And now the last form of this measure is according to the energy of the might of His power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.'
When we gazed upon the riches of God's grace, they Were high above us, when we looked upon the power that worketh in us,' we saw it working amidst many hindrances and hamperings, but here there is presented to us in a concrete example, close beside us, of what God can make of a man when the man is wholly pliable to His will, and the recipient of His influences. And so there stands before us the guarantee and the pattern of immortal life, the Christ whose Manhood died and lives, who is clothed with a spiritual body, who wields royal authority in the Kingdom of the Most High. And that is the measure of what God can do with me, and wishes to do with me, if I will let Him. Christ is my pattern, and the measure of my own possibilities.
To be with Him, where and what He is, is the only adequate result of the power that works in us, and of the process that is already begun in us, if we are Christian people. You are sometimes--there is one eminent example of it in that great Medicean Chapel at Florence, a statue exquisitely finished in all its limbs, but one part left in the rough. That is the best that Christian people come to here. Shall it always be so? Do not the very imperfections prophesy completion, and is it not certain that the half-finished torso will be carried to the upper workshop, and be there disengaged from the dead marble and made to stand out in perfect beauty and fullest completeness? Christ is the object of our hopes, and no hopes of the Christian life are adequate to the power that works in us, or to the progress already made, which do not see in the energy of the might of the power' which wrought in Christ, the example and the guarantee of the exceeding greatness of Hispower which is to usward.'
And now, one last word. Besides all these passages which have been occupying us, there is another use of this same phrase in this letter which presents a very solemn and grim contrast. I can do no better with it than simply read it: Ye were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh '--mark the allusion to the other words that we have been referring to--in the children of disobedience.' So there you have the alternative, either dead in trespasses and sins,' whilst living the physical and the intellectual life, or partaking of the life of Him who was dead, and is alive for ever more'; either walking according to the course of this world,' which is disobedience' and wrath,' or walking according to the power that worketh in us'; either putting on,' or rather continuing to wear, the old man which is corrupt according to the lusts which deceive,' or' putting on the new man, which according to God is created in righteousness and holiness and truth.' The choice is before us. May God help us to choose aright!
