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could only surmise that He must be either John the Baptist risen from the dead, or Elias, or Jeremias, or one of the prophets, He turns to His own with the searching question, "But whom say ye that I am?" To the poor sinner at Sychar's well, it is Himself revealed to her. To the outcast whose eyes He had opened, He is the Son of God. At the grave of Lazarus it is what He is in His own blessed Person as "the resurrection and the life." It is always in Himself. If it is a question of eternal life, He must be the object of faith. If He is lifted up from the earth, He will draw all unto Him. And then the path on earth comes to its close, but even in its closing scene there must come out what He was for God; and the two simple words “I thirst" are the fitting close to a life of devotedness that could not be ended till the word of His God was vindicated to the very letter. And in the death that came to Him when all was finished, and when He, whose life none could take away, yielded up His spirit to God,

the life and history that belonged to us as associated with the man of sin and death is closed, closed for ever by the God who has written "finis" to a volume, every page of which was dark indeed, save those illuminated by the blessed path of Him who was the corn of wheat that would not abide alone.

Then there opens out to us another volume, beginning with the resurrectionlife of the Man who had been obedient unto death for the glory of God.

And, blessed be His name, that volume can never come to an end. Its title page may be found in the wonderful message given to one in whom and for whom, He had broken the power of Satan, and who had a heart devoted to Him who had done it: "Go, and tell my brethren, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, my God and your God." And where do we see Him next? The Son of man in the glory of God; and everything there for us, and filling everything there for God. He is the Man, the one Man, now before God. God "looks upon the face of his anointed."

And every blessing we have is in Him. Is not He our life, our peace, our righteousness? Was He not raised for our justification? Is it not by Him we are reconciled? Are we not accepted [taken into favour if you will] in the Beloved? Is not His love ours? Is not His glory to be ours (John xvii. 22, 23) to be known and enjoyed in bodies of glory like His own? Where can we stop (not speaking of course of His own intrinsic glory as "God over all blessed for ever") when we begin at that glorified Man, the Accomplisher of the purposes, the delight of the heart of God? And yet He ever stands supreme: Object supreme of all, by all adored." If we are His brethren, He is the Firstborn among us. And just as we are able, through grace, to see Him where He is, and measure all by Him, we can well afford to lose sight of these poor worthless selves, gone for ever before God in His death, buried in His grave; and to give up our poor thoughts of what we are before God, because Christ is everything.

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Again I ask, "Have we anything apart from the person of the Christ'?" If we had, or could have, would it not tend to make something less of Him, and to detract from the glory due to Him who finished for God and for us, that glorious work given Him to do? And surely in this day of man's doctrines, and creeds, and theology, the test and the remedy for all is the Person of Christ in glory; the one blessed reality that is a necessity for our peace, our deliverance, our joy, our hope, our strength, in a path of difficulty, and distress, and perplexity, down here. It was "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," that enabled Paul to overcome all that was against him in the wilderness-path, and to bear about in the body "the dying of Jesus." It is the light of that same knowledge of that same blessed Person that will carry us through all, and keep us humble indeed, while it enables us to test every theory and doctrine by Himself, the only true test now as He

ever was, and to refuse all that will not bear that test. Yes, beloved brethren, bring all to that test, doctrine and walk, and we may have to refuse a great deal as to both; but we shall "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Can anything be more blessed than that, till we are with Him and like Him for ever. And does the exaltation of His glorious Person detract from His glorious work? Surely, the very contrary, for He is where He is because of what He has done-done for the glory of God and for our blessing. It is to His "precious blood" (as the Holy Ghost has written) that we owe all we are or have in Him. And is not all summed up in those words at the head of this paper, "Of him [God] are ye in Christ Jesus?" Can anything be better calculated than these words of our God for us, words which tell of the place we have before Him in His own beloved Son, to draw our hearts out in adoring praise and true devotedness, to the Christ to whom we owe it all. P. G.

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