THE blessed Lord was here distinguishing between the world and His own disciples. This He still does, though to the eye of man all may seem mixed up together, and, indeed, in some respects it is so. But the Lord discerns. “I know my sheep, and am known of mine,” He had said. (chapters 10) In a certain sense, the world did see Him. They saw Jesus of Nazareth―the man who went about doing good. They saw His miracles which He did on them which were diseased. But spiritual sight they had not, so as to discern the glory of His person―such as was given to Peter, when he said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This marked the difference between a soul born of God and others―Jesus Christ known as the Son of God, so known as to be received and loved for His own sake, for the glory and beauty that is in Him. He met the soul’s deepest wants, it is true, and does. His perfect word underlies it as an everlasting foundation of rest and peace in the presence of God; and so souls are brought to Him by their very needs, and by the fact that His atoning work meets those needs. But it is in Himself who is the attractive object, apart from any thought of self, when once the question of sin is settled. I am speaking of things as they are. Doubtless the deep significance of His death and resurrection was but little known, if at all, at that time; but they die-covered who He was, and that by the Father’s teaching. The world never saw the Lord after His crucifixion. His disciples did, and do. It is that which distinguishes them―which makes a person as taken out of the world by conversion. “Ye see Me.” Jesus is known as the Living One; the risen and glorified Man in Heaven. The Holy Ghost reveals Him there. He is the Head of Life― Eternal Life. “Because I live, ye shall live also.” Blessed truth! our life, the believer’s life, is hid with Christ in God. Christ it our life. There is an everlasting link between Him and His, that can never be severed. Such a thing as severance is impossible. “Because I live, ye shall live also,” is the word of the everlasting God, which stands forever. Here, then, is an impregnable fortress in which the believer is set, and from which nothing can dislodge him. The sight of this truth gave Paul such confidence as we find in Romans 8, “I am persuaded,” he says, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God,” &c.; and this persuasion made him happy, in the midst of all the changes and trials which beset him. They could not shake his peace, ―they could not touch his life. Christ was both. And the blessedness of the saints in the present dispensation is this, that they are indwelt by the Holy Ghost, and they know, according to the word, “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” Let this be pondered. It is a wondrous blessing. Christ in the Father―the Church in Christ―Christ in His people. A great mystery, you will say; yes, but a reality to be enjoyed. The epistle to the Ephesians gives us the church in Christ, that to the Colossians, Christ in the church. Christ, the head of the body, is glorified. The church, as seen in Him, according to the counsels of God, is glorified too; not, of course, that resurrection is applied to the bodies of the saints―that waits the coming of the Lord; but the saints themselves are looked at as glorified in the mind of God, and as seen in Christ. This is Ephesians. In the Colossians, it is Christ in you the hope of glory. Here it is the life; Christ’s life in the saints on earth; Christian life if you will; heavenly, of course, in its character―the mind of heaven displayed on earth. Christ, when here, was the perfect display of it―heaven and earth embodied in Him, the man Christ Jesus. His Spirit now would lead the saints in His path―that of dependence, obedience, confidence in God; would form Christ in them, as it is in the Galatian epistle― see in each the mind of Christ. But here I pause. The subject is most sweet, the consolation springing from it deep and abundant. The Lord lead His beloved saints, who are in this vale of tears, to realize what He has done, and what He is to His redeemed and for them; an exhaustless theme, a theme for eternity, but one which may well occupy us now each day and hour we live. Oh to learn to praise Him better; to make more melody in our hearts to Him; to take up the spirit of the exhortation one to another, “O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of His praise to be heard.”