“The church will have her joy in Christ, but Christ will have His greater joy in the church. The strongest pulse of gladness that is to beat for eternity will be in the bosom of the Lord.”
“Abundantly Satisfied”
It is a cheering thought, and no less animating than it is happy, that, richly as we are blessed as saints of God, He has not exhausted His measureless ability for blessing us. And His profound delight in blessing us being commensurate with His resources, no more can His desire be impaired than His resources diminished. The present scene and character of blessing can never be reproduced, it is true, but the unexplored fields of blessing that lie before us are as ample as their fertility is everlasting. If He has endowed us with the unsearchable riches of Christ and in the mystery enriched us with all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, yet He reserves to Himself infinitudes of fresh blessing for us when He receives us to His own rest. Nor does anything so conduce to give us a true apprehension (be it but a feeble one) of the supreme joys that await us as the heart’s bathing itself in its present blessedness, for every bit of appreciation by the Holy Spirit of our portion in and with Christ now enlarges our capacity for apprehending by faith that to which He loves to conduct us in spirit — the final blessedness in His own presence.
If we look at the closing verses of the Lord’s utterance in John 17, we find how He by the Holy Spirit, on the night of His betrayal, endowed His saints with a dowry, which we by the Holy Spirit should now in spirit be enjoying, seeing how solid is our title to it in His own Word. Four things are mentioned:
1. There is the glory given Him by the Father, which He shares with us (vs. 22).
2. The Father’s love is equally shared with us (vs. 23).
3. He further shares with us His own place in the Father’s presence (vs. 24).
4. The Father’s name He shares, as it were, also with us (vs. 26).
Thus His inheritance from the Father is here rehearsed, and title thereto is granted to His saints. It is the reward given from His Father of His faultless work and faithful testimony on earth, won by toils and tears and terrors, in anguish and in blood. He solaced His own heart with it in the hour of untold sorrow by sharing with the men whom His Father had given Him out of the world! They were the Father’s, and the Father had given them to Him, and how could He mark His appreciation of this primary gift more definitely than by sharing with them all else that the Father had given Him? Thus the endless love of Christ to the saints is the suited answer of His heart to the Father’s expressed delight in Him.
But Scripture supplies other features of our blessing. These I take to be:
1. The being in His presence at home.
2. The bearing His likeness in glory.
3. The partaking of the fatness of His house and of the river of His pleasures.
4. The speaking of His goodness and singing of His righteousness.
5. The beholding His glorification.
In Thy Presence
In Psalm 16:1111Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (Psalm 16:11) we read, “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” Now, however true these words were of Christ to Jehovah, they are for His saints also, and it is Himself who opens this path of life, really by putting forth, as He will before long, the power of His resurrection to them who in the meantime are privileged to know it by faith.
How enjoyable must be the atmosphere which His presence fills in unclouded glory! In that supreme moment we shall taste, as never before, that which the Holy Spirit speaks of as the fullness of joy! And His right hand, too, is our place of honor. He loves to invest us with a dignity befitting Himself when He has us at His side, and He installs us there that we may be regaled in His banqueting house under the banner of His love!
The Crowning Joy
I only add that in John 17 there is one verse which appears to set forth the crowning joy of the saints. “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.” Wonderfully blessed as it is for us to share the glory of Christ, how much greater a thing as to its moral qualities is here! And the principle upon which this shall constitute the culmination of all our joys is seen in John 14:2828Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. (John 14:28). “If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is greater than I.” His heart counts upon this, that our affection for Him is such that heaven’s highest delight for us will be the supreme sight of His glorification. He is the Man who is Jehovah’s fellow, God over all, blessed forevermore! Not until then will He see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Not until then will Jehovah rest in His love.
W. R., Christian Truth, 31:246