"Neither passion nor pride His cross can abide, But melt in the fountain that streams from His side!"
"Beloved," you will say to the man that hates or has wronged you most,--"Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." In these simple words of the apostle John lies the secret of universal peace, the hope of the fraternization of mankind. Nations will have to say this one day, as well as men.
[89] See to this effect such passages as Rom. i. 16 (_to the Jew first_), ix. 4, 5; and especially xi. 13-32.
[90] Gal. iii. 28; Col. iii. 11. Comp. John x. 16, xi. 52. See _The Epistle to the Galatians_ (Expositor's Bible), Chapter XV.
"So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit."--EPH. ii. 19-22.
Not unfrequently it is the last word or phrase of the paragraph that gives us the clue to St Paul's meaning and discloses the point at which he has aimed all along. So in this instance. "For a habitation of God in the Spirit": behold the goal of God's ways with mankind! For this end the Divine grace has wrought through countless ages and has made its great sacrifice. For this end Jew and Gentile are being gathered into one and compacted into a new humanity.
I. The Church is a house built for an _Occupant_. Its quality and size, and the mode of its construction are determined by its destination. It is built to suit the great Inhabitant, who says concerning the new Zion as He said of the old in figure: "This is my rest for ever! Here will I dwell, for I have desired it." God, who is spirit, cannot be satisfied with the fabric of material nature for His temple, nor does "the Most High dwell in houses made by men's hands." He seeks our spirit for His abode, and
"Doth prefer Before all temples the upright heart and pure."
In the collective life and spirit of humanity God claims to reside, that He may fill it with His glory and His love. "Know you not," cries the apostle to the once debased Corinthians, "that you are God's temple, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"