Measured grace.
I. CHRISTIANS ARE RECIPIENTS OF GRACE.
1. Without grace we can do nothing. All our attainments will be proportionate to the amount and kind of grace we receive. We cannot fulfill our vocation nor realize the grand unity of the Church by unaided human efforts.
2. But grace is vouchsafed to Christians. It is the peculiar privilege of the New Testament dispensation that it brings the energy of grace as well as the light of truth.
II. CHRISTIAN GRACE IS THE GIFT OF CHRIST.
1. Grace must be a gift. It would cease to be grace if we could create, earn, or deserve it. All the blessings of the gospel are free gifts, as are also our natural endowments.
2. Christian grace comes direct from Christ. His sacrifice won it. His ascension enables him to dispense it (Ephesians 4:8-10).
III. THIS GRACE IS GIVEN TO ALL CHRISTIANS. It is not reserved for high ecclesiastical officials and select saints. We are no Christians if we have it not. The Church is the body of all Christians, and it is one because 'the same grace flows through the whole brotherhood. The gospel is broad and democratic.
IV. THIS GRACE IS DISPENSED TO EACH INDIVIDUAL SEVERALLY. Each one receives the gift. We cannot be blessed by Divine grace in crowds and masses. The Church can only be endowed with grace when her private members are personally blessed. We do not receive grace by becoming part of the grand Catholic Church. But we realize the unity of the Church when we have been first blessed with Christ's grace in our own souls.
V. THIS GRACE IS MEASURED OUT IN VARYING PROPORTIONS. In Christ there was grace without measure. In us it is measured. Christ has a right to measure it, because it is a gift which he can withhold or bestow as he pleases. Yet if it is measured there is no stint, for if Christ has first given us himself, we may be sure that he will never keep back any needful lower blessings. The measure of the grace is determined by our spiritual capacity, our faith, our need, our special mission.—W.F.A.
The universal experience of Christ.
I. THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST IMPLIES THAT HE HAD PREVIOUSLY DESCENDED.
1. It implies that he was low down at some period. Had he always enjoyed his rightful honors there could have been no act of rising to them. The coronation shows that the sovereign had once been a subject. The greatness of the elevation of Christ and the stir and change it produces are significant of the low depth of an earlier state.
2. It implies that he had been highly exalted at a previous period. The mere act of ascension may not show this, but the spiritual character of it does. All things ultimately find their level. The high-shooting fountain is an evidence that its water has come from a great elevation.
3. It implies that by his deep humiliation Christ merited his great exaltation. He did not simply deserve it by way of compensation. He earned the high honor of the Ascension by the patient sacrifice of himself in his descent down to a life of lowly service, down to the cross, down even to the dim land of the dead (Philippians 2:5-11). Thus the last is first, and he who humbled himself is exalted.
II. THE ASCENSION AND PREVIOUS DESCENDING OF CHRIST ENABLE HIM TO FILL ALL THINGS.
1. His presence enters into every grade of being. From his awful primeval glory down to the dread depths of Hades and then up to the throne and the right hand of God, by the vast sweep and range of his profound humiliation and superb exaltation, along every step of existence traversed, Christ comes into personal contact with all life and death.
2. His experience gives him knowledge of every grade of being. And with this knowledge he has sympathy for all. Our lack of wide sympathies is chiefly owing to our narrow experience. Christ's sympathy is as universal as his experience. In his exaltation he does not forget the scenes that moved his heart in lowlier walks.
"… Resting by th' incarnate Lord,
Once bleeding, now triumphant for my sake,
I mark him, how by seraph hosts adored,
He to earth's lowest cares is still awake."
3. Filling all things by experience, knowledge, and sympathy, he has power over all things. Down even to the spirits in prison to whom he preached by the Divine Spirit, and through every rank of life, he has influences to exert, graces to bestow, redemption to accomplish. There is no order of things, beyond the reach of Christ. As the great reward of his sacrifice and triumph, of his deepest humiliation and his highest exaltation, he fills heaven, earth, and hell with a presence which, if he is the same now as when he lived among men, is everywhere healing and redemptive.—W.F.A.