WE ARE STUDYING the fact of babes in Christ—those who are in Christ, but never grow up in Him. The chief cause, Paul says, for such a state is that the faith of these babes in Christ is centered in men—good teachers and their interpretations. You soon exhaust their emphases and then you go round and round on those teachings, and soon you are repeating phrases and slogans such as “sovereignty of God,” “justification by faith,” “New Testament church,” “the warmed heart,” “Pentecost,” “apostolic succession,” “historic episcopacy,” “the sinfulness of man,” “man’s predicament,” “adult baptism by immersion.” These phrases and slogans become more and more emptied of content and become slogans where the adherents hold the line against all comers.
Every emphasis or slogan detached from the living Christ soon becomes sterile and empty and exhausted of meaning. Those who commit themselves to these persons or systems remain babes in Christ. They are attached to exhaustible emphases and systems and hence they become sterile. They never grow, or grow only as they transcend the systems and get to the Living Christ.
When your faith and loyalty and love are fastened on Jesus Christ centrally and fundamentally, they are fastened upon the inexhaustible. He never grows stale, trite, or empty of growing meaning. In Him you find an eternal unfoldment. The more you see the more you see there is to be seen. In Him there is a surprise around every corner. The Holy Spirit unfolds the unfolding revelation—He takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto us. It keeps one running to keep up with unfolding truth. The absolute in Him is always beckoning to our relativisms. We are under the law of an eternal change—a change “into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).
O Christ Jesus, Thou art behind me in history, but Thou art before me. What I see of Thee sets me on fire to see more of Thee. What I have of Thee makes me thirst to drink in the depths of Thee. In Thy name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If I am centered upon anything less than Christ, I am upon the exhaustible and will become exhausted pursuing the exhaustible.
