To whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among

the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27).

"Christ in you." No one can have a final demonstration of truth concerning the nature of Christ

or His work unless he can say, I know Christ because He is in me. As the apostle says, this is

mystical and cannot be explained to the scientific age in which we live. But it is a fact known in

the lives of countless multitudes.

Christ in me -- and I need hardly apologize for testimony at this point, for speaking rather as

a witness than as an advocate: Christ in me is the most certain thing in all my personal experience.

He is present in my inner life. I do not have to ascend to heaven to find Him, nor descent

into the depths to bring Him up. Neither have I to go on long pilgrimages to reach Him. Amid

the hurry and rush of the day, the Christ is within, and His presence is as real as to me as the

advent long ago in the Judean country far away. The historic is proved by the experiential.

The use of our Lord's title suggests not merely the presence of the Person, but also the work

of Christ in you. He was at once Prophet, Priest, and King. He is the one Prophet and Teacher

by whom the whole life is to be governed -- whose teaching is the only teaching which the soul

trusts.

"Christ in you" also as Priest, the one perfect Saviour, operating in the inner shrine of the individual

life on the altar; so that through the intermediation, not of Christ far off, but in me, I have

personal and immediate access to the presence of God. Then, further, "Christ in you" also as

King, ruling all the life, not by the law of carnal ordinances written on stone, but by the perpetual

inspiration of His indwelling presence.

"Christ in you." That is the great miracle, the great mystery, the fact on which all the other

facts of Christianity are based, and through which the other forces of Christianity become operative.

The hope of glory

Now let us turn to the experience resulting, "the hope of glory." "Glory" here refers to the

great consummation in which God's purposes are to be perfectly fulfilled; in which the church,

with one voice, will say, "Thou, O Christ, are all I want"; and in which the whole creation will

find its groaning cease and join the chorus of praise to Him who sits upon the throne. God's

glory consists in the realization of the purpose of His love in all that His hands have made.

Christ in you is the hope of this glory. What is hope? I wish we bore in mind the real significance

of the good old Anglo-Saxon word "hope." It does not mean foundation less expectation,

but rather confidence in something yet to be, with an accompanying endeavour to reach it.

Christ in you is the one unanswerable evidence of the ultimate victory. Thank God for the

company in whose lives Christ is singing the anthem of His coming victory. We are in the midst

of the smoke and din of battle. There are days when we sit and fold our hands and say, "Where

is the promise of His coming?" No Christian man has ever wailed that out but that presently

there came singing back through his soul the answer of the Christ.

But "Christ in you, the hope of glory" means a great deal more than that the sings an anthem

of the future. He who gives us a vision of the ultimate is also present to deal with all the forces

which oppose.