This life will carry us above our physical infirmities on the high tide of a supernatural vitality which is not dependent upon our organic conditions. It elevates us about them and becomes a heavenly nourishment to all our conscious life and work, so that we can truly say, "man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:3) and that "in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
This is really a foretaste of the future life. The frail vessel of clay cannot bear it all as the resurrection body will be able. We can, however, receive and reflect all that we can hold, in this present mortal life, of the very life of our living, immortal Head, the Second Adam who has been made a quickening Spirit.
Room to Receive It
Have you received this mystery, this new and glorious secret, which may receive in a cleansed consecrated and receptive vessel? It is waiting, like the light, to come in wherever there is room to receive it. And this blessed filling not only holds and strengthens, but it endues with power for service, and enables our bodies to become a vehicle of the Spirit and the instrument of the higher nature for the noblest ends.
This great and glorious truth that we have been unfolding is not without a parallel and a parable even in the natural realm. We can often see in the lower world how a piece of clay can be so filled with a higher principle as to be transformed and to be endued with higher properties than its own nature was capable of expressing.
Some Examples
Take, for example, that rough mass of iron ore out of the dark mine. It is but a lump of earth, but smelt it, and melt it, cleanse it from all its dross, and draw it out in malleable form into the supple wire that girds, in millions of miles, the whole circle of the globe today. Then fill it with the electric fire, and lo! the earthen vessel becomes the electric wire and speaks the messages of business and affection to all mankind. What a mighty power a piece of clay has become! So God can take your vessel of earth and cleanse, develop, prepare and then fill with His holy presence until it will speak to the millions of earth and the ages of eternity of Him and for Him.
Or, look at two or three chemicals: prepare them, and bring them into chemical adjustments and positions, and then attach suitable wires to form your circle. Let the battery play, and lo! you have the magnificent system of the electric light. Those two little bits of clay suspend between them the most perfect form that science knows today and that is illuminating our streets, our factories, our buildings. So God can take the earthen vessel, and illuminate it with a touch of His glory until it becomes itself the very light of the world.
Or, again, take a little handful of sand and melt it and cast it into your mold. Let it cool, then polish it into a concave lens, and then take it to a splendid observatory and put it into the greatest telescope in the world. Then look into the converging lines of heaven that meet in it bosom, and lo! the whole heavens are revealed, the distant worlds of space have stooped down to meet your eye, and that little bit of clay is filled with the vision of immensity. You can see the distant hills of the moon, the rings of Saturn, the nebulous clouds of space, divided up into their innumerable stars and systems. The whole universe becomes a wonder all through a little bit of clay filled with something higher than itself.
You can be polished and filled until you, too, will shine with the reflected glory of heaven and become a channel for the Spirit of vision and revelation, disclosing the very secrets of the Lord and the wonders of His Word and works.
Or, shall we take another example in that piece of common charcoal? Shall we carry it through all the stages of mineralogy until it becomes crystallized carbon and the rough diamond? Shall we then take it and cut down its rough sides and polish it into facets until from a hundred angles it flashes back the rays of light and the glories of color like a little sun or like a rainbow and sun all combined? It is but a bit of clay filled with light.
These bodies of ours, these earthen vessels, may receive a treasure, too, that will so shine from them, when cleansed and completely sanctified, and when all the Master's discipline has been completed, that it will make them like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
For the day is coming when the wondering universe will look upon us in the image of our glorious Lord. it will wonder which most to wonder at - the Heavenly Bridegroom or the Heavenly Bride. She received all her glory from her more glorious Head and is all the more wonderful because of her humble origin and because of her dark and sinful past.
Oh, let us yield ourselves unto God. Let us receive Him into every pore and fiber of our beings. Let every chord and every member of a channel for His indwelling and inworking, and our whole spirit, soul and body sanctified wholly and presented blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then will these bodies leap into that higher plane and and rise to that nobler destiny of which He has given us now the earnest and the foretaste even in this mortal flesh.
~A. B. Simpson~
(continued with # 15)
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