(19) В¶ My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
I pause over this verse, not so much to remark the tender reproof of Paul, to the Galatians, though his heart was grieved at their conduct; neither the soul-travail he speaks of, until their recovery was accomplished: but I pass over both these, to attend to an object of an infinitely higher nature. Paul here makes use of an expression, which demands our closest attention. He saith that his soul-travail was, until Christ was formed in them. We meet with a similar expression in his Epistle to the church of the Colossians; Christ in you the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27. And in his Epistle to Ephesus he there speaks somewhat more limited, but to the same purport, when he prayed that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith. Ephesians 3:17
I would not presume to be, wise above what is written; and therefore shall not attempt to explain what the Lord hath not done. But the indwelling of Christ, though not within our grasp to unfold, yet certainly is too important in itself, and in its consequences, to be passed over without suitable meditation. Every part of Scripture confirms the blessed truth, and brings testimony with it, that the union of Christ with his Church is personal. But who shall calculate the nature, or extent, of blessedness in it? Who shall say, what events are involved in it? When the Son of God dwelt in our world, it is said, that he pleased not himself. Romans 15:3. How must the contradiction of sinners against himself have operated upon his mind? Hebrews 12:3. If the soul of righteous Lot was vexed, day by day, with the filthy conversation of the wicked; what must the holy Jesus have felt, in his intercourse with the ungodly, in the days of his flesh? How must every sin of his redeemed, have gone to his heart? And what must it be now, in the numberless frailties of his children, when we consider Christ formed in the heart of his people? 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.