ate of life; and, inasmuch as what we die to in Christ is
itself only a living death, we live because we die, and in proportion as
we die.

The next paradox is, 'Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' The Christian
life is a life in which an indwelling Christ casts out, and therefore
quickens, self. We gain ourselves when we lose ourselves. His abiding in
us does not destroy but heightens our individuality. We then most truly
live when we can say, 'Not I, but Christ liveth in me'; the soul of my
soul and the self of myself.

And the last paradox is that of my text, 'The life which I live in the
flesh, I live in' (not 'by') 'the faith of the Son of God.' The true
Christian life moves in two spheres at once. Externally and
superficially it is 'in the flesh,' really it is 'in faith.' It belongs
not to the material nor is dependent upon the physical body in which we
are housed. We are strangers here, and the true region and atmosphere of
the Christian life is that invisible sphere of faith.

So, then, we have in these words of my text a Christian man's frank
avowal of the secret of his own life. It is like a geological cutting,
it goes down from the surface, where the grass and the flowers are,
through the various strata, but it goes deeper than these, to the fiery
heart, the flaming nucleus and centre of all things. Therefore it may do
us all good to make a section of our hearts and see whether the _strata_
there are conformable to those that are here.

I. Let us begin with the centre, and work to the surface. We have,
first, the great central fact named last, but round which all the
Christian life is gathered.

'The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.' These two
words, the 'loving' and the 'giving,' both point backwards to some one
definite historical fact, and the only fact which they can have in view
is the great one of the death of Jesus Christ. That is His giving up of
Himself. That is the signal and highest manifestation and proof of His
love.

Notice (though I can but touch in the briefest possible manner upon the
great thoughts that gather round these words) the three aspects of that
transcendent fact, the centre and nucleus of the whole Christian life,
which come into prominence in these words before us. Christ's death is a
great act of self-surrender, of which the one motive is His own pure and
perfect love. No doubt in other places of Scripture we have set forth
the death of Christ as being t