In the World, But Not of It: Concentric Circles

The following is from Handley Moule's Thoughts for Sundays:

"'In the world': 'in Me.'  Here are two contrasted conceptions--one would say at first sight, two irreconcilable conceptions.  The matter treated of is the life and experience of the disciple of Jesus, his field and sphere of existence.

"This, in one breath, is described as 'in Me'; in the next, nay, in the same, as 'in the world.'  What a measureless distance!

"Can these two positions, these two locations, belong to the same being, at the same time?  At best, must not the man be supposed to fly to and fro, and take his residence up now in one, now in the other, now in the blessed Paradise, now in the desert of the world?

"Not so, according to the Lord's manifest meaning.  The two positions are intended, in His thought, to be simultaneous and combined; the contrasts are all to be harmonious; the opposites are to be poles of one sphere.  'In the world ye shall have tribulation; in Me ye shall have peace.'

"A very simple simile may illustrate the truth.  This is a matter of concentric circles.   The central point, all along, in respect of experience, is the Christian man.  Around him rolls, as the necessary outer circle of his life, the world; that is to say, the present current of human things, disordered by sin, with its countless interests, its manifold communications, its light and music, its strife and storms, its shocks of change and death, its dreadful drifts of temptation, its alienation from the holy will of God.

"Yes, around him moves the great 'world,' this cosmos, with its winds and its clouds.  Nay, like the physical atmosphere, it not only revolves around him; it enfolds him, and enters into him.  Whether he will or no, whether he likes it or no, he is in it, as man is in mid-ocean, though he may be borne along by the great 'liner,' above its depths [or like a 'submarine' in its depths].

"But then, this same disciple is also, such is the blessed promise, 'in Me,' in Christ.  A concentric circle, closer and nearer, is above him in the midst of the tumult; and it is the Lord. 

"The same being, the same conscious, feeling, needing, personality, is the center of both.  But while the outer circle rolls around that center with all its agitation, the inner circle is the peace of God Himself.  For it is the presence, the embrace of Him who has overcome the world, and has now overcome the man, 'subduing all things unto Himself' (see Phil. 3:21)."