Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2245
“For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” Ephesians 5:30.
BEFORE the funeral, at Norwood Cemetery, of the late Mr. William Olney, senior deacon of the Church at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, a service was held in the Tabernacle. The building was crowded with sympathizing friends who came to testify the affection they bore to the beloved deacon who had been so suddenly called from their midst. The senior Pastor presided. The hymn, “They are gathering homeward one by one,” was sung, and Pastor James A. Spurgeon offered prayer.
The hymn “Why do we mourn departing friends?” followed, and C.H. Spurgeon then read and expounded 1 Corinthians 15. The Reverend Burman Cassin, Rector of St. George’s, Southwark, briefly engaged in prayer, and the assembly sang the 34th Psalm, in the version beginning—
“Through all the changing scenes of life,
In trouble and in joy,
The praises of my God shall still
My heart and tongue employ.”
The hymn commencing, “Forever with the Lord!” was sung, and a concluding prayer was offered by Mr. James Spurgeon.
Pastor C.H. Spurgeon then rose and said—As I am in a very unfit condition to speak to you this morning, I shall try for once to keep away from my subject, for if I dwell upon it, it will master me, and I shall not be able to speak to you at all. I am trying to suppress my feelings, that I may be able to find words.
I am going to speak about the favorite expression of my Brother, William Olney, which he frequently used in prayer. I wonder whether you will agree with me as to what it was? As my memory serves me, I have heard him a score of times, at least, use the following sentence when he drew very near to the Lord, his God, in prayer. He said, “Lord Jesus, we are one with You. We feel that we have a living, loving, lasting union with You.” I think that you must remember that gem of his. Those three words have stuck by me and ever since he has gone, I have found myself repeating them to myself quite involuntarily—“a living, loving, lasting union.” He owed everything to that. He consciously enjoyed a living, loving, lasting union with the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you and I have that, we have all that we need for time and for eternity! If we have it not, we have nothing. Take anyone of us by himself, alone, he is lost, ruined, and undone. Take that same person linked with Christ by a living, loving, lasting union and he is a saint—saved, sanctified and sure to be glorified!
I have taken for my text the words which occur in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the 13th verse. Concerning our Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul says, We are members of His body, of His faith, and of His bones.”
“We,” that is, His believing people, “are members of His body, and of His flesh, and of His bones.” He is our Head and we are the members of the body—and so we are joined to Him by a living, loving, lasting union.
I am not going beyond those three words—they shall be my three points, but, at the same time, I will keep to my
text.
I. BETWEEN THE BELIEVER AND CHRIST THERE IS A LIVING UNION. There was just that between my Brother, William Olney and his Lord. A living union! When he joined the Church of Christ, he did not offer it the distin-
guished honor of his name and then slip away and give his life to politics, or to business, or to amusement. But when the Church has his name on its roll, it receive the whole of the man—body, soul, and spirit—and this because there was life in him!
His union to Christ was not nominal, but actual. He was not merely covered with the Christian name, but he had the Christian spirit and the Christian life within him. Yes, his union to Christ was a living union—not merely that of reliance, by which the stone leans upon the foundation—though he had that, for never man understood more clearly the doctrine of faith in Christ. Christ was his only trust and confidence and he came to Him as the stones come home to the foundation stone. But it was a living union in his case, for the fruits of life were produced. It was the union of the branch to the stem in that blessed Vine which is Christ, Himself, even as He says, “I am the Vine, you are the branches.”
Now what does this living union to Christ mean?
It means, first of all, Christ’s life laying hold of us. “For as the Father has life in Himself; so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” He is full of life and when He takes hold of us and raises our life into His, there is truly a living union between Him and us.
But, further, this living union is Christ’s life in us. It is given to Him, not only to take us in our feebleness, but it is His Divine prerogative to impart life to us and to call dead men—and to make them live. “For as the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them; even so the Son quickens whom He wills.” This is how we come to have life in connection with Him. His life flows into us, as out of the tree into the branches, so that we can truly say, with the Apostle, “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith to the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” The living union begins with our Lord’s life and then that life flows into us and we, also, begin to live.