Parables of the Christ-life

by I. Lilias Trotter

Yes, our life is hid with Christ in God, in actual truth as well in God's purpose, if it has come to this that it is "no longer" we that live but Christ that liveth in us. Oh! the simplicity of that "no longer"--as the seed-vessel pictures it now, taken up with the seed it bears, and heedless of itself and whatever may come. And yet, in the absolute simplicity, there is a depth of mystery that the former days never knew. It is like a soul that has come into the Holiest, where it has God alone.

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And now we turn to the other side, to watch what God can do, in the world around, with the Christ-life that He creates in us. We have seen its in-flowing: we will follow its outflow. To be to Jesus all for which He has called us--letting Him have His way utterly with us, possessed by Him, taken up with Him--that is the first purpose for our souls. But the Father's plan for us reaches wider than that, though it can reach no deeper. "The first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit." His ultimate aim is to set free for His own use that which He has wrought in us in secret, and to give us the power of communicating that Divine life of which we have been made partakers. We are to be "good stewards of the manifold grace of God," entrusted with "the true riches" to minister for Him--His for His spending. The promise to Abraham: "I will bless thee ... and thou shalt be a blessing," gives the double purpose for His people--"grace" for our own souls, and "apostleship" for those around.

We have seen in parable, in the seed's growing and ripening, the work of the Spirit within us, forming the life of Jesus, and bringing down the flesh into the grave. In its scattering we see shadowed forth the Spirit upon us in His power of reaching other souls. There is no needs be with us that this double work should be consecutive as in the plants--it may go on simultaneously. There is never a moment, from the first receiving of Christ as Saviour, when the full outpouring of the Holy Ghost may not take place--never a moment when, in figure, the seed may not be set free. There are some few who leap down, as soon as they are saved, to the simple, bare, lowly faith which liberates God's power, and He can use them mightily all along, but they are very few. Practically in most cases there is time involved, because we take so long to unlearn our own sufficiency and our own resources, and even after we have received the promise of the Spirit through faith, we are puzzled, it may be, by a want of continuity in His outflow.

It is because, before God can get us to the place where He can send Him through us in a steady tide, we have to go lower than we dreamed of at first: and He may have to stop using us for a time, that He may deepen this work within, and bring us to utter brokenness.

Look at the last stage in the plant, before the inwrought life is free for use. There is a breaking-up and a breaking-down such as it never had before. Such brittleness comes as the seed ripens that it is almost impossible to pick some of the stems without cracking them in two or three places. The ripened seed-vessels share the same brittleness: you can hardly touch them without the whole crown falling to pieces in your hand.

Conscious weakness, as a preparation for service, is one thing: brokenness is another. We may know that we are but earthen pitchers, like Gideon's, with nothing of our own but the light within, and yet we may not have passed through the shattering that sheds the light forth.

This does not mean something vague or imaginary, but intensely practical. Read the description that Paul gives of the life of ministry--the apostolic life--and see what it is to be a shattered seed-vessel; it is no dreamy experience in the clouds!

"Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God... . We are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and have no certain dwelling-place. And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it, being defamed, we intreat; we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day."