' when He lay
in the manger, when He worked at the carpenter's bench in Nazareth, when
He walked with weary feet those blessed acres, when He hung, for our
advantage, on the bitter Cross. And that was no incommunicable property
of His mysterious nature, but it was the typical example of what it is
possible for manhood to be. And you and I, if we are to possess in any
measure corresponding with the gift of Christ the spiritual blessing
which God bestows, must have our lives 'hid with Christ in God,' and sit
together with Him in the heavenly places.

IV. Lastly, note the one Person in whom all spiritual blessings are
enshrined.

'In the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.' You cannot separate between
Him and His gifts, neither in the way of getting Him without them, nor
in the way of getting them without Him. They are Himself, and in the
deepest analysis all spiritual blessings are reducible to one--viz. that
the Spirit of Jesus Christ Himself shall dwell with us.

Now, that union by which it is possible for poor, empty, sinful
creatures to be filled with His fulness, animated with His life,
strengthened with His omnipotence, and sanctified by His
indwelling--that union is the very kernel of this Epistle to the
Ephesians.

I dare say I have often drawn your attention to the singular emphasis
and repetition with which that phrase 'in Christ' occurs throughout the
letter. Just take the two or three instances of it that I gather as I
speak. In this first chapter we read, 'the faithful in Jesus Christ.'
Then comes our text, 'blessings in heavenly places in Christ.' Then, in
the very next verse, we read, 'chosen us in Him.' Then, a verse or two
after, we have 'accepted in the Beloved,' which is immediately followed
by, 'in whom we have redemption through His blood.' Then, again, 'that
He might gather together in one all things in Christ, in whom also we
have obtained the inheritance.' I need not make other quotations, but
throughout the letter every blessing that can gladden or sanctify the
human spirit is regarded by the Apostle as being stored and shrined in
Jesus Christ: inseparable from Him, and therefore to be found by us only
in union with Him.

And that is the point of all which I want to say--viz. that, inasmuch as
all spiritual blessings that a soul can need are hived in Him in whom is
all sweetness, the way, and the only way, to get them is that we, too,
should pass into Him and dwell in Jesus Christ. It is His ow