“Himself” is the classic that best describes Albert B. Simpson’s theology. The tract, “Himself, is the most widely read work of Simpson. The influence of this digest of his teaching on the indwelling Christ has gone across denominational lines and blessed untold thousands in every part of the world. The special appeal of “Himself” has been its sound and sane teaching on the Deeper Life. Its message of the sufficiency of Christ is timeless, attracting each new generation of readers with its freshness.

 

 

Himself

 

 

by A.B. Simpson

 

 

Let me focus your thoughts on Jesus and Jesus only. Often I hear people say, “I wish I could get hold of divine healing, but I cannot.” I hear
others exclaim, “I have got it!” But when I ask, “What have you got?” they do not really know. Sometimes they answer, “I have got the blessing” or “I have got the healing” or “I have got sanctification.”

 

 

I thank God it is not the blessing, not the healing, not the sanctification, not the thing or the it that we want, but Someone far better. We want Christ, Christ Himself.

 

 

We need the Person

 

How often the expression occurs in the Word: “Himself took our infirmities and bare our sickness” (Matthew 8: 17); “His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2: 24). It is the person of Jesus Christ whom we want. Plenty of people get the idea, but they do not get anything out of it. They get it into their heads and their consciences and their wills, but somehow they do not get Him into their lives and spirits. They have only that which is the outward expression and symbol of the spiritual reality.

 

 

I once saw a picture of the Constitution of the United States very skillfully engraved in copper plate. When I looked at it closely, it was nothing more than a piece of writing. But when I stood back and looked at it, it was the face of George Washington. At a little distance, the face became evident in the shading of the letters and I saw the person, not the words or the ideas. Then it came to me: That is the way to look at the Scriptures and understand the thoughts of God. We can see in them the face of love shining through the words. It is Jesus Himself as the Life and Source and sustaining Presence of all our life.

 

 

I prayed a long time to get sanctified. Sometimes I thought I had it. On once occasion I felt something, and I held on with desperate grip for fear I should lose it. I kept awake the whole night fearing it would go, and, of course, it went with the next sensation and the next mood. I lost it because I did not hold on to Him. I had been taking a little water from the reservoir when all the time I might have been bathed in the fullness of Jesus.

 

 

I went to meetings and heard people speak of joy. I even thought I had the joy, but I did not keep it because I had not Jesus Himself as my joy.
At last Jesus said to me, oh, so tenderly, “My child, just take Me. Let Me be in you the constant supply of all this, Myself.” At last I got my eyes off my sanctification and my experience of it and instead began gazing upon Christ Himself. Instead of an experience, I found Christ to be larger than the moment’s need, the Christ who had all that I should ever need. And He was given to me at once and forever!

 

 

When I thus saw Him, it was reassuring rest. It was all right and right forever. I had not only what I could hold that little hour, but also in Him all that I should need the next hour and the next and the next. Sometimes God gives me a glimpse of what it will be like a million years from now when we shall “sine forth as the sun in the kingdom of [our] Father” (Matthew 13: 43) and have “all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3: 19).

 

In Part II – Healing is the life of Christ

 

 

 (1 Peter – Part 28): After Conversion, the Remainder of Your Life Should Be Different  : A.W. Tozer sermon given on June 6, 1954 in Chicago, Illinois.