The Lord of Glory
But how blessed to faith to see in the first Epistle of John the doctrine of Christ revealed and the blessings and comforts brought forth, which are for those who abide in this doctrine. In the Gospel of John the beloved disciple writes by the Holy Spirit about the Son of God, how He came from the Father and was in the world and how He left the world to go back to the Father. The Son of God is also the theme of the Holy Spirit in the first Epistle of John. “Our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (i:3). This fellowship means that we share the Father’s thoughts about His Son and to enjoy with the Son His own blessed and eternal relationship with the Father. In the measure our faith enters into the doctrine of Christ in that measure we shall have deeper fellowship with the Father and His Son. Is your cry, dear reader, for more reality in this fellowship? There is one way only which leads to this. It is an increase in the knowledge of the Son of God and as you abide there, you have the Father and the Son.
And now we shall call to our remembrance other passages in the first Epistle of John in which our blessed Lord as the Son of God is mentioned. They are sweet and precious to faith and if read in the Spirit they will bring the joy, the blessing, the peace and the comfort of the doctrine of Christ to our hearts.
“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (i:7). That precious blood, His own blood, has cleansed us once and for all. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil” (iii:8). “And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as He gave us commandment. And he that keepeth His commandments (which are: believing on Him and loving one another) dwelleth in Him and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us” (iii:23-24). “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son into the world to be the propitiation for our sins.” “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (iv:9-11). “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him” (iv:14-16). “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (v:5) “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself; he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave to His Son. And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (v:9-12). “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us” (v:13-14). “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath 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” (v:20).
May our faith lay hold anew of these simple yet deep and precious revelations. They are the doctrine of Christ. Into this we must enter constantly and manifest in our lives the fruits of this doctrine, love and righteousness. The increasing rejection of the doctrine of Christ demands the increased appreciation of that doctrine. The more the enemy attacks the Person of Christ, the more the Holy Spirit demands of us, who belong to Christ, that we exalt Him. Everything in the present time seems to be aimed at the setting aside of the doctrine upon which our Hope rests. Higher Criticism, the evil doctrines, which reject the eternal punishment of the wicked, the spurious gospels, ethical teachings and every other false doctrine strikes at the blessed Person of our Lord. The shadow of the Anti-christ is cast in our days. Let us heed God’s Word. Let us be separated from those who deny Christ or we are partakers of their evil deeds. The path of the true believer becomes narrower. It must be so. But Christ becomes more precious, more real to our souls.
What awful times are coming upon this age according to God’s Word! With the rejection of the doctrine of Christ this age sides completely with Satan and that wonderful being is both blinding his victims and using them for his own sinister purposes. The blindness is fearful. It will be worse before long. The rush into complete apostasy and from there into the delusion with the lying wonders and on into the darkness forever will come next. Let us praise God for the doctrine of Christ, which is our salvation, and may God give us faith and courage to walk according to that doctrine. What day of joy awaits us, when we shall see him as He is and know the depth of the Love of God by being like Him!
The Pre-Eminence of the Lord Jesus Christ
WHAT a blessed theme the Person and Glory of our Lord! How inexhaustible and unsearchable! How refreshing to the souls of His redeemed people as well as to the heart of our heavenly Father, who, loveth the Son! To meditate on Him, to behold the Glory of the Lord under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God, means spiritual growth and spiritual enjoyment. This only can make the unseen Person a blessed reality in our daily walk. We pray that all our beloved readers are drawn closer to Himself through these brief meditations. Can we truly say the Lord is more precious to our hearts and that we are living more in His presence than ever before? Has He become the absorbing object of our hearts and lives? Are we more devoted to Him? God grant that this may be the case with all of us. It is the great need we have. It is the good part, which Mary, resting at His feet, had chosen.
In the great chapter which begins the Epistle to the Colossians, after that blessed description of the Son of God, stands this word “that in all things He might have the pre-eminence” (Col. i:18). But who can tell out what a pre-eminence, the pre-eminence of the Lord Jesus Christ is? Some day we shall see Him in all His Glory. He Himself will lead us into the Holiest of the third heaven to behold the Glory the Father has given Him (John xvii:24); then we shall know His pre-eminence fully. And yet from Scripture we can learn even now the pre-eminence of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In all eternity the Son of God was the object of Love and Glory.
“Son of God the Father’s bosomEver was Thy dwelling place.”He ever subsisted in the form of God. In all creation He has the pre-eminence. This is made known to us, as man could not discover it, by revelation. We accept this in faith. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb. x:3). And all which was called into existence was created by Him and for Him. “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him” (Col. i:16). What a marvellous survey! What power and glory belongs to the blessed Son of God! “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” “The world was made by Him” (John i:3, 10).
He has the pre-eminence in sustaining His creation. All things consist by Him. He upholds all things by the Word of His power (Heb. i:3).
In the Revelation of God He has the pre-eminence. Both books, the book of Nature and the Book of all books, the written Word of God, the Bible, tell out His Glory. The Bible may be compared to a living organism, like the human body. Every book in the Bible has a specific place and service like the members of the body; the life in that marvellous divinely constructed organism of the revelation of God is the Son of God. Apart from Him there is no revelation from God and no manifestation of God. He reveals God throughout the Bible, in every part, He holds the pre-eminence. Greater still is His pre-eminence in redemption. Redemption would be an eternal impossibility without Him. He came from the Father’s bosom to redeem us. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father but by Him. He gives eternal life. Furthermore as the first born from the dead He is the head of the body. That body is the church and every believing sinner is a member in that body. Each is united to Him and possesses His life. This body with its many members He keeps, nourishes, builds up, sanctifies and ultimately glorifies. In all the great and glorious redemptive work He has the pre-eminence.
As the glorified Man He is the Heir of God and as such He holds the pre-eminence in heaven. He has been made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. Far above all the angelic beings, higher than the archangel is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Man in Glory.
There is a future pre-eminence for Him. The day of His visible Glory and power is approaching. Now He is rejected, then He will be enthroned. Upon the holy hill of Zion He will be the King of Glory. His Glory will cover the heavens and His Majesty the earth. He will be King of kings and Lord of lords. He will rule as the only potentate and every knee must bow before Him. The song must at last rise in heaven and on earth “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory and blessing.” Such is, briefly sketched, the pre-eminence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yea, in all things He hath the pre-eminence.
Can we do anything less than to give Him the first place in all things? He is worthy of it. He died for us. He drank the cup of wrath in our stead. His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree. How great has been and still is His love for us, the love, which passeth knowledge. He is worthy of the first place every moment of our lives. He is worthy to possess all we have and are. We are bought with a price, we are not our own. We belong to Him.
What unspeakable grace from God the Father, that He has brought us into fellowship with Him to whom He has given the pre-eminence. We please the Father as we delight ourselves in the Son and walk in that blessed fellowship. We must honor Him whom the Father has honored, and as we serve the Lord Jesus Christ and accord Him the first place, the Father will honor us (John xii:26). Our hearts too can never fully know the blessed peace of God and rest of faith till we give our Lord the first place. Anything less than that will mean dishonor to Him. “Not I – but Christ” must be the constant cry of our hearts. Not I – but Christ in our daily walk; Not I – but Christ in our service. Oh! that we might realize our great and holy calling, our wonderful privilege, a privilege which is ours for but a little while longer to live Him, live for Him, who has in all things the pre-eminence.
Nothing save Him, in all our ways,Giving the theme for ceaseless praise;Our whole resource along the road,Nothing but Christ – the Christ of God.“Ye are Christ’s – Christ is God’s.”
ONLY a few words, yet how blessedly full of peace and joy! How precious they are to faith! If we, to whom they apply, would remember them daily, how happy in Him we would be. In all our ways, in good and evil days, yea, every moment the truth contained in these words ought to be real to the true believer. Is not all our failure due to the fact that we live not sufficiently in the consciousness and reality of this wonderful fact, that we belong to Christ, that we are one with Him? Before these words in the third chapter of First Corinthians we find the statement “all things are yours.” And after these words it is written “Christ is God’s.” We are Christ’s and Christ is God’s; all things are ours because Grace has brought us into this marvelous relationship. “Christ is God’s” gives us once more the whole story of God’s Love and Grace. As the Only Begotten He ever subsisted in the form of God, the Image of God, one with Him, absolutely God. But He came down, took upon Him the form of a servant, taking His place in the likeness of man. In the form of man He wrought the great work of redemption on the cross and now after His resurrection, by which He is proven Son of God and His presence as the glorified Man in the highest heaven, He is the one in whom and through whom, God the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ gives all blessing. “Christ is God’s,” then, means what we learn from the following scriptures: “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hands” (John iii:35). “Whom He hath appointed heir of all things” (Heb. i:2). “Christ is God’s” is a word which tells us that He who is the Creator of all things, the visible and the invisible, came in incarnation, redeemed us and is now, the beginning, the first-begotten from the dead and the Head of His Body, which is the Church. This is how God has brought us to Himself in the person of His own Son by whom he has redeemed us, in whom He has exalted us and with whom He has given us all things.
To that wonderful person, Christ, the Christ of God, we belong. We are His, who is One with God, by whom and for whom all things were created. The Son of God for such as we are, became poor, even to the poverty of the cross. There He took our place and in His own body He bore our sins and died for us. He saw us then the travail of His soul. We can look back to the cross and say, as His Apostle said: “Who love me and gave Himself for me.” We belong to Him, who has all power in heaven and will have all power before long, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords on earth. We are Christ’s, whom God has appointed as the second Man, the head of the new creation as Heir of all things. We are Christ’s, who is the Head of the Body, to which we belong. In Him and with Him we are the Heirs of God. God and Christ are inseparable and so are Christ and we who have trusted in Him and have His life. All Christ has belongs to us; all Christ is we shall be; where Christ is there we shall be in all eternity. Reader! Child of God, pause! Does your faith lay hold of this? Do you read it only and enjoy it just for a moment or is this great fact of your union with Christ and God becoming daily a greater reality in your life? Is it really so that you enter deeper and deeper into that love which passeth knowledge? Oh! that it may be so with the writer and each believer who reads these feeble words on so great a theme.
“Ye are Christ’s.” Then we are not our own. That is exactly what is elsewhere stated in First Corinthians. “Ye are not your own; we are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. vi:20). Our hearts occupied with Himself, increasingly attracted by the glorious Person of our adorable Lord, realising by the power of His Spirit our glory and destiny with the Lord of Glory, we shall act and walk as such, who are Christ’s. Every step of the way it will resound in our hearts “ye are Christ’s.” In all we do we shall always remember we are Christ’s. Cares, anxieties, worldly ambitions, all manner of temptations, will fall before the fact grasped in faith “I am Christ’s.”
We are convinced that only the Person of Christ put before the heart of the believer through the Word of God and the power of His Spirit can keep the Christian in these awful days of apostasy from going along with the fearful current of the last days. If Christ and our blessing in Him become more real to us we will be beyond the reach of the god of this age with his wiles and sinister purposes.
Furthermore the demand of the hour is for us to exalt Christ. How He is dishonored is a dread reality. The rejection of Christ was never so marked and never so satanic as in these days. God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ expects from us His children that we exalt Him in the days of His rejection and thus share His reproach. Let us do it!
And lastly, if we ever have the Person of Christ before our hearts, we shall walk in obedience to Him as our Lord. Then if we exalt Christ and are obedient to Himself we have the fullest assurance that the Holy Spirit will be with us, upon us and fill us. There is no need to seek “the power” as some express it, nor a baptism of the Spirit. He will be with us and in us in the measure as we exalt Christ and walk in Him.
O gracious Lord, when we reflectHow apt to turn the eye from Thee,Forget Thee, too, with sad neglect,And listen to the enemy,And yet to find Thee still the same —’Tis this that humbles us with shame.Astonished at Thy feet we fall,Thy love exceeds our highest thought,Henceforth be Thou our all in all,Thou who our souls with blood hast bought;May we henceforth more faithful prove,And ne’er forget Thy ceaseless love.“Him will I make that overcomesAnd stems the advancing flood,A pillar of might, with glory light,In the temple of my God.On him shall the blest Name divine,And my new name be graven;And the City’s name, Jerusalem,That cometh down from heaven.”The Wonderful
Isaiah ix:6HIS name shall be called “Wonderful” (Isaiah ix:6). And long before Isaiah had uttered this divine prediction the angel of the Lord had announced his name to be Wonderful. As such He appeared to Manoah. And Manoah said unto the angel of Jehovah, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honor. And the angel of Jehovah said unto Him “why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is Wonderful” (margin, Judges xiii:17-18). This angel of Jehovah, the Person who appeared repeatedly in Old Testament history is an uncreated angel. Of this Being we read that He is the Redeemer, for Jacob speaks of Him “the angel which redeemed me from all evil” (Genesis xlviii:15). He is the angel whose voice must be obeyed, who has power to pardon transgressions, in whom the name of God is (Exodus xxiii:20-23). He is the angel of His Presence who saved them (Isaiah lxiii:9) and Exodus xxxiii:14 must refer to this Being “My presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest.” This angel of Jehovah speaks in the Book of Judges and declared, “I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said I will never break my covenant with you” (Judges ii:1). He appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush and He spoke to Moses as the I am! (Ex. iii.) The same One appeared before Joshua and he worshipped in His presence. With Him Jacob wrestled, with Jehovah, the God of hosts (Hosea xii:4-6). Malachi iii:1 shows that the Lord Himself is this Angel, the Angel of the Covenant, who also visited Abraham in the form of Man (Genesis xviii).
And after all these manifestations, seven hundred years after Isaiah had announced Him, as the Wonderful, He appeared in human form in the midst of His people. And now we know by divine Revelation in the completed Word of God that He is wonderful in His Person and in his work; but no mind can fathom, no heart can grasp, no pen can describe, how wonderful He is.
He is wonderful if we think of Him as the Only Begotten of the Father. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made” (John i:1-3). “By Him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were made by Him and for Him; and He is before all things and by Him all things consist” (Col. i:16-17). He is the image of the invisible God, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His Person. How wonderful such a One, who ever was, with no beginning, One with God!
How wonderful His humiliation. “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being in fashion as a man He humbled Himself” (Phil. ii:6-8). “For verily He took not on Him the nature of Angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews ii:16). Wonderful condescension that He who created the angels should be made lower than the angels and lay His Glory by, to appear in the form of man on earth.
Wonderful is He in His incarnation, “that holy thing” as the angel announced Him, truly God and Man. Born of the woman, resting on the bosom of the virgin as a little child and yet He is the One who ever is in the bosom of the Father.
Wonderful that blessed life He lived on earth of which the beloved disciple bears such a beautiful witness. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Life. For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John i:1-2). Wonderful are the blessed words which came from His lips, wonderful is His moral glory, His untiring service, His love, His patience and everything which the Holy Spirit has been pleased to tell us of His earthly life. The more our hearts contemplate Him the more wonderful He appears. But still greater and more wonderful is it that He went to the cross to give His life as a ransom for many, that the Just One should die for the unjust, that He who knew no sin was made sin for us and pay the penalty of sins on the cross. He is the Wonderful in His great work on the cross, the depths of which have never been fathomed. And what can we say of His wonderful Glory, His wonderful Place, His wonderful Power, His wonderful Grace! How wonderfully He has dealt with us, with each one of us individually. How wonderful it is that He knows each of His sheep, that He guides each, provides for, loveth, succors, stands by, restores, never leaves nor forsakes each who has trusted in Him and belongs to Him. How wonderful are His ways with us, that He guides with His eyes and that His loving power and omnipotent love is on our side. In His coming manifestation He will be wonderful. Wonderful He will be when we shall see Him and stand in His presence. What a day it will be when we see Him face to face! Then we shall know all the loveliness and wonderfulness of His adorable Person and His wonder ways with us. With what wonderment we shall then behold Him. And when He comes with His Saints, when the Heavens are lit up with untold glory, when He comes to judge, to establish His Kingdom, to speak peace to the nations, to restore creation to its right condition, when He reigns and all His redeemed ones with Him – Oh how wonderful it all will be!
He is altogether lovely and he is altogether wonderful. Glory to His name! Well has one said: “He pervades the whole of the New Testament with His presence, so that every doctrine it teaches, every duty it demands, every narrative it records, every comfort it gives, every hope it inspires, gathers about His person and ministers to His glory.” So dear does He thus become to the heart of the believer, that Luther may well be excused for exclaiming, ‘I had rather be in hell with Christ, than in heaven without Him.’
“We believe in Him as our Saviour, Acts vi:31; confess Him as our Lord, Rom. x:9; we have redemption through His blood, Eph. i:7; we look to Him as our Leader, Heb. xii:2; we follow Him as our Teacher, Eph. iv:20, 21; we feed upon Him as our Bread, Jno. vi:48; we go to Him in our Thirst, Jno. vi: 37; we enter by Him as our door, Jno. x:9; we are in Him as our vine, Jno. xv:5; we find in Him our rest, Matt. xi:28; we have in Him our example, Jno. xiii:15; He is our righteousness, 2 Cor. v:21; we are succored by Him in temptation, Heb. ii:18; we turn to Him for sympathy, Heb. iv:15; we obtain through Him our victory, 1 Cor. xv:57; we overcome by Him the world, 1 Jno. v:5; we have in Him eternal life, 1 Jno. v:11, 12; we gain by Him the resurrection, Phil. iii:20, 21; we appear with Him in glory, Col. iii:4, we exult in His everlasting love, Rev. i:5, 6.”