eath, is now to be met and mastered by another principle, the
law of life, of which the Holy Spirit of God is the author and
sustainer. As by our natural spirit we are connected with the first
Adam, and made partakers of his fallen nature, so by the Holy Spirit we
are now united with the second Adam, and made partakers of his
glorified nature. To vivify the body of Christ by maintaining its
identity with the risen Head is, in a word, the unceasing work of the
Holy Ghost.

Secondly, the dying of our Lord in his members is to be constantly
effected by the indwelling Spirit. The church, which is the fullness
of him that "filleth all in all," completes in the world his {63}
crucifixion as well as his resurrection. This is certainly Paul's
profound thought, when he speaks of filling up "that which is behind of
the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake, which is
the church" (Col. 1: 24). In other words, the church, as the
complement of her Lord, must have a life experience and a death
experience running parallel.

It is remarkable how exact is this figure of the body, which is
employed to symbolize the church. In the human system life and death
are constantly working together. A certain amount of tissue must die
every day and be cast out and buried, and a certain amount of new
tissue must also be created and nourished daily in the same body.
Arrest the death-process, and it is just as certain to produce disorder
as though you were to arrest the life-process. Literally is this true
of the corporate body also. The church must die daily in fulfillment
of the crucified life of her Head, as well as live daily in the
manifestation of his glorified life. This italicised sentence, which
we take from a recent book, is worthy to be made a golden text for
Christians: "_The Church is Christian no more than as it is the organ
of the continuous passion of Christ_." To sympathize, in the literal
sense of suffering with our sinning and lost humanity, is not only the
duty of the church, but the absolutely essential condition to her true
manifestation of her Lord. A {64} self-indulgent church disfigures
Christ; an avaricious church bears false witness against Christ; a
worldly church betrays Christ, and gives him over once more to be
mocked and reviled by his enemies.

The resurrection of our Lord is prolonged in his body, as we all see
plainly. Every regeneration is a pulse-beat of his throne-life. But
too l