Our Liberty In Christ by Philip Mauro

striving on their behalf is declared in the words “until Christ be formed in you.”

This then, is the full object that God has in view for those whom He calls into His household—that Christ be formed in them. And the means employed for that pur­pose arc, the Holy Spirit working in the saint, in coopera­tion with a faithful ministry of the Word.

Again we observe the close parallel between the teach­ing of Galatians and that of Romans (chapters 5 to 8 especially). For in Romans 8 the passage which treats of the Spirit of God, the Adoption, and the Inheritance (to which we have referred) is immediately followed by a clear statement of the purpose of God for those whom He has saved and made His children, and for whom such a glorious inheritance has been prepared (verses 28-30). Speaking of them as “the called according to His pur­pose,” the apostle says: “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).

We have here the purpose of God for His children, namely, that they should be conformed in character or “image” to His Son; but in Galatians we have the Divine Agencies by which this great purpose of God is to be carried out—the Spirit striving against the flesh, and the ministry of the Word, which works effectually in them that believe.

From Ephesians 4: 7-16 we learn that to the same end the gifts of ministry from the risen Lord have been be­stowed, those gifts being “for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect (i. c. fully developed) man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

It is well for each of us to have as clear an idea as possible of what God purposes to work in us, so that we may give our hearts to that purpose, seeking to be fellow-labourers with God in its accomplishment, and using whatever gifts He has bestowed upon us to that end.

The same matter is very strongly presented in Colossians, where Paul speaks of the ministry committed to him to make Christ known among the Gentiles, in which connection he says: “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus”—that is to say, fully conformed to His image, or (as in Galatians) “till Christ be formed” in each one. Then he adds this strong statement: “Where unto I also labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me might­ily” (Col. 1:27-29).

From this we learn that Paul regarded his ministry as not merely