Next Door to Glory

The sinner, in possession of this faith, is set next door to glory. The Apostle quickly tells us this, after commanding us to stand fast in the liberty of the gospel, for he adds, "We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." Ch. 5:5. This hope is the glory that is to be revealed—"the glory of God." Rom. 5:2. We do not wait for any improvement of our character, for any advance in our souls. As long as we are in the flesh we need to "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." But such things are not needed as title. Being in Christ by faith, we are next door to glory. "Whom He justified, them He also glorified." (Rom. 8.) Being in the kingdom of God's dear Son, we are "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." (Col. 1.) Here, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, we wait only for glory. Glory is the immediate object of our hope, as Christ is the immediate confidence of our souls.
It is all magnificent in its simplicity, because it is all of God. No wonder that Scripture so abundantly discourses to us about faith, and so zealously warns us against religiousness. The "persuasion," as the Apostle speaks, under which the Galatians had fallen, had not come of God who had called them, and the Apostle sounds the alarm, blows the blast of war on the silver trumpet of the sanctuary, uttering these voices in their ears: "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Again, "If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." Gal. 5:8, 9, 18.