I
have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the
world any more than I am of the world. John 17:14
From the standpoint of God's
choice of us we are "out of" the world; but from the standpoint of
our new life we are not of the world at all, but from above. On the one hand we
are a chosen people, called and delivered out of the world system. On the other
we are a regenerate people, utterly unrelated to that system because by the
Spirit we are born from above. So John sees the holy city coming down "out
of heaven from God" (Rev. 21:10). As the people of God, heaven is not only
our destiny but our origin.
This is an amazing thing, that
in you and me there is an element that is essentially otherworldly. So
otherworldly is it indeed that no matter how this world may progress, it can
never advance one step in likeness to that. The life we have as God's gift came
from heaven and never was in the world at all. It has no correspondence with
the world but is in perfect correspondence with heaven; and though we must
mingle with the world daily, it will never let us settle down and feel at home
there.
Let us consider for a moment this
divine gift, this life of Christ indwelling the heart of regenerate man. The
apostle Paul has a great deal to say about this. In an illuminating passage in
1 Corinthians he makes a striking twofold statement: (a) that God himself has
placed us in Christ, and (b) that Christ has been "made unto us wisdom
from God: righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1:30). Here
are examples of the whole range of human need that God has met in his Son. We
have shown elsewhere how God does not distribute to us these qualities of
righteousness, holiness and so on in installments "to be taken as
required." What he does is to give us Christ as the inclusive answer to
all our needs. He makes his Son to be my righteousness and my holiness, and
everything else I lack, on the ground that he has already placed me in Christ
crucified and risen.
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