My God and My Country

Christ in the Heart (part one)

By Alexander Maclaren; Edited by Doktor Riktor Von Zhades

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith: 18 That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all Saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height: 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all fullness of God
The Epistle to the Ephesians 3:17-19

Consider the Indwelling of Christ, as desired by the Apostle for all Christians.

To begin with, let me say in the plainest, simplest, strongest way that I can, that that dwelling of Christ in the believing heart is to be regarded as being a plain literal fact.

To a man who does not believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, of course that is nonsense, but to those of us who do see in Him the manifested incarnate God, there ought to be no difficulty in accepting this as the simple literal force of the words before us, that in every soul where faith, howsoever feeble, has been exercised, there Jesus Christ does verily abide.

It is not to be weakened down into any notion of participation in His likeness, sympathy with His character, submission to His influence, following His example, listening to His instruction, or the like. A dead Plato may so influence his followers, but that is not how a living Christ influences His disciples. What is meant is no mere influence derived but separable from Him, however blessed and gracious that influence might be, but it is the presence of His own self, exercising influences which are inseparable from His presence, and only to be realized when He dwells in us.

I think that Christian people as a rule do far too little turn their attention to this aspect of the Gospel teaching, and concentrate their thoughts far too much upon that which is unspeakably precious in itself, but does not exhaust all that Christ is to us, viz., the work that He wrought for us upon Calvary; or to take a step further, the work that He is now carrying on for us as our Intercessor and Advocate in the Heavens. You who listen to me Sunday after Sunday will not suspect me of seeking to minimize either of these two aspects of our Lord's mission and operation, but I do believe that very largely the glad thought of an indwelling Christ Who actually abides and works in our hearts, and is not only for us in the Heavens, or with us by some kind of impalpable and metaphorical presence, but in simple, that is to say, in spiritual reality is in our spirits, has faded away from the consciousness of the Christian Church. I preach, and rejoice that I have to preach, a " Christ that died, yea! rather that is risen again; Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us." Nor do I stop there, but I preach a Christ that is in us, dwelling in our hearts if we be His at all.

Well, then, further observe that the special emphasis of the prayer here is that this " indwelling" may be an unbroken and permanent one. Any of you who can consult the original for yourselves will see that the Apostle here uses a compound word which conveys the idea of intensity and continuity. What he desires, then, is not merely that these Ephesian Christians may have occasional visits of the indwelling Lord, or that at some lofty moments of spiritual enthusiasm they may be conscious that He is with them, but that always, in an unbroken line of deep, calm receptiveness, they may possess, and know that they possess, an indwelling Saviour. For we, each one of us, are capable of the continuous abiding of that Lord within us.

We all seek and pray that our hearts are strengthened by the Spirit is fitted to be the Temple of the indwelling Christ. How shall we prepare the chamber for such a guest? How shall some poor occupant of some wretched hut by the way-side, fit it up for the abode of a prince? The answer lies in these words that precede my text. You cannot strengthen the rafters and lift the roof and adorn the halls and furnish the floor in a manner befitting the coming of the King; but you can turn to that Divine Spirit who will expand and embellish and invigorate your whole spirit, and make it capable of receiving the indwelling Christ. It is Christ in the heart that makes the heart fit for Christ to dwell in the heart. You cannot do it by your own power ; turn to Him and let Him make you temples meet for Himself.

Therefore, all, Christian men and women, here is the ideal of our lives, capable of being approximated to (if not absolutely in its entirety reached) with far more perfection than it ever has been before by us, that there might be a line of light never interrupted running all through our religious experience. Instead of that there is a light point here, and a great gap of darkness there, like the straggling lamps by the wayside in the half-lighted squalid suburbs of some great city. Is that your Christian life, broken by many interruptions, and having often sounding through it the solemn words of the retreating Divinity which the old profound legend tells us were heard the night before the Temple on Zion was burnt:—" Let us depart?" "I will arise and return unto My place till they acknowledge their offences." God means and wishes that Christ may continuously dwell in our hearts. Does He to your own consciousness dwell in yours today and every day?