The Son of God

"I will put my trust in Him."-Heb. 2:13.
WHAT a moment it must have been, when the Lord stilled the wind on the Lake of Galilee. It must have been wondrous and beautiful to have witnessed it; as it would be now, had we but hearts sensible of the glories of Christ, to think of it. People may talk of the necessary force of principles, of the laws of nature, and of the course of things; but surely it is the first law of nature to obey its Creator. And here (see Mark 4), in the twinkling of an eye, the sea of Galilee felt the presence, and answered the word of Him, who at His pleasure transfigures the course of nature, or by a touch unhinges it all.
This was Jesus Jehovah. This was the God whom Jordan and the Red Sea had, of old, obeyed. "What aileth thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back? Ye mountains that ye skipped like rams, and ye little hills like lambs?" "Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord." The answer lies there, whether we listen to the voice of the Red Sea in the days of Exodus, or to the Sea of Galilee in the times of the Gospel. The presence of God tells the secret. " He spake and it was done."
When the sun and the moon stood still in the midst of heaven, we read the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man. Joshua spake to the Lord then; and the Lord fought for Israel. And the occasion was full of wonder. The Holy Ghost, who records it, gives it that character. " Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and hasted not to go down, about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man." But Jesus acts at once and from Himself; and no wonder is made of it. All the amazement that is felt comes from the unprepared, unbelieving hearts of the disciples, who knew not the glory of the God of Israel. But under His teaching, who takes of the things that are Christ's to show them to us, we, beloved, should the better understand it, discerning it alike, whether at the divided Red Sea, or at the Jordan that was "driven back," or on the stilled lake of Galilee.
But there is more of Jesus at the Red Sea, than the dividing of its waters.
The cloud which appeared to Israel as soon as they had been redeemed by the blood in Egypt, and which accompanied them through the wilderness, was the guide of the camp. But it was also the veil or the covering of the glory. In the midst of Israel such was that beautiful mystery. Commonly it was a hidden glory, at times manifested, but always there-the guide and companion of Israel, but their God also. He who dwelt between the Cherubims, went along the desert before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh (Psa. 80). The glory abode in the cloud for Israel's use, but it was in the holy place also-and thus, while conducting the ramp in its-veiled or humbled form, it assumed the divine honors of the sanctuary.
And such was Jesus, God manifest in the flesh-commonly veiled under the form of a servant, always without robbery equal with God in the faith and worship of His saints, and at times shining forth in divine grace and authority.
Now just as they were approaching the Red Sea, Israel had to be sheltered. The cloud does this mercy for them. It comes between Egypt and the camp, and is darkness to the one and light to the other, so that the one came not near the other all the night-and then, in the morning, the Lord, the Glory, looked to the host of Egypt through the pillar of cloud, and troubled the host of Egypt. And so, on an occasion kindred with this at the Red Sea, Jesus acts as the cloud and the glory. He comes between His disciples and their pursuers. " If ye seek me, let these go their way." He shelters them with His presence, as of old. And then He looks through the cloud, and again, as of old, troubles the host of the enemy. " Jesus saith unto them, I am he- as soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground." He did but look out the second time, and His arm was found not to be shortened. With like ease and authority, the God of Israel does His proper acts at the Red Sea, and Jesus the same in the garden of Gethsemane (Ex. 14, John 18). The gods of Egypt worshipped Him at the Red Sea, the gods of Rome worshipped Him in Gethsemane, and when brought again the second time into the world, it shall be said, "Let all the angels of God worship Him."
But further. In the progress of their history, Israel had to be rebuked as well as to be sheltered, to be disciplined as well as to be redeemed. This we see, as we leave the Red Sea, and enter the wilderness. But the same glory hid within the cloud will do this divine work for them, as it did the other. In the day of the Manna-in the day of the Spies-in the matter of Korah-at the water of Meribah, Israel provokes the holiness of the Lord, and the Glory is seen in the cloud witnessing the divine resentment (see Ex. 16 Num. 14, 16, 20). And just so, Jesus again. When grieved (as the glory in the cloud was) at the hardness of heart, or unbelief of the disciples, He gives some token, some expression, of His divine power, with words of rebuke. As on that occasion I have referred to, on the lake of Tiberias; for there He said to the disciples, " Why are ye so fearful?" as well as to the winds and the waves, "Peace, be still." And so again and again, when the disciples betray ignorant and unbelieving thoughts of Him. As, for instance, to Philip, on one distinguished occasion, he says, in the grief and resentment of the glory in the cloud, "Have I been so long with you, and hast thou not known me Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father: how sagest thou then, skew us the Father."
Surely here also was the same mystery. Was not the Lord here again shining through the veil for the confounding of the disobedience or unbelief of Israel. This was the glory seen in the cloud as in the day of the Manna, or kindred cases already referred to. Very exact is the corresponding of these forms of divine power. The cloud was the ordinary thing, the glory within was now and again manifested, but was always there. The guide and companion of the camp was the Lord of the camp. And is, not all this, Jesus, in a mystery? The Glory was the God of Israel (see Ezek. 43:4;44. 2),, and Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel or the Glory (see Isa. 6:1, John 12.41). The Nazarene veiled a light, or manifested in flesh a glory, which, in its proper fullness, "no man can approach unto."
Moses beautifully refused glory, but Jesus hid it. Moses, "when he came to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. And a lovely victory over the world that was. We like to wear our honors, to make the most of what we are, and even to take more than we are entitled to, if men will make mistakes in our favor. But Moses humbled himself in the Egyptian palace: and that was a beautiful victory of faith over the course and spirit of the world. But Jesus did more. It is true, He had not servants and courtiers to teach, for He was a stranger to palaces. But the villagers of Nazareth adopted Him as "the carpenter's son," and He would have it so. The Glory of glories, the I Lord of angels, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the God of heaven, was hid under that common report, and there He lay without an answer to it.
It is the gracious office of the Holy Ghost, in Heb. to open the sources of this great mystery. The grace of God would fain exercise or indulge itself-precious as such a thought is-and the praise of Him " for whom are all things and by whom are all things," demanded the mystery, so to speak (see Heb. 2:9,10). These things are told us there. These are the rich fountains from whence the great purpose and transaction flow; that transaction, that unspeakable mystery of redemption through the humiliation of the Son of God, which is to give its character to eternity. Divine grace sought to gratify itself, and divine glory would be displayed to perfection. All issues from such springs. Flesh and blood was taken up by the Sanctifier-death was undergone-like temptations with the brethren, apart from sin, were endured - relationships to God, experiences in Himself, and sympathies with the saints, were borne and known-the life of faith on earth, with its prayers and tears, to Him that was able to save from death-life of intercession in heaven-all fitness to be both a sacrifice and a priest accomplished-ability to succor, and worthiness to cleanse, as well as resurrection, ascension, present expectancy, and coming kingdom and glories-all these find their springs and sources there.
The Son, of God took His place in connection with all this. He was dependent, obedient, believing, hopeful, sorrowful, suffering, despised, crucified, buried; everything which the great eternal plan made necessary to Him. He emptied Himself for all this, but all that He did was infinitely worthy of His person. The word at the beginning, " Let there be light, and there was light," was not more worthy of Him, than were the prayers and supplications " with strong crying and tears," in the days of His flesh. He could never have been allied with anything unworthy of Godhead-though found, abundantly and at all personal cost, in conditions and circumstances which our guilt and His grace in putting it away brought Him into.
The Person in the manger was the same as on the cross. It was God manifest in the flesh. And in the full sense of that glory we can but speak of His humbling of Himself from the earliest to the latest moment of that wondrous journey. He was worshipped in the manger. Led of God, the wise men of the East worshipped Him there. Simeon worshipped Him, I may say, at as early a moment, in the temple-and strangely (which nothing can account for but the light of the Holy Ghost who then filled him), he blesses the mother and not the child. He had the child in his arms, and naturally he would, on such an occasion, have given the infant his blessing. But he does not. For he had that child in his arms, not as a feeble infant whom he would commend to God's care, but as God's salvation. In that glorious character, in the hour of nature's perfect feebleness, he held Him up and gloried in Him. "The less is blessed of the better. It was not for Simeon to bless Jesus, though without wrong or robbery he would bless Mary.
Anna, the prophetess, receives Him in like spirit. And earlier still, while yet unborn, He was worshipped, I may say, by the leaping of the child in the womb of Elizabeth, at the salutation of Mary. As also, ere He was conceived, the angel Gabriel-owns Him as the God of Israel, before whose face the son of Zacharias was to go -and then, also, Zacharias in the Holy Ghost owns Him as the -Lord whose people Israel were, and as "the Day-spring from on high."
Self-emptying obedience, subjection of a kind quite its own, is, therefore, to be seen in every stage and action of such a One. And what was that course of service in the esteem of Him to whom it was rendered? As the born one, the circumcised one, the baptized and anointed one, the serving, sorrowing, and crucified one, and then as the risen one, He has passed here on earth under the eye of God. In the secrecy of the Virgin's womb, in the solitudes of Nazareth, in the activities and services of all the cities and villages of Israel, in the deep self-sacrifice of the cross, and then in the new bloom of resurrection, has "this wondrous Man" been seen and delighted in of God-perfect, untainted, recalling the divine delight in man more than when of old he was made in God's image, and more than annulling all the divine repentings of old, that man had been made on the earth.
His person lent a glory to all His course of service and obedience, which rendered it of unutterable value. Nor is it merely that His person made all that service and obedience voluntary. There- is something far. more than its being thus voluntary. There is that in it which the person (" my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts ") imparts-and who can weigh or measure that?
We know this full well among ourselves. I mean in kind. The higher in dignity-in personal dignity-the one who serves us is, the higher the value of the service rises in our thoughts. And justly so; because more has been engaged for us, more has been devoted to us, than when the servant was an inferior; more has the heart - instinctively learned, that our advantage was indeed sought, or our wishes and desires made an object. We do not forget the person in the service. We cannot. And so in this dear mystery we are meditating on. The service, and obedience of Jesus were perfect; infinitely, unmixedly worthy of all acceptance. But beyond that -beyond the quality of the fruit-there was the Person who yielded it; and this, as we said, imparted a value and a glory to it, that are unutterable.
The same value rested on the services of His life which afterward gave character to His death. It was His person which gave all its virtue to His death or sacrifice: and it was His person which gave its peculiar glory to all He did in His course of self-humbling obedience. And the complacency of God in the one was as perfect as His judicial acceptance of the other. Some symbol (like that of the rent veil) is seen by faith uttering that complacency and full delight of God over every passing act in the life of Jesus. Would that we had eyes to see, and ears to hear that, as we pass on through the ways of Jesus from the manger to the tree! But so it was, whether seen or not by us. Complacency of God, beyond all thought to conceive, rested on all He did, and all He was, throughout His life of obedience. As another has said, " divine wisdom in the way of our recovery by Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh,' designed to glorify a state of obedience; he would render it incomparably more amiable, desirable, and excellent, than ever it could have appeared to have been in the obedience of all the angels in heaven, and men on the earth, had they continued therein, in that His own eternal Son entered into a state of obedience, and took upon Him the form or condition of a servant unto God."
These are strengthening thoughts about the ways of Jesus. These ways of service and subjection to God are to get their own peculiar character in our sight; obedience has been glorified in His person, and shown in all its ineffable beauty and desirableness-so that we are not merely to say, that the complacency of God in Him was ever maintained in its fullness, but that it passes beyond all created thought.
"The, form of a servant" was a reality just as much as "the form of God" in Him; as truly an assumed reality, as the other was an essential intrinsic reality. And being so, His ways were those of a servant, just as being the Son, His glories and prerogatives were those of God. He prayed-He continued whole nights in prayer. He lived by faith, the perfect pattern of a believer, as we read of Him, "the Author and Finisher of faith." In sorrow He made God His refuge. In the presence of enemies He committed Himself to Him who judged righteously. He did not His own will, perfect as that will was, but the will of Him who sent Him. In these and in all kindred ways, was " the form of a servant," found, and proved, and read, and known to perfection. It is seen to have been a great and living reality. The life of faith was the life of this servant from beginning to end.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are taught to consider Jesus as "the Apostle and High-priest of our profession;" and also as "the Author and Finisher of faith" (3:1, 12:2, 3). As the one, He is set before us for the relief of our consciences and the succor of our times of temptation-in the other, as the encouragement of our hearts in like life of faith. As "the Apostle and High-priest of our profession," He is alone-as "the Author and Finisher of faith," He is connected with a great cloud of witnesses. As the one, He is for us, as the other, He is before us. But even when before us, as in the fight and life of faith, there is some distinctness; for the Holy Ghost calls on us to look at this Author and Finisher of faith in a way that He does not speak touching any other. He speaks of our being compassed about with them, but calls on us to be looking to Him.
And, further; it was "the contradiction of sinners against himself" that formed the life of trial and of faith in Jesus; and those are peculiar words. Others, like Him in the fight of faith had cruel mockings and scourgings, the edge of the sword, the caves of the earth, tortures, bonds, and imprisonments, and all from the enmity of man. But their conflict in the midst of such things is not thus spoken of. It is not called " the contradiction of sinners against themselves." There is a force and elevation in such words that suit only the life of faith which Jesus led and contended in.
How perfect are these minuter paths of the Spirit's wisdom in the word! The 16th Psalm gives us Jesus in this life of faith. There the Son of God is One in whom " faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"-as in Heb. 12:2, 3. He enjoys the present portion of a priestly man. He sets the Lord always before him, and knows that as He is at His right hand, He shall not be moved. He looks also for the pleasures at the right hand, and for the joy of the presence of God, in other regions.
The 116th Psalm is the end of His life of faith in resurrection, joy, and praise; and the Apostle, in "the same spirit of faith," can look to share like resurrection joy with His Divine Lord and forerunner (2 Cor. 4:13,14).
" I will put my trust in Him," may be said to be the language of the life of Jesus. But His faith was gold, pure gold, nothing but gold. When tried by the furnace, it comes out the same mass as it had gone in, for there was no dross. Saints have commonly to be set to rights by the furnace. Some impatience, or selfishness, or murmur has to be reduced or silenced, as in Psa. 73 and 77. Job was overcome; trouble touched him and he fainted, though often he had strengthened the weak hands, and upheld by his word them that were falling. "The stoutest," as an old writer says, " are struck off their legs." Peter sleeps in the garden, and in the judgment-hall tells lies and swears to them; but there has been One in whom the furnace, heated seven times, proved all to be precious beyond expression.
Read Luke 22; see this One in that great chapter; see Jesus there in the hour of the trial of faith. He is first in company with the sorrow that was awaiting Him, then with His disciples, then with the Father, and then with His enemies; and mark it all, beloved. How unutterably perfect all is! This faith in its unalloyed preciousness, when tried in the fire! But all the life of Jesus was the life and obedience of faith. In one light of it, it was, most surely, the life of the Son of God, " in the form of a servant," humbling Himself even unto death, though "in the form of God," and though He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God;" but in another, it was the life of faith. "I will put my trust in Him." "I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved." These are His breathings; and we celebrate Him, after our own way, in His life of faith, and sing together of Him betimes,
"Faithful amid unfaithfulness,
Midst darkness only light,
Thou didst Thy Father's name confess,
And in His will delight."
And all this precious life of faith was answered by the care and keeping of God. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." The faith of Him that was serving on earth was perfect, and the answer of Him that dwelt in the heavens was perfect (Psa. 91).
The care which watched over him was unceasing from the womb to the grave. So had it been of old declared by His Spirit in the Prophets. "I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother's belly." "Thou didst make me hope (or thou keptest me in safety) when I was upon my mother's breasts." It was unwearied throughout. "Thou maintainest my lot." "My flesh shall rest in hope, for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy One to see corruption." This help, and care, and watchfulness, in one aspect of His history, was everything to Him. It watched over Him that very night in which the Angel warned Joseph to flee into Egypt. It was the Father's unspeakable joy to exercise the diligence of that hour. He who kept that Israel could not slumber then.
But all this, instead of being inconsistent with the full divine rights of His Person, gets its special character from them. The glory of this relationship, and of the joy and complacency which attended it, is gone, if the Person be not vindicated and honored. Such was the Person, that His entrance into the relationship was an act of self-emptying. Instead of beginning a course of subjection either at the flight into Egypt, or at the manger at Bethlehem, He had taken " the form of a servant" in counsel before the world began; and as fruit thereof, He was " found in fashion as a man." And all His doings and services were the ways of this self-emptied one. All of them from the earliest to the last. For He was as truly " God manifest in the flesh" when on the journey to Egypt in His mother's arms, as when in Gethsemane, in the glory and power of His Person, the enemy coming to eat up His flesh stumbled and fell. He was as simply Immanuel as an infant in Bethlehem, as He is now at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. All was humbling of Himself from the womb to the cross. I forget His Person or who He was, if I doubt that. But in another light of the glorious mystery, we are to see the relationship, and the tender perfect care and help which, according to it, the Father was ever rendering Him. But these things are only like the different lights or characters in which the different Evangelists present the Lord, as we are generally acquainted with. He was the Object of the Father's care, and yet Jehovah's Fellow; and we may look at His path in the chastened light with which that divine care and watchfulness invests it, as we may gaze at it in that brightest light and most excellent glory in which His rights and honors as the Son of God present it to us. If He had this relationship to the care of God, assumed as it was according to eternal counsels, so had all creatures, earthly and heavenly, angelic and human, throughout the universe, the same relationship to Him.
By reason of such various truth as this, He could say, "destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up;" and yet the Holy Ghost could say of Him, that the God of peace brought Him again from the dead. His enemies who sought His life fell before Him at a word; and yet, so did His perfect faith acknowledge God's perfect care and guardianship, that He would say, " Cannot I now pray to my Father, and He will presently send me more than twelve legions of angels." He could, with a touch, heal the ear of the servant, nay restore it when cut off, when just at the same time He would have His own brows bleed under the crown of thorns. In the perfection of His place, as the emptied One, He would ask for sympathy, and say, " Could ye not watch with me one hour;" and shortly after, in a moment of still greater gloom in one sense, He could be above the pity of the daughters of Jerusalem, and honor by promises of Paradise and a kingdom, the faith of a dying malefactor. For in brightness He shines, even in the deepest moment of His humiliation, and lets sinners know, that it is not the compassion of men His cross seeks, but their faith-that it does not ask them, in human kindliness, to feel that hour, but in faith of their hearts and to the full peace of their consciences to be blest by that hour-not to pity the cross, but to lean on it, and to know, that though accomplished in weakness, it is the very pillar which is to sustain the creation of God forever.
In such different, but consistent forms, we read the life of the Son of God in flesh. Is the one the less real because the other is true? The tears of Jesus over Jerusalem were as real, as though there was nothing in His heart but the sorrow of an ill-requited Lord and Savior over a rebellious unbelieving people. And yet, His joy in the full purpose of divine wisdom and grace, was just the same unmixed, undivided reality. The "Woe to thee, Chorazin!" and then, the " I thank thee, O Father," were equally living and true affections in the soul of Jesus. There was no want of full reality in either; and so, "the form of a servant" with all its perfect results, and " the form of God," in all its proper glories, were, in the like way, real and living mysteries n the One Person.
And may we not, at times, turn aside to gaze more intently at His Person, while we are tracing either the acts of His life, or the secrets of His love and truth? It is a part of the obedience of faith to do so. " The fear of the Lord is clean"-but there is a fear that is not altogether clean, having some spirit of bondage and unbelief in. it. The refusal to turn and look at such great sights as these may be such. I grant the "mystery," and that the mystery is "great." So was it a great and mysterious sight which Moses turned to look at-but with unshod feet he might still look and listen. Had he not done so, he would have gone away unblessed. But he listened, till he discovered that the "I am" was in the bush; and further, that the " God of Abraham" was there also. A strange spot for such glory to enshrine itself. But so it was. In a burning bramble-bush, the Lord God. Almighty was found.
And supposing I go to Calvary, and look there on "the smitten Shepherd," who shall I discover, if I have an opened eye, but the Fellow of the Lord of Hosts? (Zech. 13). And if I go into the midst of the rabble which surrounded Pilate's judgment-hall at Jerusalem, whom shall I find there, even in the One spit upon; and buffeted, and derided, but He who of old dried up the Red Sea, and covered the Egyptian heavens with sackcloth? (See Isa. 1)
And I ask, when I have so looked, and by the light of the Spirit in the prophets made these discoveries, am I quickly to retire? If I had bowels, I might ask, where can I go for richer refreshment of spirit? If my faith discover the God who did His wonders of old in the land of Ham, in the grieved and insulted Jesus, amid the men of Herod and the officers of the Romans, am I not to linger on that Mount of God, and Moses-like to turn aside and look and listen? I cannot treat the sight as too great for me. I do not believe such would be the mind of the Spirit. Liberty of thought, while I stay at the Mount, shall be rebuked if it transgress-but to linger there is not transgression, but worship. I speak, the Lord knows, of principles, not of experiences. The exercises of the heart there are dull and cold indeed-and the sorrow is (if one may speak for others), not that we spend too much thought over the mystery of the Person of the Son of God, but that we retire to other objects too quickly.
That Person will be "the eternal wonder and ornament of the creation of God."
Some may own, in general, the manhood and the Godhead in that Person. But we are also to own the full unsullied glory of each of these. Neither the soul or moral man, nor the temple of the body, are to be profaned. The whole man is to be vindicated and honored. And though the relationship in which Jesus stood to God, the care which that induced, and the obedience which that involved, may well be another great sight for us to turn aside and look at, still we shall fail to see it aright, and to eye it in its glory, if we forget in any wise the Person of Him who sustained it.
The divine reasoning in the Epistle to the Hebrews, among other things, evinces this; that the efficacy of the priesthood of Christ depends entirely on His person. Read the first seven chapters: what a writing it is!
In our priest we must find a man, one capable of succoring the brethren, from having "heel, tempted like them. So that we must see our High Priest passing into the heavens from amid the sufferings and sorrows of the scene here. Most surely so. But in our Priest we must find the Son also-because in none other partaker of mesh and blood was there "the power of an endless life." And accordingly, Melchisedec represents the person as well as the virtues, dignities, rights, and authorities of the true. Priest of God (see Heb. 7:1-3)-as we read of Him; " without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a Priest continually."
And what a sight does all this give us of " the High-Priest of our profession! " He came down from heaven, in the full personal glory of the Son, and in the due time He went up to heaven, bearing the virtue of His sacrifice for sin, and those compassions which succor saints.
Faith acquaints itself with this whole path of Jesus. It owns in Him the Son while He tabernacled in the flesh among us; and when His course of humiliation and suffering. had ended here, faith owns the once rejected and crucified man glorified in the heavens; the one person. God in the flesh here, man hid in the glory there. As we read of Him and of His blessed, wondrous path: " God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."
In the form of God, He was God indeed; in the form of a servant, He was a servant indeed. He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God;" exercising all the divine rights, and using all the divine treasures and resources with full authority; and yet making Himself of no reputation, emptying Himself and being obedient. This tells the secret. All that appears in the history is interpreted by the mystery. It is as the glory in the cloud again. The companion of the camp, in all its afflictions afflicted, was the Lord of the camp. The glory which traversed the desert in company with the wanderings of Israel, was the glory which dwelt between the cherubims in the holy of holies.
But, the further words of this scripture, (Phil. 2:6-11) invite me onward for a little still.
"Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him."
We are only in new wonders, when we read these words. For what, we may ask, could exalt Him? Ere He entered upon His course of sufferings and of glories, He was in Himself infinitely great and blessed. Nothing could personally exalt Him, being as He was, "the Son." His glory was divine. It was unspeakable and infinite. No other honors could ever increase His personal glory. But still we see Him traversing a path which conducts Him to honor and glory still.
Strange and excellent mystery! And still stranger, and more excellent, as we may say, these new and acquired glories are, in some sense, the dearest with Him. Scripture entitles us thus to speak; as it does to speak of many things of His grace, which the heart would never have conceived. And yet, with all this (to compare divine things with human, as is the way of the Spirit's instruction) this which I now speak of is known among men. Let the highest by birth among us, let a prince, the son of a king, go forth and acquire dignities: his acquired dignities, though they cannot raise him personally, will be his dearest distinctions, and form the choicest materials of his history in the esteem of others. Such a thing as that is instinctively understood among us. And so is it (in the unspeakably precious mystery of Christ) with the Son of God. According to eternal counsels, He has gone forth to battle; and the honors He has acquired, the victories He has won or is still to win, will be His joy for eternity. They are to form the light in which He will be known, and the characters in which He will be celebrated forever; though, personally, He dwells in a light which no man can approach unto. And this He prizes. Jehovah-jireh, Jehovah-rophi, Jehovah-shalom, Jehovah-tzidkenu, Jehovah-nissi, are all acquired honors. And how are these chief with Him in the unspeakable ways of boundless grace In Exod. He communicates His personal name to Moses, saying out of the bush, " I am that I am." But then, He communicates His acquired name also, calling Himself " the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;" and to this second, this acquired name, He adds, " this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations:" words which deeply tell us, how He prized that glory which He had acquired in His doings for poor sinners. As also in the tabernacle, or temple, where His name was recorded, it was His acquired and not His personal name, that was written and read there. The mysteries of that house did not speak of His essential omnipotence, omniscience, or eternity, or like glories, but of one in whom mercy rejoiced against judgment, and who had found out a way whereby to bring His banished ones home to Him.
Surely these are witnesses of what price is His name gained in service for us, in His sight, But " God is love," may account for it all. There the secret is told. If the manifestations be excellent and marvelous, the hidden springs which are opened in Himself give us to know it all.
We are to know Him as "made under the law," as surely as we know Him in His personal glory, far above all law. All His life was the life of the obedient one. And so, though God over all, the Jehovah of Israel, and the Creator of the ends of the earth, He was the man Christ Jesus. He was Jesus of Nazareth, anointed of the Holy Ghost, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. In these lights we see Him, and in these lights we read His varied, wondrous history. He imparted the Holy Ghost, and yet was anointed with the Holy Ghost.
The Son came forth to take part of flesh and blood. So had the way and the grace of the eternal counsel run -so had our necessities required it. He was found "in fashion as a man." He was exercised in a life of entire dependance on God, and accomplished a death which (among other virtues) was in full subjection to Him. This was His covenant place, and in such place He acted and suffered to perfection; and from thence came the services and the afflictions, the cries and the tears, the labors and the sorrows of the Son of Man on earth. But still more-even now that He is in heaven, it is, in a great sense, the same life still. A promise awaited Him there, and that promise He received and lives on to this hour. "Sit on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool," was "said to Him as He ascended, and in the faith and hope of that word, He took His seat in heaven-" sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool." Here was hope answering promise, and this found in the heart of Jesus as He ascended and sat down in heaven, just as He was the believing one, and the hoping one, and the obedient one, and the serving one,
When on this earth of ours. And still further, in His onward -Ways of glory, will He not still be subject? Every tongue is to confess Him Lord; but is not this to be "to the glory of God the Father?" And when the kingdom is given up, is it not still written, "the Son also Himself shall be subject to Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all?" And as subject thus to Him who puts all things under Him, so in the same regions of coming glory will it be His gracious delight to serve His saints-as we read, "He will gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them;" and again, "He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them: they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
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And here, in closing this meditation, I know not that we can better take leave of the mystery which has engaged us, than in these words of a writer in other days from ours:-
" Man, by sin, had cast the most inconceivable dishonor on the righteousness, holiness, goodness, and rule of God, and himself into the gulf of eternal ruin. In this state, it became the wisdom and goodness of God, neither to suffer the whole race of mankind to come short eternally of that enjoyment of Himself for which it was created, nor yet to deliver any one of them without a retrieval of the eternal honor of His righteousness, holiness, and rule, from the diminution and waste that was made of it by sin. As this could no way be done, but by a full satisfaction unto justice, and an obedience unto the law, which should yield more honor unto the holiness and righteousness of God, than they could lose by the sin and disobedience, of man, so this satisfaction must be made, and this obedience be yielded, in and by, the same nature that sinned or disobeyed. Yet was it necessary hereunto, that the nature wherein all this was to be performed, though derived from the same common stock with that whereof in all our persons we are partakers, should be absolutely free from the contagion and guilt which, with it and by it, are communicated unto our persons from that common stock: unless it were so, there could be no undertaking in it for others, for it would not be able to answer for itself. But yet, in all these suppositions, no undertakings, no performance of duty in human nature could possibly yield that obedience unto God, or make that satisfaction for sin, whereon the deliverance of others might ensue unto the glory of the holiness, righteousness, and rule of God. In this state infinite wisdom interposed itself in the glorious ineffable contrivance of the Person of Christ, or of the divine nature in the eternal Son of God, and of ours in the same individual person. Otherwise this work could not be accomplished: at least, all other ways are hidden from the eyes of all living. This, therefore, is such an effect of divine wisdom, as will be the object of holy adoration and admiration unto eternity: but in this life, how little a portion it is we know of its excellency!"
The Son of God
"Received up into glory."-1 Tim. 3:16
In earlier days, the angels had desired to look into the things of Christ (1 Peter 1:12). When these things themselves were manifested and accomplished, this desire was answered; for in the history, as we find it in the Evangelists, the angels are set to be eye-witnesses of that which they had thus long desired to look into., They are privileged to find their place and their enjoyment in the history of Christ, in " the mystery of godliness;"Aid to find it, just as, of old, they had found it in the sanctuary of God. In that sanctuary, all, it is true, was for the use and blessing of sinners. The altars, and the laver, and the mercy-seat, and all else, were provided for us. The action and the grace of the house of God were for sinners; but the cherubim gazed. They were set in that house to look at its deepest mysteries. And so, in the same condition, shall we find them, in the day of the great originals, or of the heavenly things themselves, when " God was manifest in the flesh." For then, it is equally true, all was for the service and salvation of us sinners, or that God, so manifested, might be " preached unto the gentiles," and " believed on in the world;" but still all was, as surely, for this end, that He might be seen of angels."
Thus they took the same place in the sanctuary of old, and in the great mystery itself. They gazed-they looked-they were eye-witnesses-And further; the sight they took of the mystery was of the same intense and interested character, as the cherubim had before expressed in the holy of holies. " And the cherubim spread their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy-seat, with their faces one to another, even to the mercy seat-ward were the faces of the cherubim." And so, in the history of Christ, the true ark, they will be thus again seen.
The angel of the Lord comes, in his commission and ministry from heaven, to announce to the shepherds of Bethlehem the birth of Jesus. But as soon as he had fulfilled his service, suddenly there was with him " a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill to men." And when the time came for another great event, and " God manifest in the flesh" was raised from the dead, soon to be "received up into glory," the angels are again present with the like intense and interested delight. At the sepulcher, as Mary Magdalene looked in, two of them were sitting, " one at the head and the other at the foot, where the body of Jesus had lain;" and at the crisis of the ascension itself, they are again present, instructing the men of Galilee in the further ways of Him, who had just then gone up on high.
What hanging over the mercy-seat was all this? What cherubim-gaze again and again was this? This utterance of the heavenly host in the fields of Bethlehem was not part of their ministry to roan, but an act of worship to God. They were not then instructing the shepherds or even formally addressing themselves to them; but breathing out the rapture in which their own spirits were held in thoughts of the One that had been then born. And so, their attitude in the sepulcher. When Mary appears, they have, it is true, a word of sympathy for her; but there they were, in the sepulcher, before she had come, and there they would have been, though she had never come. As the cherubim in the tabernacle had hung over the ark and mercy-seat, on either side one, so now in the sepulcher, the angels hang over the place where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and the other at the feet.
What ways of seeing Jesus were these! As we read, God was manifest in the flesh-seen of angels." Well may we, beloved, covet grace to have like utterances and like attitudes over Jesus. And well may we grieve over what in our hearts is short of this, great, indeed, as some of us know that to be. I believe that many of us need to be attracted more than we are wont to be, by these things. Many of us have dwelt (if I may distinguish such things by such terms) more in the light of the knowledge of the divine dispensations, than in the warmth of such mysteries as Bethlehem, the garden, and the Mount of Olives, revealed to the enraptured angels. But in this we have been losers-losers in much of that communion which marked the path and the spirit of others in other days. My desire has been to turn to this great sight, led that way by the condition of things around and among us. Glorious, I need not say, is the object-the same Person, "God manifest in the flesh," followed by faith from the manger to the Cross, from the Cross through the grave up in resurrection, and thence to the present heavens, and eternal ages beyond them.
The Holy Ghost (in a way which we will now consider for a while) makes it His gracious business to aid this vision of faith, by carefully forming before us, so to express myself, the links between the parts or stages of this wondrous journey, " God manifest in the flesh-received up into glory." By St. John, as our previous meditations may have led us to see, the Spirit, very specially, reveals or declares the link between "God" and "flesh " in the Person of Jesus. We listen to this at the opening of his Gospel and his Epistle. I need not repeat it. But of course all the divine writings either assume or utter this truth, in their different ways, as well as John. But it is the other link, or that between "God manifest in the flesh" and "glory" or the heavens, which is rather our present matter in the progress of these meditations, so that we will now pass on with evangelists and angels, from Bethlehem to the garden of the sepulcher, and to the Mount of Olives.
The Gospel by Matthew, in a general way, witnesses the resurrection. To be sure it does. The angels at the tomb declare it, the women on the road back to the city hold the feet of the risen Savior, and the disciples meet Him on the mountain in Galilee.
Mark tells of several appearances of the Lord, after His resurrection, to His own whom He had chosen-as to Mary Magdalene, to two of them as they walked into the country, and to the eleven as they sat at meat.
Luke, however, goes more carefully into the proofs which Jesus gave His disciples, that it was indeed He Himself, and none other, who was in the midst of them again. He eats before them. He shows them His hands and His side. He tells them that a spirit had not flesh and bones, as they saw He had. He shows them out of the Psalms, and out of the Prophets, that thus it was to be.
John has his own peculiar style still, while dealing with this common testimony. In his Gospel, we may say, all with the Lord is strength and victory; and so is it at the sepulcher, as well as everywhere else. When the disciples visit it, they see the linen clothes lying, and the napkin that was about the Lord's head, wrapped together in a place by itself. There was no disturbance, no symptom of effort or of struggle, no sign as though something arduous had been accomplished there. All is as the trophy and witness of victory, rather than the heat and strife of battle. "Bless, bless the Conqueror slain," is the voice from the tomb, as it is opened before us by St. John. And if the place thus speak, so does the Lord Himself afterward. It is not that He verifies His resurrection after the same manner as we find Him doing in. St. Luke. He does not, so properly, give them sensible signs that He Himself was in the midst of them again. He does not eat and drink with them here, as He had done there. The broiled fish and the honeycomb are not called in to stand in evidence. But in other courts, so to speak, the truth of His resurrection is recorded. He makes it good to the hearts and to the consciences of His disciples. His voice on the ear of Mary tells her who He was, because her heart had been familiar with that name on those lips-and His pierced hands and side were shown, that they might speak peace to the conscience of the others, in the assurance of the accepted sacrifice; yea, even to the drawing out from the depths and secrets of the soul of one of them, the cry of thorough conviction, " My Lord; and my God."
Thus do the evangelists lead us into the garden of the sepulcher. The Mount of Olives has its witnesses like wise; the ascension as well as the resurrection of Jesus. And again I would say, To be sure it has.
Neither Matthew nor John, however, declare it. The Lord is still on the mountain in Galilee when Matthew's gospel closes. Neither does John take us to the Mount of Olives or to Bethany,. the same thing. In a parabolic action, as I judge, after the disciples had dined in His presence on the Sea of Galilee, He intimates His going up to the Father's house, and their following Him there; but it is not the ascension itself-it is not the scene at Bethany-it is not the actual translation of the Lord from earth to heaven.
Mark, however, asserts the fact: "When the Lord had done speaking with His disciples He was received up into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of God." Here the fact-the very moment of the ascension-is declared. But, I may say, that is all. It is simply the ascension of One who had all rights and honors belonging to Him, and awaiting Him on high in the ascended place; but there is no communion, in spirit, with that event, among the disciples. The story in Mark does not so much as tell us, whether or not the disciples were eyewitnesses of it.
But Luke gives us something quite beyond this. In his gospel, the ascension of the Lord is witnessed by eyes and hearts which had, and felt they had, their own immediate and personal interest in it. "And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them; and it came to pass while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven; and they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God."
Thus, then, as the risen man, from amid a throng of witnesses that He was indeed their Jesus, Jesus reaches the heavens. And though a cloud received Him out of their sight, He was thus known to be beyond it, in the highest, the same Jesus still.. Jesus, who had eaten with them in the days of His sojourn with them, had now eaten with them in His risen days. Jesus, who had given them drafts of fishes in the days of ills sojourn with them, had now given them drafts of fishes in His risen days. Jesus, who had blessed the meat and given it to them then, had done so in like manner now: and this was He who had now ascended in their sight. How are all the stages of this wondrous journey thus tracked distinctly, though variously, for us, by the same Spirit, in the evangelists. We hold the same blessed One in view, at Bethlehem, in the garden of the resurrection, and at the Mount of the ascension. Manifest in flesh, the Son journeyed from Bethlehem to Calvary. Risen from the dead, with His wounded hands and side, He ate and drank with His disciples during forty days; and then, with the same wounded hands and side, He ascended the heavens. He gave them counsel after He rose, as He had done before. He entrusted a commission and ministry to them then as before. He knew them and called them by name just as before. And, at the last, when they looked after Him as though they had lost Him forever, the angel appears to them to tell them that this same Jesus had other ways still to accomplish for them. " Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven."
And this is the secret or the principle of all divine religion. It is " the mystery of godliness." Nothing recovers man to the knowledge and worship of God, but the understanding and faith of this, through the Spirit. This is the truth which forms and fills the house of God. "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."
Do we, indeed, beloved, vividly and constantly hold this One Person in view from first to last? He lay in the bosom of the Father from all eternity, then in flesh He lay in that distant dishonored manger at Bethlehem. He journeyed through the fatigues and sorrows of life, died on the cross, rose from the bowels of the earth, and ascended to the very highest place in heaven. The links are formed never to be broken, though they bind together the highest and the lowest. The Spirit holds them in our view, as He has formed them, and holds them in view at times with divine desire and delight. In such breathings as Psa. 23, and 24, how rapidly does He carry His prophet from the lowly life of faith, of dependence, and of hope, which Jesus passed here in the days of His flesh, onward to the days of His entrance as "the Lord mighty in battle," "the Lord of hosts," "the King of glory," into the "everlasting doors" of His millennial Jerusalem!
Are we, in spirit, on that road with Him also? And as a further question for our souls, which may well humble some of us afresh, are we, in real living power, with our Lord in the present stage of this mysterious journey? For He is still in this world, the rejected Christ. How far are we, in spirit, with Him as such? Are we considering this poor man, or continuing with Jesus in His temptations? (Psa. 41:1; Luke 22:28). " Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity against God." Jesus was no more any one in the world after His resurrection than He had been before it. The resurrection made no difference as to this. The world was no more to Him then, than it had been in other days, when, as we know, He had not where to lay His head. He left it for heaven then, as He had left it for Calvary before. When He was born, the manger of Bethlehem received Him: now, when risen from the dead, heaven receives Him. As born, He had proposed Himself to the faith and acceptance of Israel; but it was to be refused by Israel. As risen, He published Himself through the apostles to Israel again; but it was to be refused by Israel again-arid Jesus is still the stranger here. The present time is still the age of His rejection. He was a lonely one on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, though then the Risen Man, as He had been before on the way from Bethlehem to Calvary. But, beloved, is it in such a character, that you and I have joined Him on the road?
Many a thought would be too much for us, were we not trained for it after the method of the divine wisdom, " I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," says our divine Teacher to us-and in this way His "gentleness" makes us "great." We are prepared for enlarging communications from Him. Jesus can annihilate distances as He can control oppositions. On the lake of Galilee He trod the troubled waters outside, and then, when he entered the ship, " immediately it was at the land whither they went" (John 6:18-21.)
As the irradiations from the hidden glory that was there break through, after these manners, and enter the soul, how welcome they are! And what have we to do but to open all the avenues of the soul, and let Jesus enter. Faith listens. The Lord would have had the poor Samaritan at the well simply a listener from beginning to end. She may speak and does speak; but what are her words but the witness of this, that understanding, conscience, and heart were all opening to His words? And when the whole vessel was open, Jesus poured Himself in.
It is this listening attitude of faith we long more simply to occupy; and surely specially so, when tracing these profound and holy subjects.
The links between the parts of this great mystery, the transition-moments in the progress of the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we have been now shortly considering with the evangelists. In other words, we have been with angels and with disciples, at Bethlehem, in the garden of the sepulcher, and on the Mount of Olives.
As we enter, immediately afterward, the Book of " the Acts of the Apostles,' we shall be struck with this-that what fills the mind of the Apostles, and forms the great burthen or thought of all their preaching, is this-that Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, the Man denied and crucified here, was now in heaven. Peter makes it his first and constant business, to link all the grace and power which were then (in that day of his testimony) ministered from heaven in the midst of the Jewish people, with the fact of the ascension of Jesus of Nazareth.
On the descent of the Holy Ghost, the prophecy of Joel becomes (properly and naturally, nay, necessarily) the text of Peter's sermon. But the manner in which He preaches from it is this: he finds Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, in it. He declares the Man, who had been lately approved of God in the midst of them by miracles and signs, to be now in heaven, and, as the God spoken of in that prophecy, to have now shed forth the promised Spirit; and, moreover, that this same One was the Lord spoken of in that prophecy, whose name was for salvation now but whose day would be for judgment by and bye. This is Peter's sermon and exhortation upon the text from Joel. It is the Man now in heaven, whom he finds, or declares, in all the parts of that magnificent oracle.
If John, I may here say, find in Jesus on earth, the Son from the bosom of the Father, in full unsullied glory, so Peter now finds in heaven, in the place there of all grace and salvation and power, the Son of Man, the Nazarene, who had been despised and rejected here.
So, in the next chapter-It is Jesus of Nazareth (the name of all slight and scorn among men) now glorified on high, whom Peter speaks of and acts by. The lame beggar at the beautiful gate of the temple is healed by the faith of that name; and then the Apostle. further declares, that this same Jesus the heavens had received, and would retain, till the time when His restored presence should bring refreshing and restitution with it. And being challenged by the rulers; in the chapter that follows, on the ground of this miracle of healing, Peter publishes this same despised Jesus of Nazareth, as the Stone set at naught by the builders here, but made the Head of the corner in heaven.
This is the name and the testimony-whether we see the Apostles in the face of the power of the world, or in the midst of the sorrows of the children of men, this is their only thought-here all their art is found, their virtue, and their strength. And immediately after this, this same name of Jesus is all their plea and ground of confidence in the presence of God. The weak One, as men might say, "the Holy Child, Jesus," whom Israel and the Gentiles, Herod and Pilate, the kings of the earth and the rulers, had stood against and refused, this One they hope in before God. They know Him in the sanctuary now, as they had known Him among men before. And mark their different style in using that name. Mark the assurance with which they pledge it to the needy, the boldness with which they contend for it before the world, and the tenderness-" Thy Holy Child, Jesus" - with which they plead it with God. And the place where they had thus named that name before God is shaken, and they are filled with the Holy Ghost. All power is now owned in heaven as belonging to that name, as before all power had flowed out of it here. The beggar at the gate of the temple had been healed by it, and the rushing, mighty wind from above now shakes the place where it had been pleaded. Yea, more; the world, or hell itself, is moved at it, for the high-priests and Sadducees are filled with indignation, and cast the witnesses of that name into the common prison.
With all this, Peter, in the fullest manner, sets forth the weakness and humiliation of the Jesus whom he was thus again and again testifying to be now exalted to the highest in the heavens. This is very striking in these early preachings of his. He had been slain, Peter says, set at naught, delivered up, denied, taken, crucified, killed, hanged on a tree. He puts no restraint on language like that. And, in the same spirit, he seems to glory in the despised name of "Jesus of Nazareth." He has it on his lips again and again. All the forms of sorrow and of scorn, which " the Prince of life," " the Holy One and the Just," wore or carried in His heart, his body, or his circumstances here among men, are rehearsed and remembered by him in this fine vivid style, under the fresh anointing of the Holy Ghost. This is the One he glories in, all through these chapters of his earliest ministry to the Jews (chap. 2 and 6). And yet, this One who had been thus dealt with here, he declares to be God's great ordinance, "Lord and Christ." That a man in heaven was David's Lord, that the seed of Abraham was raised up for blessing, that the promised
Prophet, like unto. Moses, was ascended on high; this` was the word he spake with boldness.
And as this anointing of the Holy Ghost thus leads Peter to testify of the Man in heaven, of Jesus of Nazareth, once denied here, but now exalted there, so rapture in the Holy Ghost, immediately afterward does the same for Stephen (see chap. 7). If Peter speak of Him in heaven, Stephen sees Him in heaven. The preacher declares Him without fear,- the martyr sees Him without a cloud. "But he being full of the Holy Ghost looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God."
Thus, after this manner, the Spirit gives Jesus in heaven to the lips and to the eyes of his different witnesses. But it is blessed to add, that Jesus in heaven was as great a reality to Peter as He was to Stephen, though Peter knew that mystery under an anointing only, while Stephen knew it under a rapture, in the Holy Ghost. May we, beloved, know it in our souls in more of the like power! May we enjoy it in the light of the Spirit now, as we shall enjoy it in more than the vision of it forever!
Such is the first preaching in the Acts, after the great link had been formed between " God" and " flesh, and between " God manifest in the flesh" and " heaven." But what a vast and wondrous scene is in this way kept within the view of faith, and all for our blessing, and light, and joy. We see the links between heaven and earth, God and sinners, the bosom of the Father and the Manger of Bethlehem, the cross of Calvary and the throne of the Majesty in the highest. Could human thought have ever reached or planned such a scene as that? But there it is before us a great reality at this hour, and for eternity? "Now that He ascended, what is it but that He descended first into the lower parts of the 'earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things." The Spirit had revealed the God of glory in the Babe of Bethlehem; and now, when all power and grace is ministered from heaven, the shedding forth of the Holy Ghost -the healing of the sorrows of the children of menthe salvation of sinners-the promise of days of refreshing and restitution, all this is found and declared to be in and from the Man glorified in heaven! What divine mysteries are these, passing all conception of the heart! "Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?" was the inquiry of the Lord in the day of His humiliation; and the only right answer was this, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And now, in its season, when it is asked of the Apostles in the day of their preaching, " By what power or by what name have ye done this?" the divine answer is this, "By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole."
This is the One, the same One, the only One. He has left His memorial in " the lower parts of the earth," and borne it with Him upward, " far above all heavens." He fills all things. God has been here, Man is there. That God was here on earth in full glory was told to faith in other days, the Son of the bosom among the children of men; that Man was now in heaven, having passed in there from amid the slight and scorn, 'the weakness and humiliation of the scene here, was now told to faith, in like manner, in these days. And faith apprehends the mystery, that it is the One, the same One, the only One-that He who ascended is He also who had descended, that He who descended is the same also that ascended.
"His glorious meetness (to use very much the language of another) for all the acts and duties of His mediatory office is resolved into the union of His two natures in the same Person. He who was conceived and born of the Virgin was Immanuel, that is, God was manifest in the flesh. 'To us a child is born, to us a Son is given, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.' The One who spake to the Jews, and as a man was then only a little more than thirty years old, was 'before Abraham' (John 8). The perfect and complete work of Christ in every act of His office, in all that He did, in all that He suffered, in all that He continueth to do, is the act and work of His whole Person."
This is the mystery. Faith apprehends it in the full certainty of the soul. And faith apprehends more of the same mystery, and listens with intelligence and delight to this-" justified in the Spirit, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world." God, though manifest in the flesh, was justified in the spirit. All in Him was perfect moral glory; all was, to the divine mind, and for the divine acceptance, infinitely, ineffably right. We have need of a justification from without or through another. Nothing in us stands justified in itself; all in Him did so. Not a syllable, not a breath, not a motion, which was not an offering acceptable, well-pleasing to God, an odor of sweetest smell. "He was as holy in the Virgin's womb as in the Father's bosom; as spotless as Man as He was as God; as unsullied in the midst of the world's pollutions as when daily the Father's delight before the world began." Faith knows this, and knows it well, without a thought to cloud it. And, therefore, faith also knows that His history, the toils and sorrows, the death and resurrection of this Blessed One, " God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit," was not for Himself, as though He needed it, but for sinners, that He and His precious history might be " preached unto the Gentiles, and believed on in the world." In the sacrifice He accomplished, in the righteousness He wrought out and brought in, He is presented to sinners, even the most distant, be they who they may, far off or near, Gentile or Jew, that they may trust in Him, though still in this world, and be assured of their justification through Him (1 Tim. 3:16).
Time would fail to watch and follow the Word of God throughout, upon this mystery; but I would add, that among all the epistles, as they follow the book of "the Acts," that to the Hebrews is eminent in doing service for our souls, connected with it. "Received up into glory," is a voice heard throughout that divine oracle, from beginning to end. Would that the soul had in power, what the mind has in enjoyment, when listening to such a voice. One can not write but with the sense of this, and one would not write but with the confession of it.
Each chapter of this wondrous writing, or each stage or period in the argument of it, gives us a sight of the ascended Jesus. It opens directly and at once with this. It seems as though it were forcing this object upon us somewhat abruptly. Most welcome indeed all this is to the soul; but this is the style of it. The Son, the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of His Person, is seen, after having by Himself purged our sins here, in His ascended place in heaven, inheriting there a name more excellent than that of angels, getting title to a throne which is to endure forever, and filling a seat in highest dignity and power, till His enemies be made His footstool.
The second chapter gives us another sight of the same object. The Sanctifier, having descended to be the kinsman of the seed of Abraham, and to do for them a kinsman's part, is then in his assumed Manhood declared to have re-ascended the heavens, there to fulfill for us the services of a merciful and faithful high priest. And this Scripture, I may say, so abounds with this thought, that this same chapter gives us this same object a second time. It shows us, as from Psa. 8, that "wondrous man," made for a season lower than the Angels, now crowned on high with glory and honor.
The next chapters (3, 4) are but parenthetic, incidental to previous teaching; but still this sight of Christ is kept before us. He is declared to have been here on earth, tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, but now to have passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, to give us grace and help from the sanctuary there.
In the next subject, that of the Priesthood (chap. 5, 6, 7), we have the same ascended Lord still in view. The Son is declared to be made a priest, "higher than the heavens." He had descended to come of the tribe of Judah, and to perfect Himself in the days of his flesh here; but was now ascended again, the Author of eternal salvation to all that obey Him.
And so, in the next great matter dealt with-the Covenants (chaps. 8 and 9). Immediately on their opening before us, we see Jesus in the tabernacle in the heavens-that tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man, and therefrom ministering "the better covenant."
'And so again, in the next chapter, when the victim is the thought, as the covenant and the priesthood had been before, we have the same ascended Jesus in view (chap. 10) It is the one who could say, "Lo I come!" that is revealed as having sanctified sinners in the body prepared for Him on earth; but then to have gained the heavens; opening for us a way to tread those highest, purest, brightest courts of God's presence, with all boldness.
Here the doctrine of the Epistle formally closes; and, after this manner, we see, in various lights and characters, the same glorious and wondrous Person, the ascended Son of God.
And I may add, so rich is this Epistle in this thought, so faithful is it to this its object, that after we formally leave the doctrine of it, we soon find that we have not left this great mystery-Christ in heaven. In the practical warnings that follow, we find it still. Jesus, as "the Author and Finisher of faith," is seen at the end of His life of faith in heaven. "Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith, who, for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Thus is He seen in heaven in this new character-the life of faith leads Him there, as all that He did and suffered for us in divine grace leads Him there. And there He shines before the eye of faith; and had we but senses to discern it, and a heart to enjoy it, we should know it, that heaven itself is bright with beauty and glory unknown to it before, since Jesus in all these characters, won and acquired on earth and for us sinners, has reached it.
And this is the mystery-the assumption of flesh and blood by the Son, so that He became the kinsman of the seed of Abraham, and then the assumption of that wondrous Person into heaven. "God was manifest in the flesh.-received up into glory." And blessed is the task of inspecting, as we have been seeking to do, these mysterious links. And these links are formed never to be broken, though they bind together what lay at distances beyond all created thought to reach. The Spirit holds them in our view, as He formed them for the divine delight and glory, according to divine eternal counsels. The "Word made flesh " of St. John is " the good thing out of Nazareth" (chap. 1). The Emmanuel of Matthew was the babe who lay for worship in the manger at Bethlehem (chaps. 1 and 2) In the midst of the throne, there has been seen a Lamb, as it had been slain (Rev. 5). In the person of the One, whose lips were telling of wisdom suited to the commonest traffic of human life, He was found who had been set up, in the secrecy of the Godhead-persons, as the foundation of all the divine way (Prov. 8) In the bush of Horeb, there was the God of Abraham; in the cloud of the Wilderness, the glory; in the armed man of Jericho, the Captain of the Lord's host; in the stranger that visited Gideon in his threshing-floor, and Manoah in his field, the God to whom alone worship is due throughout the whole creation. These are among the witnesses, that (in unspeakable grace, and for the divine delight and glory) the highest and the lowest are linked together. "No man hath ascended up to Heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, who is in heaven."
How finely that thought of the apostle which we get in the Epistle to the Ephesians, rises upon the renewed mind-" Now He that ascended what is it but that He descended first into the lower parts of the earth?" The dignities, the offices, the services which the ascended One fills and renders, are of so eminent a character, that they tell us He must be He who had already descended, already been One in heaven "above all"-as it is written " He that corneth down from heaven is above all." The dignity of His Person is involved in this mystery of His ascending and descending. That challenge in Eph. 4:8,9, seems to intimate this; and this Epistle to the Hebrews opens he reasons of it more fully. For it tells us, that ere He ascended, He had accomplished the purging of our sins that ere He ascended, He had destroyed him that had the power of death, and delivered his captives-that ere an ascended, He had perfected Himself as the author of Grnal salvation to such as we are (chaps. 1, 2, 5.) In these characters and in such others, He went up; and when He had actually ascended, He filled the true sanctuary in the heavens, the tabernacle which.. God pitched and not man, there to secure to us an eternal inheritance, and to purify the heavenly things (chaps. 8 and 9).
Who could have ascended in such glory and strength this, and far more than this, but One who had been ready in heaven "above all?" "Now that He ascended that is it but that He descended first?" The offices He ills tell who He is. His sufferings, even in weakness and humiliation, bespeak His Person in full divine glory.
But then again, "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that He might fill all things." This follows, and. this tells us the boundlessness of His sovereignty, as the other had revealed to us the dignity of His Person. In His works, His journeys, His triumphs, the highest and the lowest regions are visited by Him. He has been on earth, in the lower parts of the earth. He has been in the grave, the territory of the power of death. He is now in the highest heavens, having passed by all principalities and powers. His realms and dominions are thus shown to the eye of faith. No pinnacle of the temple, no exceeding high mountain, could have afforded such a sight. But it is shown to faith. "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things."
This is the mystery. It is the same Jesus, Immanuel, the Son, and yet the kinsman of the seed of Abraham. And here I would say, for there is a call for it, I know we are not to confound the natures in this glorious and blessed One. I fully bow in faith to the truth that the Sanctifier took part of flesh and blood. I avow with my whole soul the true humanity in His Person; but it was not an imperfect humanity, in the condition, or under the results of sin, in any wise. But I ask, with that, is there not some unsuspected and yet real unbelief touching the mystery of the Person in the mind of many? Is the undividedness of the Person throughout all the periods and transitions of this glorious mysterious history kept in the view of the soul?
I would have grace to delight myself in the language of the Holy Ghost, and speak of " the Man, Christ Jesus." Have I ever had a thought that did not own it? The Man that was obedient is given to us as the ground and object of righteousness (Rom. 5:15). The Man that is risen is declared to be the pledge of resurrection to us (1 Cor. 15:21). The Man that is ascended is the great assurance to us that our interests are, every moment, before God in heaven (1 Tim. 2:5). The Man to return from heaven by and bye will be the security and joy of the coining kingdom (Psa. 8). The mystery of Man obedient, dead, raised, ascended, and returned, thus sustains, we may say, the whole counsel of God. But still, again I say, the Person in its undividedness is to be kept in the view of the soul. "The perfect and complete work of Christ in every act of His office, in all that He did, in all that He suffered, in all that He continueth to do, is the act and work of His whole Person." Yea, indeed, and His whole Person was on the Cross, as everywhere else. The Person was the sacrifice, and in that Person was the Son, "God over all, blessed forever." He gave up the Ghost (παρεκωκε το τνευμα), though He died under God's judgment against sin, and though He was by the hands of wicked men crucified and slain. And this is an infinite mystery.
It was Himself, beloved, from first to last. He trod the mysterious way Himself, though He trod it unaided and alone. None other than He, " God manifest in the flesh," could have been there. The Son of the bosom became the Lamb for the altar here, and then the Lamb that was slain reached the place of glory, far above all heavens. It is the Person which gives efficacy to all. Services would be nothing-sorrows would be nothing-death, resurrection, and ascension, would all be nothing (could we conceive them), if Jesus were not the One He is. His Person is the Rock; therefore His work is perfect. It is the mystery of mysteries. But He is not presented for our discussion, but for our apprehension, faith, confidence, love, and worship.
God and man, heaven and earth, are together before the thoughts of faith in this great mystery. God has been here on earth, and that too in flesh, and man glorified is there on high in heaven. It is the links between these great things I have sought to look at particularly, fitted as this exercise is to make the things of heaven and eternity real and near to our souls. The moral distances are infinite, but the distances themselves are now nothing. Nature, beset with lusts and worldliness, makes it hard indeed for the soul to pass in; but the distance itself is nothing. Jesus, after He was in heaven, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, showed Himself to Stephen just outside the city of the Jews; and, in a like moment of time, shone across the path of Saul of Tarsus, as he traveled from Jerusalem to Damascus; and though we have not like visits from the glory, the nearness and the reality of it are pledged afresh, and made good to our souls, by the sight of these great mysteries.
And is not the kingdom to be the exhibition of the results of these mysterious links? For heaven and earth, in their different ways, shall witness and celebrate them. "Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad." The church, one with this exalted glorified Man, will be on high, far above all principalities and powers. The ladder which Jacob saw, shall (in the mystery) be set up, the Son of man shall be the center as well as the stay of all this predestinated system of glory and of government. The manifestation of the sons of God shall deliver the whole creation from the bondage of corruption into glorious liberty. The heavenly city shall descend, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor unto it, while she shall minister to the scene beneath her, the streams, of her river, the leaves of her tree, and the light of her glory. Angels round the throne shall say, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain;" and every creature in heaven, earth, and sea, shall give "blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, to Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever." The nations shall learn war no more. The stick of Judah and the stick of Ephraim shall be one, and one king shall be to them both. " And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel." And what is all this, but the happy fruit, to be gathered in the days of the coming kingdom, of these links which have been, as we have been seeing, already formed? The germs and principles of all these manifestations in heaven and on earth, among angels, and Men, and all creatures, and the creation itself, are found, so to speak, at Bethlehem, in the Garden of the Sepulcher, and at the Mount of Olives.
May heart and conscience learn the lesson! May we gaze on these mysterious links which we have been speaking of, more in company with the angels in the fields of Bethlehem, and in the tomb of Jesus I Or, I might here add, more in the dear mind of the disciples on the Mount of Olives, as they gazed there on the glorious link which was then forming between Jesus and the heavens (see them in Luke 24:44-52). They were, then, like Israel in Lev. 23:9-14, celebrating the waving of the sheaf of first-fruits. Jesus, the true first-fruits, had just then been gathered, and He had, as their divine teacher, expounded to them the mystery of the gathered sheaf, that is, the meaning of His resurrection. They then watched that mysterious moment. They looked as their risen Lord ascended, and they keep the feast as with a sacrifice of burnt-offering. " They worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy."
Surely we may say, " great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."
He was received up gloriously or in glory, as well as into glory. He entered the light of the highest heavens; but He entered it, glorious Himself-and there He now is, a glorious body, the pattern of what ours is to be. The real manhood is there, in the highest heavens, but it is glorified. And though thus glorified, yet it is the real human nature still. "Jesus is in the same body in heaven, wherein Be conversed here on earth. This is that 'Holy Thing' which was framed immediately by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the virgin. This is that 'Holy One' which, when He was in the grave, saw no corruption. This is that body which was offered for us, and wherein He bare our sins on the tree. That individual nature wherein He suffered all sorts of reproaches, contempts, and miseries, is now unchangeably seated in incomprehensible glory. The body which was pierced is that which all eyes shall see, and no other. That tabernacle shall never be folded up. The Person of Christ, and therein His human nature, shall be the eternal Object of divine glory, praise, and worship."
Thus speaks one for our edification and comfort. And one of our own poets has thus sung of Him, looking after Him up to heaven:-
"There the dear Man, my Savior sits,
The God, how bright He shines,
And scatters infinite delights
On all the happy minds.

Seraphs, with elevated strains,
Circle the throne around,
And charm and fix the starry plains
With an immortal sound.

Jesus the Lord their harps employs;
Jesus, my love, they sing;
Jesus, the name of both our joys,
Sounds sweet on every string."
" His present state is a state of the highest glory, of exaltation above the whole creation of God, and above every name that is or can be named."
He was received up with the unspeakable love, and with the boundless unmeasured acceptance of God the Father, as He had wrought out and accomplished the purpose of His grace in the redemption of sinners.
He was received up in triumph, having led captivity captive, and spoiled principalities and powers-and there He took His seat at the right hand of the Majesty on-high, with all power given to Him in heaven and on earth.
He was received up as the head of His body, the -Church, so that out of the fullness of the Godhead which dwelleth in Him bodily, it "increaseth with the increase of God," through the Holy Ghost given to us.
He was received up as into a temple, there to appear in the presence of God for us, there to sit as the Minister of the true Tabernacle, there to make continual intercession for us, and in this and in like ways of grace to serve in His body before the throne.
He was received up as our forerunner, as into the Father's house, there to prepare mansions for the children, that where He is, there they may be also.
And further, as He sat down in heaven, He sat down as an expectant. He waits to come forth to meet His saints in the air that they may be with Him forever. He waits till He is sent to bring times of refreshing to the earth again by His own presence. And He waits till His enemies be made His footstool.
.Cold is the affection, and small the energy; but. in principle I know nothing at all worthy of such visions of faith, but that spirit of devotedness that can say with Paul, " I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound," and that spirit of desire which looks after Him still, and says, " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly."
Beloved, our God has joined Himself thus by links which never can be broken, which His own delight and glory in them, as well as His counsel and strength, will secure forever. These links we have gazed at, mysterious and precious as they are. Himself has formed them, yea Himself constitutes them, faith understands them, and on the Rock of Ages the poor believing sinner rests, and rests in peace and safety.
I remember the day when David brought up the ark from Baalah of Judah, how he did so unadvisedly, and sorrow and evil rebuked him for it. That unadvisedness, that carelessness of his, came from want of communion with the Lord. Had he been in spirit more in communion, he would not so have erred: On that great occasion he listened to nature. Joy attended it; for his conscience did not upbraid him. It was not profaneness but carelessness. And much of this may be betrayed by others of -us, who are little indeed in other excellencies of David.
If any unadvised words in these meditations have offended the simplest soul, which, apart from the reasoning and liberty of the flesh, seeks Jesus in His person, and offices, and work, I am sorry. But the liberty of the mere mind of man is to be rebuked, though found in the saint. Faith owns the same Blessed One from the manger to the Cross, from the Cross through the grave and gate of death, in resurrection, and up to the highest heavens. The only begotten Son who lay in the bosom of the Father, God and yet with God, is known, by faith, in Jesus of Nazareth, having taken part of flesh and blood with the children, as kinsman of the seed of Abraham. Faith tracks this Blessed One on earth, but discerns the full unsullied glory that was His all the while. Faith further watches and follows the life He led here, in sorrow, rejection, temptation, but sees it all passed in a spirit of faith and dependence, answered by the supports and consolations of God. Faith understands the end of that life, in the death and woe unutterable of the cursed tree. And faith ascends with the same Blessed One into heaven, and traces His present life there until He come again.
With my whole soul, I say, May these meditations help to make these objects of faith a little nearer and more real to us! They will be worthless, if they tend
not to glorify Him in our thoughts, to give Him, with a fresh pressure, beloved, to our hearts.
"Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee! "
May that be the breathing of our souls till we see Him! Amen.
"Thou wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand, there are pleasures for evermore."
The Son of God
"Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet."-Heb. 11:8.
In the opening of the Gospel by St. Luke, one is struck by the deep and vivid expression of intimacy between heaven and earth, which is found and felt to be there. It is man's necessity and weakness which open the heavenly door; but once opened, it is thrown wide open.
Zacharias and Elizabeth were both righteous before God, walking in all the ordinances and commandments of the Lord blameless. They were of the priestly family, the seed of Aaron. But it was not their righteousnesses that opened heaven to them, but their need and infirmities. Elizabeth was barren, and they were both now well-stricken in age; and their point of real blessing lay there, lay in their sorrow and weakness. For to the barren wife and the childless husband, Gabriel comes with a word of promise from heaven. But, as we said, heaven being once opened, is flung wide open. Angels are all action and joy; and no matter, whether it be the Temple in the royal holy city, or a distant village in despised Galilee, Gabriel with equal readiness visits either and both. The glory of God also fills the fields of Bethlehem, as well as hosts of angels. The Holy Ghost, in His divine light and power, fills His elect vessels; and the Son Himself assumes flesh. Heaven and earth are very near each other. The action and the joy, which had begun on high, are felt and answered from the scene here below: the shepherds, the favored women, the aged priest and the unborn child, share the holy enthusiasm of the moment, and waiting saints go forth from the place of expectation.
I know no scripture finer than these chapters (Luke 1, 2.) in this character. It was, as in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye; but a blessed transition was accomplished- "Heaven comes down our souls to greet."
Earth learns, and learns in the mouth of these wondrous witnesses, that the door of heaven was indeed thrown wide open to her. And the intimacy was deep, as the services and grace were precious. The angel calls Zacharias and Mary by their names, and speaks to them also of Elizabeth by name, a language or style which lets the heart know its meaning at once.
We might bless the Lord for this, and we should do so, did we a, little more simply, a little more believingly, walk on in the sense of the nearness and reality of heaven.
Jacob and Stephen, in their day, and in like manner, had heaven opened to them, and were given also to know their own personal interest in it. A ladder was set up in the sight of Jacob, and as the top of it entered heaven, the foot of it rested just on the spot where he was lying. It was a mean, dishonored place, the witness, too, of his wrong as well as of his misery. But the ladder adopted it, and the voice of the Lord, who was in His glory above it, spoke to Jacob of blessing, of security, of guidance and inheritance.
Stephen, likewise, saw the heaven opened and the glory there; but the Son of Man was standing at the-right hand of God. And this told the martyr, as the ladder had told the patriarch, that he and his circumstances at that very moment were the thought and object of heaven.
Thus was it, after these same ways, in these distant days of Jacob and of Stephen, distant from each other as well as distant from us. But time makes no difference. Faith sees these same opened heavens now, and learns, too, like those of old, that they are ours. It learns that there are links between them and our circumstances. In the eye of faith there is a ladder, heaven stands open before it, and "the Man Christ Jesus" is seen there-the Mediator of the New Covenant, the High Priest, the Advocate with the Father, the One who reconciles and sympathizes, the Forerunner, too, into those places of glory.
Jesus has ascended, and the present action in the heavens, where He is gone, is known by faith to be all "for us." Our need, as well as our sorrow, is in remembrance there. Jacob's sufferings were those of a penitent, Stephen's were a martyr's; but heaven was the heaven of Jacob as well as of Stephen.
But though this is so, this is not all. Faith knows another secret or mystery in heaven. It knows that if the Lord, as He surely did, took His seat there in these characters of grace for us, He took it likewise as the One whom man had despised and the world rejected. This is equally among the apprehensions which faith takes of the heavens where the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, is now seated.
The Lord Jesus died under the hand of God, His soul was made an offering for sin. "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him." And He rose as the One who had thus died, His resurrection witnessing the acceptance of the sacrifice; and He ascended the heavens in the same character also, there to carry on the purpose of the grace of God in such a death and such a resurrection.
But the Lord Jesus died also under the hand of man; that is, man's wicked hand was in that death, as well and as surely as God's infinite grace. He was refused by the husbandman, hated by the world, cast out, crucified, and slain. This is another character of his death. And His resurrection and ascension were in that character also, parts or stages in the history of One whom the world had rejected; His resurrection, consequently, pledging the judgment of the world (Acts 17:31), and His ascension leading Him to the expectation of a day when His enemies are to be made His footstool (Heb. 10:13).
These distinctions give us to understand the different sights which faith, in the light of the word, gets of the ascended Jesus, seeing Him, as it does, in priestly grace there, making intercession for us; and, at the same time, waiting, as in expectation, the judgment of His enemies.
The Gospel publishes the first of these mysteries, i.e., the death of the Lord Jesus under the hand of God for us, and His resurrection and ascension as in character with such a death. And this Gospel is rightly gloried in as all our salvation. But the second of these mysteries, the death of the Lord under the hand of man, may be somewhat forgotten, while the first of them is thus rightly gloried in. But this is a serious mistake in the soul of a saint, or in the calculations and testimony of the Church. For let this great fact, this second mystery, as we have called it, the death of the Lord Jesus under the hand of man, be forgotten, as it may be on earth, it is surely not forgotten in heaven. It is not, it is true, the occasion of present action there; it is the death of the victim, and the intercessions of the Priest upon such death, which form the action that is there now. But as surely it will be the death of the divine Martyr, the death of the Son of God at the hand of man, that will give character to the action there by and bye.
These distinctions are very clearly preserved in Scripture. Heaven, as it is opened to us in Rev. 4, is a very different heaven, differently minded I mean, differently moved and occupied, from the heaven presented to us in the Epistle to the Hebrews; just as different, I may say, as the death of the Lord Jesus looked at as under man's hand, i.e., perpetrated by us, and as under God's hand, i.e., accomplished for us. We may have the same objects or materials in each, but they will be seen in very different connections. We have, for instance, a throne and a temple in each of these heavens, the heaven of the Hebrews and the heaven of the Apocalypse; but the contrasts between them are very solemnly preserved. In the Hebrews, the throne is a throne of grace, and whatever our present time of need and sorrow may require, is found there and got there. In the Apocalypse, the throne is one of judgment, and the instruments and agencies of wrath and of vengeance are seen to be lying before and around it. In the Hebrews, the sanctuary or temple is occupied by the High Priest of our profession, the Mediator of the better covenant, serving there in the virtue of His own most precious blood. In the Apocalypse, the temple gives fearful notes of preparation for judgment. Lightning, and earthquake, and voices attend the opening of it. It is as the temple seen by the prophet, filled with smoke, and the pillars of it shaking in token that the God to whom vengeance belonged was there in His glory (see Isa. 6).
The sight we get of heaven in the Apocalypse, is thus very solemn. It is the place of power furnishing itself with the instruments of judgment. Seals are opened, trumpets are blown, vials are emptied, but all this introducing some awful visitation of the earth. The altar that is there is not the altar of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the heavenly priesthood eat of the bread of life; but an altar that supplies penal fire for the earth. And there is war there; and at the last it opens for Him whose name is called " the Word of God," whose vesture is dipped in blood, and who carries a sharp sword in His mouth, that by it He may smite the nations.
Surely this is heaven in a new character. And the contrast is very solemn. This is not the heaven which faith now apprehends, a sanctuary of peace filled with the provisions and witnesses of grace, but a heaven which tells us that though judgment is the Lord's strange work, yet that it is His work in due season. For heaven, in its revolutions, is, as we may say, the place or the witness of grace, of judgment, and of glory. It is the heaven of grace now, it will become the heaven of judgment in the day of Rev. 4, and so continue throughout the action of the Book of the Apocalypse, and then, at the close of that Book, as we see in chap. 21, 22, it becomes the heaven of glory.
The soul should be accustomed to this serious truth, that judgment precedes glory. I speak of these things in the progress of the history of the earth or the world. The believer has passed from death into life. There is no condemnation for him. He rises not to judgment but to life. But he ought to know, that in the progress of the divine history of the earth or the world, judgment precedes glory. The kingdom will be seen in the sword or "rod of iron," ere it be seen in the scepter. When the Son takes the heathen for His possession, the first thing He does is to dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. The Ancient of days sits in white garments on a throne of fiery flame with the books opened before Him, ere the Son of Man comes to Him with the clouds of heaven to receive dominion (Psa. 2; Dan. 7).
These lessons are very clearly taught and marked in Scripture. In the day of Rev. 4, as I may express it, heaven has conceived a new idea, taken notice of a new object. It is Christ rejected by man, and not Christ accepted of God for sinners, that has become its thought and object. And accordingly, preparations are making to avenge the wrongs of the Lord Jesus on the world, and to vindicate His rights in the earth: in other words, it is heaven beginning that action which is to seat Him in His kingdom upon the judgment of His enemies.
But all this shows us again, according to my leading thought in these meditations on " the Son of God," how it is the same Person that is kept before us, and to be known by us, in each and all of the stages or periods of the same great mystery. We are still, at whatever point we may have arrived, in company with the same Jesus. For these distinctions, which I have been now noticing, tell us, that He has been received up into heaven, and is now seated there, in the very characters in which He had been before known and manifested here on earth. For He had been here, as the One who accomplished the grace of God towards us sinners to perfection, and as the One who endured the enmity of the world in its full measure; and it is in these two characters, as we have now seen, that He is seated in heaven.
He does not quickly take this second character, or appear actively in heaven as the One who had been despised and rejected on earth. He lingers ere He reaches the heaven of the Apocalypse. And in this feature of character, in this delaying His approaches to judgment, and tarrying in the place of grace, we have a very sweet expression of the Jesus whom faith has already known. For when He was here, as the God of judgment He approached Jerusalem with a very measured step. He said to her, "How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing," ere He said, "Behold your house is left unto you desolate." He lingered in the plains below, visiting every city and village of the land, in patient service of grace, ere He took his seat on the Mount, to speak of judgment and of the desolations of Zion (Matt. 24:1). And now, of Him who, after this manner, trod softly the road which led Him to the Mount of Olives, the place of judgment, is it written, " The Lord is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3).
How do we thus hold in view the same Person, with like character attaching to Him, whether when He was here on earth, or as He is now in heaven, the Person One, the moral one, though scenes and conditions change. "The grace that was in Christ in this world is the same with that which is in Him now in heaven." Comforting words! How truly should we know we speak truly when we say, We know Him! We have been considering Him from the beginning. He lay in the Father's bosom, and then in the Virgin's womb, and the manger of Bethlehem; He traversed the earth in full unsullied glory, though veiled; He died and was buried; rose, and returned to heaven, and, as we have now been meditating, faith sees Him there, the One whom faith had known to be here, the very One, the minister and witness of the grace of God to man, the bearer of man's full enmity against God, and yet the reluctant God of judgment..
But I must notice still more of this same Jesus, and something still more immediately in connection with my present meditation.
When the Lord Jesus Christ was here, He looked for His kingdom. He offered Himself, as her King, the Son of David, to the daughter of Zion. He took, the form of the One who had been of old promised by the prophets, and entered the city " meek and riding upon an ass." In a still earlier day, His star, the star of the kingly Bethlehemite, had appeared in the eastern world, summoning the Gentiles to the Son of David, born in the city of David. But what He then looked for He found not. " His own received Him not." But He carried with Him to heaven this very same 'mind, this desire for His kingdom. " A certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for Himself a kingdom." He thinks of His kingdom though now on the throne of the Father, as He had thought of it and looked for it when here. And I may again say, how strictly, in this fine characteristic, are we kept in communion with the same Jesus still. Once on earth He was, and now in heaven He is, but we know Him, after these manners, as the same Lord, in Person one, in purpose and desire one, though places and conditions change. He was King of Israel when here, and with desire claimed His kingdom; and being refused it at the hands of the citizens, He has found it and received it in heaven, and in due time will return, in a day of the gladness of His heart, to administer it here where at the first He sought it. " I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him, and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom which shall not be destroyed."
We are, after this manner, given the one Person, the same Jesus; and the heart prizes this when we think upon it. And there is one other feature of this identity, surpassing, yea, far surpassing, all that I have already noticed.
When He was here He desired to be known by His disciples, to be discovered by them, poor sinners as they were, in some of His hidden glories. He rejoiced likewise in all the communications of His grace to faith. The faith which drew upon Him without reserve, the faith which used Him without ceremony, the faith which could outlive apparent neglect or repulse, was precious to Him. The sinner who would cling to Him in the face of the world's scorn, or would trust in Him all alone, without countenance or encouragement from others, was deeply welcome to Him. The soul that with freedom would ask for His presence, or seek communion with Him, seated at His feet or by His side, might get from Him what it would, or, like interceding Abraham, have Him as long as it pleased.
He desired oneness with His elect, full personal, abiding oneness, ready as He was to share with them His name with the Father, the love in which He stood, and the glory of which He was heir.
He sought sympathy, He longed for companionship in both His joys and His sorrows. And we can by no means appreciate the disappointings of His heart, when this He sought but found it not; deeper, at the least we may say, far deeper than when He claimed a kingdom, as we have already seen, and received it not. " Could ye not watch with me one hour," spoke a lonely disappointed heart.
And further still. He purposed, when lie was here, that He would share His throne with His people. He would not abide alone. He would share His honors and His dominions with His elect, as He would that they, in sympathy, should understand and share His joys and sorrows with Him.
And now (excellent and wonderful as is the mystery which speaks it to us), all this is, or is to be made, good to Him in and by the Church. The Church is called to answer the desires of the Lord Jesus in all these things, to be all this to Him, either in the Holy Ghost now, or in the kingdom by and bye; to enter now, in spirit, into His thoughts and affections, His joys and His sorrows, and hereafter to shine in His glory, and to sit on His throne.
What a mystery! The Church, now endowed with the indwelling Spirit, and destined to sit, glorious herself, in the inheritance of His dominion, is the answer to these deepest desires of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the days of His flesh. And again I say, what a mystery! We may well admire those harmonies which tell us of the same Jesus, the one Person in these different parts of His wondrous ways. He sought and claimed a kingdom when He was here, and He desired the sympathies of His saints when He was here. But His people were not prepared to own His royalty, His saints were not able to give Him this fellowship. A kingdom, however, He is receiving now in heaven, and He will return and minister it here. This fellowship He is beginning to find now through the Spirit indwelling in His elect, and it will be in its fuller measure made good to Him in the day of their perfection. The kingdom will be His glory and His joy. It is called, " the joy of the Lord," for it will be said to them who share it with Him, " Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." But this fellowship, in which the Church will stand with Him, will be still more to Him. It was His deepest desire here, and it will be His richest enjoyment by and bye. Eve was more to Adam than all his possessions beside.
Have we, beloved, any power in our souls to rejoice in the thought of the heart of the Lord Jesus being thus satisfied? We may trace the forms of these joys which thus await Him as in the day of His espousal, the day of the gladness of His heart; but have we capacity, in spirit, to do more? It is humbling to put such inquiries to one's own soul, surely, we may say with all unfeignedness.
But these will be His, the Kingdom and the Church.
The Kingdom will be His by many titles. He will take it under covenant-or, according to counsels which were taken in God before the foundation of the world. He will take it by personal right-for He, the Son of Man, never lost the Image of God. Of course He could not, because, though Son of Man, He was Son of the Father. But He did not; and having that Image, dominion is His by personal title, according to the first great ordinance of power and rule, " And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." He will take it likewise by title of obedience-as we read of Him " being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross-wherefore God hath also highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow." He will take it by title of death-for we read again, " and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven." And the cross, on which he accomplished that death, had written upon it, as we may say, in all the languages of the world, and kept there unblotted, uncanceled in a single letter of it, by the strong prevailing hand of God Himself, " This is Jesus the King of the Jews."
Thus, dominion is the Son of Man's by covenant, by personal title, by title of service or obedience, and by title of death or purchase--and I may add, by conquest also-for the judgments which are to clear His way to the throne, and take out of the kingdom all that offends, are, as we know, executed by his hand. "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle."
What foundations are thus laid for the dominion of the Son of Man! How does every title join in subscribing itself to His honored and glorious name! As we see in Rev. 5 none in heaven or earth could take the Book but the Lamb that was slain, who was the Lion of Judah; but into His hand He that sits on the throne lets it pass at once, and then the Church in glory, angels and all creatures in all parts of the great dominions, triumph in the Lamb's rights and title. And if the title be thus sure, sealed by a thousand witnesses, and wondrous too, so will be the power and kingdom which it sustains. In the Lord Jesus Christi, the Son of God, " the Lord from heaven," as well as " the Son of Man," all the great purpose of God in the rule of all things stands revived and established. We may say, " as all the promises of God in Him are Yea, and in Him Amen," so all the destinies of man under God are alike in Him Yea, and in Him Amen.
There was dominion in Adam. There was government in Noah. There was fatherhood in Abraham. There was judgment in David, and royalty in Solomon. In Christ all these glories will meet and shine together. In Him and under Him will be "the restitution of all things." Many crowns He will wear, and many names He will bear. His name of " Lord" in Psa. 8, is not His name of " King" in Psa. 72 The form of glory in each is peculiar. The crowns are different, but both are His. And He is likewise "the Father of the everlasting age"-a King and yet a Father-the Solomon and the Abraham of God. In Him all shall be blest, and yet to Him all shall bow. The sword too is His, " the rod of iron," as well as " the scepter of righteousness." He will judge with David and rule with Solomon.
As son of David He takes power to exercise it in a given sphere of glory. As Son of Man, He takes power, and exercises it in a wider sphere of glory. He comes likewise in His own glory, in the glory of the Father, and in the glory of the holy angels. And as the risen man He takes power.
This is shown us in 1 Cor. 15:23-27. And in that character He has His peculiar sphere also. He puts death, the last enemy, under His feet. And this is so fitting, like everything else, perfect in its place and season, that as the risen man He should put down death.
Scenes of various glory will surround Him, and characters of various glory will attach to Him. The very bearing of the kingdom will be this, it will be full of the glories of Christ-varied, yet consistent and blending. The Cross has already presented a sample of this perfect workmanship. "Mercy and truth" met together there. There God was "just and yet a "justifier". And it is to be after this same manner in coming days of strength, as it has been, thus, in past days of weakness. As mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, once met and embraced each other, so authority and service, blessing and yet rule, a name of all majesty and power, and yet such a name as shall come down like showers on the mown grass, shall be known and enjoyed together. There shall be the universal dominion of man in the whole range of the works of God, the honors of the kingdom in holding all nations under rule, together with the presence of the Father of the everlasting age holding them all in blessing. "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."
All is tending to this blessed and glorious lordship and headship of the Son of God, though it be through "seas of tribulation" to some, and through the, full judgment of "this present evil world." God is leading this way, and man cannot hinder it, though he seek to fix the earth on its present foundations, refusing to learn that they are all out of course, that the earth and its inhabitants are dissolved, and that Christ alone bears up its pillars. " The bundle of life " (as she spoke who confessed to David's glory in the day of David's humiliation) is a firm bundle; well compacted and sure, because the Lord Himself is in it, as of old He was in the burning bush. But beyond the measure of that bundle (weak and despised in the thoughts of man, like a bramble-bush), all is tottering,-and times are surely at hand, that will teach this in history, to those who will not learn it or seek to learn it, and watch and pray to learn it in spirit.
The sword and the scepter of this coming day of power are alone in their glories. There is no other sword, no other scepter, that is or can be like them. The sword is to be "bathed in heaven." What an expression! The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, the powers of heaven shall be shaken, darkness shall be under His feet, and thick clouds of the sky shall accompany Him, in the day when it is drawn for the slaughter. And the power of it is the treading of the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Everything that is high and lifted up, the principalities and powers that rule the darkness of this world, the beast and his prophet, kings, captains, and mighty men, as well as the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, are among the enemies which are made to feel it-" The host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth." The sources, as well as the agencies of evil, are searched out and visited by the light and strength of it.
Is not such a sword alone in its glory? Could Joshua's or David's have wrought such conquests as these? Would principalities of darkness have yielded to them? Would death and hell have submitted themselves? "Canst thou draw leviathan with a hook"?
But-" he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him."
In whose hand then, I ask, must that sword be, which can quell hosts like these? The very service in that day of power, like every other service of His, whether in weakness or in strength, tells us who he is. There is this beautiful and divine self-evidencing light and power in Him, and about Him, and around Him, let Him act as He may, yea, let Him suffer as He may, which we have been feebly tracing and admiring, but which we will still acknowledge and worship. The victories of this same God of battles, in other days, were of this same high character. For Of old His warfare bespoke His person and glory, as it is still to do. Therefore is it written of Him, " The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is His name." His warfare, in this utterance of the Spirit, is said to reveal His Lordship, His glory, His name, His person. In Egypt the gods felt His hand, as they did afterward among the Philistines, and then again in Babylon. Dagon fell before the Ark, Bel bowed down, Nebo stooped. These were days of the same hand.,
And as is the sword, so is the scepter. Solomon's was but a distant shadow of it, and Noah's government and Adam's dominion shall be thought of no more, in comparison with it.
All shall be the subject-world then, the subject creation as well as the subject nations. " O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless His name; show forth His salvation from day to day, declare His glory among the heathen, His wonders among all people." Under the shadow of this scepter, and in the light of this throne of glory, shall dwell from one end of the earth to the other the "willing" and the "righteous" nations. There shall be a covenant between men and the beasts of the field. The wilderness too shall rejoice. The lame shall leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing. The sun of that kingdom shall not go down, nor the moon withdraw herself, for the Lord shall be its everlasting light. Nothing shall hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.
Israel shall revive. The dry bones shall live. The two sticks of Judah and of Ephraim shall be one again. The city shall be called, "The Lord is there." Of the land it shall be said, "This land that was desolate is become as the garden of Eden." And again, she shall be saluted in words that speak her holy dignities. " The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness."
The Gentiles shall be brought to a right mind. Their reason will return to them. The senseless world, though "made by Him," yet " knew Him not." The kings of the earth and their rulers stood up against the anointed. They kicked against the pricks, betraying their madness and folly. But their reason will return to them. The story of Nebuchadnezzar will be found to be a mystery as well as a history. The reason of that head of gold, that great head of Gentile power, returned to him after his term of judicial folly; and he knew and owned that the heavens did rule. And so, the world by and bye will no longer senselessly not know its Maker, but as deeply own Him as once they madly refused Him. For " kings shall shut their mouths at Him," in token of this deep and worshipping acknowledgment. The beast's heart shall be taken away from them, and the man's heart be given them. No longer shall they be rebuked as by the ox that knoweth his owner, and by the crane, the turtle, and the swallow, that observe the time of their coming, but they shall fly "as doves to their windows." " Behold these shall come from far: and, lo, those from the north, and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim."
The works of God's hand as well as Israel and the Gentiles, shall rejoice in this same scepter. " The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid." The very soil shall own again the early and the latter rain, and the tillage as of a divine husbandman. "Thou visitest the earth and waterest it, thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water; thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it."
What a scepter! Is not such a scepter, as well as such a sword, alone in its glory? Was ever scepter like it? Could power in any hand but one be such as this? What Adam lost in the earth, what Israel lost in the land of election and of promise, what Abraham lost in a degraded, disowned, and outcast seed, what the house of David lost in the throne what the creation itself lost by reason of him who subjected it to bondage and corruption; all shall be gathered up and held and presented in the presence and power of the days of the Son of Man.
"The Son" alone could take such a kingdom. The virtue of the sacrifice already accomplished, as we have seen in earlier meditations on this blessed Object, rests on the Person of the Victim; the acceptableness of the sanctuary now filled and served, rests, in like manner, on the person of the high priest and mediator who is there; and the glories and the virtues of the kingdom that is to be, could be displayed and exercised and ministered only in and by the same person. The Son of God serves in the lowest and in the highest, in poverty and in wealth, in honor and dishonor, as the Nazarene and as the Bethlehemite, in earth and in heaven, and in a world of millennial glories both earthly and heavenly; but all service from beginning to end, in all stages and changes in the great mystery, tell who He is. He could no more have been what He was on the cross, were He not there the one He was, than He could now be sitting on the Father's throne, were He not the same. Faith cares not where it sees Him or where it follows Him, it has the one bright, ineffably blessed Object before it, and resents the word that would presume to soil Him, even though ignorantly.
We must still, however, look at other glories of this coming kingdom of His.
" The second man is the Lord from heaven," and a glory must attend on the rising of such a one, which the throne of Solomon could never have measured. Yea, in the presence of this " Lord from heaven," far brighter glories than that of Solomon will be outdone. " Then the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed, when the Lord shall reign in mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously." There will be heavenly things in His kingdom, as well as restored earthly things. Adam had the garden and all its teeming beauty and fruitfulness. But beyond that, the Lord God walked there with him. Noah, Abraham, and others, in patriarchal days, had possessions of flocks and herds, and in Noah we see power and lordship in the earth. But, beyond all this, they had angel visits, yea, and visits and visions and audiences of the Lord of angels. The land of Canaan was a goodly land, the land of milk, of oil, and of honey; but more than that, the glory was there, and the witness of the divine presence dwelt between the cherubim.
So will it be in the coming days of the power of the Son of God. Heaven will grace the scene with a new and peculiar glory, as surely as of old the Lord God walked in the garden of Eden, or as surely as angels passed up and down in the sight of the patriarch, or as surely as the divine presence was known in the sanctuary in Jerusalem in the land of promise. And not merely will there be this visitation of the earth again, and the glory from heaven again, but this will all be of a new and wondrous character. The earth will have the witness of this strange, surpassing mystery, that she herself, from her very dust and bonds, has supplied a family for the heavens, who, in their glories, shall revisit her, more welcome than angels, and, in their appointed authorities and powers, shall be over her in government and in blessing. " For unto the angels path He not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak, but one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man that thou art mindful of him?"
What links between the highest and the lowest are these! "The second man is the Lord from heaven." The holy city will descend out of heaven, having the glory of God, and in the presence of it will the rule. of the kingdom or power over the earth be ministered. This shall be something outreaching Adam's sovereignty and Solomon's brightness.
In the scene on the holy hill in Matt. 17, and in that of the royal visitation of the holy city in Matt. 21, this day of the power of the Son of God, this " world to come," is entered (in a mystery) in both its heavenly and earthly places. The heavenly glory shines on the holy hill. Jesus is transfigured. His face shines as the sun, and His raiment is white as the light, and Moses and Elias appear in glory with Him. So, on the occasion of the royal entrance into the holy city, the same lowly Jesus assumes a character of glory. He becomes the Lord of the earth and its fullness, and the accepted triumphant Son of David. Here, on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem; He is seen, for a mystic moment, in His rights and dignities in the earth; as, for another like moment, He had appeared on "the high mountain apart," in His personal heavenly glory. These solemn occasions were, each of them in its way, as I may say, a transfiguration, though the glory of the celestial was one, and the glory of the terrestrial was another. But equally on each occasion Jesus was glorified, borne away, for a moment, from His then lowly path, as the humbled, toiling, rejected Son of God. The two great regions of the millennial world spread themselves out before us, in vision or in mystery, then. Such sights were but passing, and quickly lost to us; but what they pledged and presented are to abide in their brightness and strength in the coming day of glory. For that bright day, that happy world, will be full of the glories of the Son of God. It is that fullness which will give it its bearing and its import, as we said before. Head of the risen family, or Sun of the celestial glory, He will then be, Lord of the earth and its fullness; and King of Israel and the nations, He will then be also. Strangely, mysteriously, in that system of glories will all be linked together, " the lower parts of the earth," and " far above all heavens." " God was manifest in the flesh-received up into glory." "The second man is" nothing less than " the Lord from heaven."
What mysteries! what counsels of God touching the ends of creation, in the hidden ages before the beginnings of creation! Would that the affection and worship of the heart followed the meditations of the soul! The Son, who lay in the bosom of the Father from all eternity, lay in the "Virgin's womb, assuming flesh and blood with the children; as Son of Man, God in flesh, He journeyed the rugged paths of human life, ending them in the death of the cross; He left the grave for the glory, the lowest parts of the earth for the highest places in heaven; and He will rise again on the earth in dignities and praise, in rights, honors, and authorities, of ineffable, surpassing greatness and brightness, to make glad the world to come.
But there is another mystery ere this scene of glories, "the world to come," can, in the way of God, be reached. The church must be linked with the heavens, as her Lord has already been.
The path of the church across the earth is that of an unnoticed stranger. "The world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not." And as her path across the earth is thus untracked, so is her path from it to be. All about her is "the stranger here." And as the world around knows not the church, nor will be a witness of the act of her translation, she herself knows not the time of such translation. But we know this link between us and the heavens will be formed -ere the kingdom, or "the world to come," be manifested. Because the saints are to be the companions of the King of that kingdom in the first acts of it, that is, when He bears the sword of judgment which is to clear the scene for the scepter of peace and righteousness-as He has promised, " he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron."
" I will give him the morning star."
Is there not something of a link, something of an. intermediate, connecting action, intimated by this?
The sun is that light in the heavens which connects itself with the earth, with the interests and the doings of the children of man. The sun rules the day, the moon and the stars the night. But the morning star receives no appointment in such a system. " He appointed the moon for seasons, the sun knoweth his going down. Thou makest darkness and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions do roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together and lay them down in their dens. Man goeth forth to his work and to his labor until the evening." The morning star has no place in such arrangements. It is beautiful, but it shines in a solitary hour. The children of men have laid them down, and their sleep, in divine mercy, is still sweet to them, while the morning star is decking the face of the sky.
The season in which the sun shines is ours. I mean, the sun is the companion of man. But the morning star does not, in this way, recall man to his labor. It appears rather at an hour which is quite its own, neither day nor night. The child of the earlier morning, the one who is up before the sun, the watchman who has gone through the night sees it, but none but he.
The sun, in the language or thought of Scripture, is for the kingdom. As we read, "he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God; and he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth" (2 Sam. 23:3,4, see also Matt. 13:43; 17:4, 5).
I ask, then, is there not to be expected by us a light before the light of the kingdom? Are not these signs in the heavens set there for times and seasons? Are there not voices in such spheres? Is there not a mystery in the morning star, in the hour of its solitary shining, as well as in the sun when he riseth in his strength upon the earth? Is it not the sign in the heavens of One whose appearing is not for the world, but for a people who wait for an early, unearthly Lord? The hope of Iirael, the earthly people, greets the day-spring (Luke 1:78)-but the church welcomes the morning star. " I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star, and the Spirit and the Bride say, come " (Rev. 22:17,18).
All is ours; and among this glorious all, the morning star, for our transfiguration to be like Jesus, and the rising sun for our day of power with Jesus.
How are the mysterious links thus formed, and the wondrous journeys thus tracked and followed from first to last, from everlasting to everlasting! We never lose them, nor our interest in them, not even in the most sacred, intimate moment. We have now, in the progress of our meditations along this glorious pathway of the Son of God, watched a light in the heavens earlier than that of the day-spring, a light which Jesus, the Son of God, amid His other glories, claims to be, and to share with His saints. " I will give him the morning star."
And after the morning star has shone for its brief hour, the sun in its appointed season will rise. " Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." And it shall be " a morning without clouds, as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain;" " Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof, let the field be joyful and all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord; for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth"-
" Scenes surpassing fable, and yet true."
One has said, " Faith has a world of its own." Surely we may say, after tracking these ascendings and descendings of the Son of God, linking all together, the highest and the lowest, and introducing all into the brightness of such a kingdom, this is so-faith has indeed a world of its own. O for power in the soul to walk there; and that power lies in the earnestness and fervor of faith, which is but the simplicity and reality of faith! David and Abigail walked in the world which was faith's world, when they met in the wilderness of Paran. To all appearance, or in the reckoning of men, David at that time was but the sport of the wicked; and, wandering in caves and dens of the earth; he would have been debtor, if it might be so, to a rich neighbor for a loaf of bread. But faith discovered another in David; and in the eye of Abigail, all was new. In that favored, though unnoticed hour, when the saints of God thus met in the desert, the kingdom, in spirit, was entered. The wilderness of Paran was the kingdom in the communion of the saints. " The solitary place was glad for them." The needy, hunted, persecuted fugitive was, in his own eyes and in the eyes of Abigail, the Lord of the coming kingdom, and the Anointed of the God of Israel. Abigail bowed before him as her king, and he, in the grace of a king, " accepted her person." The provisions she brought in her hand, her bread and her wine, her clusters of raisins, and cakes of figs, were not her bountifulness to the needy David, but the tribute of a willing subject to the royal David. She deemed herself too happy and too honored, if she could but minister to his servants. It was after this manner, that by faith she entered another world on this fine and beautiful occasion, as I may call it, witnessing to us that faith has indeed a world of its own. And that world was far more important to Abigail's heart than all the advantages of her wealthy husband's house. The wilderness was more to her than the fields and flocks of Mount Carmel. For there her spirit drank of those pleasures which faith had discovered in the pure, though distant, regions of glory.
Blessed, beloved, when we have like power to enter and dwell in our own world! Had not Noah such a world when he built a ship apparently for the land and not for the water? Had not Abraham such a world, when he left country and kindred, and father's house? Had not Paul such a world, when he could say, " Our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body"? Have we not all our own world at this living moment, when by faith our souls have access "into this grace wherein we stand"? That grace is the present peaceful, happy dwelling-place of the conscience sprinkled and purified, and the bright dwelling-place of hope, from whence it looks out " for the glory of God" (Rom. 5:1-2). It is but poorly known, if one may speak for others; but it is ours. And amid all this conscious infirmity, our faith has but to glorify the Son of God, for deeper enjoyment of Him is the diviner progress.
In closing this meditation, in which we have looked (according to our measure) at " the world to come," I would say, that few lessons lie more on the heart at the present day, than the rejection of Christ. I might naturally say so in this place-for if He be thus glorious, as we have seen,- in " the world to come," so surely is He rejected in " this present evil world."
But this is easily forgotten; and the god of this world would have it so. There is large and increasing accommodation and refinement abroad, social, intellectual, moral, and religious improvement; and all this is helping to keep an unworldly Christ out of sight. But faith eyes a rejected Jesus and a judged world. Faith knows that though the house, be swept, and emptied, and garnished, it has not changed its master or owner, but is only made the more fit for the ends and purposes of its master.
Solemn mistake, beloved, to think of refining and cultivating " this present world" for the Son of God!
If David, on one occasion, were careless about the mind of God as to the carriage of the ark, so was he, on another occasion, ignorant of the mind of God, as to the building for the ark a house of cedars. He sought to give the Lord an abiding habitation in an uncleansed, uncircumcised land. He therefore did greatly err, not knowing the purity of the glory of the Lord; and so with those who would link the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with the earth as it now is, or with the kingdoms of this present world. With whatever right desire of the heart this may be, as with David, again we say (and how surely in our own convictions), " They do greatly err, not knowing the purity of the glory of the Lord." This is a lesson we need to learn with increasing power. The Son of God is still a stranger on the earth; and He is not seeking it, but seeking a people out of it, to be strangers for a while longer with Him, on the face of it, and amid all the vanities and ambitions which constitute the history of its every hour.
" Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me."
"Through the dark path of sorrow which Jesus has trod,
Thy feeble ones wander, our Father, our God!
And the thick clouds that gather, but turn us away
From the waste howling desert where He could not stay.

"O hasten thy coming! we long for the day!
Bright Star of the Morning, no longer delay!
Let the groaning creation from sorrow be free,
And the purchased possession be gathered to Thee!"

The Son of God
" Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him that put all things under him."- 1 Cor. 15:28.
It is happy and establishing to the soul, to bear in lively faith and recollection, that it is the very same Jesus who was here on earth that is now in heaven, and whom we are to know, " through His own eternity." When we keep this in memory, every passage of His life here will be introduced afresh to us, and we shall feel it and own it, that we have in the Evangelists a more wonderful page to meditate, yea, and in some sense a much happier one too, than we once counted upon in the days of His sojourn among us, everything was a reality to Him; all was living and personal. He did more than touch the surface. When He healed a wound or a sorrow, in a way He felt it. " Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." His spirit drank of the springs, as of the streams-for not only were His joys real, His sorrows real, His fears and disappointments and the like real, but He entered into every occasion in all its character. He knew the unuttered language of that needy soul that touched Him in the crowd, and felt that touch in all its meaning. He was filled with delight at the faith of that Gentile who pierced the thick cloud of His humiliation, and reached the divine glory which shone in His person beneath it; and He alike feasted on the bold (but not too bold) faith of that sinner of the city who pierced the dark cloud of her own sin and shame, and reached the divine grace which could heal it all (see Luke 7). He understood the hasty step of Zacchaeus as he climbed the sycamore-tree, and the thoughtfulness of Nathanael as he sat under the fig-tree. He heard the strife of the disciples by the way, as they went up to Jerusalem, heard it in the tumult of the lusts within, ere it broke out in wars and fighting. And He knew the love as well as the self-confidence which drew Peter from the ship to the water.
Surely, then, it is for us, as we read " the wondrous story," in the recollection of this, to feel after Himself, as we mark the hand that did the deed, or track the foot that was treading the path. Every act and word would be felt with something of a new impression; and if so, what more blessed advance could we be making? Would it not be edifying in a high sense indeed, if we could be thus acquainting ourselves more really with a living, personal Jesus? At this time of ours, beloved, there may be a tendency to forget His Person or Himself, in the common testimony that is now borne so extendedly to His work. The region of doctrine may be surveyed, as by a measuring line and a level, instead of being eyed as the place of the glories of the Son of God with an admiring, worshipping heart. And, yet, it is this He prizes in us. He has made us personally His objects, and He looks for it, that we make Him ours.
And I ask myself, is not this, in a sense, the very topmost stone! Is not this personal desire of Christ towards us, chief in the ways of His grace? Election, predestination, pardon, adoption, glory and the kingdom, are they not only crowned by this, this desire of Christ towards us, this making of us an object to Himself? Surely it crowns all; surely it is the topmost stone, lying above and beyond all, fuller, and richer, and higher than any. Adoption and glory, welcome into the family, and a share in the kingdom, would be defective, were there not also this mystery, that the Son of God has found in us an object of desire. It assumes all the other works and counsels in the history of grace, and is thus beyond them all.
The Spirit delights to tell of the work of Christ, and to bear it in its preciousness and sufficiency to the heart and conscience. Nothing could stand us for a moment, had not the work been just what it was, and so counseled and ordered of God. But still the work of the Lord Jesus Christ may be the great subject, where He Himself is but a faint object, and the soul will thus be a great loser.
But these meditations on the Son of God, which I have been following now, I may say, to their close, suggest to me another thought just at this time.
When considering the deeper and more distant parts of God's ways, we sometimes feel as though they were too much for us; and we seek relief from the weight of them by going back to earlier and simpler truths. This, however, need not be. If we rightly entertained these further mysteries, we should know that we need not retire from them for relief; because they are really only other and deeper expressions of the same grace and love which we were learning at the very beginning. They are but a more abundant flow, or a wider channel, of the same river, just because they lie somewhat more distant from the source.
Till this assurance be laid up in the soul, we are ill prepared to think of them. If we have a fear, that when we are looking at glories, we have left the place of affections we wrong the truth and our own souls. It is not so by any means. The more fully the glories unfold themselves, the more are the riches of grace revealed. The rising of a river at its birthplace, where we took in the whole object at once, without effort or amazement, has, as we know, its own peculiar charm; but when it becomes, under our eye, a mighty stream, with its diversified banks and currents, we only the rather learn why it ever began to flow. It is the same water still; and we may pass up and down from its source and along its channels, with various but still constant pleasure. And " the river of God " is the same. We need seek no relief by turning to its source, as we survey it in its course, along and through the ages and dispensations. When in spirit (as now in the way of these meditations), we reach " the new heavens and the new earth," we are only in company with the same glorious person, and in fellowship with the same boundless grace, whom we knew, and which we learned, at the very beginning.
The same one made real to the soul, and brought near, is what I would desire, in God's grace, to be the fruit of these meditations. " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever "-so He is both in His own glory and to us.
In earlier days there were manifestations of Him, the Son of God, sometimes in veiled, sometimes in unveiled glory. To Abraham at the tent-door, to Jacob at Peniel, to Joshua under the walls of Jericho, to Gideon, and to Manoah, the manifestations were veiled, and faith, in more or less vigor, through the Spirit, removed the covering, and reached the glory that was underneath. To Isaiah, to -Ezekiel, and to Daniel, the Son of God appeared in unveiled glory, and He had, by a certain gracious -process, to make the brightness of the glory tolerable to them (see Isa. 6; Ezek. 1; Dan. 10)
The Person, however, was one and the same, whether veiled or unveiled. So, in the days when he had really (and not as in those earlier days) assumed flesh and blood, the glory was veiled, and faith was set to discover it, as in. the time of Abraham or of Joshua; and after He had ascended, He appeared to John in such brightness of unveiled glory, that something had to be done by Him in grace, as in the case of Isaiah or of Daniel, ere His presence could be sustained (Rev. 1).
Times and seasons in this respect made no difference. Of course, till the fullness of time came, the Son was not " made of a woman." Then it was that " the Sanctifier," as we read, " took part of the same," flesh and blood with the children (Heb. 17). For very flesh and blood indeed He took then, and not till then, very kinsman of the seed of Abraham He then indeed became. " It behooved him to be made like unto His brethren." And all this waited for its due season, " the fullness of the time," the days of the Virgin of Nazareth. But these manifestations of the Son of God in earlier days were pledges of this great mystery, that in due time God would send forth His Son made of a woman. They were,
I may so express it, the shadows of the forthcoming substance. And what I have been observing has this in it-and which is of interest- to our souls-that those foreshadowings were beautifully exact. They forecast, in forms both of glory and of grace, the ways of Him who afterward traveled and sojourned here on earth in humble, serving, sympathizing love, and is now set as glorified in Heaven, the Son of Man, the Virgin's Seed, forever.
It is delightful to the soul to trace these exact resemblances and forecastings. If we have a veiled glory at the threshing-floor at Ophrah, so have we at the well of Sychar-if we have the brightness of the unveiled glory on the banks of the Hiddekel, so have we the same in the isle of Patmos. The Son of God was as a traveling man in the sight of Abraham in the heat of the day, and so was He to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, as the day was fast spending itself. He ate of Abraham's calf, " tender and good," as He did of " the broiled fish and of the honeycomb," in the midst of the disciples at Jerusalem. In His risen days, He assumed different forms to suit (in divine grace) the need or demand of the moment, as He had done of old, whether as a stranger, or a visitor, whether as " a man of God" simply to Manoah and his wife in the field, or as an armed soldier at Jericho to Joshua.
And it is this, I think I can say again, which I value specially in following these meditations upon Him, to see Jesus one throughout, and that, too, near and real to us. We need, if one may speak for others, the purged eye that is practiced to see, and delight in, such a heaven as the heaven of Jesus must be. Will it be nothing, we may ask our hearts, will it be nothing to spend eternity with Him who looked up, and caught the eye of Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree, and then, to the thrilling joy of his soul, let his name fall on his ear from His own lips? With Him, who without one upbraiding word, filled the convicted quickened heart of a poor sinner of Samaria with joy, and a spirit of liberty that far more than abounded? Surely we want nothing but the child-like, simple, believing mind. For we are not straightened in Him-and there is nothing to Him, like this believing mind. It glorifies Him beyond even the services of eternity.
Nature, it is indeed true, is not equal to this. It must come from the in-working and witness of the Holy Ghost. Nature finds itself overwhelmed. It always betrays itself as that which, as the Apostle speaks, comes short of the glory of God." When Isaiah, on the occasion already referred to, was called into the presence of that glory, he could not stand it. He remembered his uncleanness, and cried out that he was undone. All that he apprehended was the glory, and all that he felt and knew in himself was his unfitness to stand before it. This was nature. This was the action of the conscience which, as in Adam in the garden, seeks relief from the presence of God. Nature in the prophet did not discover the altar which, equally with the glory, lay in the scene before him. He did not perceive that which was perfectly equal to give him perfect ease and assurance, to link him (though still a sinner in himself) with the presence of the glory in all its brightness. Nature could not make this discovery. But the, messenger of the Lord of hosts not only discovers but applies it; and the prophet is at ease, in the possession of a cleanness Or a holiness that can measure the very " holy of holies" itself, and the brightness of the throne of the Lord of hosts.
The Spirit acts above nature, yea, in contradiction of nature. Nature in Isaiah, in us all, stands apart, and is abashed, unable to look up-the Spirit draws us right inward and upward in liberty. When Simeon is led by the Spirit into the presence of the Glory, he goes up at once in all confidence and joy. He takes the child Jesus in his arms. He makes no request of the mother to suffer it to be so-he feels no debt to any one for the blessed privilege of embracing "the salvation of God," which his eyes then saw. He through the Spirit had discovered the altar; and the glory, therefore, was not beyond him (see Isa. 6, Luke 2).
And true still, as true as ever, as true as in the days of Isaiah and of Simeon, are these things now. The Spirit leads in a path which nature never treads. Nature stands apart and is afraid; yea, will rebuke where faith is full of liberty. And these divers ways of nature and of faith we may well remember for our comfort and strengthening, as we still look at the Son of God, and Meditate on mysteries and counsels of God connected with Him.
Our meditations have waited on the Lord from the eternity of the Father's bosom, to the coining days of the millennial kingdom. We have watched His ascendings and descendings in the intermediate dispensations, and marked the links between the successive parts of this great mystery, or the transition-moments in the stages of these wondrous journeys. We have but little liberty from Scripture (our only chart and compass) to follow Him further. The Psalms and the Prophets open the door into the coming kingdom, and open it widely. But they scarcely carry us beyond it. At least if they lead us to know that there are reunions still in the further distance, that is almost all they do. They never give us to survey them.
This coming kingdom they again and again speak of as everlasting. Rightly so, as I need not say-but rightly so in this sense-that it is not to give place to any other kingdom. As Daniel says of it, " The kingdom shall not be left to other people." It is to be as untransferrable as the priesthood of the same Christ, the Son of God. It is to be as enduring as royalty-as long continued as power " ordained of God" is to be; for it shall not cease while He, " to whom power belongs," has anything to do by means of power. But still, it will, in season, have discharged its office and service, and then cease.
Of this mystery, this ceasing, or delivering up of the Kingdom, we have a verbal or literal intimation in Psa. 8 That Psalm celebrates the lordship of the Son of Man, in the day of His power, over the works of God's hands. But it contains an intimation (as we find from an inspired commentary upon it in 1 Cor. 15:27,28), that that day of power shall yield to another order of things.
We have also moral intimations of the same mystery. For instance: the age or dispensation we are now contemplating is, as we see, to be a kingdom, the time of a scepter; and. as such, may I not say, it must have an end. Could a scepter be the symbol of the divine eternity, the eternity of God's presence? A scepter may exercise its prerogative power for its season; but Scripture would lead us to say, it could not be the symbol of our eternity in the blessed presence of God. Even Adam can scarcely be said to have had a scepter. He had dominion, but was it exactly that of a king? His was lordship and inheritance more properly, not a kingdom. It was not royal rule, though there was the fullest subjection to him, and the most perfect order. A kingdom was not developed, in the progress of the divine way and wisdom, for a long time. And all this suggests, that when the time of a kingdom, or the rule of a scepter, or the exercise of royal power, come, such a form of things will not be final or eternal. It cannot, I judge, give rest to the thoughts which are spiritually or scripturally exercised towards God and His ways. A scepter of righteousness is not so high or so eternal a thought as a dwelling-place of righteousness, and that is what Scripture confirms (see 2 Peter 3:13).
And, further, as another moral intimation of this same truth, the coming kingdom will be but an imperfect condition of things. We need not determine how far there may be the need of it, or the demand for its exercise, still, however, power will be present to put itself forth. The Prophets survey this kingdom, as we said, widely in its strength, its extent, its duration, its glory, its peace and blessedness, and the like; but withal, the presence of evil and of sorrow is contemplated, though with authority to control, and resources to relieve.
Is not this then, I ask, a further intimation, of a moral character, that such an order of things is to yield to a better? Surely it is. But there is more than even this -the kingdom is a delegated thing, a stewardship-and being such, we may say, in divine or scriptural reasoning, it must give an account of itself, and be delivered up.
But here, beloved, meditations on Jesus Himself, the Son of God, afresh invite the soul.
In this character of it, to which I have now referred, His kingdom is like His past time of humiliation on earth, and His present time of priesthood in heaven. All, in a great sense, was, or is, or will be, stewardship. He came here to this earth of ours to do God's will, and when He had accomplished it, He rendered it up as in sacrifice: His present seat in heaven is a stewardship. As a High Priest there, He is faithful, " faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all His house."-And after these patterns will be His coming kingdom and power. It will be, like the rest, a stewardship. Though of something new, something which had not been committed to Him or put into His hands before, something, too, very glorious and excellent, still it will be a stewardship. And, being such, it will have, in due season, to be accounted for and delivered up. And such a mystery is full of blessedness, had we but faith and bowels to enjoy it. For, after this wondrous manner, subjection and obedience to God (which man, the creature of the dust, cast off and refused), from the • unutterable glory of the Person of Him who owns it and renders it, receives such value as all creatures, from the highest to the lowest, though they had all continued in unintermitting and full service, could never have imparted to it.
And this is a precious truth, which the soul loses, just so far as the enemy robs it of the sense and apprehension of the Person of the Son.
The Son Himself delights to be all this, the steward or servant of the will of God, whether in grace or in glory, in humiliation or in power. And when we, in the spirit of worship, consider or recollect who He is throughout all changes and conditions, we can and will say, that changes and conditions, whether the highest or the lowest, are as nothing. What, in one sense, can raise such a One? Can glory and a kingdom elevate Him? Faith finds it easy indeed to see such a One a steward of power and dominion and royal honors, when He comes to sit on a throne, just as He was a steward, when He traversed in weakness and humiliation the path of life. Such distances, in one sense, are nothing to such a One as " the Son." In another sense, the distance, we surely know, is immense; for He entered into sorrow in its season, and will enter into joy in its season. All was, and is, and will be real to Him, as we said before; and, therefore, in another sense, the distance is immense. The "Man of Sorrows" will take the "cup of salvation." Will that be nothing? To Him that was despised and rejected, insulted and scorned, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. But the Person is the same throughout, God and man in one Christ; and faith, therefore, receives it, that having been the steward of the Father's will and grace in days of humiliation, He may still be steward of the Father's kingdom in days of exaltation and strength.
And so it will be, as scripture after scripture tells us. "When I shall receive the congregation (says Christ, anticipating the kingdom), I will judge uprightly"-thus owning that He is under commission or in stewardship, when in the kingdom. So, to the like intent, He owns that the time of His receiving the kingdom and the distribution of the rewards and honors of the kingdom, are not in His hands, but the Father's (Mark 13:32; Matt. 20:23). Every tongue, in that day, it is most sure, shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, but then, this is to be "to the glory of God the Father." The Lord Himself again and again calls it the Father's kingdom. And further; He will be anointed for the ministry of it, just as He was anointed for the ministry of the days of His flesh (see Isa. 11:1-3, and 61:1, 2). And further still, may I say, He will be a dependent on God during His day of strength, as He has already been, or as He once was, in His day of sorrow and weakness. Therefore we read, "prayer shall be made for Him continually"-as Solomon, the typical king, put the kingdom, which he had received, under the care of the God of Israel, by a public act of intercession (see Psa. 72, and 2 Chron. 7).
All this is moral intimation that there must be a delivering up of the kingdom; for all this spews us that the kingdom is a delegated thing, a stewardship-and this moral intimation, as we know, is affirmed by the divine reasoning, as we said, in 1 Cor. 15, and Psa. 8. All is subjection-the kingly days of power, the self- emptying days of sorrow, the heavenly days of priestly ministry-all is alike subjection and Service-. As Christ did not glorify Himself to be made a High-Priest, but He which said unto Him, " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," so we may say, neither did He glorify Himself to be made a king, but He which said unto Him, "Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool." " I saw in the night-visions, and behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him, and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom."
This is the institution of the coming kingdom of Christ. And thus it is a delegated thing, taken from the hands of another, in its time to be delivered back. The Son most surely will be faithful, where all others have been found wanting. Of them it is written, " God standeth in the congregation of the mighty, He judgeth among the gods"-but of the Son it is written, " Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom, thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows" (Psa. 45, and 82.). But all this still tells us that He holds the kingdom as a stewardship. Whether it be the sword or the scepter of the kingdom, whether He act as the David or the Solomon, He will be alike faithful. When He goes forth to the judgment, onto fight the battles of the Lord, this will be so-as it is said of Him, " The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath"-and again, "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth." When He sits on the throne, or ministers the kingdom in peace, this will be so. "I will walk within my house," says Christ the King, "with a perfect heart." And it is said of Him to Jehovah, "He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment:" But again I say, all this intimates delegated power, though in a peculiar hand. His kingdom shall perfect that which concerneth it, as did His death once and forever, and as His heavenly priesthood is now doing day by day. And then His scepter shall be laid aside, the kingdom shall cease. As it is written, "He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father"-and again, "Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all."
" That God may be all in all." Yes, God, by the Son, made the worlds or the ages. And when the worlds or the ages have run their course and discharged their trust, when dispensations have manifested the counsels and the works, and the glories appointed them, the Son, as the One in whom they were laid and by whom they were ordered, may well be subject unto Him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
It is the subjection of office, the subjection of Him who had all things put under Him to Him who did put all things under Him. That is the character of this subjection. As to the Person, unlike the office, it is eternal. The Son is of the glory of the Godhead, as is the Father, and as is the Holy Ghost. And the Son manifest in flesh, the Person of the Christ, is a tabernacle never to be folded up. " I do believe," as another speaks, " the Person of Christ, and therein His human nature shall be the eternal object of Divine glory, praise, and worship. The life of glory shall be exercised in the continual ascription of glory, praise, and honor, unto God, whereof the Lamb, the Person of Christ, is the eternal object, with that of the Father and the Spirit, the human nature in the Son being admitted into the communion of the same eternal glory."
It is the mystery of mysteries, the Person, we are here looking at. When we think rightly of Him, even all the brightness of the coming kingdom will be seen but as a veil. Can the splendor of the throne display Him? Would not the honors of Solomon, yea of the kingdoms of the world, be a veil over the glory of the Son, as really as the scorn of Pilate's judgment-hall, or the thorns of Calvary? Is the Bethlehemite the measure of His personal worth-a single tittle more than the Nazarene? Therefore, to faith it is easy to see the servant still, in days of exaltation as in days of sorrow. He serves as a Servant, he serves as a Priest, he serves as a King. Service is still His way. And service in Him and by Him becomes acceptable to God, beyond all power of thought or of utterance. In every character, the Son will have taken it up, accomplished it, and dignified it. He will have fulfilled it to perfection in strength and in weakness, in shame and in honor, in sorrow and in joy, in the village of Nazareth, in the temple in heaven, and on the millennial throne of power.
It is the link of links, this mystery we are here contemplating-and in the faith of it, all distances and intervals vanish. Heaven and earth, God and man, the Sanctifier and the sanctified, the highest and the lowest, are introduced to each other in ways of unutterable glory to God and blessing to us.
What links, indeed, what mysteries, what harmonies, what counsels about the ends of creation in the hidden ages of divine eternal wisdom before creation! "Vast as is the course which Scripture has traced, it has been a circle still; and in that most perfect form comes back to the point from which it started. The heaven, which had disappeared since the third chapter of Genesis, reappears in the latest chapters of the Revelation. The tree of life again stands by the river of the water of life, and again there is no more curse."
" Even the very differences of the forms under which the heavenly kingdom re-appears are deeply characteristic, marking, as they do, not merely that all is won back, but won back in a more glorious shape than that in which it was lost, because won back in the Son. It is no longer Paradise, but the New Jerusalem, no longer the Garden, but the City of God-no longer the Garden, free, spontaneous, and unlabored, as man's blessedness in the estate of a first innocence would have been, but the City, costlier indeed, more stately and more glorious, but at the same time the result of toil and pains, reared into a nobler and more abiding habitation, yet with stones which (after the pattern of the elect corner-stone) were, each in its time, laboriously hewn and painfully squared for the places which they fill."
We may join in these thoughts, but having reached the delivering up of the kingdom, we are on the borders of " the new heaven and the new earth.".. The heaven and the earth which is now will have been the scene of the Son's exercised energies, and the witness of His perfections in grace and in glory, in humiliation and in power, in the services of the Servant, the Priest, and the King, in the life of faith and in the lordship of all things. And when the Son has been thus displayed,' as in weakness and in strength, as on earth and in heaven, from the Manger to the Throne, as the Nazarene and the Bethlehemite, the Lamb of God and the Anointed Lord of all, according to predestination of eternal counsels, these heavens and earth which now are will have done all they had to do; when they have continued unto this display of the Son, they have continued long enough. They may give place; and the soul that has surveyed them as having accomplished such a service may be prepared to hear this from the Prophet of God, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away."
But, as I said before, " we have but little liberty from Scripture (our only chart and compass) to follow the Lord further than the kingdom." There are, however, characteristics of "the new heaven and the new earth," given to us in the passing or occasional notices of the Spirit. Isaiah speaks of the former heaven and earth not being remembered when the new creation comes; intimating thereby the abounding excellence of the latter. And, again, he says, "the new heaven and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me," thereby suggesting that it is the eternal state. St. Paul says, that after the delivery of the kingdom, God shall be ' all in all"; by that intimating, I judge, that all delegated power, all stewardship, of which I have spoken, even in the hand of the Son, is over, as having completed its purpose. St. Peter speaks of the new heaven and the new earth as being the dwelling-place of righteousness, by such a thought carrying our minds beyond the time of the scepter of righteousness.
But John, in the Apocalypse, is more full, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea." And, again, John says of this same new heaven and earth, "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 crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." This is blessed. "The former things are passed away." Tears are gone; death is gone; sorrow, and pain, and crying are gone. No trace remains of the former things of sin and death. The Millennial earth will not be a witness of so high an order as that. "The former things are passed away." Not that we lose anything which has been given or communicated in His counsels of grace and glory, in the services of the Son, and in the operations of the Spirit. Nothing will be lost to us, which we have gathered in the progress of the divine dispensations. That could not be. Even the passing refreshments of the Spirit, which the in-working of corruption spoils us of for many and many a season, are not lost to us. They are the witness of that which is eternal in its very essence. And in like manner, all the unfolded wisdom of God must be enjoyed forever, in its bright result. It is itself essentially eternal, and cannot be lost to us. These manifestations of God in His wisdom, and power, and grace, and glory, have come forth and shown themselves in the progress of the ages, and they have found a struggle in an injured, ruined, degraded scene of action, like this world of ours; but in the new heavens and the new earth, all this struggle in every form of it is over, and these manifestations will be known in their full, triumphant and glorious result.
Before Him that sits on the white horse, the apostate powers of "this present evil world" in the hour of their fullest pride and daring are smitten; and the Lord and His saints take righteous rule in the earth for the appointed Millennial age. Before Him that sits on the white throne, the present heaven and earth pass away, and there is found no place for them, and He that sits on the throne says, "Behold, I make all things new." Surely these are distinctions; distinctions, too, full of meaning, and as significant of advance and development in divine counsels and ways, as any earlier moment.
It will not be the scepter of righteousness, but its dwelling-place, and accordingly it will not be the throne of the Son, but the tabernacle of God. It is not divine authority over the scene, but the home of God in the scene.
It will no longer be the earth that was once stained with the blood if Christ, and has been the grave of a thousand generations, but a new earth-no longer the heavens that have been clothed in sackcloth, and where thunders and wind and deluge have done the work of judgment, and borne witness of righteous wrath, but " new heavens."
He that is athirst shall drink of the fountain of the water of life; he that overcometh, shall inherit all things (Rev. 21:6, 7). Blessed characters of the saint, how little realized in the souls of some of us; but still blessed, when we can but read of them or think of them; to be longing after the living God, and conquering the course of this evil world.
I would, however, say but little more. We must not speculate where we cannot teach; we must not listen where we cannot learn from Him. His written word is the standard of the thoughts of all His saints, while some have that word more largely made the possession of their souls, through the Spirit, than others. We are to know the common standard, and also our personal measure in the Spirit. I would, therefore, pause here just adding one thought which has been happy to myself - that though we see not those distant regions, we may trust them-trust Him, rather, who is the Lord of them. We may assure our hearts in His presence, that they will be just what we would have them to be, just what our new conditions would ask for. Heaven has always been what the earth needed. At the beginning, the sun was there to rule the day, and the moon and the stars to govern the night. Those ordinances were set in heaven then, for they measured the earth's need then. But there was no rainbow in the sky, for the earth needed not a token that God would debate with judgment.
Judgment was not known. But when conscience had. been quickened, and judgment was understood and feared, when God was known (in the doings He had accomplished) to be righteous, and earth needed a pledge that in wrath He would remember mercy, heaven wore the token of that mercy, and hung it out as on its very forehead.
After this manner, heaven has already changed itself, or arrayed itself anew, with the changing need of the earth-and the past pledges the future, though "a new heaven and a new earth" be to be revealed. Yea, I may add, the millennial earth, in its day, will know the same fidelity of heaven to it. For the habitation of the glory shall be seen to be there then (as the sanctuary of peace is known by faith to be there now), and the heavenly city of that age will descend in that very character which the nations of the earth, their kings, their glory, and their honor, will both need and delight in. The God of heaven and earth, in boundless and unwearied goodness, will, after this old, and constant, and undeviated way, be ever and alike true to the blessing of His creatures. " Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." And the new heavens and the new earth will but take up the same tale of various but exhaustless goodness.
I desire grace to know that the heavenly country is very near-near both as to time and place. There are no divine measures of distances for heaven, though there are for earth. The wisdom of man tells us of stars whose light would take thousands of years to travel to us. We need not deny it, beloved. Space is without limit, if they please, as well as duration. We may leave such thoughts unquestioned. But this is not the character of divine wisdom-this is not the way or the light of scripture. The schools teach these things, but not the Spirit. From the teaching of the Spirit in the Word we know that the place of the glory is so near that, in other days, a ladder measured the distance in the eye of Jacob, and so does it still measure the same distance in the eye of faith-and we know also that the time of it is so near, that the twinkling of an eye will be enough to accomplish the journey in its appointed season.
We only need the happy faith which realizes it all to the soul.
Our Father's house! our Father's house!
In spirit we are there-
The gather'd of the Father's hand,
The objects of His care.

Our Father's house! no more our souls
At fearful distance bow,
We enter in by Jesus' blood,
With happy boldness now.

Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard,
What there the Spirit knows,
The drafts of bliss it drinketh there,
Amid that blest repose.

Our Father! thought had never dream'd
That love like thine could be-
Mysterious love which brings us thus
So very near to Thee!
May these meditations help our souls to know this nearness and this reality of the blessed things of faith. Amen.
"We know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true-even in His Son Jesus Christ - this is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols."
Note.-I have learned that some things in No. II. of these meditations on " The Son of God" have been an offense to many. I am well aware, that in the heat, and under the influence, of certain feelings at the time, I was led to expressions which I should not now use, and have thus conveyed my mind too boldly and unguardedly. I am grieved if any child of God have been offended through this. I would not lead him from the place of the knowledge and worship of Christ, into that of speculation or discussion about Him. This unguardedness and boldness has led also, I believe, to a misapprehension of my mind to some extent. This is also my fault and my regret.
I receive the manhood in the Person of the blessed Christ of God, as simply and surely as I do His Godhead. But I receive it in its purity and perfection, with no taint of sin, or consequence of sin in it. All the sorrows and the fears, the weariness and the pains, the conflicts, the cries, the agonies and the death of the Lord Jesus were deep realities. Never had I any other thought. And if my words in that paper, or any where else, have led any not to find in the Jesus that I have presented to them, their kinsman, in the sense of His having par- taken of flesh and blood, because of the children, I would restore their soul with all care and diligence. No language that I could use would be too strong to convey the assurance I have of the reality of the manhood and of the death of that sacred Person, the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, and the Christ of God. He was the slain Lamb of God, the Son of Man by wicked hands killed and crucified, though He gave up His life; a mystery, which the mystery of His Person, " God manifest in the flesh," suggests, and which Scripture reveals. To Him be praise forever and ever!