light. No holiness is won by
any other means than this, that wickedness should be slain day by
day, and hour by hour. In long lingering agony often, with the blood
of the heart pouring out at every quivering vein, you are to cut
right through the life and being of that sinful self; to do what the
Word does, pierce to the dividing asunder of the thoughts and intents
of the heart, and get rid by crucifying and slaying--a long process,
a painful process--of your own sinful self. And not until you can
stand up and say, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,' have
you accomplished that to which you are consecrated and vowed by your
sonship--'being conformed unto the likeness of His death,' and
'knowing the fellowship of His sufferings.'

It is this process, the inward strife and conflict in getting rid of
evil, which the Apostle designates here with the name of 'suffering
with Christ, that we may be also glorified together.' On this high
level, and not upon the lower one of the consideration that Christ
will help us to bear outward infirmities and afflictions, do we find
the true meaning of all that Scripture teaching which says indeed,
'Yes, our sufferings are _His_'; but lays the foundation of it in
this, 'His sufferings are _ours_.' It begins by telling us that
Christ has done a work and borne a sorrow that no second can ever do.
Then it tells us that Christ's life of obedience--which, because it
_was_ a life of obedience, was a life of suffering, and brought
Him into a condition of hostility to the men around Him--is to be
repeated in us. It sets before us the Cross of Calvary, and the
sorrows and pains that were felt there;--and it says to us, Christian
men and women, if you want the power for holy living, have fellowship
in that atoning death; and if you want the pattern of holy living,
look at that Cross and feel, 'I am crucified to the world by it; and
the life that I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of
God.'

Such considerations as these, however, do not necessarily exclude the
other one (which we may just mention and dwell on for a moment),
namely, that where there is this spiritual participation in the
sufferings of Christ, and where His death is reproduced and
perpetuated, as it were, in our daily mortifying ourselves in the
present evil world--there Christ is with us in our afflictions. God
forbid that I should try to strike away any word of consolation that
has come, as these words of m