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| How Christ Abides with Believers to the End of the Age, and Whether He Abides with Them After that Consummation. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
8. How Christ Abides with Believers to the End of the Age,
and Whether He Abides with Them After that Consummation.
Some may very likely and not unreasonably ask, whether,
when all the days of this age are over, there will no longer be any one
to say, “Lo, I am with you,” with those, namely, who
received Him till the fulfilment of the age, for the
“until” seems to indicate a certain limit of time. To
this we must say that the phrase, “I am with you,” is not
the same as “I am in you.” We might say more properly
that the Saviour was not in His disciples but with them, so
long as they had not arrived in
their minds at the consummation of the age. But when they see to
be at hand, as far as their effort is concerned, the consummation of
the world which is crucified to them, then Jesus will be no longer with
them, but in them, and they will say, “It is no longer I that
live but Christ that lives in me,”5013
and “If ye seek a proof of Christ that speaketh in
me.”5014 In saying
this we are keeping for our part also to the ordinary interpretation
which makes the “always” the time down to the consummation
of the age, and are not asking more than is attainable to human nature
as it is here. That interpretation may be adhered to and justice
yet be done to the “I.” He who is with His disciples
who are sent out to teach all the nations, until the consummation, may
be He who emptied Himself and took the form of a servant, and yet
afterwards may be another in point of state; afterwards He may be such
as He was before He emptied Himself, until all His enemies are made by
His Father the footstool of His feet; and after this, when the Son has
delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father, it may be the Father
who says to them, “Behold, I am with you.” But
whether it is “all the days” up to that time, or simply
“all the days,” or not “all days” but
“every day,” any one may consider that likes. Our
plan does not allow us at present to digress so far.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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