“Abide in Me”¹

A Sermon by Charles Calder Mackintosh

John 15:4. Abide in Me, and I in you.

These words were first addressed by Christ to the eleven who were “in Him” not by profession only but in reality. He had shortly before spoken to them such words as these: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me” (Jn 14:1); “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also” (Jn 14:18,19); “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (Jn 14:27). And He had just said of them (Judas having previously left them): “Now are ye clean, through the word that I have spoken unto you”.

He made use of the figure of the vine-stock and the branches to illustrate the union that subsists between Him and His people. The vine-stock and the branches make up one tree: Christ and His people are one. Plainly this is no mere external union, neither is it a mere union of sentiment or feeling – for, in this sense, the holy angels are entirely one with Christ. Nor is it what we call a relative union, such as subsists between the Representative and those whom He represents, or between the Surety and those for whom He engages. This is necessarily included in it, but it is more than all this.

The leading thought is the sameness of life. As the same life subsists in the vine-stock and in the branches, so the same life that is in the God-man Mediator, in its surpassing glory and all-fullness, is also in the weakest believer. It is the same Spirit, poured out upon the Head and received by Him without measure, that in measure is given to His people – first to quicken them and then to dwell in them. And this is special to redemption: as truly special to it as is Incarnation and Substitution. It is true that holiness is the same in the holy angels as it is in Christians; as indeed it is the same, in essence, in God and in His holy creatures. But the peculiarity of the life of Christ’s people lies in this: that the God-man is its spring; and that it is His life-giving power that evokes it out of death, that preserves it, and that causes it to grow from grace to glory.

Hence Christ’s people have a specially-close dependence upon Christ, just in proportion to the intimacy of the union. Hence also their blessed security in having their life bound up in His life: because He lives, they shall live also. For this union is indissoluble. Once formed, it lasts for ever: death cannot

¹Taken, with editing, from Memorials of the Life and Ministry of Charles Calder Mackintosh. Mackintosh (1806-68) was first minister in Tain and afterwards in Dunoon.

break it; on the resurrection day it will be perfected. No doubt Christ speaks of certain branches in Him being taken away, cast forth and withered. But these are branches that, by bearing no fruit unto perfection, show that they are not truly united to the Vine and do not partake of its life and fatness. The mysterious union on which salvation turns has never been made up between them and the Saviour, through His Spirit quickening them and their coming to Him for life. We must be living souls, living branches in the living Vine, in order that the union may be indissoluble.

It is not enough to be in Christ; we must abide in Christ. It is not enough for a sinner to know that Jesus is the common Saviour, or to know that all whom the Father has given Him shall come to Him; his knowledge of these things will only increase his condemnation unless he comes to Christ for salvation. So it is not enough for the believer to know that nothing shall separate him from the love of Christ. If it is a blessed truth that the love of Christ is unchangeable, it is just as sure that those whom He loves “work out [their] own salvation” and do not “draw back unto perdition”.

All anxiety about the soul does not leave a man once he is, through grace, in Christ. The fear of the wrath to come should indeed be removed by faith in the blood of atonement, but there must be the same care to continue in Christ that there was to find Christ. And no comfort can be drawn from the unchangeableness of His love unless we are thus striving to “abide in Him”. Our first care must be to attain to a state of salvation through union to Christ; our continued care must be to have our salvation advancing and the spiritual life in us increased through daily experience of the power of Christ as the Life.

So then the sum of the Christian’s duty may be summed up in this: abiding in Christ. Jesus, addressing His people and filled with concern for their comfort, their stability, their growth, and their fruitfulness, says, “Abide in Me”. Can we, from experimental knowledge and blessed remembrance, understand the feelings of the soul that, after long seeking rest and finding none, has now found Christ and so can say, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee”? O how deep the sense of personal unworthiness then! How vivid the impression of the Saviour’s glory and preciousness: Christ as a covert, Christ as the life, Christ as the soul’s all! Now think of these words, “Abide in Me”, as coming from His lips to the sinner who has just been received by Him and who is tasting of His graciousness. Who would say that the soul would ever again depart from Him?

What then is implied in abiding in Christ?

1. There must be a deep, continued sense of need of Christ, and an abiding perception of His all-sufficiency and fullness as a Saviour. The poverty of spirit to which the blessing is attached by the Lord in the Sermon on the

Mount (Mt 5:3) is characteristic of the Christian, not only at the outset of his course, but as long as he is in this world. It will leave him at death, when sin will leave him. Then he will be perfected in humility and perfectly blessed in the enjoyment of Christ, but he will be no longer poor in spirit. Till then, he will be growing in this grace. The richer in grace, the poorer will he be in spirit, because he will be increasingly humble, because there will be increasing sensitivity to sin, and a more and more enlarged grasp of how much he has to attain. And thus, as he grows in grace, he will more and more need the same Saviour who received him at first and showed him mercy, when he came in his guilt and his rags and his misery.

But along with a sense of need of Christ, there must be a continued and growing perception of His suitability and fullness, through a spiritual understanding of the record concerning Him in Scripture. Without this, the Christian, with his deep exercise of soul, would be of all men the most miserable. The blessedness of the poor in spirit lies in this: theirs is the kingdom of heaven to enrich and ennoble them. And the blessedness of the Christian growing in poverty of spirit lies in this: Christ is his to be more and more known by him in His unsearchable riches. It is under this sense of need on the one hand, and this persuasion of the Saviour’s all-sufficiency on the other, that a sinner is first drawn to Him. It is under a deepening sense of need – the feeling that without Christ he can do nothing – and a growing knowledge of His preciousness, that the believer abides in Him.

We cannot be too wary of the religion that dispenses with poverty of spirit, or that manifests itself in calm confidence and high assurance, although it has quitted the humbling work of mourning for sin and growing in a sense of its evil. If we think we have learned enough about sin and our own sinfulness, and if we do not care to grow also in the knowledge of Christ, we may take it as a sign that we are strangers to fellowship with the Saviour.

1. Abiding in Christ must imply dependence on, or trust in, Him – trust for all that is needed to maintain spiritual life and perfect it, or to secure the soul’s peace, growth in grace and eternal salvation. It implies dependence on Him for righteousness. The soul must abide in Him as the strong tower out of which it cannot be safe; or, to use another precious Scripture metaphor, it must continually put on Christ for justification on every fresh approach to God and, after every approach, to have the iniquity of holy things taken away. The more the Christian grows in grace, the more simple will be his dependence on Christ for righteousness, the more afraid will he be of mixing anything else with the righteousness of Immanuel – anything even of what the Holy Spirit may have wrought in him – as a ground of hope before God.

Abiding in Christ also implies dependence upon Him for teaching, to open

up the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and to show us the path in which He would have us go. It implies, moreover, dependence upon Him for sanctifying grace, as having no hope of obtaining holiness except through the grace of His almighty Spirit. Thus abiding in Christ is the exercise of active dependence upon Him: such dependence as evidences itself in the peace, the hope and the strength which flow from Christ to the soul through its exercise. This is certainly one of the main things implied in living a life of faith on the Son of God.

1. To abide in Christ is to continue in Christ’s love. It does not much matter whether we say, abiding in the contemplation of Christ’s love, or abiding in the exercise of love to Christ and love to the brethren; for it is in contemplating Christ’s love that love to Christ is drawn forth and exercised; and it is under its blessed influence that His people are constrained not to “live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again”. “Abide,” says Christ, “in Me.” It is as if He said, If in coming to Me your hard hearts have been broken, if you love Me who first loved you, if under the influence of this love you inquire, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?” then continue in My love, that you may keep My commandments.

2. To abide in Christ is to adhere to the Redeemer – to His Person (that is, to Himself, the living Saviour) and therefore to His Word, His cause, His people – under all temptations to depart from Him. No sooner does one set his face Christward than he meets with new and particular trials, and no sooner has he come to Christ than he may encounter temptations to go away from Him. It may be false doctrine, another gospel, tempting him, as the early churches – especially those of Galatia – were tempted to depart from the simplicity that is in Christ and, having begun in the Spirit, to seek to be made perfect by the flesh. When thus tried, the soul that is kept by Christ will say, To whom can I go but unto Thee? “Thou hast the words of eternal life.” There is a blessed heart-assurance of the divinity and infallible certainty of the way of salvation in Jesus that accompanies the first exercise of faith; and because of this, the soul that has tasted that the Lord is gracious will seek, not another gospel, but a fresh view and taste of the same gospel of the grace of God.

Further temptations are sloth on the one hand, and legalism on the other. One who has been zealous and hot in God’s service may wax cold and lifeless, content to pray without any real pressing after communion with God, and to read and hear the Word without any experience in the conscience and affections of its searching and cleansing power. Surely he has then ceased to abide in Christ. Or he may fall for a time under the power of legalism –

that is to say, of self-righteousness – one of the most subtle and powerful enemies with which the believer has to contend. Could he but receive in simple faith the promises of free grace in Christ, and trust in the Lord for their fulfilment, how different, many a time, it would be with his soul in light, comfort and growth! But why is it difficult, at any time, to exercise this simple faith? Mainly because of the remaining legalism of the heart.

Worldliness is another powerful temptation – that is to say, conformity to the world, or the love of the present world. Some of God’s people have fallen under this temptation and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. The seed sown among thorns has sprung up and there was every promise of abundant fruit, but “the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). If you would abide in Christ, you must feel your need of Christ’s almighty grace to keep you while engaged in the world’s business, so that your heart may still be where Christ is.

Spiritual pride is another of these temptations. When the great Apostle was caught up to the third heaven, we might have said, How humble Paul will be after experiencing such grace! Yet, lest he should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to him a thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12). And if Paul needed this discipline in order to be kept humble and abiding in Christ, what Christian is not in danger of spiritual pride, especially after any unusual experience of the Lord’s goodness? And may this not be the reason why some Christians have so little settled comfort and joy: they are so ready to put their enlargements in the room of Christ? “Abide”, He says, “in Me.”

The only other temptation, among the many, to depart from Christ which we shall now mention – for we must consider it a temptation – is despondency or readiness to faint, especially in time of trial. Despondency is no friend to humility, though some of God’s dear children are often visited with it, and kept low under its influence, saying, “My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgement is passed over from my God”. But He says, “Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of His understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength” (Is 40:28,29).

1. To abide in Christ must include to abide in Him to the end, even when the flesh may seek repose, and when something may whisper that there has already been enough confession of old sins and enough struggling with indwelling sin. The soul must abide to the end – till the soul can “go no more out”, till it is made white in Christ’s blood and filled with all the fullness of

God, finding its heaven in giving back all that it has received, in adoring thanksgiving, to the Lamb that was slain.

The Redeemer tells us what the blessed effects are of abiding in Him. They are such as these: (1) bringing forth much fruit, even the fruit by which the Father is glorified, and which is the evidence of discipleship; (Jn 15:5-8); (2) the knowledge of God as the hearer of prayer, because prayer flourishes in keeping close to Christ, and the believer who does not have a condemning heart has confidence towards God to open his mouth wide that the Lord may fill it (Jn 15:7,16; 1 Jn 3:20-22); and (3) his joy is made full; so he finds that, even when sorrowful, he may be “always rejoicing” (Jn 16:24; 17:13).

But let us not forget that Christ speaks of some who do not abide in Him; and that their misery is in proportion to the joy of those who do. How terrible are His words: “If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (Jn 15:6)! How sad is the case of a person who once seemed to be in Christ – a believer in His name, an ardent lover of His Person, His people and His cause, a student of His Word, one who honoured His laws – when he leaves his first love and goes back to the world and is again entangled in its pollutions! Are there any such among us? If there is, may the Lord, in infinite mercy, before it is too late, so deal with him that, out of a deeply wounded heart, the cry may come forth: O that it were with me as in the years that are past!

Is there anyone who fears that he has lost, or all but lost, the evidence which he once had of being in Christ, because he cannot now discern the faith, repentance, love, self-denial, or what he once thought were the beginnings of these blessed graces in his soul? What is the remedy for such a person? Is it to brood over old experiences, or to look more and more within? The Lord may give deliverance in this way. But what you are especially called to – if you now feel that to be without Christ is the sum of all misery – is to come as a sinner, as the chief of sinners, to the Lord Jesus.

If you cannot say with confidence that you are in Christ, yet you may say that He invites you to come to Him, with the promise that He will in no wise cast you out. Grasp the grace of such a blessed invitation; do not delay complying with it. Come to Christ, and the rising of the Sun of Righteousness upon your soul will scatter the darkness; in His light you shall see light; and peace and joy will return with a melted heart.

But if you have all but lost the evidence you once had of being in Christ, inquire when it was that doubt began to fill your mind? Was it after you became less earnest and diligent in secret prayer, after you had given place to spiritual sloth, and after you had ceased to search the Word of Christ contin-

ually? Then understand the solemn lesson which this teaches you, and profit by it. It is in connection with self-examination, with prayer, with making His Word precious, that the Lord Jesus manifests Himself to His people, keeps them abiding in Himself, and restores them from their wanderings.

Finally, how sad is the case of those to whom it cannot be said, “Abide in Me”, because they are not in Christ! To be without Christ is a dreadful thing, whatever lack of concern people may have in listening to this. It is to be under the curse of God and the dominion of sin, to be living to God’s dishonour, to be walking in the broad way that leads to destruction. But if Christ seeks you when you do not seek Him; if there is mercy enough in Christ for you, enough efficacy in His blood to cleanse you, and enough power in His grace to sanctify you, then think how fearful it would be to live and die a rejecter of Christ, to appear before the judgement seat without Him, to be driven from His presence, to have it said by the blessed Saviour Himself: “Depart from me!” These are not unmeaning words. You will yet know that these are the things which concern your peace. Will you not then seek the Lord while He is to be found, while you are not on a bed of pain, while you possess your reason, while you still have precious Sabbath time, while Jesus still knocks at your door!