If regrets were possible, where all is perfect blessing and perfect peace, we might suppose the Christian in glory looking back with tears upon a life spent on earth without devotion to Christ. We were dead in sins, dead to God—without hope, without strength—but Christ died for us, and now we live through Him, and in Him; therefore we should indeed heed the exhortation, which says, “They which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:1515And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:15)).
The world of sinners is a dead world, and every activity of man’s fallen mind has no particle of divine life in it. Christ’s death has proved in a divine way the state of man, and we who believe “thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead.” We perceive that Christ’s death was not to help or to reform, to elevate or to improve man, but the solemn witness of man’s dead state. We see, in the light of the death of Christ, that modern Christianity, which refuses the divine verdict on the human race as pronounced by Christ’s death, is but rebellion against God and Christ—a vain and a delusive religion; it is but a theory of those dead in sins.
Life or death—life in Christ risen, or death in sins, a new creation in Christ, or the old dead nature state—marks each and every child of Adam on the earth. The notion of growing up out of the dead nature state into a new life state is infidelity to the truth of Christ’s death and resurrection, and the life that the believer has in Him risen from among the dead. Christ lives to die no more on the other side of death; man, outside of Christ, lives in his natural state of death on this side of death. It is utterly impossible for death to unite itself to life—utterly impossible for sinners, dead in sins, by efforts of their own to reach to Christ risen from among the dead.
“They which live” are true believers. “He that hath the Son hath life” (1 John 5:1212He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:12)). “The hour...now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live” (John 5:2525Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. (John 5:25)). “Christ...is our life” (Col. 3:44When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4)). Being then no more of the dead, but of the living, having the gift of God—eternal life in Christ (Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23))—the responsibility to live on earth a practical life, different from our old selfish course before our conversion to God, is upon us. We “should not henceforth live unto [our]selves.” It is utterly false to Christ and to God for the Christian so to do. The believer is taken up out of the world of dead sinners to be all and wholly for Christ, to “live...unto Him.”
To live unto Him! —to Christ Himself, the Lord in glory! How differently does religion appear before the soul when “unto Him” shines within the affections. “Unto Him!” Not unto a scheme, a theory, a round of religious duties, but unto Himself—a Person! How much of the present-day Christianity would remain if all that is not “unto Him” could be sifted out therefrom? How much of our own religious life would remain when so tested? Yet nothing is sound, and real, and worthy but what is “unto Him.” “They which live should...henceforth...live...unto Him” (2 Cor. 5:1515And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:15)).
Christ displaces self! They which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him. As Christ practically displaces self, so does our Christianity become noble and exalted. True, the world may not recognize the nobility of suffering for Christ, or see the exaltation of self-sacrifice and self-refusal for Him; but God the Father has His eye of approval upon the life of a saint who is not for self, but for Christ. As Christ becomes the object of the heart, so does self fade out of mind. Selfishness, living unto ourselves, decreases in the warmth of His love, as winter snow disappears under the rays of the spring sun. Living for self-gratification, in all its varied forms, is to be abhorred, whether it be religious self, or worldly or sensual self. Sadly we soon build up the idol, self, which had fallen down, broken, before the ark, and set it up in its place again!
A godless sinner is converted, and begins with Christ. He is altogether a new man. But after a while he becomes a boaster in his piety and advertises his good state of soul. He then is no longer living unto Christ, but unto himself. When we are really living unto Him, self is out of sight and out of mind; we are absorbed with the object of our faith—we think not of self, but of Him.
Christ’s death for us is always to be before the heart. He Himself is who died for us! No motive is like the present memory of His death. Keep before the soul His blessed wounds and sorrows, and the object of them, all “for us,” and there is a motive introduced into the heart of the strongest kind. There is a divine power for our daily life in the grace of His cross, and a strength in the memory of His death, which the energy of the world cannot bestow. We live because He died for us, therefore we should live to Him who thus died.
Christ lives on the other side of death. He “rose again.” The memories of the cross are living memories, realities in the soul, indeed, but Jesus “rose again.” We do not live to a dying Christ, but to Him who died for us and rose again; we live to a living Christ. He is a living Friend, a present Friend; to Him we are attached by unbreakable ties—all God-made, and all everlasting. We do love to dwell on His sufferings and to meditate upon His death, but even as we do so, we rejoice to exclaim, “He rose—He who died for us rose again!” Christ lives beyond the boundaries of death; He is in heaven, and in Him we live. We are living for Him and to praise Him.
We are responsible to be true to Christ. What lives ours should be! “They which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him.” A solemn call to live to Christ is made to us—a burning responsibility is here present. How shall we spend our lifetime in this world where sinners are dead in sins, and where Christ, the Living One, is rejected?
Let the Christian make time to enter into his closet and shut the door, and there, in the secret of his God’s presence, give his answer.