dying of the body,
and the actual future resurrection of the same. And the thought is this,
that if here, through our earthly lives, we have been recipients of the
risen life of Jesus Christ, and so have stood to the world in our degree
as He stood to it, then when the moment of death comes to us, we shall,
in so far, have our departure shaped after His as that we shall be able
to say, 'Into Thy hands I commit my spirit,' and die willingly, and at
last shall be partakers of that blessed Resurrection unto life eternal
which closes the vista of our earthly history. Stephen's death was
conformed to Christ's in outward fashion, in so far as it echoed the
Master's prayer, 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,'
and in so far as it echoed the Master's last words, with the significant
alteration that, whilst Jesus commended His spirit to the Father, the
first martyr commended his to Jesus Christ.

These, then, are the purposes for which Christ laid His hand upon us,
that we might know Him, the power of His Resurrection, the fellowship of
His sufferings, being made conformable to His death yet by attaining the
resurrection of the dead.

II. Notice, again, our laying hold because we have been laid hold of.

Christ's laying hold of me, blessed and powerful as it is, does not of
itself secure that I shall reach the end which He had in view in His
arresting of me. What more is wanted? My effort. 'I follow after if I
may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended.' Now, notice, in the
one case, the Apostle speaks of himself, not as passive, but certainly
not as active. 'I was laid hold of.' What did he do? As I have said, he
simply yielded to the grasp. But 'I may lay hold of' conveys the idea of
personal effort; and so these two expressions, 'I was apprehended,' and
'I apprehend,' suggest this consideration, that, for the initial
blessings of the Christian life, forgiveness, acceptance, the sense of
God's favour, and of reconciliation with him, nothing is needed but the
simple faith that yields itself altogether to the grasp of Christ's
hand, but that for my possessing what Christ means that I should possess
when He lays His hand on me, there is needed not only faith but effort.
I have to put out _my_ hand and tighten my fingers round the thing, if I
would make it my own, and keep it.

So--faith, to begin with, and work based on faith, to go on with. It is
because a man is sure that Jesus Christ has laid His h