"Called Unto Holiness" by Ruth Paxson, part 3

Called Unto Holiness by Ruth Paxson

Fullness of Christ

Ruth Paxson spoke during the Keswick Convention in 1936. The addresses are printed as delivered at the three meetings for ladies only and at the closing fellowship gathering. This is the third meeting titled FULLNESS OF CHRIST from the book

  

   “The church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” Eph. 1:22, 23

   “Think of it! ‘The church, the fullness of Christ’! The Christian, the fullness of Christ! Is that your conception of what it is for you to be a Christian. You, living in your home; you, walking up and down the streets of your town or city, the fullness of Christ! That is what the Word says. ‘The fullness of him who filleth all in all.’ Here we are told how it is possible. He fills us with His own fullness. John 14:16, 17; Acts 2:4

   Has such fullness been provided for me? Oneness in Christ made it ours. Col. 2:9, 10 ‘And ye are made full in him.’ Our position in Christ makes us potential partakers of the fullness of Christ. We ‘are made full’ it says, not we will be. The moment we become a part of the body of Christ, the fountain of fullness in Him is opened to us. The fullness has been provided for every Christian.

   Is such fullness possible for me? Can the fullness provided be made personal? John 4:14 ‘Water’ in Scripture is the type of the Spirit as Christ Himself interprets it in John 7:38, 39. Christ is never called the water of life, but He gives this water to those who thirst and drink. Christ gives the Holy Spirit to the Christian. He is promising here the gift of the Holy Spirit.

   ‘In him a well’-is the Holy Spirit indwelling which Christ promised the disciples.

   ‘A well of water springing up’-leaping up in an exhaustless, irrepressible way; springing up and overflowing. Is not this fullness?

   ‘Whosoever’-Did you get that word?..

   ‘Shall never thirst.’ Do you believe it?.. Perfect inward heart satisfaction. Do you have it?..

   ‘Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst’ but shall have perfect inward satisfaction and sufficiency. No matter what the circumstances or the environment or the spiritual and temporal need, Christ is enough and equal to it all. Christ only satisfies; Christ only suffices because the indwelling Holy Spirit fills the life and makes Christ a living reality within. Is He doing that for you?..

   ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water’ John 7:37, 38

   ‘Rivers of living water-not a rivulet, or stream, or even a river, but ‘rivers,’ the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Yangtze, the Thames, all put together into one.

   ‘Shall flow’-not a Dead Sea that received and retains the blessings of Keswick, but the river Jordan that refreshes and renews every life it touches…

   ‘From within him’-an inflow demands an outflow and an overflow. Christ is enough  and to spare…

   ‘He that believeth on me’-not only for some great preacher or Bible teacher, not even alone for some one employed in Christian service, but for him who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you believe?..

  Is such fullness optional? May I choose whether I will be filled with the Holy Spirit or not? ‘Be ye filled with the Spirit’ Eph. 5:18. It is a command…