Book-12-What We Are—What We Shall Be

What We Are—What We Shall Be

Text,—“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, be­cause it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”—1Jn 3:1-2.

SONS of God.—How did we become sons of God? By regeneration and by adoption. By his own will God begat us through the word of truth (Jas 1:18). We are the children of the Holy Spirit. We are the sons of God, not because we have evolved into spiritual beings, but because we have received the engrafted Word of truth into our hearts. This Word has the germ of divine life. We have been born from above, and are there­fore miniature Christs, human saviors.

Having received this Word of life into our hearts, we have been made par­takers of the divine nature. Peter throws light on the subject when he says: “Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have ob­tained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ: grace and peace be multi­plied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, accord­ing as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue; whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2Pe 1:1-4).

We cannot circumscribe or make bounds for the kingdom of heaven. It is not something that was established in Jerusalem and for a select few. It is something established within the heart of the individual. Jesus startled his dis­ciples by telling them that the kingdom of heaven was within them. Paul tells 157 us that “the kingdom of God is not eat­ing and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And again he says: “Whereof I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you-ward, to fulfill the word of God, even the mys­tery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been mani­fested to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ” (Col 1:25-28).

We reflect outwardly what we are in­wardly. Three men were standing on Pike’s Peak. One said: “If we had the implements of war, we could make a great fort here and it would be impossi­ble for the enemy to take it.” One said: “If I had a pick and shovel and some dynamite, I could go into the earth and find gold and silver.” The other said: “If I had some paint and a canvas and a brush, I could paint a beautiful pic­ture.” One man was thinking of war and blood, and he had to express it in his words. One was thinking of money —gold and silver and profit and loss— and this is all he could see. The other was an artist, and he could see nothing in the surroundings but beauty and grandeur. The man who worships his farm will talk corn, wheat, hogs and cattle; the one who lives for pleasure will talk the dialect of the pleasure-seek­ing world.

Man will put into words the thoughts that are in his heart. Show me a man that never talks about his wife and his children, and I will show you a man that does not love his family. The man or woman that never talks about the kingdom of heaven is not interested in spiritual things. You can discover a man’s god by hearing him talk. Do not tell me your life—let me hear your conversation and I can tell it. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak. Children will speak the language of the parent. The sons of God will speak the language of heaven. God is our Father. The Holy Spirit is our abiding Guest and Comforter, and Jesus Christ is our Elder Brother. If we are the sons of God, we will speak of the things that have to do with the divine relationships.

Sons of God now, but then! We cannot comprehend it; we cannot express it. We cannot comprehend man as he is. The ancients had a motto: “Man, know thyself.” The Psalmist was made to exclaim: “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” He was made but little lower than God. What does the child know of its own origin? What are its thoughts of what it shall be when it becomes a man? How its imagination plays! We are now the children of God —we are undeveloped and incapable of comprehending all we are capable of be­coming someday. Take the painter of poor attainments and let him stand be­fore some of the great paintings, and he will be unable to comprehend all that has been put on canvas. Let a mechanic who is learning his trade walk through the Congressional Library building, and he will be impressed with the fact that he can give a lifetime to the study of this wonderful building, and then there will be much he has never grasped. Our capacity to know and to love must be given a chance to expand. My dog knows me, but it does not know me as my child knows me. It knows me as the one that feeds it and pets it, but if I were to die it would not grieve. My child knows me in a higher sense than does my dog, and if I were to die it would weep and for a time grieve; but it would soon forget me. It could not fully understand what it had lost. I have stood beside the casket that held all that was mortal of a loving, sym­pathetic mother, and the little child would play and laugh while I tried to speak words of comfort to those who sorrowed. It did not comprehend all— it could not know and love like the chil­dren of mature age. There are degrees of love. My child, when he becomes a man, will love me with a deeper and a more comprehensive love then it is pos­sible for him to have now. Our conception of God must change and grow as we better understand him. When I was a child I thought of God as being far away, a great man sitting upon a throne and looking down upon the world. I do not have this concep­tion of him now. I think of him as be­ing a living Personality that fills the whole universe, and that he is a loving Father who is near me and within me, providing for and helping me to live the life modeled after the life of his Son.

“O wonderful story of deathless love!

Each child is dear to that heart above.

He fights for me when I cannot fight;

He comforts me in the gloom of night;

He lifts the burden, for He is strong;

He stills the sigh and awakes the song; The sorrow that bows me down He bears, And loves and pardons because He cares."

"Then, speak to Him, thou, for He hears, And spirit with spirit can meet;

Closer is He than breathing, And nearer than hands and feet.” The soul must be trained to appre­ciate heaven. Heaven is being prepared for the children of God. If unconverted, unregenerated, undeveloped spirits should be permitted to enter, they could no more appreciate and enjoy it than could an infant appreciate and enjoy the paint­ings in an art gallery. The kingdom is like unto a mustard seed—it has in it the power of expan­sion and development. Knowledge is ex­perience, and no soul can be wise in spir­itual things that has not had an experi­mental religion. One man stands and views the Acropolis, and he sees only ruins; another stands and views it, and he sees rising in the moonlight the Parthenon. I like to think of heaven, and I find myself speculating as to just what it shall be. Southey said: “It is fellowship with Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer and other great souls.” John Foster said: ‘It will be the place where all mysteries will be explained.” Lightfoot said: “It will be a place where all evil will have been banished and only love and purity will exist.” My concep­tion is that it will embrace all of these definitions and more. Yes, we shall come into the presence of the just spirits made perfect—the old patriarchs, the apos­tles, the martyrs—all of the redeemed of every age and of every clime; and we shall sit in the presence of the great spirits of that new world, and listen to them as they tell of the wonderful things which are now incomprehensible, and we shall be clothed in the righteousness of the saints, with all sin destroyed, and we shall be like unto the Son of God him­self. It will be a place where the spirit shall expand and grow in knowledge, and a place of activity.

“When earth’s last picture painted, And the tubes are twisted and dried; When the oldest colors have faded, And the youngest critic has died—

We shall rest—and, faith, we shall need it—

Lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of all good workmen Shall set us to work anew.

“And those that are good shall be happy;

They shall sit in a golden chair;

They shall splash at a ten-league canvas With brushes of comet’s hair;

They shall find real saints to draw from—

Magdalene, Peter and Paul;

They shall work for an age at a sitting, And never get tired at all.

“And only the Master Shall praise us, And only the Master shall blame; And no one shall work for money, And no one shall work for fame; But each for the joy of the working, And each in his separate star, Shall draw the thing as he sees it For the God of things as they are.” This is Paul’s picture: “For ye have received not the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be com­pared with the glory which shall be re­vealed in us. Wherefore we faint not; but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Let us look upon John’s picture: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God him­self shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor pain: for the former things are passed away.” The Psalmist reaches the climax when he says: “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.” Sin­ner, we beg you accept sonship in this royal family.