“The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.”
— Galatians 2:20
When the Lord in mercy passed by and saw us in our blood, He first of all
said, “Live”; and this He did first, because life is one of the absolutely
essential things in spiritual matters, and until it be bestowed we are
incapable of partaking in the things of the kingdom. Now the life which
grace confers upon the saints at the moment of their quickening is none
other than the life of Christ, which, like the sap from the stem, runs into
us, the branches, and establishes a living connection between our souls and
Jesus. Faith is the grace which perceives this union, having proceeded from
it as its firstfruit. It is the neck which joins the body of the Church to its
all-glorious Head.
“Oh Faith! thou bond of union with the Lord,
Is not this office thine? and thy fit name,
In the economy of gospel types,
And symbols apposite — the Church’s neck;
Identifying her in will and work
With Him ascended?”
Faith lays hold upon the Lord Jesus with a firm and determined grasp. She
knows His excellence and worth, and no temptation can induce her to
repose her trust elsewhere; and Christ Jesus is so delighted with this
heavenly grace, that He never ceases to strengthen and sustain her by the
loving embrace and all-sufficient support of His eternal arms. Here, then, is
established a living, sensible, and delightful union which casts forth
streams of love, confidence, sympathy, complacency, and joy, whereof
both the bride and bridegroom love to drink. When the soul can evidently
perceive this oneness between itself and Christ, the pulse may be felt as
beating for both, and the one blood as flowing through the veins of each.
Then is the heart as near heaven as it can be on earth, and is prepared for
the enjoyment of the most sublime and spiritual kind of fellowship.
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