Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 483
“As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walkyou in Him. Colossians 2:6. OUR nature is fond of change. Although man was made in the image of God at first, it is plain enough that any trace of immutability which he may once have possessed has long ago departed. Man, unrenewed, could he possess the joys of Heaven, would in time grow weary of them and crave for change. When the children of Israel in the wilderness were fed on angels’ food, they murmured for variety and groaned out, “Our soul loathes this light bread.” It is little wonder, then, that we need cautions against shifting the ground of our hope and the object of our faith. Another evil principle will work with this love of change in our hearts and produce much mischief—our natural tendency to build upon our own works. For a time that pernicious habit is cured by conviction of sin. The Law, with its sharp axe, cuts down the lofty cedar of fleshly confidence and withers all its verdure. But, since the root still remains, at the very scent of water it sprouts again and there is good need to set the axe going with all its former edge and weight. When we think legality quite dead, it revives, and, linking hands with our love of change, it tempts us to forsake our simple standing upon Christ, the Rock of Ages. It urges us to advance to a something which it decorates before our eyes with fancied colors and makes out, to our feeble understandings, to be better or more honorable to ourselves. Though this will certainly be again beaten down in a Christian, for he will meet with trouble after trouble when once he goes astray from his first path, yet again the old secret desire to be something, to do something, to have some little honor by performing the works of the Law, will come in and we shall have need to hear the voice of Wisdom in our hearts saying to us, “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk you in Him.” Persevere in the same way in which you have begun, and, as at the first, Christ Jesus was the source of your life, the principle of your action, and the joy of your spirit, so let Him be the same even till life’s end—the same when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death and enter into the joy, and the rest, which remain for the people of God. In trying to teach this very useful, though simple lesson, I shall, in the plainest possible language, first of all talk a little of the text by way of exposition. Then, secondly, by way of advocacy. And then, thirdly, by way of application. I. Oh that the gracious Spirit, who alone can lead us into all the Truth of God, would aid me while I endeavor to open up this verse BY WAY OF EXPOSITION. In expounding the text, we readily break it up into two parts—here is the life of faith—receiving Christ Jesus the Lord. Here is, secondly, the walk of faith—so walk you in Him. 1. The Holy Spirit here reveals to us the life of faith—the way by which you and I are saved, if saved at all. Mark, carefully, that it is represented as receiving. Now the word, “receiving,” implies the very opposite of anything like merit. Merit is purchasing—merit might be called making by labor, or winning by valor. But receiving is just the accepting of a thing as a gift. The eternal life which God gives His people is in no sense whatever the fruit of their exertions. It is the gift of God. As the earth drinks in the rain, as the sea receives the streams, as night accepts light from the stars, so we, giving nothing, partake freely of the Grace of God. The saints are not, by nature, wells or streams. They are but cisterns into which the living water flows. They are but as the empty vessel. Sovereign mercy puts them under the pipe and they receive Divine Grace upon Divine Grace till they are filled to the brim. He that talks about winning salvation by works—he that thinks he can earn it by prayers, by tears, by penance, by mortification of the flesh, or by zealous obedience to the Law—makes a big mistake. For the very first principle of the Divine life is not giving out, but receiving. It is that which comes from Christ into me which is my salvation. Not that which springs out of my own heart, but that which comes from the Divine Redeemer, and changes, and renews my nature. It is not what I give out but what I receive, which must be life to me. The idea of receiving, again, seems to imply in it a sense of realization, making the matter a reality. One cannot very well receive a shadow. We receive that which is substantial. Gold, silver, precious stones—such things we can receive. Estates, riches, bread, water, food, raiment—all these are things which are substances to us, and therefore it becomes possible for us to receive them. We do not receive a dream. We do not receive, again, I say, a shadow. We do not speak of receiving a specter. We do not receive a phantom. There is something real in a thing that is received. Well now, so is it also in the life of faith. We realize Christ. While we are without faith, Christ is a name to us, a Person that may have lived a long while ago, so long that His life is only a history to us now! By an act of faith Christ becomes a real Person in the consciousness of our heart, as real to us as our own flesh, and blood, and bones—and we speak of Him and think of Him as we would of our brother, our father, our friend. Our faith gives a substance to the history and idea of Christ, puts real solidity into the spirit and name of Christ—and that which to the worldly man is but a phantom, a thing to hear about and talk about—becomes to us a thing to taste and handle, to lay hold upon and to receive as real and true. I know, you that are unconverted, think all these things an idle tale. But you that are saved, you who have received Christ—you know that there is substance here—and shadow everywhere else. This has become to you the one grand reality, that God is in Christ reconciling you unto Himself. But receiving means also a third thing, that is getting a grip of it, grasping it. The thing which I receive becomes my own. I may believe it to be real, but that is not receiving it. I may believe, also, that if I ever do get it, it must be given to me, and that I cannot earn it for myself. But still that is not receiving it. Receiving is the bona fide taking into my hands, and appropriating to myself as my own property that which is given to me. Now this is what the soul does when it believes on Christ. Christ becomes my Christ. His blood cleanses my sin, and it is cleansed. His righteousness covers me, and I am clothed with it. His Spirit fills me, and I am made to live by it. He becomes to me as much mine as anything that I can call my own. No, what I call my own here on earth is not mine. It is only lent to me, and will be taken from me. But Christ is so mine, that neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, shall ever be able to rob me of Him. Oh, I hope, dear Friends, you have that blessed appropriating faith which says, “Yes, He is not another man’s Christ, He is my Christ,” I hope you can look into His face today and say, “My Beloved, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”