it is
already spoken of as sharing His exaltation. We 'sit together in the
heavenly places with Christ' for no other reason than because, though
we are on earth, our life is bound up invisibly but in living reality
with the life of the glorified Christ, and we have in Him free access
into the courts of heaven. For this reason again, as the fulness of
the divine attributes dwells in the glorified Christ--all the fulness
of the Godhead bodily, so the same fulness is attributed, ideally at
least, to the Church too. It too is 'the fulness of him that filleth
all in all.' To St. Paul's mind there is one true human life in which
men are one with one another because they are at one with God. That
true human life is Christ's life, which He once lived on earth, and
which He is at present living in the glory of God, and which is
fulfilled with all the completeness of the divine life itself. But
that true human life is also shared by each and every member of His
Church, without exception, without reference to race or learning, or
wealth, or sex, or age.

I have said that this is ideally the case. This identification of
Christ with the Church, that is to say, is not yet fully realized. The
Church is not yet glorified, not yet morally perfected nor {58} full
grown in the divine attributes. Its particular members may be living
deceitful and dishonourable lives. This is to say in other words that
God's work in 'redemption of his own possession,' His acquirement of a
people to Himself, is not yet complete. The purchase-money is paid,
but it has not yet taken full effect. But redemption is an
accomplished fact in the sense that all the conditions of the final
success are already there. The ideal may be freely realized in every
Christian because he has received the 'earnest' or pledge of the
Spirit, the pledge, that is, of all that is to be accomplished in him.
And this Spirit was received by each Christian at a particular and
assignable moment. We know what stress St. Paul laid at Ephesus on
proper Christian baptism and the laying on of hands which followed
it[7]. By baptism men were spoken of as incorporated into Christ.
With the laying on of hands was associated the bestowal of the Spirit.
Henceforth a Christian had no need to ask for the Spirit as if He were
not already bestowed upon him; he had only to bring into practical use
spiritual forces and powers which the divine bounty had already put at
his disposal.

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