[September 10th, 1865.]
All religion is founded upon the personality of God. A person only can be the object of the religious affections, of adoration, love and confidence. A person only can be addressed in prayer; and it is only with a person that we can have fellowship and communion. Who is the person with whom we stand in the relation indicated in the text? The word Lord is an appellative. There are many Lords. The article renders the term definite. It is the Lord, the person universally recognized as standing to men in the relation of Lord. It is the substitute of the proper name, Jehovah. He, therefore, is the person intended. But the Lord of the Old Testament is the same person with the Lord, and our Lord of the New Testament. The person, therefore, who is so designated is the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, the incarnate Son of God. The relation, therefore, here indicated, is not merely the relation which a creature bears to the creator, which man bears to God, but more definitely, that which we bear to God manifest in the flesh, who has assumed the work of our redemption.
The senses, then, in which the Lord is our strength are, 1. The general sense in which all power is derived from God. He is the giver of whatever measure of strength is possessed by any of his creatures. All created power is derived, and not inherent.
-
This power of the creature is not self-sustained. It is not an ability to exist, act, and accomplish its purposes out of God, and independently of him; but it is ability which he constantly sustains. It is in him we live and move and have our being.
-
Not only the general ability of the creature is thus derived and sustained, but the ability to act as efficiently as the emergency demands, the physical, intellectual or moral strength required for any special work or occasion, is given by God; and it is given in different measures to different individuals, and to the same individual, on different occasions.
-
All this pertains to the natural man, or to the natural relation in which men stand to God. And all this is included in the relation in which the believer stands to Christ. He is our strength, as its giver, its sustainer, and as the source whence all the supplies which we need from time to time are derived. But beyond this, especially in relation to the divine life, and to the duties therewith connected, is Christ our strength. He is the source from which that life is derived. It is sustained by him, and from him come the daily supplies needed for our daily duties. The strength to believe, the strength to understand, the strength to obey, the strength to resist temptation, the strength to bear afflictions, come from Christ only. Paul said that of himself he could do nothing, but through Christ strengthening him, he could do all things. No limits can be assigned to this divine strength. History is filled with examples of men, weak in intellect, weak in character, feeble of purpose, who have been transformed into heroes by the power of Christ. They have subdued kingdoms, stopped the mouth of lions, put to flight the armies of the aliens.
There are here three things for us to learn and to lay to heart.
-
That we have no strength in ourselves; so that the man who depends on himself, his understanding, his will, his efficiency, will fail, whether it be in arriving at truth, in living a holy life, or in doing good to others.
-
The second is, that the Lord is our strength, and that in him there is an inexhaustible supply of strength for all these ends; for attaining knowledge, for becoming holy, and for doing good, and for bearing all our trials in the Lord Jesus Christ. We can be strong in the Lord. Through Christ we can do all things.
-
The third thing is, that the conditions on which we are made partakers of this strength are first, the renunciation of our own, and second, the seeking of his strength in the way of his appointment, that is, by faith in him and by looking to him at all times.
← 131. Ye are Christ’s. 1 Cor. 3:23 · Contents · 133. Good Hope through Grace →