II. The matter of the purpose concerning this people. “They are to be conformed to the image of His Son.” The Father has a Son, He has but One—no wonder He thinks much of Him. When you come to be taught of the Father, He will introduce you to that Son and you will have fellowship with Him in His highly esteeming Him and dearly loving Him, and you will not be content till by His Spirit you love Him too. You can afford to despise that Son, when you hear of Him from the lips of a fellow creature; you can afford to despise Him after He has been affectionately commended to you by one that would yearn for your salvation; but oh, if the prophecy to which our attention was called on our day of preparation, be fulfilled in you, “It is written in the prophets and they shall be taught of God,” then you will find that there is in you another Spirit, “Every man that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me.”
Irresistible attraction will appear in Him then. “His Son in His true nature, in His proper person is, the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person.” So the Scriptures testify. But by the mystery of the incarnation He who was in the form of God and therefore did not count it robbery, that is, counted it His due to be equal with God, that negative conveys a strong affirmative agreeable to the Scripture usage. When it is said He counted it not robbery, it means that He counted it His true and undeniable right. He became man, He is called in the Word, God-man. He who is God and man in His distinct natures and one person for ever is called the image of the invisible God, hence He said to the disciples when they were wishing Him to show them the Father and it would suffice them, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet ye have not known Me; he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” In this view of His person, He is to be regarded as the Elder brother of a family made up of those who are the objects of the Father’s love.
It became Him as the nearest of kin, having become related to this family by the incarnation, to enter sympathetically into their poor estate. They were bankrupt, overwhelmed in debt, ready at any moment that the creditor saw fit to be haled to prison, and not be allowed to come out thence till they had paid the uttermost farthing. They had lost their inheritance, they had lost themselves, they were fallen and not able to rise. He appeared accordingly as surety on their behalf, made all their debts His own, engaged that everything due by them should be as was expected duly paid. He knew well what it would cost Him. He is infinitely rich and honourable. He is at the same time infinitely condescending and gracious. But His compassion is always under the control of righteousness, and He will not engage to pay more than He knows He is able to pay. He will not engage to do more than He knows he is able to do; He will not undertake to secure more than He knows He is capable to securing.
He knew that the debt contracted by this ruined family was tremendous, that the bills they were called to honour were very heavy. He reckoned His own wealth—He found He was rich enough to make out the suretyship, but it would take all He had—He would have nothing left. “Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich” (II Cor. viii. 9). My friends, we are not able to rise, and never will be, to the height of His riches, and we are not able to descend in contemplation to the depth of His poverty. The one is the co-relative of the other; when you can scale the height, you may judge you will be able to fathom the depth. There is but one that saw the depth into which He descended. Still it ought to be instructive to us, and it ought to move our hearts to know that infinitely rich as He was, He was just rich enough to pay the debt and had nothing left—He gave Himself.
In making good His suretyship He appeared as a subject of law, fulfilling all righteousness, was obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. Now the people who are the objects of His Father’s love, whom the Apostle says in our text He foreknew, were predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.
What were they when He found them? Apostate creatures, the children of the devil, and as like their parent as any child of the father that begets him. Adam, the first, was made after the image of God, but he lost it, by his sin, and he begat a son in his own likeness. From generation to generation children have come into the world in his own likeness; they are by nature the children of wrath or children of disobedience. Now observe the plan of the divine administration: all the descendants, the natural descendants of Adam, the first, are made after the likeness of Adam, the first; Adam, the fallen; Adam, the condemned;
Adam, the ruined. The second Adam in the person of the Son of God, the second Adam stands; while the first Adam fell, the second obeyed; while the first Adam sinned, the second Adam is accepted; while the first Adam was condemned, the second Adam lives, whereas the first Adam died. Now the love of God predestinates its objects to be conformed to the image of the second Adam. “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (I Cor. xv. 49). Do you say, “What is the image of the Son?” He is the image of the invisible God. Wherein consists that image? It consists in knowledge, righteousness and true holiness. These objects of His love are therefore predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Son in these things.
III. The end contemplated in this purpose. It is, that the Son “might be the firstborn among many brethren.” It is the design of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will to have a family to Himself out of this ruined world. The members of this family are to be brethren one of another, because in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female, and the term is taken from the male sex as the more noble gender, not to the exclusion, much less the depreciation of the other. We are to stand in the relation of brethren, a kind of equality, mutual esteem and affection, giving rise to a treatment answering to the common relation that obtains among them, and the affection which they ought to bear one to another. Amongst these brethren who think you find a place? The Father’s only begotten. How should that be? He stepped into it by the mystery of the incarnation; they come into it by the mystery of regeneration. He is chosen of the Father to the place which He holds, they are chosen of the Father in Him to the place they hold.
But, my friends, whilst it is His design to have this family taken out from this world of ours and our fallen race, and whilst the members of this family as their connection with Him denotes, are to have a common relation and one noble affection pervading them, and whilst He is said to have a place amongst them; the first, the highest, the best is assigned to Him. What does He say to His disciples, appealing to their generous disinterested love. “If ye loved me, ye would rejoice because I said, I go to my Father.” You would rejoice that it is said, “In all things He shall have the pre-eminence.”
We have reason to hope that the way in which Joseph treated his brethren was the means of completely removing their envious feelings towards Him. His glory in Egypt was so high that it was beyond the reach of that base passion. The tidings spread through Pharaoh’s court, “Joseph’s brethren are come,” and they went away from Egypt, bent upon the pleasure which they would have in communicating the tidings to their father, “Joseph yet lives and is lord in Egypt.” Even so the manner in which the elder brother deals with the younger brethren, for through His dealing with them by the power of the Holy
Ghost, shed upon them through Christ Jesus. His manner of treating them fairly overcomes them, in due time it expels all envious feelings towards Him, and one another. They walk together as brethren, and rejoice in the glory to which He is exalted that the Father may be glorified in Him. The term “firstborn” means the most exalted, the firstborn is commonly the heir: this is the Father’s Heir. The younger brethren are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
APPLICATION.
I. See how any come to be Christians. It is a secret, one of the deep things of God. Standing on its verge, we look down as upon an unfathomable ocean, but from its surface—I had almost said to its bottom—but it has no bottom, all is pure, excellent and glorious. Oh! the height and length and depth of the love of God.
It is from that ocean that the purpose of making any sinner a Christian comes forth. You especially that hold tokens of admission to the Lord’s Table, suffer me to put to you the question, Is it thence your religion has come? If not, it will go down to the depths of hell and you with it. No religion will rise to heaven and shine as the stars but that which originates in the forelove of the Father. “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” Don’t mistake me, I don’t ask, nor do I expect that you should always be able to assure yourselves that it is so. This is what I ask, and I can’t let you go with anything short of it: you must cordially consent to the doctrine that if your religion has not this origin, it is not the religion of Christ, and you are not true men, if you make a profession of being His. There are not many that can stand much of the assurance of the love of God. They are none of Christ’s that can be content without assurance of the love of God. Some have to strive after it all their days, and perhaps only come in sight of it as they are about to leave this world. “I have waited,” said Jacob on the brink, “for thy Salvation, O Lord!” But whilst it is not the attainment of all to reach this assurance, bear this in mind, that none of His people can be content without it. They are ill at ease, they are restless, and if they once taste a little of its sweetness the restlessness increases. Would that we found something amongst this people of a spirit of earnest thirsting for it! Would that we saw people stirring up one another to seek it, and being helpful to one another in finding it. Would that we heard accounts of this one and that one, and the other one getting rebukes from his brother members because he was too content far from the assurance of the love of God. But alas! that passage seems but too applicable and what takes place too often among us: I went through the land of Egypt and heard a language I understood not” (Psalm lxxxi. 5).
II. Learn who they are that are Christians. Having seen whence they come, how they are made, for it is proper to advance in the way of application of our subject to what they are.
They are such as are conformed to the image of the Father’s Son. Communicants! are you like Christ? “They took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” “They glorified God in me,” says Paul. Will any take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus, and take notice of it not by your talking, your high profession, your loud complaints, appearing to be stricter than your neighbours in this thing and the other thing? Will they take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus by your hatred of sin, your love of holiness, being separate from the world, keeping near to the excellent of the earth in whom is all your delight, standing in awe of offending against God, delighting to please Him, hating those that hate Him, hating them with a perfect hatred, and counting them for enemies, standing for God and standing for all that stand for Him, bearing one another’s burdens, and forbearing; taking care that none shall suffer through you, and you, at least, shall not weaken their hands and discourage their hearts? If we are not conformed to the image of His Son, we have no evidence that we are predestinated and if we are not predestinated, we are not foreloved, we are none of Christ’s, we are still in our sins.
III. See where in it is that those that are Christians rejoice, they rejoice in Christ’s being the first-born among many brethren.
“See that ye fall not out by the way,” said Joseph, “for ye are brethren.” A rebuke was tendered to some by Himself because they disputed who should be greatest, and a lesson was taught them, to the effect that he that humbled himself as a little child was to be the greatest.
Now, my friends, it were an unholy rivalry to quarrel about being foremost in having your wishes gratified, your desires met; it would be a pretty sight if each one were to say, “Let me be the last for I am the least.” John warned the Church against some who sought the pre-eminence, who prated against him and other lovers of peace. This is an unholy rivalry.
We show you a more excellent way. It is a holy rivalry, to see who will please Christ most. We have referred once and again to the Father’s purpose of love to sinners of this world.
But in close connection with that love, making that love subordinate to it, He had in view the exaltation of His Son, they were predestinated who were the objects of His love to be conformed to the image of His Son. Why? He humbled Himself to a depth to which none of them will ever be allowed to fall, “Wherefore God also highly exalted Him.” His brethren will rejoice because their Lord is glorified, for the Father will be glorified in Him. Amen.