the meaning in the New Testament of this form of expression—as in the passage in which Christians are urged to “contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,” and in the passage in which Paul declares that he had “received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations.”
To be “in the faith,” is to be in the sphere of the gospel, and so there as to be in living and saving communication with the grace of which the gospel testifies. How important this is! And how desirable it is to know that one has attained to such a position—that one has been placed “in the faith” by the Spirit of faith, so as to be a partaker of the grace of the gospel! In order to being thus “in the faith,” one must have true living faith in his heart, and must be in vital union to the Lord Jesus Christ. Only as I am in Him can I be “in the faith,” I cannot, apart from Him be in communication, as a recipient, with the grace of the gospel. Its doctrines can yield to me no nourishment apart from Christ, and its promises I cannot plead, and if ever its call takes effect on me, it must be in the way of bringing me to be one Spirit with Him in Whom all fulness dwells. It is on the question, “Is Jesus Christ in you?” that our self-examination must, in the first instance bear. It is only proof of His being in you that can avail as evidence of your being “in the faith.” It is His power, put forth in you, that can produce the fruit by which, to yourself or to others, you can be known as in Him. Your anxiety, therefore, must bear on discovering whether, in your secret exercise of soul, in your service in connection with the Lord’s work, and in your life, you have any evidence of Christ’s being, and working by His Spirit in you. In endeavouring to ascertain this, you must not separate the condition and exercises of your soul in secret before God from your mode of serving and living before men. The latter must be regarded as the outcome and fruit of the former. There may, however, be evidence, good and sufficient for the time, found in your consciousness of gracious exercise of soul, apart from the outcome of it in practice. But you can come to no conclusion that can be satisfying from an examination of your life, without tracing what appears there to the motive in the heart, from which it is sprung. And however favourable the verdict of your consciousness may be, you cannot be long content with it, if it finds no attestation in a measure of practical conformity to the law of Christ. If you regard iniquity in your heart, your conscience of this will upset every favourable judgment regarding your state which you ever formed.
If ascertaining that “Jesus Christ is in you” be what is desirable, then surely the evidence of this, that will avail, must be good reason to conclude that to some extent you are conformed to Christ’s mind and example. If “Jesus Christ is in you” then you must, in some measure be like Him in His self-denial, in His love to His disciples—in His prayerfulness—and in His purity.
Have you any evidence of Christ’s being in you because of being like Him in self-denial? No one who honestly attempts to find good evidence of this can be easily satisfied. And why? Because the standard is so high. “Let the same mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” is the prescribed attainment and that which in self-examination you desire to ascertain as yours. But when we look at “the mind of Christ in the light of the words which follow, how unapproachably high seems the standard! “The mind” you are required to have is “the same” as His “who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Such is the standard, and the higher it seems, all the lowlier will you be before it, but at the same time all the more anxious to be conformed to it. If it appears high, unapproachably high, in that measure it appears lovely in the eye of faith, and will the love, that is always the companion of true faith, spring up in desire to be like Him. Because of this the quickened soul is kept from going away in hopelessness from before the standard of Christ’s glorious self-denial. Yea, in the measure in which it is immeasurably high, in one’s view, there is encouragement to hope, as well as a stimulus to desire, for from His self-denial comes into the fainting heart the refreshing saviour of His love, and is strengthened to ask for His transforming grace.
(To be continued.)