All in Christ: Christ Is All

In infinite grace, God has given to mankind the gift of His Beloved Son. More He could not give. Less would not have met our need. As sinners in unregenerate years, we needed a Surety, a Sacrifice, a Saviour, a Deliverer. As saints, ready to stray, liable to stumble, actually failing and falling, we need a Shepherd to lead, a High Priest to succour, and an Advocate to restore and to help.

All these combine in the Christ of God, who has been given to us as ours. All excellency and all fulness are in Him. He satisfies all the Divine claims in the excellency of His Person. He meets all human need by the virtues of His work. Christ is all to God, and everything to us. In receiving Christ (John 1:1), we receive Him in all His fulness, become accepted in all His virtues, stand before God in the full value of His work, and become vitally and spiritually “joined to the Lord,” henceforth to be regarded as “in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:1). Higher than this none can rise. Nearer than this none can ever be. Dearer to God than to be loved by Him with the same love wherewith He loves His Son (John 17:23), is impossible. And all this is always true of all who belong to Christ, who are Christ’s, and in whom Christ is, always and everywhere. And there is no distinction, no difference.

But this amazing grace, this marvellous gift, has to be received in all confidence, realised in all enjoyment, and used in all conditions. All is in Christ, and “Christ is all,” to His believing people. But He is to be received in all the excellencies He holds, and used in all the offices He bears. This is faith’s prerogative. It receives Him as Saviour. It commits itself wholly to Him as Preserver and Keeper (2 Tim. 1:12). It confides in Him as High Priest, and joyfully owns “we have such a High Priest” (Heb. 8:1). It draws from and uses the “fulness” that is in Him (Col. 2:9). It learns and joyfully owns His Lordship, and bows in loving loyalty and obedience to His Word. It finds its all in Christ. It asks for nothing more, and seeks for nothing different, for it finds its joy in Christ, and knows no other portion.

God has given His all, in giving Christ. And the fullness of a lively faith through the whole course of earthly life is to discover what is stored in Christ for present use and enjoy it in the soul, in ever-increasing fulness. Eternity’s blest employment will be to still more fully discover what is ours in Christ. Not so much in ceaseless, fresh gifts and new resources, but in God discovering to and revealing in His glorified sons and saints, all that is theirs in the Christ He has long ago given, whom they welcomed in simple faith, and delight even now to own as “Altogether lovely,” for whose sake they gladly renounce all earthly gains, accounting them as “refuse,” “for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:8), their Lord. How joyous, calm, and free should be the lives, and how steady, full and bright the path and the testimony of those who find their all in Christ, to whom Christ is all and everything, everywhere and always.

It is this feeding on Christ, living by Christ, and living for Christ that makes the Christian’s life as heaven on earth.

J.Ri.

Article series: Our Glorious Lord