So “Christ is all things, and in all.” And we are nothing; but we have everything in Him.
How, pray, will He give who has thus given Himself,—who has thus endured and achieved on our behalf? Let our hearts consider; let our faith and our need be bold to ask. One promise from His lips is enough: “If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.”
II. A second estimate of the gifts to be looked for from Christ, we derive from His conquests already won. David as he entered Zion’s gates “led captivity captive,”—led, that is in Hebrew phrase, a great, a notable captivity. Out of the gifts thus received he enriched his people. The resources that victory placed at his disposal, furnished the store from which to build God’s house. In like fashion Christ builds His Church, and blesses the human race. With the spoils of His battle He adorns His bride. The prey taken from the mighty becomes the strength and beauty of His sanctuary. The prisoners of His love He makes the servants of mankind.
This “captivity” implies a warfare, even as the ascent of Christ a previous descending. The Son of God came not into His earthly kingdom as kings are said to have come sometimes disguised amongst their subjects, that they might learn better of their state and hear their true mind; nor as the Greeks fabled of their gods, who wandered unknown on earth seeking adventure and wearied haply of the cloying felicities of heaven, suffering contempt and doing to men hard service. He came, the Good Shepherd, to seek lost sheep. He came, the Mighty One of God, to destroy the works of the devil, to drive out “the strong one armed” who held the fortress of man’s soul. He had a war to wage with the usurping prince of the world. In the temptations of the wilderness, in the strife with disease and demoniac powers, in the debate with Scribes and Pharisees, in the anguish of Gethsemane and Calvary that conflict was fought out; and by death He abolished him who holds the power of death, by His blood He “bought us for God.” But with the spoils of victory, He bears the scars of battle,—tokens glorious for Him, humbling indeed to us, which will tell for ever how they pierced His hands and feet!
For Him pain and conflict are gone by. It remains to gather in the spoil of His victory of love, the harvest sown in His tears and His blood. And what are the trophies of the Captain of our salvation? what the fruit of His dread passion? For one, there was the dying thief, whom with His nailed hands the Lord Jesus snatched from a felon’s doom and bore from Calvary to Paradise. There was Mary the Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons, the first to greet Him risen. There were the three thousand whom on one day, in the might of His Spirit, the ascended Lord and Christ took captive in rebel Jerusalem, “lifted from the earth” that He might draw all men unto Him. And there was the writer of this letter, once His blasphemer and persecutor. By a look, by a word, Jesus arrested Saul at the height of his murderous enmity, and changed him from a Pharisee into an apostle to the Gentiles, from the destroyer into the wise master-builder of His Church.
St Paul’s own case suggested, surely, the application he makes of this ancient text of the Psalter and lighted up its Messianic import. In the glory of His triumph Jesus Christ had appeared to make him captive, and put him at once to service. From that hour Paul was led along enthralled, the willing bond-slave of the Lord Jesus and celebrant of His victory. “Thanks be unto God,” he cries, “who ever triumphs over us in the Christ, and makes manifest through us the savour of His knowledge in every place.”[101]
Such, and of such sort are the prisoners of the war of Jesus; such the gifts that through sinners pardoned and subdued He bestows upon mankind,—“patterns to those who should hereafter believe.” Time would fail to follow the train of the captives of the love of Christ, which stretches unbroken and ever multiplying through the centuries to this day. We, too, in our turn have laid our rebel selves at His feet; and all that we surrender to Him, by right of conquest He gives over to the service of mankind.
“His love the conquest more than wins;
To all I shall proclaim:
Jesus the King, the Conqueror reigns;
Bow down to Jesu’s name!”
He gives out of the spoil of His war with evil,—gives what He receives. Yet He gives not as He receives. Everything laid in His hands is changed by their touch. Publicans and Pharisees become apostles. Magdalenes are made queens and mothers in His Israel. From the dregs of our streets He raises up a host of sons to Abraham. From the ranks of scepticism and anti-Christian hate the Lord Christ wins new champions and captains for His cause. He coins earth’s basest metal into heaven’s fine gold. He takes weak things of the earth and foolish, to strike the mightiest blows of battle.
What may we not expect from Him who has led captive such a captivity! What surprises of blessing and miracles of grace there are awaiting us, that shall fill our mouth with laughter and our tongue with singing—gifts and succours coming to the Church from unlooked-for quarters and reinforcements from the ranks of the enemy. And what discomfitures and captivities are preparing for the haters of the Lord,—if, at least, the future is to be as the past; and if we may judge from the apostle’s word, and from his example, of the measure of the gift of Christ.