The Indwelling Christ
I believe the Bible to be miraculously inspired; that it is infallibly true in its statements of facts; all authoritative in its commands and absolutely trustworthy as to the fulfillment of its promises. I believe that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. I believe that holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. I believe what Paul said "which things we speak not in the words which man's wisdom
teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth." I believe what Paul further said, "If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him take knowledge that the things which I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord Jesus."
I believe that God has in the world three great divine institutions: the home, the state and the church. I believe the home is for the reproduction and rearing of human beings; that
the state is to protect the life, liberty and happiness of its citizens; that the church is that institution through which human souls are to be saved and fitted for the life that lies beyond death. I believe that the pillar and support of the truth is the church and not some
humanly organized missionary society. I believe that the manifold wisdom of God is to be made known through the church.
I believe that the law of pardon for an alien sinner is that he must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all his heart; that he must truly repent of all past sins.; that he must confess with his mouth his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; that by the authority of Jesus Christ he must be baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; that when he has done these things, then, and not before, he has the promise that his sins are pardoned or that he is saved. I believe that such a person, as a Christian, must add to his faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to
brotherly kindness love, and that should he do so, there will be ministered unto him an abundant entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I believe that such a Christian receives the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his, and that possessing that spirit, he should bear its fruit, which is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, and that against one whose life is filled with these things God's law has no accusation to bring. I believe that such a person should reflect in his daily life and character the teachings of Christ as made known to us in the beatitudes. I believe that all true science and sound philosophy and Christian faith are in perfect harmony, each one perfectly proper in its own sphere, neither trespassing upon either one of the others and in no single point conflicting.
The subject of the lecture I am to deliver at this time is "The Indwelling of Christ." The text upon which it is based may be found in Eph. 3:17. It reads thus: "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." We are taught in Genesis that in the beginning God created man in his own image. We are taught in the first chapter of John, that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God, and that all things were made by him, and that without him was not anything made that was made. And Paul teaches us that God created all things by Jesus Christ.
These scriptures being true, man was not only created in the image of God, but in the likeness of Christ, for the word of God says that Christ was the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person, and so much alike were God and Christ that Jesus himself said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Then, man was made in the image of God and in the likeness of Jesus Christ, and the devil's work in this world is to
destroy from the soul of man this image of God and likeness of Christ in which man was created.
It is like this. A number of workmen were busy tearing down a structure and one of them happened to strike his elbow against the smooth surface of a plastered wall and brushed away the dirt and dust which had accumulated there and saw in this place coloring matter as if there were a picture underneath. He took his hand and rubbed off a larger space. Seeing there was a picture there, he took his old handkerchief and rubbed off a great big
place and found there was a most beautiful picture underneath, too pretty, he thought, to be destroyed. Knowing where an artist lived, he went after this man and brought him, and the artist carefully cleaned away all the dirt and dust and grime and found a masterpiece, and down at the lower right hand corner were the initials of one of the world's great painters, and yet all this beautiful picture had been entirely covered up, blotted out by the
dirt and dust that had accumulated through the ages. Thus it is that Satan coming into a human life with the trail of his shame and the soil of sin, seeks to blot out from the life of man that image of God and of Christ in which he was created.
Man is a three-fold being. He has a body, a mind and a heart. It is a splendid thing to have a good strong, healthy body. It is a sad misfortune to have a weak, crippled body. I went into a community once to assist in a meeting. The very first day someone said, Brother Calhoun, have you seen uncle, naming a certain man? Why, I said, I never heard of him. Well, he said, you must be sure to go to see him. So the next afternoon we went. In a plain, simple room, on a plain, simple bed, lay a man past middle life, with his limbs all twisted out of shape by disease. He had not taken a step for more than twenty years. He could not even feed himself. Almost as helpless as a baby. That was a sad cripple. Lying there on a table beside the bed was an old leatherback Bible, thumb worn and dirty from use. And the old man liked to have you turn and read about that earthly house of our tabernacle
being dissolved, and then we would have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. He liked to have you read of that body that Paul says we will have after the resurrection, fashioned like unto the glorious body of Christ, bearing the image of the
heavenly Father, raised in power, incorruptible, which John says can never feel pain, sickness, nor death, and tears of joy ran down the old man's cheeks as we read of that new body which he someday hoped to have as his.
But I have seen sadder cripples than that. I went into another community once to assist in a meeting. I went home for the noon day meal with a brother and his wife. As we were leaving the table, the good woman, old enough for my mother, said, Brother Calhoun, would you like to see my baby? I had seen no child. I had heard none mentioned and did not know there was any, but I said to her, "Yes, sister, I would like to see your baby, if you would like to have me do so." And she said, "Come with us," and hand in hand she and her husband walked to a door on the other side of the room and opening into another room as large as the one in which we were sitting, and there in a chair beside the fireplace sat
a man as large as I am, and perhaps as old as I then was, a poor driveling idiot that never had spoken a sensible word in his life and never would. And what that poor mother's heart wanted to know was whether the preacher thought that when death claimed her darling, her only baby, would the clouds that came in across his mind pass away, and would he shine out and be like others in the sweet by and by. It comforted her soul when the preacher told her that he believed that all of earth's imperfections would be left behind when we enter that home of the soul that Jesus had gone to prepare. Now, this was a sadder cripple than the man with the crippled body, for a crippled mind is worse than a crippled body.
I have seen worse cases, sadder cripples, than either of these. The causes that make my heart ache, that wring it with bitter sorrow, are those in which Satan has done his work, and it is the heart cripples, where the hearts are all ruined, twisted and filthy with sin and the stain of Satan's shame. I have two boys, both of them taller than the father, with minds reasonably bright and bodies strong, and I had rather have both those boys helpless cripples until they could never walk a step; I would rather have them both driveling idiots until they could never speak a sensible word, than to have them with bodies as strong as Samson's, and minds as bright as ever Plato or Aristotle had, and simply stop with that. To have their hearts all marred and blurred and ruined by sin is worse than to have a crippled body and a crippled mind.
Now, the work of Christ is to destroy the works of the devil. He said, "I am come to destroy the works of the devil." Perhaps some of you have seen Leonardo Da Vinci’s great picture "The Last Supper," representing Jesus and the twelve in that upper room that night before his crucifixion, when he instituted the Lord's Supper. Do you know its true history? It takes years to paint a great picture. They cannot be produced in an hour, or a week, or a month, Or a year even. Da Vinci worked upon this picture more than twelve years, and when he first began, naturally Jesus' figure and face was the central one. All the others were grouped about that. When he came to paint the face of Jesus he was unwilling to trust, great as was his genius, his natural powers to produce a face strong enough and splendid enough to represent the face of Jesus, the world's Savior, and he said. "I am going out into this great city and find a young man, about 30 years of age, with a pure enough and noble enough face to represent the face of Jesus. I am going to arrange with him to let me copy his face upon this canvas." After a long search, one day he found him, a singer in one of the great churches of the city. As soon as he saw his face he said, "That is the face I want." After the service he arranged with the young man to come to his studio and let him copy his face on the canvas to represent the face of Jesus. Would not you think that an honor, to have a face pure enough and noble enough to represent the face of Jesus Christ ! Years passed, ten years and more, and now the great picture is finished, all but one face, and that's the face of Judas, the traitor, and again the artist felt unwilling to trust to his native powers to produce a face dark enough and sin cursed to represent the face of Judas, who sold his Master for a few pieces of silver, and again Da Vinci said, "I am going out into this city and hunt for a face where sin has done its work; where the devil has blotted out the image of God, and I am going to copy that face on this canvas to represent the face of
Judas." One day in one of the lowest dives in the city he found a man and the minute he saw him he said, "That is the face I want." He approached the fellow and said, "I want to hire you." The man answered, "What will you give?" Never asked what he wanted him to do. He would do anything for money. Da Vinci named a small sum and the man said, "Lead on, I will follow." Out from that low, filthy dive they came, into a more decent street, and by and by they walked into the studio where the great picture had stood more than a dozen years on the easel, in the same room, and when the man, following Da Vinci, walked into the room he looked around with a startled glare at the picture, and said, "Oh, my God, I can't do that. I can't do that." Da Vinci said, "Can't what?" "Oh," he said, "I know what you want. You want to paint my face on that picture to represent the face of Judas. My God,
man, I can't do that." Da Vinci stepped to the door, closed it, locked it, took the key out and put it in his pocket and said to the trembling wretch, "You can, you shall, you must." The man pointed with trembling hands and said, "There's my face painted as the face of Jesus." He said, "Twelve years ago I sat here in this very room. You copied my face on that canvas to represent the face of Jesus, and now you want it to represent the face of Judas."
And Da Vinci copied that face. That is why that picture is today considered one of the world's masterpieces. It shows what sin can do. That is not a made up story. That is true as the word of God. Sin can take a face pure enough and noble enough to represent the face of Jesus and so blot out from it the image of God as to make it fit to represent Judas the traitor.
Now, since Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, he wants to come into our hearts "that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith." Why? He wants to restore to the soul of man that lost image of God, in which man was created. He wants to wash away with his own precious blood the stain of sin, the soil of shame, and restore to the human heart and life that image of Godin which man was made.
Is it true, as our text says, that Christ dwells in the heart of a Christian, "that Christ may dwell in your hearts?" The word "dwell" means "to live, to make his abode, to stay permanently, not just to visit." Do the Scriptures teach that Jesus dwells in a Christian's heart? Listen, Rev. 3:20, Jesus speaking, "I stand at the door and knock. If any man will hear my voice and open the door I will come in." John 14:23: "If any man serve me, him will my Father honor and both my Father and I will come unto him." In John 17:23, Jesus said, speaking of his followers, "I in thee and thou in me." Gal. 2:20, Paul says, "Christ liveth in me," and Christ is no more expected to live in Paul than he is to live in every
Christian. 2 Cor. 13:5, speaking to all Christians, "Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith, prove your own selves. Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates." Reprobates simply means sinners, outcasts, those not Christians. This verse
says Jesus Christ is in every Christian. Rom. 8:10: "If Christ be in you."
Gal. 4:19, Paul says, "My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." And these are not the half of the Scriptures which teach that Christ dwells in a Christian. So, if I am a child of God, if you are one, Christ is dwelling, living in us.
But someone says, "How can this be? How can Christ live in a Christian? How can he live in me?" Our text says "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith," and God's word teaches that this faith comes by hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17).
So, this Christ who dwells in us by faith is one concerning whom we learn from God's word and is indwelling in no mysterious, uncertain way. It is the Christ formed in our souls by faith as we learn of Him through the teachings of God's holy word, made known through his Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "Come learn of me." Paul says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." He says further, "we all with open face beholding as in a
mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image," and this Christ who dwells in us is not a cold intellectual conception simply, not the mere belief of a fact or facts concerning him, that he once lived and walked about the Sea of Galilee and over the hills of Judea, but the Christ that dwells in our hearts by faith. This faith must be made perfect by efforts, for by works is faith made perfect, and it is a living Christ in harmony
with Paul’s teachings (Rom. 16:26), when he teaches that this gospel of Christ is made known for the obedience of faith. So, it is a Christ, dwelling in us, embodied in a life of obedience, filled with such deeds of love and kindness and courtesy as Christ himself
performed.
Oliver Wendell Holmes said that when two boys, James and John, meet on the street there are six persons present. How could this be? Well, there is first, John as John himself. That is John’s John. Then there is John as James sees him. Sometimes James’ John is a very different John from John’s John, and then there is that John that God sees, and that is the real John, often quite different from either of the other two, and of course, there are as
many James’ present as there are Johns’. So, the Christ that dwells in us must be Christ formed in us, a Christ as God sees him, not simply my Christ, nor your Christ, but God’s Christ, a Christ dwelling in us.
But someone says, “Can’t you make it plainer that that?” I will try. Phil. 2:5: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” With the mind we think and feel and purpose, and if Christ’s mind is to be in us, the we must think and feel and purpose like Christ. Rom. 8:9: “If any man have not the spirit of Christ he is not one his.” My spirit must be like the spirit of Christ, so much so that I can say the spirit of Christ is in me.
Some years ago a missionary from China sat at my breakfast table and told my children this story. He said one morning he and his wife were sitting at their breakfast table and they heard a little baby crying. Sounded like it was just out the window on the street, and the wife ran to the window, and sure enough, there lay a little girl baby out in the street, thrown away by its heathen mother, because little girl babies are not valuable in China where Jesus is not known. The missionary's wife ran out and picked the little one up. It did not seem to be hurt. She brought it in and cared for it. She had a little baby of her own, almost the same age. She divided the food that God gave for her own baby with the
little heathen baby. Other mothers of the community were interested and helped and the little baby lived and grew, and may we trace now and see how Christ came to dwell in this little heathen baby's heart? It was not long until it was a great big, healthy, growing baby girl, and the missionary and his wife taught it, as they did their own little baby; the story of the babe of Bethlehem, and how the angels were sent that night. when He was born, and how the wise men, guided by the star, came bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh; and how they worshipped him, and little by little as the child grew, it became
familiar with the story of Jesus. It was learning and Christ was being formed in its mind until it could see Jesus, who Jesus was and just how Jesus thought and just how Jesus felt and just how Jesus purposed, and just how Jesus acted. Years passed by and the image of Christ in the soul of the child grew stronger, and it saw more clearly, and by and by it was sent to America and put in a girl's school where Christ was loved and honored, and it learned more and more of him. Finally a preacher came to hold a meeting in the town and the girls from the school attended the meeting. More and more the little girl had learned, but now she is a great big girl. More and more she had learned of Jesus until one night at the close of the sermon, when the invitation was extended, that girl walked down to confess her faith in Christ and crown him king in her heart and her life. Jesus had come into her heart, by faith and had taken control, and so it is that Jesus must come into your heart and life and mine. We learn about him. We see the patience and sweetness of his character and make that our own.
We are told in 2 Peter 1:4: "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature." Partakers of the divine nature means sharers in that divine nature and the divine nature is the Christ nature. So, we must have Christ's mind in us, Christ's spirit in us, Christ's nature in us, not theoretically simply. 1 Peter 2:21, Christ left us an example that we should follow in his steps. 1 John 2:24: "He that sayeth I know him ought also to walk even as he walked." So the Christ that dwells in you and in me must be the living Christ, until our thoughts and feelings and purposes and words and deeds, our nature, our very life is a reproduction of his, and that is in harmony with modern teaching on the subject of Christianity.
What do the best modern writers tell us Christianity is? The reproduction of the life of Christ in the human life. That is what it means to be a Christian. Someone says, "How can this be?" An old colored man was sitting in his cabin one day reading the Bible, as he sat by the fire. A white man came along by the cabin door and said, "What are you doing, uncle?" He said, "I am reading the Bible." The white man said, "I don't read the Bible. I don't believe the Bible is true. It has contradictions in it." He said, "You read your Bible, can you explain this to me?" He thought he would trouble the old colored man. "Doesn't that Bible tell you that Christ dwells in you. Doesn't your Bible say you are in Christ, 'if any man be in Christ he is a new creature?'" He said, "Yes, it do." He said again, "Can you
explain to me how you can be in Christ and Christ in you at the same time? Isn't that a contradiction?" The old colored man says, "Boss, don't know if I can explain it so you can see it or not, but I'll try." He took up the long poker some four feet long, made of iron,
from the corner of the fireplace. He put one end in the fire where the logs were, burning, and sat still until the end of the poker that was in the fire became red hot, and then taking hold of the other end of the poker, he lifted it up and says, "Boss, you see that, now, the fire's in the poker and the poker's in the fire," and it was. Just so it must be with the nature and mind and spirit of Christ. All through you and me, in our hearts and in our lives must be such feelings, such purposes, such words and such deeds as Jesus had,
and it is in this way, not in some mysterious incomprehensible manner, but in this way that Christ is to dwell in our hearts by faith.
And then the question: Why does Christ want to dwell in our hearts? Following our text is this language: "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you may be able to know what is the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of Christ." Oh, how narrow and short and shallow and low are the ideas that some have of what it means to be a Christian. It goes but little farther with some than to say perhaps twenty-five years ago I was baptized, no change in the life. Standing that person up by the side of a man outside of the church, you would not be able to detect enough difference to tell which was the Christian and which not. Is that all it means to be a Christian, simply that somebody baptized you years ago? Or, is your life Christ like, so that people who see you can see Christ in you and would recognize you and me as they did Jesus' disciples of old, that they
had been with Jesus.
But that is not all. Not only that we may know what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, but the next verse says "that we may be filled with all the fullness of God." How empty the lives of some people are. You could dig down into the hearts of some men and you wouldn't find anything there but a little office, a little worldly business engrossing all their powers and thoughts. Business and affairs that will pass
away in a few years and be as if they never had been, and yet a human soul with infinite powers and eternal existence will satisfy itself upon these empty things. Dig down into the hearts of some women and you will find nothing there but the latest style of dress and hat, or the latest forms of polite society, how to have an entertainment up-to-date. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
A young man was studying to be an artist, a painter. He studied for years under an old teacher, and then set up a studio of his own. He had dreamed dreams, as all artists do, that some day he would paint a masterpiece, and after working several years in his
own studio he said, "The time has come when I must paint my picture." And so, when canvas had been stretched, palette and paint ready, he began the outlines of what he hoped would be a masterpiece. One day he was out of the studio, leaving brush and
paint and picture just begun. While he was gone the old teacher who had known his heart and mind and aspirations all through the years, came in, studied that outline for a little while, and then dipping the brush into the fresh paint, in big rough letters, entirely
across the face of the picture he wrote a-m-p-l-i-u-s, amplius, the Latin word that means "wider." Laying down his brush he went his way. Soon the young artist came in and at once saw the picture with the rough letters across its face, and said, "Who dared spoil
my picture like that," and then he looked carefully and said, "Oh, the master has been here, the teacher, it must have been he," and then he spelled out those letters a-m-p-l-i-u-s, wider. What did he mean? Can he mean that my picture is too narrow and too
cramped in this perspective, that I need a wider view? He must have meant that, and so the young artist painted over that outline as artists know how to do, and began his picture anew, with a wider view, and he did paint one of the world's masterpieces.
We are all painters, painting not on canvas that will some day crumble back to dust like that artist was painting on, but painting on the enduring canvas of the human soul, our own soul's picture of Jesus Christ, the most beautiful picture of which the human soul can conceive, and I wonder if our teacher, who is Jesus himself, as he looks upon our work, would not, in many instances, say "Amplius," wider. Our conceptions of Jesus and what it means to be a Christian are so narrow, so short, so low, so shallow, so cramped, not filled with all the fullness and blessings of God. That is why Jesus wants to come into and dwell in every Christian's heart.