Deeper Things Part 4

CHRIST ENTHRONED WITHIN

(Col. 1:27)

There is nothing higher or deeper in human experience than to be God possessed -- a temple of the Holy Ghost. This is the climax of the Atonement. It is the very cream and marrow of Christianity. The Apostle says this mystery has been hidden for ages and generations, but is revealed in the last days to the saints. This mystery is Christ formed with in you, the hope of glory; not merely Christ with us or for us; not Christ in prophecy or Christ on yonder cross, or Christ in the heavens, as wonderful as that is, but Christ enthroned in the human heart, reigning, ruling, controlling the affections, conquering the will, bringing every appetite and passion of the soul and body under subjection.

The Apostle had this double experience in his own life. On his way to Damascus he had an outward revelation of Christ which prostrated him and transformed him from a bloody persecutor to an humble follower of Jesus. But we read in the first chapter of Galatians and the sixteenth verse that after he was called to preach he says, "It pleased God to reveal his Son in me. This was something entirely different from the Damascus experience. In the latter Christ was enthroned within him. We may get the life and sayings of Jesus from the four Gospels, but it takes the Holy Ghost to reveal the inward heart, life, tempers and disposition of Christ.

Peter, in the Second Epistle, first chapter and nineteenth verse, says: "Until the day dawn and day star arise in our heart." Jesus calls Himself, in Rev. 22, "The bright and morning star," and then tells us, in Rev. 2:28, that this star experience is given to the overcomers.

When we put all these Scriptures together it means Christ within our hearts; not only as our Sanctifier, but a Divine Person, a Comforter, Guide and Heavenly Guest.

Notice, Peter mentions two things -- the day-dawn and day-star. We know that the day-dawn means the eternal morning where there is no sorrow, sin or Satan, but the day-star is quite different. The stars shine in the night! We are living in the night age of this dispensation. Jesus is compared to the sunrise in His second coming, but long before the sunrise and day-dawn takes place we are to have the day-star hidden away in our hearts as the harbinger of the eternal day.

Again, this double blessing was beautifully illustrated in the Pillar of Fire and Cloud that led Israel. First, we see its presence in the heavens leading, hovering over, and protecting them from their enemies; but there came a day and time in their history when that fiery cloud became an inward as well as an outward presence.

We read in the fortieth chapter of Exodus that when that beautiful structure known as the tabernacle was complete -- the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies, the candlesticks, the table of shew bread and golden altar in the Holy Place and every curtain hung -- that Moses and Aaron dedicated and anointed it with oil, took hands off, and that fiery Presence in yonder heavens began to descend, and a cloud filled the whole tent, and the fiery glow entered the Holy Place and the holy of holies, and between the wings of the cherubim and the mercy seat the glowing Shekinah finally rested. From this on God spoke to Moses, not from the mount, but from the tabernacle.

In the New Testament our bodies become God's temple. When we give this temple over to the Holy Ghost; with all its faculties, the "old man" is cast out, self is slain and Christ enthroned within.

The best saints of the ages have testified to this double revelation of Christ. Dr. Daniel Steele, the noted Greek scholar, says: "The Man of Calvary, the Son of God, treads all the avenues of my soul, filling its emptiness, melting its hardness, cleansing its impurities and pouring upon my head.

Blessed unction from above,
Comfort, life and fire of love."