The True Estimate of Life and How to Live| G. Campbell Morgan 

About the Book: 

The True Estimate of Life and How to Live is a deeply searching and practical work by G. Campbell Morgan, one of the most respected Bible teachers and preachers of the early twentieth century. In this volume, Morgan speaks to one of life’s most important questions: What is life truly worth, and how should it be lived before God?

With his characteristic biblical insight, pastoral urgency, and spiritual clarity, Morgan leads readers through themes such as surrender, holiness, obedience, spiritual health, divine guidance, personal influence, and the danger of compromise. His writing is not merely devotional in a sentimental sense; it is direct, convicting, and deeply rooted in Scripture. He presses the reader to move beyond religious theory into a life actually governed by Christ.

At the heart of the book is a serious call to examine the direction of one’s life. Morgan asks the reader to consider whether life is being shaped by self-interest, comfort, ambition, money, pleasure, reputation, or by the living will of God. Again and again, he brings the reader back to the central truth that real life is found only when Christ becomes the beginning, center, strength, and goal of all we are.

This book is especially powerful because Morgan does not separate theology from daily living. He shows how spiritual truth must touch ordinary decisions, family relationships, business conduct, personal habits, hidden motives, and the use of time. To him, the Christian life is not an abstract belief system, but a life of active obedience, steady surrender, and Spirit-filled usefulness.

Why This Book Is Worth Reading

This book is worth reading because it speaks honestly to the deep questions many believers carry but do not always know how to express. How do I measure my life rightly? What does holiness really mean? How can I live under the government of God? How do I make wise choices? What happens when I compromise? How can my life gather others toward Christ rather than scatter them away?

Morgan’s answers are clear, biblical, and searching. He does not flatter the reader, but neither does he leave the reader without hope. His message is full of both warning and grace. He exposes the emptiness of self-centered living, but also points to the power of Christ to heal, cleanse, guide, sustain, and remake a life.

The chapters are rich with biblical examples—Paul, Naaman, the man at Bethesda, Israel at Horeb, Lot, Abram, and others. Through these lives, Morgan helps readers see themselves more clearly. He shows how small choices can reveal deep principles, how outward success can hide inward loss, and how true blessing begins when the will is yielded to God.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is for Christians who want more than surface-level encouragement. It is for readers who desire a deeper, more honest walk with God and are willing to let Scripture examine their motives, choices, and direction.

It will be especially helpful for:

Believers seeking spiritual renewal — those who feel that their Christian life has become formal, weak, distracted, or compromised, and who long to return to wholehearted obedience.

Readers wrestling with life decisions — those who want to choose not merely by personal advantage, but by the will and government of God.

Christians concerned about holiness — those who want to understand holiness not as harsh religious performance, but as spiritual health, wholeness, and surrender to God’s work within.

Pastors, teachers, and ministry leaders — those who need strong, Scripture-centered material for personal reflection, sermon preparation, discipleship, or small-group discussion.

Readers of classic Christian literature — those who appreciate spiritually serious writing that combines biblical exposition, pastoral application, and deep moral clarity.

Anyone asking what life is really worth — especially those who sense that success, money, reputation, comfort, or outward achievement cannot satisfy the soul.

Key Themes in the Book

Morgan’s central concern is the true estimate of life. He challenges the reader to measure life not by what is visible, temporary, or applauded by the world, but by what is eternal before God.

The book explores themes such as:

Christ as the true meaning of life.

Holiness as health of spirit.

God’s cleansing, pardon, purity, and power.

The necessity of surrender and obedience.

The danger of compromise with evil.

The divine government of human lives.

Redeeming time and buying up opportunities for God.

Becoming a gatherer with Christ rather than a scatterer.

Choosing God’s will over self-centered advantage.

A Book for Serious Christian Living

The True Estimate of Life and How to Live is not a light inspirational book to be skimmed quickly and forgotten. It is a book to be read slowly, prayerfully, and personally. Morgan’s words invite the reader to pause, examine the heart, and ask: What am I living for? What principle governs my choices? Am I truly with Christ? Am I allowing God to shape my life?

For readers who are willing to listen, this book offers more than instruction. It offers a call: to live with Christ as life itself, to yield to the Father’s will, to walk in holiness, and to spend one’s days in the service of God’s eternal purpose.

Historical Background of This Book 

The True Estimate of Life and How to Live was written by G. Campbell Morgan, D.D., one of the most influential English-speaking Bible teachers and preachers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Morgan was widely known for his clear biblical exposition, strong evangelical conviction, and ability to connect Scripture with the practical demands of daily Christian living.

The book was first published near the turn of the twentieth century. Library records identify an 1899 edition under the title The True Estimate of Life and How to Live: Addresses Delivered at Northfield, and later catalog records also show a 1903 edition published in New York by Fleming H. Revell. This background is important because the book appears to have grown out of spoken addresses rather than being written first as a formal theological treatise. Its style reflects that setting: direct, urgent, pastoral, and often personal.

The reference to Northfield is also significant. Northfield, Massachusetts, was closely associated with the ministry of D. L. Moody, whose Bible conferences became an important center for evangelical teaching in the late nineteenth century. Morgan himself had strong connections with transatlantic evangelical ministry and made many preaching and teaching visits to the United States. Biographical sources note that Moody invited Morgan to lecture at the Moody Bible Institute in 1896, and Morgan later became associated with the Northfield Bible Conference after Moody’s death.

Morgan lived from 1863 to 1945 and became known as a leading Bible teacher, preacher, and prolific author. He later served as pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, first from 1904 to 1919 and again from 1933 to 1943. His ministry was marked by careful exposition of Scripture and a deep concern that biblical truth should shape the whole life of the believer.

This historical setting helps explain the tone and concerns of the book. Morgan was writing and preaching in a period often marked by confidence in progress, commerce, social advancement, education, empire, and modern civilization. Yet he saw that outward progress did not necessarily produce spiritual health. Many of the chapters in this book speak directly to that tension: the danger of worldly success, the emptiness of self-centered ambition, the need for holiness, the importance of obedience, and the call to live under the active government of God.

The book is not merely about private devotion. It speaks to the whole of life: personal character, family influence, business conduct, use of time, moral choices, spiritual surrender, and public witness. Morgan repeatedly brings biblical stories and texts into contact with ordinary human decisions. Paul’s confession, Naaman’s cleansing, the man at Bethesda, Israel at Horeb, Lot’s compromise, and Christ’s call to gather rather than scatter all become living mirrors through which readers are invited to examine their own lives.

Because these messages came from a preacher deeply engaged in both British and American evangelical life, they carry the warmth and urgency of spoken ministry. Morgan’s concern is not academic speculation but spiritual reality. He does not ask merely what a person believes, but what principle governs the life. He does not measure success by money, reputation, position, or comfort, but by whether the life is surrendered to God, shaped by Christ, and used for eternal purposes.

For modern readers, this historical background makes the book especially valuable. Though written more than a century ago, its central questions remain strikingly current: What is life truly worth? What does it mean to live wisely before God? How should a Christian choose, work, serve, influence others, and face the future? Morgan’s answers are rooted in Scripture, but they speak with enduring force to every generation that must decide whether to live for the passing world or for the eternal Kingdom of God.

About the Author: G. Campbell Morgan (1863–1945) — The Prince of Expositors

G. Campbell Morgan, D.D. was one of the most respected Bible teachers, preachers, and Christian authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Known for his clear exposition of Scripture and his ability to apply biblical truth to everyday life, Morgan became a major voice in evangelical Christianity on both sides of the Atlantic.

Born in England in 1863, George Campbell Morgan devoted his life to preaching, teaching, and writing. Though he did not follow the usual path of formal theological training, he became widely recognized for his extraordinary command of the Bible and his gift for making Scripture both understandable and deeply searching. He later served as pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, one of the most prominent pulpits of his day, where his preaching drew large congregations and influenced many pastors, teachers, and serious Bible students.

Morgan is often remembered as a master Bible expositor. His sermons were not merely inspirational talks; they were careful, Scripture-centered messages designed to bring the listener face to face with God’s truth. He had a rare ability to combine biblical depth with direct personal application. His preaching often pressed beyond religious theory and asked how the truth of God should shape the believer’s character, choices, home, work, service, and relationship with the world.

Among his many well-known works are The Crises of the Christ, The Practice of Prayer, The Ten Commandments, The Hidden Years at Nazareth, The Great Physician, Evangelism, Parables of the Kingdom, The Westminster Pulpit, and his broader Bible studies often associated with The Analyzed Bible. His writings continue to be valued because they are devotional, practical, and deeply rooted in the biblical text. Open Library lists Morgan as the author of many works, including The Analyzed Bible, Discipleship, The Crises of the Christ, Evangelism, The Ten Commandments, and The Practice of Prayer.

One of Morgan’s most admired books, The Crises of the Christ, examines the great turning points in the earthly life and redemptive mission of Jesus Christ, including His birth, baptism, temptation, transfiguration, death, resurrection, and ascension. Modern descriptions of the work continue to recognize Morgan’s careful attention to Christ’s life as the accomplishment of God’s redemptive purpose.

The True Estimate of Life and How to Live belongs to this same stream of serious, practical, Christ-centered teaching. In this book, Morgan addresses the essential question of life’s true value. What makes a life successful? How should a person choose? What does holiness mean? How does God govern human lives? How can a believer avoid compromise, redeem time, and live as a faithful witness for Christ?

For readers who do not yet know G. Campbell Morgan, this book is an excellent introduction to his ministry. It shows the qualities for which he became widely loved and respected: biblical clarity, spiritual seriousness, pastoral urgency, vivid illustration, and a deep concern that faith should be lived, not merely professed.

Morgan’s enduring appeal lies in the fact that he never treats Scripture as distant or abstract. He brings the reader into the presence of biblical truth and asks the searching questions that still matter today: What are you living for? What principle governs your choices? Is Christ truly Lord of your life? Are you building for time, or for eternity?

For this reason, The True Estimate of Life and How to Live remains a valuable work for Christians who desire not only to understand the Bible more deeply, but to live more faithfully before God.

Contents

About This Book 3

About This Modernized Edition 6

About the Author 7

Author’s Note 9

Chapter 1 — Introductory 11

Chapter 2 — From Creation to Christ 14

Chapter 3 — The Dispensation of the Spirit 24

Chapter 4 — The Coming of Christ 37

Chapter 5 — Daniel’s Missing Week 52

Chapter 6 — The Events of the Missing Week 62

Chapter 7 — The Dawn of a Golden Age 72

Chapter 8 — The Golden Age 83

Chapter 9 — After the Thousand Years 95

Chapter 10 — The Purifying Hope 107

Chapter 11 — Appendix 120

About This Annotated Edition

This annotated edition of The True Estimate of Life and How to Live has been prepared to help today’s readers engage more clearly and thoughtfully with G. Campbell Morgan’s searching and practical messages on the meaning of life, the call to holiness, the danger of compromise, and the necessity of living under the government of God. Morgan’s original work is spiritually direct, deeply biblical, and intensely practical; yet because it comes from an earlier period, modern readers may benefit from added background, chapter helps, and clearer formatting as they move through its themes.

In this edition, the following materials have been added:

• Historical Background of This Book — to help readers understand the time, setting, and ministry context in which Morgan’s messages were first given, and why the book speaks so strongly to questions of Christian living, spiritual seriousness, and moral decision.

• About the Author — to introduce G. Campbell Morgan, his preaching ministry, his importance as a Bible expositor, and some of his well-known works, including The Crises of the Christ, The Practice of Prayer, The Ten Commandments, The Great Physician, and The True Estimate of Life and How to Live.

• About This Book — to give readers a clear overview of the book’s central message, main themes, and spiritual value, especially its call to measure life by God’s eternal standards rather than by earthly success, comfort, or reputation.

• Editor’s Summaries — added at the end of each chapter to help readers review the main flow of Morgan’s argument, remember the key truths of the chapter, and connect the biblical teaching to the larger message of the book.

• Reflection Questions — added at the end of each chapter to encourage personal examination, group discussion, Bible study use, devotional reflection, and deeper application of the chapter’s message.

• Modernized Language for Readability — older expressions, difficult sentence structures, and obvious scanning or transcription errors have been gently revised so that the text may be easier for modern readers to follow.

• Consistent Formatting for Reading and Study — headings, paragraphs, and chapter layouts have been formatted consistently to make the book suitable for both eBook and print reading, as well as for personal study or group use.

The purpose of these additions is not to reinterpret Morgan’s work, but to help readers follow it with greater clarity and personal engagement. Morgan’s message repeatedly presses the reader to ask serious questions: What is life truly worth? What principle governs my choices? Am I living for Christ, or for self? Am I choosing by the visible and temporary, or by the unseen and eternal?

Bible verses and Scripture references have been kept unchanged. The goal throughout has been to preserve the meaning, tone, and theological substance of Morgan’s original work while making the book more accessible for a new generation of readers.

This edition is especially suited for personal reading, Bible study groups, devotional reflection, discipleship, and ministry use. It invites readers not only to understand Morgan’s teaching, but also to pause before God and consider how the truths of Scripture apply to the actual direction of their lives.

The hope of this annotated edition is that Morgan’s message will become clearer and more accessible to today’s readers, while retaining the spiritual

Chapter 1 — Paul’s Estimate of Life

In the history of the Christian Church, perhaps no man upon whom the eyes of the world have been fixed has so wonderfully fulfilled, in character and conduct, the ideal of Christianity as the Apostle Paul. Most of us will agree that he realized, more fully than any man of his own time, the purposes of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. His life and teaching have revealed the meaning of Christianity in a way accomplished by no other life or teaching.

It is very interesting, in his letter to the Philippians—one of his later epistles—to find him writing about himself, and yet about himself chiefly in relation to the new life he had then been living for about thirty-three years. He writes with human tenderness, human feeling, and human thought; yet upon all of it rests the light of the divine, and through all of it appears the power that had taken possession of him.

In this epistle, written to his children in the faith at Philippi, it is very clear that he writes under the pressure of circumstances. Not that those circumstances cause him even a moment’s anxiety, but they are such as to compel him to face the alternative possibilities that lie just ahead of him. It is while in this condition that he writes this letter and condenses, into one swift and burning sentence, an epitome of Christianity as he had realized it: “To me to live is Christ.”

To this man, all the marvelous unfoldings of the doctrine and plan of redemption can be condensed and expressed in the simplest words. He tells the whole story of his own experience of Christianity when he writes, “To me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). To him, Christianity is Christ.

“Christ! I am Christ’s! and let the name suffice you,
Ay, for me, too, He greatly hath sufficed;
Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning,
Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.”

This statement of the apostle’s view of Christianity gains force when we remember the circumstances under which he wrote it. He was a prisoner in the charge of the Praetorian Guard. Most probably, he was waiting for the final word of the emperor, which would decide in which of two ways his path should go.

If the emperor’s command were given, the apostle would tread the road from the door of his prison, through the city, to the place of execution; and then, by one swift, sudden stroke, his life would end. He looks along that road and thinks of the possibility of traveling it.

Then he looks in the other direction. Suppose the emperor commands that he be set free. Then he will hurry back to Philippi to see his children in the faith, and then go on to some new region to tell the same story, live the same life, and win more trophies for Christ.

He looks at these two roads stretching before him, and he says: “To live—is Christ, and to die—is gain. I am in a strait betwixt two. I desire to depart, and yet for your sakes I would tarry a little longer.”

Life and death have lost their old significance to him, because one vision fills the horizon whether he looks this way or that. Here it is Christ, and there it is gain; and gain is Christ, and Christ is gain. There is no darkness, only light, for everywhere he sees the Master. That is Christianity.

Now, beloved, I want to take that estimate of Christian life and meditate upon it for a little while. Do not expect me to exhaust it, for in this text lie all the possibilities and potentialities of the Christian life: “To me to live is Christ.”

What did the apostle mean? There are seven things he may have meant. By these words he intended to say:

1. Christ was the author of his life. It was as though he had written, “To me, to live at all is Christ.”

2. Christ was the sustainer of his life. “To me, to continue to live is Christ.”

3. Christ was the law of his life. “The conditions in which I live my life are summed up in Christ.”

4. Christ was the product of his life. “To me, to live is to reproduce Christ.”

5. Christ was the aim and influence of his life. “To me, to live is to lead men to Christ.”

6. Christ was the impulse of his life. “To me, to live is to be swept along under the compassion of Christ.”

7. Christ was the finisher, the crown of his life. “To me, to live is at last to be what He is, and to find the crowning of all my manhood in Him.”

Christ the end, as Christ was the beginning. Christ the beginning, and therefore Christ the end. Whether this man looked back upon the past, at the present, or into the future; whether he looked within or without, behind, above, or beyond to the consummation—wherever he turned his eyes, he saw Jesus only.

Christ as the Author of Life

The first thought is that when Paul wrote these words, “To me to live is Christ,” he meant to say, “Christ is the author of my life.”

This man did not count that he had any life except the life named “Christ.” He began to reckon his life only from the day when Christ was born within him through the power of the Holy Spirit.

In the life of this man, there is one clear line dividing it almost at its center. Behind that line is the old life, the “old man,” to which he so often referred. On the other side of the line is the new life, the “new man.”

To Paul, crossing that line was something that reached to the very depths of his being. It transformed him so completely that, looking back to the days when he became a new man in Christ, he said of the former days, “Old things are passed away.” They had all vanished from his sight. He took no account of anything that was behind him, and he said, “All things are become new.” In those new things, he lived.

The years he spent on the earth before the moment when Jesus found him, he did not reckon as worth speaking of for a single moment.

Was Paul mistaken? Had not much of value been crowded into the years before his conversion? Stop him for a moment and ask him: “Paul, what do you mean by this? You lived a very remarkable life before you met Jesus of Nazareth. You had been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. You had all the advantages of learning and religion. You had never been a profligate. Your life had been straight, pure, and clean throughout. You were a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. In all outward appearance—and, what is infinitely more, in all inward sincerity—you had been a remarkable man.”

“Perfectly true; but the things I counted gain, I now count but dross.”

“Why?”

“In comparison with what I found when Christ found me. When I turned my back upon the old, I did it forever, because my face was set toward the new.”

I do not think this man ever had five minutes of questioning as to whether he ought to go back into that old life once a week for enjoyment, and then live the new life all the rest of the week as a duty. The old life passed away, and the new life opened before him, bright with joy, thrilling with delights, and expanding all the way.

Christ as the Author of the New Life

The apostle’s new life began when a light shone round about him on the way to Damascus. We learn so much by contrast. Look at him for a moment on the way to Damascus. Remember that he was straight, upright, moral, righteous, and sincere to the very core of his being. On his way to Damascus, he carried in his hand some very important documents—letters from the high priest.

For what purpose? Because in Damascus there was a little company of men and women who were daring to slight the religion of their fathers, singing hymns about this Jesus, whom the friends of Paul had crucified. If they went on singing their hymns, they would soon undermine the national religion, and Paul was going to put an end to it.

So he was riding with the priest’s letters in his possession, when a light from heaven fell, and a voice from heaven spoke. Paul fell to the ground, and the man upon the earth said, in answer to the voice from heaven, “Who art Thou, Lord?”

The revelation that came to him must have been the most startling in his life: “I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest.”

Now hear the next word and never forget it: “Lord.” What a change! Why, this man had joined the church at Damascus before he arrived there. That is all they were doing—calling Jesus Lord—and Paul had done it.

Do you not see the radical nature of this change? Do you not see that he had taken the crown of his life from off his own head and had put it on the head of Jesus?

“Lord”—and what else?

“What wilt Thou have me to do?”

That is, from then on, the keynote of his life. The music is true to it through all the future: through missionary journeys, through perils by land and by sea, in prison and among robbers, when suffering persecutions or preaching the gospel of the grace of God, he is always true to the keynote he struck when he said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”

There his life began. There the old life dropped away, and the new life opened before him. Looking back to that beginning from the jail in Rome, he writes, “To me to live is Christ.”

Life began there, and we may judge how real the change was by asking him a question, which I often think I shall want to ask him when, by God’s grace, I meet him in the glory: “Paul, you have not forgotten the ride to Damascus?”

“No, I still remember the hour of my apprehending by the Lord.”

“But, Paul, what did you do with the high priest’s letters?”

Did you ever think of that? I shall want to know someday. They went completely out of his life, like everything else belonging to the old life. Old things passed away. That is when Paul began to live.

When is your birthday, my brother?

Let me say something for the sake of those who say, “I cannot find my birthday.” By a question like that, some trembling soul may be unsettled. The devil is only too glad to take hold of anything by which he may unsettle anyone. If the devil says to you, “You haven’t had any birthday,” treat him as I do and say, “If I never had one, I will have one now.”

If Satan is so very particular about a definite date, take this one and say to God right now:

“Here I give my all to Thee,
Friends and time and earthly store;
Soul and body, Thine to be,
Wholly Thine forever more.”

The Master says, “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” We have the date, and any “now” will do. So we will dismiss the devil and pass on.

The point is that there is a passing into the new life and a turning of the back upon the old. “To me to live is Christ.” Blessed fact of regeneration, to which we owe everything that comes after it! All the new possibilities God offers to us are the result of the fact that the Master arrested us and gave us His life, so that old things passed away and all things became new.

Christ as the Sustainer of Life

But Paul means infinitely more. He also means, “To me to continue to live is Christ.” For thirty-three years, or thereabouts, he had been following Jesus, and the music of his life had been running on amid earth’s lamentations. The harmonies had varied, but this had always been the dominant chord.

But what does he mean when he says that, to him, “to continue to live is Christ”? It is this man’s confession of his own helplessness. He says, “Here I am after thirty-three years, by the grace of God. I am still living the same life that then began.”

“But how?”

“Christ. I have not kept Him; He has kept me. I have not clung to the cross; the Man of the cross has clung to me, which is infinitely better. He has sustained my life during these thirty-three years.”

Beloved in Christ, do we sufficiently grasp that great truth for ourselves? Weak, trembling men and women who have started the Christian life are crying and wondering how they will hold out. If it is left to you, I will not expect to meet you in the Christian pathway twelve months from now. If it is left to me, I will be a castaway very shortly.

You remember that wonderful figure from the lips of Jesus, recorded in the Gospel by John. There Christ says that He is not only the author but also the sustainer of life: “I am the vine, ye are the branches.”

Paraphrase that. Put it into other words so as to bring out the inner thought. People have an idea that Jesus meant to say, “I am the main stem of the vine, and you are the branches grafted into Me. Through Me, the main stem, all the forces of life pass into you, the branches.”

That is very beautiful, but Jesus meant something infinitely stronger. What did He say? “I am”—not the main stem—“I am the vine.”

What is the vine? Root, main stem, branches, leaves, tendrils, fruit—everything. That is the vine. People speak as though the main stem alone were the vine, held up by roots and expressing itself in branches. That is true in a sense, but I like to take this word of Christ in its simplicity, and therefore in its sublimity: “I am the vine”—the whole of it.

What does this mean? “Ye are the branches”—part of the vine—and the life of the branch is the life of the vine. In a sense, the vine gives its life to the branch, but not as a separate thing. The branch is part of the vine, and the very life that courses through the branch and reproduces itself in fruit is the life of the vine.

“To me to live is Christ.” It is His life that sustains me. It is He Himself in me. I am His; He is mine. We are one by a solemn union, a union infinitely beyond anything that metaphor or figure can teach. We are one with each other, and by that fact of our oneness my life has been sustained. “To me to live is Christ.”

Christ as the Law of Life

I love this third thought: “To me to live is Christ. Christ is the condition of my life; Christ is the law of my life.”

That is why Paul was angry with the Galatians. He said to them, “O foolish Galatians, ye ran well; who hath hindered you?” How did he say they had been hindered? They were getting back under legalism, into the place where they continually said, “Thou shalt not” and “Thou shalt,” where they brought everyone up to the test of forbiddings and permissions, and where they asked for a rule for everything.

Paul said, “You ran well; what hath hindered you? How is it you are so soon entangled with the yoke of bondage?”

How is it with you, Paul?

“To me to live is Christ; not a set of rules, but a life principle within me; not the conditioning of my days by timetables, maxims, and rules, but the ever-present Christ stretching to the farthest territory of my being, and by His presence there ordering all my life within the bounds of His own sacred will.”

Paul lived in the new covenant of which Jeremiah spoke—the covenant in which the law should no longer be written on a table of stone outside a man’s personality, but on his heart. Therefore, if a man wanted to know what God would have him do, he need not go to any temple, priest, altar, or code of rules. He need only turn himself to silence and quietness and say:

“O strong life of God in Christ within me,
Direct, control, suggest this day
All I design, or do, or say,
That all my powers with all their might,
In Thy sole glory may unite.”

The man who lived there had a fresh code of ethics every morning, a new list of regulations every moment; and all these came along the impulse of the Christ-life within him. Christ is the law of my life. He conditions my days. He is the author, the sustainer, and the law.

Christ as the Product of Life

Again, it is as though this man had said, “Christ is the product of my life. To me to live is Christ.”

But if a man says that and there is no manifestation of it, who believes him? Not I. And I am quite sure that this man did not want anyone to believe him unless it was perfectly evident in his life.

Suppose here is a man living a life that is selfish, malicious, proud, critical, and unkind, and he says, “To me to live is Christ.”

O man, do not blaspheme! Your life is selfish; your life is malicious; your life is critical; your life is unkind. Was Jesus any of these?

“Oh, no,” he says, “I do not mean that. I mean that I have accepted His creed.”

Never! No man ever really accepted the creed who did not first receive the Christ. The creed grows out of the living Christ; and when that is so, the creed forever manifests itself in conduct.

Do you not see, beloved, the necessity for this? Nature, so far as we understand it, always reproduces itself true to type.

I remember the last season in which I put flowers in my garden in Birmingham. I went down to a shop and bought some bulbs, because I wanted a fine show of tulips in the earlier days of the year. I put them all carefully in my garden. I even arranged them according to a color scheme and in geometrical precision. I almost dreamed of the result, for I love God’s flowers, though I do not understand them. The winter went; spring came, and the bulbs came up—but they were crocuses.

Why? Because I had planted crocus bulbs. I thought I had a bargain, and the result was that what I had sown, that I reaped.

Now work out that great principle of life and apply it to this question of sainthood. If the life implanted in you is the life of Christ, that life must reproduce itself true to type. If a man has not quit singing, “I want to be an angel,” he is on sorry business, because he has not even a promise of wings anywhere on him. But if a man is singing reverently, with strong crying and tears and earnest desire, “I want to be like Jesus,” that is possible.

Why? Because the life he lives, if he is born again, is the Christ-life. And if the life of Christ is implanted within him, it will, in its own outworking, reproduce itself. He will, individually as well as with the Church, “grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.”

Let us endeavor to understand this better by looking at two illustrations from Paul’s life. We saw him just now on the way to Damascus. I have the profoundest admiration for Saul of Tarsus before he was converted. I love a man who is sincere and wholehearted in anything.

But do you see what Paul’s sincerity did for him in those old days? It made him say, in effect, “I am sincere, and I am determined that the religion of my God shall be the religion. If men will not bow to it, then I will drag them to prison and to death. My sincerity arouses my indignation, and I am determined to strike to death the men who will not abide by that which is a divinely revealed religion.”

There he is, a magnificent man—the best that human nature can ever do for a man apart from Jesus Christ. Do not forget it. Nothing finer has ever been brought out of fallen human nature than Saul of Tarsus before Christ found him.

Thirty years have passed, and now we see him before Agrippa and his friends, who desire to amuse themselves by looking at this strange man and hearing what he has to say. Paul gives his testimony. He tells the story of how Jesus found him and transformed him.

Agrippa, looking at him, said—not, “Almost thou persuadest,” but with scorn—“With a very little would you persuade me to be a Christian?”

What does Paul say? Is he any less sincere and consecrated than he was when he rode to Damascus? No. Is he less enthusiastic? No. Is there any difference? Yes, a vast difference.

How does he show it? Manacles are on his wrists, and chains are upon his ankles, but he looks into the face of Agrippa and says, “O King Agrippa, I wish that, not with a very little, but altogether, thou wast such as I am, except these bonds. I do not want you to wear my chains, Agrippa. Have my Christ, have my light, have my life, but I would not put these on even you, Agrippa.”

Do you see any change in the man? Perfectly sincere thirty years ago, but if you did not agree with him, he would put you to death. Perfectly sincere now, but with an entirely changed tone: “O King Agrippa, if you could only change places with me without having my chains; but I would not harm or pain you for a moment!”

If a man lives Christ, he reproduces Christ. Is that not what Paul has done? Are not his words the living echo of that most wonderful prayer of all, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do”?

Men always, in some measure, reproduce Christ when they live His life. If the Christ-life is present, it must come out through the glory on the face, the tenderness of the touch, and the new love for everybody. The very best testimony you can ever give to the power of Jesus Christ is to live His life over again—not by your own effort, but by the propulsion of that same life within you. “For me to live is to reproduce Christ.”

Christ as the Aim and Influence of Life

Let me mention the other points briefly. “To me to live is to influence men toward Christ. The aim of my life is Christ.”

Do you think that many of those soldiers who were fastened to Paul got away without being influenced for Christ? I do not. Every soul he came into contact with was an opportunity. All his life, so far as active service went, was poured out in doing this one thing: bringing men who had never seen the Christ into the place where they might see Him, and building up those who had seen Him in their most holy faith, from height to height and from glory unto glory.

The whole aim and influence of his life was Christ.

Christ as the Impulse of Life

Again, the impulse of his life was Christ. I use the word “impulse” in reference to the great force behind it, which impelled him to service.

Take one illustration. You know the Epistle to the Romans—that is, you know where it is. Well, read it again. You have never fathomed it yet. I am just beginning to see light upon it, beautiful gleams of glory on it.

Chapter five: justification. Chapter six: the question of sin. Chapter seven: that question still discussed. Chapter eight: no condemnation, the larger, purer life. Chapter nine: what is there? Well, do not read the ninth without reading the last verses of the eighth.

What is the highest height of experience in the eighth chapter?

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I always think of the apostle here as on some mountain height, looking at his enemies. They are all around him—death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present. Then his imagination sweeps him into all the infinite possibilities of the future—things to come, height, depth, or any other creation. There they all are, the possibilities of danger. He says, “I am persuaded that none of them shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”

There he is at the height of vision, the height of experience.

What comes next?

“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow.”

Why, the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth verses of the eighth chapter do not sound like that! They are a shout of triumph: “Nothing can separate me from His love, but I have great heaviness and continual sorrow.”

What about? About himself? No. Self had perished in the struggle of these preceding chapters.

What about?

“I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

What is that? That is, “To me to live is Christ. The impulse of my life is the Christ-impulse. The passion that brought Him down to redeem men consumes me; and when I have touched the highest height of His life, so that I know nothing can separate me from His love, then I have learned the deepest experience of all—that of fellowship in His suffering—and I wish I could be accursed.”

Jesus Himself was made a curse for us, and Paul is living the Christ-life, so that he can say:

“Oft, when the Word is on me to deliver,
Lifts the illusion and the truth lies bare,
Desert or throng, the city or the river,
Melts in a lucid paradise of air.
Only like souls I see the folk thereunder
Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings,
Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder,
Sadly contented in a show of things;
Then with a rush the intolerable craving
Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call,
Oh, to save these, to perish for their saving,
Die for their life, be offered for them all!”

Let commentators cease their foolish attempts to explain away those verses. Paul has come nearer to Jesus Christ here than ever before. This impulse of the Christ-life, which wrought redemption for the race at the cost of His own life, enters a human soul and floods it to overflowing, until he says, “I could wish that even I were accursed for my brethren’s sake.”

Christ as the Crown of Life

What is the last thing? Christ is the crown. He is not only the author; He is the finisher. He not only began; He will end the good work.

And when it ends, what is He? Christ.

What is the music of the land to come? Christ.

What is the fellowship? Christ, and Christ reproduced in the saints.

What will be my chief joy when I look again into the face of my child who has gone before me and is waiting for me in the shining city? It will be that she is like Jesus. Not only shall we see Christ Himself, but Christ reproduced in the loved ones.

Imagination is sometimes ahead of truth. Poetry guesses at more than prose ever fathoms. Follow out the thought, and everywhere—on the throne and amid the multitudes—what do you see? Christ.

That is why this man Paul stands and, despite Nero’s threatened axe, says, “To die is gain.”

“Do you not see that executioner, Paul?”

“No, I do not see him.”

“What do you see?”

“Christ!”

To die is gain.

Now let me ask you to finish this theme for yourself. Imagine that you have in your hand a clean piece of paper, and write on it for yourself—God help you! Take the pencil and write. Write the story of your life honestly, faithfully, truly, in as brief a sentence as Paul wrote the story of his.

Write: “To me to live is—money.”

Now, be honest, in God’s name. If you have played the hypocrite before, do not do it now. Write it down—not for man’s eyes, but for God’s.

“To me to live is money.”

If that is true, put it down.

“To me to live is pleasure.”

“To me to live is fame.”

Oh, fill them in for yourself!

Now you have written your life’s story. You never looked it squarely in the face like that before. There it is, right in front of you—the self-evident truth, the inner meaning of all your life.

Now finish it. Write under it what Paul did. That is your estimate of life; now add Paul’s estimate of death.

“To me to live is money; to die is—”

I cannot write “gain” after that. To die is loss. I shall leave it all. “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither.”

“To me to live is pleasure; to die—”

Oh, do not talk to me about death! It is the last thing I want to think about. I want my pleasure, my laughter, this hollow crackling of thorns under a pot. It is all I have! Let me have it, but in God’s name do not talk about death.

Why, man, I do not like to walk down the street in the dark because I think of death. I cannot write that.

“To me to live is fame.”

Now finish it.

“And to die—”

No, I cannot. For if they put my name on a marble monument, the moment it is erected, nature, with mossy fingers, will begin to pull it down. I cannot write that. To die is to perish, to be forgotten. What is fame when I am gone? I cannot write it.

No, beloved, you cannot write Paul’s estimate of death after anything except Paul’s estimate of life. If, by God’s great grace, you can write, “To me to live is Christ,” you can write, “To die is gain.”

To die is to see Him more clearly, to be closer to Him, to enter into larger service for Him, to touch the height and depth and length and breadth of His life. “To die is gain.” You can only write it if you write the first.

Someone else says, “Well, I have never written the first; can I start?”

Yes.

“Where can I start?”

Where he started.

“Where did he start?”

“Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”

That is it. Will you say that?

“Yes, we will do it. Is it easy?”

No, it is not easy. The cross is there. Crucifixion is there. The ending of self is there. The abandoning of everything—of hope, wife, child, home, friends, and ambition—all is there.

“Lord—I have had other lords. Lord, I have been governed by self. I have been governed by human loves. I have been mastered by passions. I have been swept along by ambitions. Lord, Nazarene, depose these other lords and be King.”

That is the place to begin. And there is not a man or woman who begins there honestly to whom He will not come with healing in His wings, the sun rising. Then the old things for you shall pass away, and all things shall become new.

Editor’s Summary

In this opening chapter, Morgan unfolds Paul’s great confession: “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” For Morgan, this single sentence gathers up the whole meaning of the Christian life. Paul is not merely presenting a doctrine, a creed, or a religious duty; he is revealing the center and substance of his entire existence. Christ is not one part of Paul’s life. Christ is his life.

Morgan shows that Paul’s estimate of life began with his conversion on the road to Damascus. Before that moment, Paul was sincere, moral, religious, and zealous, yet his life was still governed by self and human judgment. When Christ met him, everything changed. The old life passed away, and a new life began under the lordship of Jesus. From that day forward, Paul’s guiding question became, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”

The chapter then traces several ways in which Christ became everything to Paul. Christ was the author of his life, the One who began the new life within him. Christ was also the sustainer of his life, keeping him through weakness, suffering, imprisonment, and service. Christ was the law of his life—not an external set of rules, but the living presence of God within him, guiding his desires, choices, and conduct. Christ was the product of his life, because the life of Christ within Paul reproduced the character of Christ through him. Christ was also the aim, influence, and impulse of his life, moving him to bring others to the Savior and filling him with the same redemptive compassion that marked the heart of Jesus.

Morgan closes by showing why Paul could also say, “To die is gain.” Death can only be gain when life is Christ. If a person lives for money, pleasure, fame, or self, death becomes loss, fear, and emptiness. But if Christ is the meaning of life, then death is not defeat; it is fuller vision, nearer fellowship, and greater entrance into the life of Christ. The chapter ends with a searching appeal: each person must honestly complete the sentence, “To me to live is…” The answer reveals the true estimate of life.

Reflection Questions

1. Paul could say, “To me to live is Christ.” If you honestly completed the sentence, “To me to live is…,” what would your life reveal right now?

2. Morgan emphasizes that Paul’s new life began when he surrendered to Christ’s lordship by asking, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” What areas of your life still need to come under that question?

3. The chapter teaches that Christ is not only the author of the Christian life, but also its sustainer. Where are you most tempted to rely on your own strength instead of trusting Christ to keep and sustain you?

4. Morgan says that if the life of Christ is truly within a person, that life will reproduce the character of Christ. In what ways is Christ being seen in your conduct, words, priorities, and treatment of others?

5. Why can “to die is gain” only be written after “to live is Christ”? How does this truth challenge the way you think about life, death, ambition, and eternity?

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