Parables of the Christ-life | Page 2

"Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice
and open the door, I will come in to him."
It is utterly, unbelievably simple. Receive Jesus with a heart-grasp, and
you will find, like the flower, a spring of eternal life, entirely distinct
from your own, that is perishing, set working deep down in your inmost
being.

And all that is needed, for the fulfilment of God's uttermost purpose for
you, is that this "new man" should be formed and that the old should
pass away.
From the very outset of its new birth we see this double process going
on in the plant. Within a few hours the throb of new life has spread
through the flower, with this first result, that the petals begin to wither.
Fertilisation marks the striking of the death-blow to all that went before.
Look at a clover head; do you know why some of the spikes are upright
and others turned downwards and fading? It is because these last have
received the new tide, and the old is ebbing out already. The birth-peal
and the death-knell rang together. Fertilisation marks the death of the
flower and the death of the flower the death of the annual, though the
carrying out of its doom comes gradually.
And in like manner the sentence of death passes, in the Cross, on the
old nature in its entirety, as the new comes into being. This is the one
only basis and groundwork for all carrying out in our practical
experience of what that death means. Once for all let this be clear.
Apart from the work done on Calvary, all working out of a death
process in our own souls is only a false and dangerous mysticism... . "I
have been crucified with Christ." (R. V.)--Yes, long before ever I asked
to be--glory be to God! and yet as freshly as if it were yesterday, for
time is nowhere with Him.
And simultaneously, in figure, in the little flower-heart, while "that
which is natural" begins to fade, "that which is spiritual" dawns. The
seed-vessel with its hidden treasure--the ultimate object of this miracle
of quickening--begins immediately to form. It was within three days of
"the heavenly vision" when the once rejected Jesus was received by St.
Paul, that the commission came--"he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to
bear My Name." A chosen vessel unto Him. The seed-vessel belongs to
the seed, only and for ever: it is formed for itself and has no purpose
apart. Separation has nothing austere and narrow in it when it is unto
Him.
Chosen vessels to bear His Name--His personality; with all that is
wrapped up in that Name of fragrance and healing, authority and power;

chosen to go about this weary sinful world with the living Christ folded
in our hearts, ready and able as of old to meet the need around. Is not
this a calling for which it is worth counting, as St. Paul did, all things
but loss?
Chosen vessels--there is the vessel and there is the treasure in it, for
ever distinct, though in wonderful union, like the seed-vessel and the
seed: the one enshrines the other.
God builds up a shrine within us of His workmanship, from the day in
which Jesus was received. The seed-vessel is its picture. With the old
nature He can have nothing to do except to deliver it to death: no
improving can fit it for His purpose, any more than the leaf or tendril,
however beautiful, can be the receptacle of the seed. There must be "a
new creation" (R.V., margin), "the new man," to be the temple of the
Divine Life.
And as the petals drop off, and the growing seed-vessel comes into
view, we see a fresh individuality developed. Compare in these four
pages some of the seed-vessels of a single family--vetch and clover: we
found over thirty species of it in that one field of the frontispiece. These
will show something of their extraordinary variety--we have bunches of
horns great and small, and bunches of imitation centipedes, and
bunches of mock holly leaves, prickly coils and velvety balls; mimic
concertinas, and bits of quaint embroidery; imitation snail-shells,
croziers, pods with frills at the seams, spiked caskets with curious
indentations, clusters of stars, bladders like soft paper, and plaited
spirals wound into a tiny cocoanut, that, untwisted, becomes a minature
crown of thorns--are they not all a visible expression of the thoughts
that are more than can be numbered? And the greater part spring from
little unnoticeable flowers, so alike in their yellow or pink that you
have to look closely in order to find out any difference! It is the
seed-bearing that gives them their individual character.
And the same God has manifold