II.
(Continued from page 324.)
AS one sits down pondering on this great theme how far beyond the power of man to describe it does it appear yet as Owen says: “One of the greatest privileges and advancements of believers, both in this world and unto eternity, consists in their beholding the glory of Christ . . . It is that whereby they are first gradually conformed unto it, and then fixed in the eternal enjoyment of it. For here in this life, beholding His glory, they are changed or transformed into the likeness of it (II. Cor. iii. 18); and hereafter they shall be forever ‘like unto Him’ because they shall see Him as He is (I. John iii. 1, 2).” In this world God’s people can only contemplate the glory of their Lord by faith; in the world to come they shall behold Him face to face. At the outset it is necessary to emphasise the fact that it is not by mere natural gifts or diligent and prolonged study of the doctrine of the person of Christ that we can see His glory. When the Lord made the announcement concerning the coming of the other Comforter, the Holy Spirit, He said: “Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth; for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak; and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” There is a great deep in this utterance
but it makes it very plain that any true views we can have of the glory of Christ must be through the Holy Ghost. He is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto His people. This is that Spirit to whom He also referred when He said: “I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” Now, if through the teaching of the blessed Spirit we get views of Christ as the Creator and Redeemer we will not lightly think of any attempt made by men to rob Him of His glory in these respective spheres of His glorious and manifold activities. All things were made by Him and without Him was nothing made is the declaration of the Holy Ghost in the inspired Word. We are in danger of overlooking the high and glorious place that is His as Creator. “For by Him,” says the Apostle, “were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Col. i. 16, 17). But it is when His glory is viewed in the constitution of His person and the wonders of His redemptive work that it shines forth in all its full orb’d splendour. The mystery of the Trinity is that there are three Persons but one essence; the mystery of the Incarnation is that there are two distinct natures joined in indissoluble union in one Person forever. These are matters beyond our comprehension and the efforts made to explain them by the greatest thinkers of the Church from illustrations taken from created things fail. Let us bow before the mystery which we cannot comprehend while we seek to conserve the truth as it is revealed in the Scriptures.
It is in reference to the glory of His incarnate Person that Owen says: “This is that glory whose beams are so illustrious, as that the blind world cannot bear the light and beauty of them. Multitudes begin openly to deny this incarnation of the Son of God, this personal union of God and man in their distinct natures. They deny that there is either glory or truth in it, and it will ere long appear (it begins already to evidence itself) what greater multitudes there are who yet do not, who yet dare not, openly reject the doctrine of it. Howbeit, this glory is the glory of our religion, the glory of the Church, the sole Rock whereon it is built, the only spring of present grace and future glory. This is that glory which the angels desire to behold, the mystery whereof they ‘bow to look into’ (I. Pet. i. 12).” The Lord’s people rejoice with a joy unspeakable when the glory of the Person of Christ is presented to them in the gospel. It lifts their minds above the trivialities of time and it draws out the heavenly desires begotten of the Holy Ghost in their hearts towards Him who has become to them fairer than all the children of men and altogether lovely.
The glory of Christ is seen again, strange as it may seem, in His humiliation. From one standpoint that humiliation meant shame, sorrow and suffering but what a glory shines forth when we view the greatness of the Lord’s condescension. Into the depths of that condescension what finite mind can penetrate? In referring to this condescension Dr. Owen writes: “He who was eternally in the form of God—that is, was essentially so, God by nature, equally participant of the same divine nature with God the Father; ‘God over all, blessed forever’; who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and earth—He takes on Him the nature of man, takes it to be His own, whereby He was no less truly a man in time than He was truly God from eternity. And to increase the wonder of this mystery, because it was necessary unto the end He designed, He so humbled Himself in this assumption of our nature, as to make Himself of no reputation in this world; yea, unto that degree that He said of Himself that He was ‘a worm and no man,’ in comparison of them who were of any esteem (Ps. xxii. 6).”
In the exercise of His mediatorial offices His glory shines forth in His love, His wonderful obedience, His infinite compassion towards those that were out of the way and His patience towards them. What a glory there is in His prophetic office. This is He who was the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person. The light that was shining here was not reflected light from another source—it was in Himself—the very light of God. Such was the Prophet who in the last days spoke unto the Church. All the other great messengers who had spoken in God’s name received their light from Him who was the fountain of light. Therefore His revelation of God transcended all that they had declared in length and breadth, and depth and height.
This was also true about Him in the exercise of His kingly office. Wicked men robbed Him with purple robes and placed a reed in His hand mocking His kingly claims and bent the knee in derision but there never has been and never will be a king who held or will hold such a sceptre as His and never was there one to whom so many knees have already bent and to whom so many will yet bend. His throne is forever and ever and His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and if by faith we get a glimpse of that kingly glory how it dims all human glory.
Then there is the glory of His priestly office. How glorious does He appear to the eye of faith as He lays Himself as the Lamb of God upon the altar and fulfills in all its mysterious depth of meaning: “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin” and “where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.” He entered not into places made with hands but into heaven itself there to appear in the presence of God for His people. This view of Him shall never fade from their eyes for He shall be seen as a Lamb in the midst of the throne amidst the glories of heaven.
Here in this world, John could say we behold His glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth but after all it was but a small part of the glory they shall yet look upon when they see Him face to face and as He is. The thought of what that day would reveal seems to have much occupied the minds of the Apostle John and the Apostle Paul. Their thoughts were continually dwelling on their Lord who redeemed them and washed them in His own blood and their thoughts were on the day when they should see Him and when He would come again—they were looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing (literally, the appearing of the glory) of the great God and their Saviour Jesus Christ. The glory of Christ is a great theme, elevating, and encouraging to all who may get even but a glimpse of it but after all how little has the greatest of God’s saints seen of it here on this side Jordan though some of them were overwhelmed with the sight they got. But even they would readily appropriate to themselves the words of Dr. Owen: “We speak of these things in a poor, low, broken manner; we teach them as they are revealed in the Scripture; we labour by faith to adhere unto them as revealed; but when we come into a steady, direct view and consideration of the thing itself, our minds fail, our hearts tremble, and we can find no rest but in a holy admiration of what we cannot comprehend. Here we are at a loss, and know that we shall be so whilst we are in this world; but all the ineffable fruits and benefits of this truth are communicated unto them that do believe” (Meditations on the Glory of Christ, p. 64). Views of the glory of Christ by faith have a humbling effect on God’s people—sin is viler, disobedience more hateful and want of loyalty to such a glorious Being more despicable as they catch glimpses of that glory. New desires for conformity to His image, longings for a holier walk before Him, and the hope that one day they shall see Him as He is are a few of the fruits that come from the contemplation of His glory to those who by faith have seen a little of it.
Assurance is, as it were, the cream of faith.—William Gurnall.