THE SABBATH HOUR

Northern Advocate, 10 November 1934, Page 6

THE SABBATH HOUR

“REDEEMED IN CHRIST.” Address delivered by Major M. Marshall, of the Salvation Army, Whangarei. Text; “But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, Who of God is made unto us, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”—l Corinthians 1:30. How delightfully refreshing it is for Christians of every land and every station in life to read or re-read this wonderful Scripture. It surely causes our hearts to swell with grateful praise to our God, Who has provided for us such wonderful blessings in Christ. He is made unto us righteousness, saftctiflcation and redemption. In Him we find all we need or can desire. With all our boasted knowledge, He is wisdom to us. We are guilty; He is our righteousness. We are depraved, corrupt; He is our sanctification, the spring of our spiritual life. We are in bonds; He is our redeemer. Let us look again at the text, “He is made unto us wisdom.” Almost instinctively we think of the Greeks of ancient times. They were passionate lovers of wisdom. The Greek people had made wonderful contributions to the world’s culture, but years had passed before Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians. In the meantime, philosophic thought had degenerated. It was gradually blending with fresi. currents of thought from the East, currents drawn from sources tainted with superstition and error. But with the teaching of Jesus there arose a new and purer intelligence. Christianity called upon men to think, to have reason for the faith that was in them. In this, Christ was made unto them wisdom.

He is our righteousness. Here the winter employs the characteristic 1 ; language of the Hebrews. Israel was uniquely the religious race of history. All her history is marked by the everincreasing grasp of the wondrous facts of religious experience. There was the demand for righteousness, backed by all the authority of the laws. We instinctively admit its justice, because behind it lay the revealed character of God, the Creator, the Ruler, the Judge. Through all the elaborate details of the Jewish law, that claim was inculcated and enforced. Yet the demands of the law proved larger than any man could comply with. This called forth a special class of men, fired with zeal to make it actual and operative throughout the nation. These were called the scribes, but they developed the letter of the law and killed its spirit, and by the time of Christ it had developed into a heartless, mocking formalism that lacked the essentials of true religion. The attractive nut had no kernel. Jesus called them hypocrites. Yet Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfill the law. In His person and doctrine He brought forth its eternal, vital elements of love and confidence in God. He showed how these great religious impulses, leading to a life of filial trust in our Heavenly Father, enable a man to walk with God as simply and naturally as a child may enter the very life of the parent.. It still remains that Christ aione is the way to God, the truth about God, and the life from God. The road to purity and joy and inward peace opens to us all through Jesus. Through Him a sin-laden soul finds relief. The sinner leaps to life and freedom. Through Him life and immortality blaze forth as facts of personal experience upon which we may most surely count. All this because Christ has become our righteousness. He is made unto us sanctification.

This implies not' only Christian character but Christian character in operation. That efficiency of the inner life which issues in all great Christian virtues. Self-control, purity, graciousness, goodness.

The word speaks to us of the true follower of Jesus Christ. The one who reveals his inner union with Christ by a life of consistent Christian conduct. Let us for a moment recall a little of Roman history,. The power of Rome was felt to its utmost limits. What Rome decreed that Rome could enforce. By the time of the early Caesars, they were experiencing a process of dry rot. They were stricken through and through by vice and materialism, Rome’s power was sapped. It was doomed from within, not without. But Christ had come, and He that real power came from within' a man. Where character is pure and strong, a man is already a victor. The great essential is that the spirit of man be quickened and energised by contact with the spirit of the living God till there results that efficiency in Christian living which we term a sanctified life. If we want to know the secret of self-control and sanctified life, we must learn it from Him Who overcame the world. We must take our stand with those men in the Upper Room at Jerusalem, when Jesus breathed on them and said: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” That way comes spiritual power and Christian living. So we sec that Christ redeemed wisdom from the worldly Greek, redeemed righteousness from the formal Jew. He redeemed sanctity of inward strength from the decadent forces of Rome. And, as it is with the nation, so it is with the individual. Men are endowed with almost limitless possibilities of mind, heart and will. Unaided He goes astray, but when the gracious touch of the Saviour is laid upon him, thought is liber-

ated and purified. The heart becomes pure and finds true peace with God. The life is girded with strength to walk the world’s perilous ways with mastery. Christ is worthy of that name of Redeemer. By His personal indwelling He promises Himself to be wisdom, righteousness and sanctification.