My desire is to collect from Scripture the instruction afforded in it with respect to heaven, whether we regard it as the present home of our affections, or as our future actual habitation. " Partakers of the heavenly calling," it is surely well for us to know what is revealed as to the place to which we journey. Already made to " sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," we are but looking round at the objects amid which abounding grace has already in spirit, and as one with Christ, placed us, in thus meditating on what Scripture reveals of heaven. It is not intended to confine our attention to the passages in which the word "heaven" occurs, or to notice all those in which it does. May the blessed Spirit of God himself direct and control both those who read, and the poor sinner saved by grace, and waiting for God's Son from heaven, who attempts to write on such a theme.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." These are the words with which the volume of inspiration opens. It is not till we reach the heart of the book, however, that we learn for what ends respectively these separate spheres were formed. " The heaven, even the heavens are the Lord's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men" (Psa. 115:1616The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men. (Psalm 115:16)). But while such was the general and ostensible design of God, we learn from another Scripture, that what seems an exception to this, viz., the raising of the saints to a place-and such a place!-in heaven, was really the purpose of God before all worlds. In Eph. 3:9-119And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: 10To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, 11According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: (Ephesians 3:9‑11), we read of " God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by [or by means of] the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he hath purposed in Christ Jesus." Thus we see that while, as one has observed, "neither heaven nor hell were made for man;" while it is sin that has opened hell to the human family (see Matt. 25:4141Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: (Matthew 25:41)), and grace that has taken occasion from man's sin, to open heaven to redeemed and blood-washed sinners; the purpose according to which these wonders are accomplished, is an eternal purpose. God, foreseeing the fall of man, purposed from all eternity to raise some from among the ruined race to occupy, with his glorified son, the heavens, which the Psalmist informs us " are the Lord's," while it is the earth he has " given to the children of men." It is not by accident then, but according to God's eternal purpose, that we find ourselves, instead of being blessed with temporal favors in earthly places, "blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." And if the thought arises in each one of our wondering hearts, "Why have I found [such] grace in thine eyes?" let the answer at once satisfy and assure us, and give us courage to look around by faith on the inheritance of which we are with Christ co-heirs, " that in the ages to come he might skew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."
Save in the way of typical illustration, the Old Testament does not furnish much instruction as to heaven. We do read there indeed of Enoch, that "he walked with God, and that he was not, for God took him." But it is in the New Testament we find that "he was translated that he should not see death." It is in the New Testament we are thus taught the meaning of the words, "God took him"-he "was not found, because God had translated him" (Heb. 11:55By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5)). So as to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; we read in Genesis of their pilgrim-character and course, and feel that there must have been some wondrously powerful attraction to act thus on their souls, and make them strangers on the earth. But it is in the Epistle to the Hebrews we learn the secret of it all. Of Abraham it is said, " For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Of the whole of those who in these early days of the world's history "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth," we are told, " They that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city." The patriarchs themselves, and the other saints of the Old Testament, did no doubt look forward to a heavenly country and a better resurrection; but it was in the exercise of a faith which went beyond the dispensation under which they were placed; and hence it is not from their history, but from the notices of them which the New Testament contains, that we gather the heavenly character of their prospects and their hopes. The dispensation itself (that, at least, under which Israel was placed), was essentially an earthly one; and the notices of heaven which are scattered through' the Old Testament regard it simply as the dwelling-place of God, and of the angelic messengers of his power; or else, as the place where the sources of those influences are which affect the state of things here below, whether that state be viewed as actually existent, or viewed prophetically as anticipative of the future. Thus we read of Jehovah, as " He that sitteth in the heavens"-, " The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven"-" The Lord looked down from heaven"-" He will hear him from His holy heaven."- "Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens"-" Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens"-"Sing unto God, sing praises to His name; extol Him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH"-" To Him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens which were of old"-" The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens"-"..Praise God in His sanctuary: praise Him in the firmament of His power"-" God is in heaven, and thou upon earth." These are a specimen of the passages which speak of heaven as the dwelling-place of God, and the throne of his glory. As the place whence those influences proceed which regulate the course of events below, we have mention of heaven thus. Nebuchadnezzar was to be driven out until he had learned this solemn, salutary lesson; and then, it was said to him, " Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule." This, of course, would apply to the then existing, as well as to the present state of things. The connection of the heavens with the earth as the source of holy, benign influences in the future millennial kingdom, is more largely treated of. " 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 [or the seed of God]" (Hos. 2:21,2221And 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; 22And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel. (Hosea 2:21‑22)). "O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth I who hest set thy glory above the heavens" (Psa. 8:11<<To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David.>> O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. (Psalm 8:1)). " Ascribe ye strength unto God: His excellency is over Israel, and His strength is in the clouds. O God, thou art terrible out of Thy holy places: the God of Israel. is He that giveth strength and power unto his. people. Blessed be God" (Psa. 68;34;35). "Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still, when God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth" (Psa. 76:8,98Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still, 9When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. Selah. (Psalm 76:8‑9)). " Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven." " For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth; to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to loose those that are appointed to death; to declare the name of the Lord in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem; when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord" (Psa. 102:19-2219For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth; 20To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death; 21To declare the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem; 22When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord. (Psalm 102:19‑22)). " Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I, the Lord, have created it" (Isa. 45:88Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the Lord have created it. (Isaiah 45:8)). Such is the light shed on this subject in the scriptures of the Old Testament. Heaven is regarded as God's dwelling-place-his throne; and whether the present or the future be treated of Heaven is only viewed as the source and depository of influences which affect the earth. That heaven should be in part peopled by inhabitants chosen from among earth's ruined race; and that in those glorious days to come, when the heavens shall so beneficially influence the earth, it should be by men, not angels, that these influences should be applied-these were truths, the revelation of which was reserved for another and brighter economy than the last. It is to us that it is now made known in the words of the Apostle: "For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak" (Heb. 2:55For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. (Hebrews 2:5)). The habitable earth to come (for such is the meaning of the word) is not to be under the government of angels; but, as the Apostle goes on to skew, of man. First, of that blessed Son of Man, spoken of in the eighth Psalm, here quoted by Paul. Then, further, to those many sons who are being brought to glory, and as to whom it is said of the captain of their salvation, that " he is not ashamed to call them brethren." But here I find myself in danger of anticipating what more properly belongs to a further stage of the present inquiry.
We have not to read far in the New Testament, before we find ourselves in another element, so to speak, than that which pervades and characterizes the Old. It is no longer exclusively, or even chiefly, man, and his world, and his trial in it, with God in the distance, and behind a veil; no, not even accompanied, as all this is in the Old Testament, with bright promises of future, but distant, glory and blessing. It is the Son of God Himself, come here from heaven, manifesting what heaven is in His own ways, opening heaven to view, and becoming by His death and resurrection the way of access to heaven for sinful man. And though this new and heavenly light does not burst immediately upon us in its fullness-though the first Gospel we read presents Christ more in Jewish connection, as the son of David and the seed of Abraham, " a minister," too, "of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers" (Rom. 15:88Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: (Romans 15:8))-still He is, as to His Person, "Immanuel, God with us," and His glory cannot be hid. Yea, when He seeks to hide it under the veil of a lowliness in which He, sinless, and indeed the Holy One of God, stoops to identify Himself with the repenting remnant of Israel in the very act in which they confess their sins, then heaven opens, the Spirit of God descends as a dove and lights upon Him, and a voice from heaven proclaims, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:16, 1716And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: 17And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (Matthew 3:16‑17)). How the light of heaven begins to break upon us here"! How we begin to learn what the mind, the heart, of heaven is I First, the blessed One Himself is from heaven; and in Him we see the perfect moral display of what heaven is. Man-and earth has hitherto taken its character from man-seeks to exalt himself. Here is One who so deeply humbles Himself, that, sinless and infinitely holy as He is, He condescends to take His place amid those who were confessing their sins. He had no sin; and, in the still more emphatic language of Scripture, " knew no sin"; yet does He identify Himself with the repenting remnant in this first movement of their hearts towards God; and to all that the Baptist urges to deter Him, He meekly replies, " Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." What a contrast between heaven and earth! The only persons on earth in whom the Spirit of God was then working, took the place not of justifying or exalting themselves, but of confessing their sins and justifying God. Here was One from heaven, who, I need not repeat, had no sins of His own to confess; but whither do the instincts, the mind, the heart of heaven lead Him? To this broken-hearted, contrite, confessing company. Amid them He takes His lowly place of self-emptying self-renunciation; and heaven-responsive to this perfect exhibition of the mind and ways of heaven in Him who came from heaven -opens, to declare its approbation and delight; while a voice from heaven proclaims, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Jesus is heaven's delight, as well as heaven's perfect moral manifestation and display. Blessed Jesus, draw us towards and after Thyself!
But this light of heaven is too pure and unearthly for the self-will and pride of man; and any who receive and reflect it, must expect no better treatment from mankind than that which He received, who in His own Person brought this light of life into the world. But if rejected by earth, heaven smiles but the more; and it is interesting to see how early in His ministry the blessed Lord taught His disciples to look away from earth to heaven. " Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"-" Blessed are they that mourn"- " Blessed are the meek"-" Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake"-" Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." Very different indeed is this from the language of the Law. It had spoken of blessings on the obedient of quite another sort. Blessed they were to be in the city blessed in the field-blessed in their basket and their store: the Lord would cause their enemies to be smitten before them, and all people should be afraid of them. The Lord would make them the head, and not the tail; they should be above only, and not be beneath. Now it is-"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." But how blessed? Hear the answer: " Rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven." They who, attracted by heaven's light and love in the Person of Jesus, followed in His steps, and so shared His rejection by the earth, should find, like Him, both their solace and their reward in heaven-a solace so sweet, a reward so rich, that, amid all their trials and persecutions, they might, in the hope of it, " rejoice and be exceeding glad. Heaven, then, is the place of reward for those who, through grace, have suffered with Christ, and suffered for Him on earth.
Heaven's love, we have said, as well as heaven's light, was displayed in Jesus. And surely it was so. And He would have it so in us, beloved, as well. "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust ... Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:44-4844But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:44‑48)). If Jesus had come from heaven to let in the light of heaven upon our souls, attracting us away from earth so effectually that earth's rudest blasts of persecution should only cause us to " rejoice and be exceeding glad" that our reward was great in heaven, how was this joy 'to be evinced? Surely in practical resemblance to our Father in heaven, who showers blessing on both the evil and the good, on the just and on the unjust. A heathen or a Jew, who looked not beyond the earth, could be kind to those who were kind to him; but if grace has opened heaven to us, and caused us to know that we have a Father in heaven, surely that Father's mind and heart and ways must now become our standard. " Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
The instructions addressed by our Lord to the disciples as to prayer afford precious light respecting heaven. Those instructions were perfectly adapted to the state in which the disciples were then found; and in their spirit, and in many respects as to the letter, they are still adapted to ours. "Our Father which art in heaven." It is not only that God dwells in heaven; that is abundantly shown in the Old Testament. But now that God in heaven is revealed in such a sort that poor sinful mortals on the earth can say to Him, " Our Father which art in heaven." But, further, that Father is obeyed in heaven -cheerfully and perfectly obeyed. There is but one will consulted or regarded there; and that the infinitely perfect will of our Father in heaven. "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Happy, happy place! No struggles of the creature's will for pre-eminence there. No disobedience-no self-will. How happy that family, even on earth, where the children delight to obey their parents; or rather, in the intelligence of affection, to anticipate their wishes and fulfill them before they can be expressed. What profound happiness there is in the spirit of obedience. What must heaven be, where every movement of the affections, every word, and every action is in absolute, perfect obedience to our Father who dwells there! And what will earth be when this prayer is answered? "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
Alas! how different from this is earth at present; and how divine and perfect the wisdom and love which would have us transfer our hearts and our treasures from such a place to heaven. " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Would that these words might be written indelibly on our hearts. Vain indeed is the attempt to have our treasures below and our hearts above. Is not this the real secret of the want of heavenly-mindedness so universally complained of even where heavenly truth is known. "If ye know these things," as our Lord said on another occasion, " happy are ye if ye do them."
Towards the close of Matthew's gospel, we have a passage which teaches us that in heaven those relationships have no existence which so principally form the character of human existence here below. The Sadducees had thought to entangle our Lord by the question respecting a Jewish woman who, according to the Jewish law in that special case, had had seven husbands in succession. " In the resurrection," they asked, " whose wife shall she be of the seven?" Jesus, in the perfection of his wisdom, replied, " Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." I only cite this here as conclusive proof with regard to heaven, that there our divine relationships to God and Christ by the Spirit, and to one another as in the Spirit, will have entirely superseded those natural, human relationships which only exist on earth. We shall be " as the angels of God in heaven" (Matt. 22:3030For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. (Matthew 22:30)).
We shall be no losers by this, beloved. If natural, earthly relationships have no place in heaven, there are relationships there which will fill up all the capacious affections of the renewed heart. These we know by faith even now, and find, however feebly, their blessed operation on our souls. What else is it that is set forth to us in Matt. 25 under the representation of virgins going forth to meet the bridegroom? The night may be long and dark. Faith, and hope, and patience, may all be tried to the uttermost. Even those who are most wakeful, and have the fullest supply of oil, may, through unfaithfulness, yield in some measure to the universal drowsiness; and the lamp may require a special trimming on the immediate approach of the Bridegroom. But there will be those, when he comes, who will have thus trimmed their lamps, and of whom it is said, " they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut." What must it be to be inside that door? Happy souls-wise and favored virgins who are admitted there!
But another parable in this chapter tells us something of heaven's happiness, or rather of the happiness of those who are to dwell there with Jesus. Such are represented as servants to whom their master has entrusted goods to be employed for him during his absence. And what is the reward to be bestowed at his return on those who have faithfully occupied their respective talents in his service? " Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, 1 will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." O yes, it will be a part of heaven's happiness, though heaven be not mentioned here, for those who have made Christ's interest their own, and have faithfully used for him the few opportunities here afforded them for glorifying him, to be admitted by him to a participation in his joy, with inconceivably augmented opportunities for serving and glorifying that. Lord, to serve and honor whom is all their happiness and delight. "I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
Passing over Mark's gospel as not differing materially with regard to the present subject from Matthew's; in Luke, we find throughout in a special way the moral expression of what heaven is. We dont wait in this gospel till Jesus is thirty years of age, to learn heaven's joy over him as incarnate and on earth. The very night on which he was born, the angel of the Lord visits the pious shepherds as they watch their flock; the glory of the Lord shines round about them, and the angel announces to them, in language sufficiently expressive of his own interest and delight in the message he conveys, the tidings of the Savior's birth. And ere the words have well fallen from his lips, " suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." What a testimony this that Jesus is the center of heaven's joy! And what a reproof, too, of man's-of our-indifference to that Blessed One who has condescended to link himself with us as he never did with the angels in heaven.
In Luke 9 we have an account of the vision seen by Peter, John, and James, in the holy Mount. This vision, we are told by Peter, represented " the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." They had not followed cunningly-devised fables, in making known this power and but were eve-witnesses of His majesty (see 2 Peter 1:16-1816For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 18And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. (2 Peter 1:16‑18)). Three of the Evangelists give us an account of this vision; and there are circumstances noted by each one, which are not mentioned by the others. Altogether, it presents us with a delightful view of the blessedness to which the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ will introduce us. There is the beholding Christ in glory. What will it be to gaze on that countenance, once marred for our sins, and covered with gore, but now, even as for a little season on the holy Mount, resplendent with glory? He " was transfigured before them; and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light." So says Matthew. " And He was transfigured before them; and His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them." Such is the testimony of Mark. "And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering." So writes Luke. But how shall we bear to gaze on such glory? Ah, we shall be in like glory ourselves! "There talked with Him Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory." To see Jesus, to be with Him, to be like Him-is this not heaven? But further, "they talked with Him." Each Evangelist tells us this. "And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias, talking with Him." (Matthew). " And there appeared unto them Elias, with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus " (Mark). " And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory" (Luke). Observe, they talked with Him. Each gospel thus expresses it. It was not that He spoke to them, and that they stood at a distance, as servants, receiving His communications. They talked with Him. They were in familiar intercourse. And shall not we in heaven? Then what must heaven be? But what was their theme? It is Luke who informs us of this. They "spake of His decease [or exodus] which. He should accomplish at Jerusalem." And will not this be our theme of eternal wonder, and ever new, if not ever-increasing delight? But further still: "a cloud overshadowed them." What was this cloud? "There came a voice out of the cloud" we are told in the gospels. Peter says the voice came to him "from the excellent glory." No wonder that -Peter and the sons of Zebedee feared as they entered into the cloud. What man, still in mortal flesh, could bear to be enshrined in that "more excellent glory?" But Moses and Elias could sustain it. It was their element, so to speak. It shall be ours in heaven. What were the words uttered by this voice, which came to Jesus?-Mark this. " There came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Ah yes! this is heaven's deepest joy; fellowship with the Father Himself, in the delight with which He views His beloved Son; and fellowship with Jesus, in His delight to be thus the object of the Father's love. One is reminded of the lines:-
This joy, e'en now, on earth, is ours,
But only, Lord, above;
Thy saints, without a pang, shall know
The fullness of thy love.
Blessed Jesus, draw us onwards by the attraction of Thy love!
As we pass on with Luke, we find, strikingly marked, the earthly condition, and the temper of mind, which in Jesus corresponded to the glory, which, for a moment, we have been, as it were, permitted to behold. " Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath milt where to lay His head." This marks the condition:-" Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." These words, in answer to the disciples who would have called down fire from heaven on the Samaritans, indicates the temper of mind of Him to whom all this glory belongs. Both passages are in the same chapter with the account of His transfiguration.
Heaven is noticed in the next chapter, as the place where the disciples' names were enrolled. Of the earthly remnant, in days to come, we read, " In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautified and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem" (Isa. 4:2,32In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. 3And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: (Isaiah 4:2‑3)). But our Evangelist, or rather our Lord Himself, whose words are recorded by the Evangelist, speaks of even a nobler registry than this: "Rejoice," says he, "because your names are written in heaven." Israel was giving sad evidence of its unpreparedness for those days of blessing on the earth of which prophets had written and psalmists had sung. In this very charter, Jesus had been lamenting over the cities in which His mighty works had been wrought. His disciples were the companions of His rejection. But, if there was to be no present registry of the living in Jerusalem; if Jerusalem itself was to become a desolation, as it did shortly afterward, the disciples were to know, and we were to know, that there is a registry kept in heaven. Happy they whose names are recorded there.
Luke 12:3737Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. (Luke 12:37), intimates as to those servants who are found watching when the Lord comes, that He will Himself become the servant of their joys. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching: verily, I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." Minister, in grace, to our necessities here, Christ will yet become minister to our joys in glory.
Then in chap. 15, who is there who has not found there such an expression of what heaven is, as has caused his heart to leap within him for joy? If heaven be the place of glory, it is also the abode of grace. Not a heart there but what beats in unison with the grace of Him who reveals Himself as "the God of all grace." Did heaven look down with interest and solicitude when the good Shepherd came thence, to seek in this dreary wilderness the lost one from His flock? And when He returns home, with that lost one on his shoulder, calling together his friends and neighbors, to rejoice with him, has heaven no response to such a call? " I say unto you"-and who so able to tell us of heaven's mind, and heaven's ways?-" that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." And again, as to the woman and the lost piece of silver, and her rejoicing with her friends and neighbors, that she has found it, "Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." And though heaven be only mentioned in the parable of the prodigal, by the prodigal himself, when he says to his father, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight; what is the effect of the entire parable but to place us, as it were, in the center of heaven's joy, and make known to us that the wondrous occasion of this joy is the fact of our being there! "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found." True, there is not a word of the prodigal's joy, nor would it be the place for such a word. When God rejoices, and all heaven rejoices over his recovery, silence as to himself and his feeling best expresses the deep, unuttered, unutterable joy which fills his heart. True also, that in the parable there is an envious, discontented, complaining elder brother. But he represents no one that will actually be found in heaven. His character is drawn to convict and confound the Pharisees, who, rejecting the grace of Christ themselves, as unneeded by them, repined at its overflow to others, who consciously to themselves, and manifestly to all, did stand in need of it. And then, as matter of fact in the parable itself, the pride and envy of the elder brother keep him outside the house. The prodigal enters, arrayed in the best robe, with a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet., The father is there, rejoicing over the lost one he has regained; and the very servants of the house, taking their tone from him, participate in the deep joy which swells every heart. How their words to the elder brother show with what zest they enter into the spirit of the whole occasion! Their hearts are full. "Thy brother is come and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound!" But " he was angry, and would not go in." Excluded thus by his own sullen pride and envy, his presence mars not the joy that reigns within. Would that any who are too self-righteous to enter heaven on the same ground as "publicans and sinners," might be led to lay this to heart. But O what a view of heaven and heaven's joy does this wondrous chapter afford us. And if by faith we have entered there in spirit already, and had our hearts assured by the grace that not only welcomes us, but finds its own highest, deepest, richest joy in receiving us, vile, worthless, and beggared, as we were, it does not the less instruct us as to what we shall find heaven to be when actually there. A heaven of glory would be no heaven to sinners, or to those who have been so, were it not the heaven of perfect grace this chapter shows it to be.
In what blessed harmony with all this is what we find in Luke 23:4343And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. (Luke 23:43). The poor dying malefactor, who, After first uniting with his fellow-criminal in reviling Jesus (see Matt. 27:4444The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. (Matthew 27:44)), had his heart so touched as to confess Jesus, and reprove the other, who continued his revilings, entreated the One who was dying by his side in the well-known prayer, " Lord, remember one when thou comest into thy kingdom." He had the Old Testament Jewish expectation of Messiah's kingdom, and he now also had faith to acknowledge as the Messiah the sufferer by his side, entreating that he may be remembered by Him in the days of His yet future kingdom.
Our Lord reveals to him something much more near and intimate. Paradise was to receive His own spirit, when He resigned it to His Father; and in that Paradise the soul of the poor dying thief was to be with Him. " Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise."
Of Luke 24 it may be remarked, as, indeed, of all the accounts the Gospels contain of the intercourse between Jesus risen and His disciples, that they afford us some light as to our heavenly state.. However it may be true of the souls of departed saints, that, absent from the body, they are even now present with the Lord, we are assured that it is in resurrection we shall enjoy the heavenly glory. And no one can read these records of the interviews between Christ and His disciples, subsequent to His resurrection, without remarking the similarity between His appearances to them and the various appearances of angels, as described both in the Old Testament and the New. What would be an obstruction to gross corporeal frames, such as we at present possess, was none to the resurrection-body of our Lord. So different was the manner of His intercourse with His disciples from all that they had witnessed prior to His death, that on one sudden appearance noticed in this chapter, " they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit." He invited them, however, to satisfy themselves that it was He; and more than this, that it was His body they beheld. " Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." He even ate before them, that not a doubt might remain on their hearts. Yet what do we find in this chapter? First, He walks by the side of two of them, as, they suppose, a total stranger; then, after causing their hearts to burn within them by His discourse, constrained by their urgency, He turns in with them, to partake of their hospitality. In the act of taking bread, blessing it, and giving to them, their eyes are opened, and they know Him; but He vanishes out of their sight. They return to Jerusalem, and find the eleven, gathered together with others, saying to one another, "The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon." The two from Emmaus then relate what had passed with them; and it is as they speak, Jesus appears in the midst on the occasion already referred to, when they thought it was a spirit. The doors were closed, for fear of the Jews, as we learn from John's Gospel; but this was no obstruction whatever to Jesus. When He had been with them after this sort for forty days, " 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." However He might in His resurrection-body visit for a time those who were still in bodies of flesh and blood, manifesting Himself to them as we have seen-heaven, not earth, was the home of His resurrection-body. Heaven was His home, as we know, in other and higher senses than this. But even His body, the derivation of which, by the power of the Holy Ghost from His Virgin Mother, was His one great link to earth, is now, as the Apostle has it in 1 Cor. 15:4444It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:44), a " spiritual body," and rises to its own proper home and element in the heavens. The blood having been poured out in atonement, He having laid down the life He had taken on assuming flesh, He has received it again in resurrection. He can say, " a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have;" while the Apostle assures us that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. This is much too sacred a subject for speculation, or anything indeed but the spirit of lowliest worship; yet may we rejoice to see in all this intimations of what our own future state will be. We, too, as we know, are in resurrection-glory to reign with Christ over this world below. But, however we may be commissioned and enabled, in fulfillment of the errands and offices we shall then discharge, to appear occasionally to the inhabitants of the millennial earth, as the risen Jesus did to His disciples, heaven is the proper home of such bodies as we shall then possess. Conformed to Jesus in resurrection, where His risen body has found its abode, our bodies shall also find theirs; while it will be as easy, doubtless, for a spiritual body to appear, and vanish, and instantly transport itself from one place to another, as we have seen was the case with the risen body of our Lord during the forty days succeeding His resurrection. One only thing let us ever bear in mind, it will not be to please ourselves, or to do our own will, that the wondrous powers of the resurrection-body will be employed; we shall then, blessed be God! have lost all desire for this. And if we be "like unto the angels," and more than this, like to our risen Lord, as to the capacities of our bodies, we shall be like them, too, in perfect subjection to the will of God. The Psalmist speaks of the "angels that excel in strength, that do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word." And we know who it was that said-" I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me." 'Whatever capacity we may possess in resurrection for transporting ourselves from heaven to earth, or from earth back again to heaven, we shall never once either do it, or desire to do it, in any other errand than to do, as our Master, the will of Him that sends us. "What would be the utmost physical capacities without this moral, spiritual perfection -this entire, delighted subjection of heart, mind, and will to God?
If we pass on immediately from Luke to the Acts, it is not because John affords no light on the subject before us, or because it is intended to omit the consideration of it; but because Acts is properly the inspired sequel to the Gospel by Luke. Luke closes with the ascension of Jesus to heaven; Acts commences by recapitulating the particulars of that event, supplying some which had not been recorded in the former treatise. The hearts of the disciples not yet transferred from earth (I do not mean in any evil sense, but earth as the sphere of thought and hope) to heaven, had been curious to learn from their Lord whether at that time He would restore the kingdom to Israel. He informs them, that it is not for them to know the times and the seasons which the Father had put in His own power, but that they should receive power by the descent of the Holy Ghost, and in that power be His witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. It was when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, that He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. Their steadfast gaze upwards shows how heaven had now become everything to them, by its having received their beloved Lord. And what is it that is first presented to their rapt and wondering spirits, as they gaze thus upon the cloud which had enshrined the Object of their hearts? It was the prospect of His re-appearance: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Heaven thus became everything to their hearts in two ways. First, to their affections, as the present receptacle and abode of Him to whom their hearts belonged; and, secondly, to their hopes, as the place whence they were to behold their returning Lord. Beloved, is heaven all this, and for the same reasons, to our affections and to our hopes? Well may we challenge our hearts as to this. What answer can they make?
How true to this heavenly attraction were the hearts of the apostles and early Christians! Read through the /early chapters of the Acts, and you will find that with them heaven was the grand all-absorbing thought; and what made it so to them was this, that Jesus had ascended there, and was there exalted to the right-hand of God. " This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right-hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens; but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right-hand," etc. " Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things." " Him hath God exalted with His right-hand." What was the practical effect of this knowledge of Christ as the glorified man in heaven, witnessed to by the Holy Ghost; who had come from heaven to declare and to attest His glory? Ah, it was to make earth nothing in men's esteem. If heaven had become everything because Christ was there, earth had become nothing because Christ was rejected from the earth. Accordingly, that which, as earthly men, they would have prized and cleaved to, they rejoiced to relinquish. Distinctions, such as those between poor and rich, vanished from among those who were joint partakers of this heavenly knowledge. A crucified, risen, and exalted Christ, known by the Holy Ghost, came down from heaven, absorbed the attention and concentrated the affections of each, and in the light of this heavenly Object, everything on earth was lighter than vanity. " And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made to every man according as he had need." Jesus had come from heaven and perfectly exhibited the mind, and heart, and ways of heaven, in His whole life of humiliation, and obedience, and love. Now there was an assembly in which for a little season the same mind, and heart, and ways, though not with equal perfectness, were manifested. And what is the secret' of the church's present forlorn condition? What, but that she has lost sight of heaven, and got absorbed with the things of earth? Ah, it is the spirit of heaven that unites, and gathers, and blends; it is the spirit of this world which scatters and divides. Get a center on earth, and around it you may gather a few who regard it in one common light; but in gathering these, or gathering with them, you separate from Christ, and from those who are His. Let Christ in glory-heavenly glory-be really beheld by faith, and those who so behold Him must, by the power of the Holy Ghost, who thus reveals Him, be gathered around Him; gathered, too, on ground from which nothing but ignorance or earthliness can keep any apart.
Alas! how soon did such earthly and separative elements enter. And while we trace this in Acts 5 and 6, how do we find in chap. 7 that the world could not bear the bright light of heaven, shining as it yet did in the unselfish, unearthly ways of those witnesses to an earth-rejected and heavenly Lord. But if Stephen had the honor of being the first who was actually made conformable to Christ's death, had he not the honor likewise of being the first to see, and testify that he saw, heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God? Heaven had opened at Christ's baptism, to proclaim Him to be the well-beloved Son of God. A voice from the excellent glory had declared the same on the holy mount. Christ himself had ascended to heaven in the sight of His disciples; but the cloud they saw Him enter had received Him out of their sight. Now, it is given to the dying witness for his rejected and heavenly Master, to see heaven opened. By faith he had seen this so clearly even at the commencement of his discourse, that his face shone with the reflected glory. " And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face- as it had been the face of an angel." But at the close,'w hen, cut to the heart by what they had heard, they gnashed on him with their teeth; how did he meet-how was it given him to meet-this full enmity of their hearts? " 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." And it is to this glorified Son of Man he commends his departing spirit, as Jesus himself had commended His to the Father. Blessed resemblance of the servant to His Master, the disciple to his Lord. " Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," said the One; " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," said the other. " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," was the language of the One; " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," was the language of the other. From the death of Stephen, the labors of those who preached the Gospel, took a wider scope, and, as we shall see on returning to the Acts, a still more absolutely heavenly character- everything that allied itself especially to the Jewish nation, and thus to the earth, being gradually dropped. But I leave this for the moment and turn back to the Gospel of John.
It has often been observed amongst us, that John gives us no account of the transfiguration; and the reason which has been suggested must surely commend itself to our souls, viz., that throughout this Gospel faith sees Jesus walking in an elevation, and manifesting a glory, equal to that for a little season displayed to the senses on the holy Mount. It would, therefore, be out of keeping with the character of this Gospel, to find in it, as a special, exceptional thing, the event which in the other Gospels marks a glory beaming in every page, one might almost say every verse, of this.
In the other Gospels, Jesus is seen as a man upon earth, distinguished indeed from all other men, by marks which indubitably show Him to be, and that He was acknowledged of heaven to be, more than man; yet the starting point of the historian is either His descent according to the flesh from Abraham and David; or His miraculous conception and birth as the virgin's Son, and even in this character, Son of God; or else, the commencement of His public ministry in. Israel. The general character of each history is in harmony, too, with the point from which it begins-the same Christ, I surely need not say, in all: and each Gospel, while true to its own general distinctive character, affording amply sufficient proof that it is the same heavenly Person who is the subject. But heaven is the starting point with John. It is not the descent of our Lord from David, or Abraham, or Adam, or His miraculous conception, or the commencement of His ministry. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." It is His eternal existence; His divine titles, acts, and glories; His descent from heaven to assume flesh, and take the various places in which the other Gospels present Him. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth." It is not here heaven opening over a man upon the earth, a humble, obedient man, while God proclaims Him to be His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased; it is Christ as the Son of the Father; the One who was with God, and was God; and whose glory when He had taken flesh, so that faith could discern it, was discerned to be " the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." Upon such a One all external glory might well be expected to wait. And, accordingly, at the close of the first chapter we hear Jesus say to Nathanael, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter [or henceforth, ἀπ' ἄρτι] ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending, and descending on the Son of Man."
In his conversation with Nicodemus, our Lord speaks to him of a kingdom which that which is born of the flesh can neither "see," nor "enter "; and from this insists on the necessity of being born again. But He intimates that this kingdom has a heavenly as well as an earthly department; and while Nicodemus, as a master of Israel, ought to have known that there could be no participation, even in the earthly things of this kingdom, without this new birth, Christ had heavenly things to reveal, which He alone could be expected to know. But He did know them, and could speak of them with certainty, as of things with which He was conversant and familiar:-" We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven." Ah! there are heights which no man can scale, and secrets of glory and blessedness there which no man can reveal, save that One who descended from those heights, and who (surpassing mystery!) while walking here in humiliation as a man, was still, by virtue of his Godhead, as much there as here-" the Son of Man which is in heaven." And if Nicodemus was at that time incapable of receiving the testimony to these heavenly wonders, he was but in one common case with us all. The cross must first be known. God's love in giving His only-begotten Son, and the actual putting away of sin by the lifting up of the Son of Man on the cross: these are the truths by means of which a new life is communicated, the truths, in receiving which a man is born again. Then he can enter into these mysteries of glory and of grace. But the cross was necessary as on Christ's part, and this new birth is necessary on our part, to the reception by us of any vital knowledge of heavenly things. Natural capacity avails nothing here. As John witnesses of Jesus, at the close of this chapter" He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth: and no man received' His testimony." Yet though no man by nature receives it, there are those, who through grace, are made partakers of a new life, who do receive it. "And he that hath [thus] received His testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true." And for such it is added, "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand." Thus we get a little glimpse of those "heavenly things" which could not as yet in detail be made known. There was one here who knew them, and was capable of revealing them. But the cross was the way to them, and it had not yet as matter of fact, been endured. Because of this, and because the Holy Ghost had not yet descended, the capacity of apprehending them was wanting, even in the disciples themselves. This we see remarkably all through this gospel. The heart of Jesus laboring to make known, what His most intimate associates, and that even to the end, lacked the capacity to apprehend. But more of this anon.
In chap. iv. we have one passage, which opens to us very sweetly something of our own future joys. In the absence of the disciples, Jesus had been sowing the precious seed in the heart of the poor Samaritan woman. She had gone into the city, rousing by her exclamations the men of the place, and thus preparing them for the reception of Christ Himself. There rises before the eyes of Jesus the prospect so delightful to His heart, of being two days amid this happy throng, imparting to them eternal life by making Himself known to them as "the Christ, the Savior of the world." His disciples are to participate in this joy. They are to reap where He has sown. But sower and reapers are to rejoice together. "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor: other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors." And as to us, beloved, what was the whole lifetime of Jesus here below but a seed-time, during which He labored for us? And what will all eternity be but the harvest, during which we shall "reap that whereon we bestowed no labor?" And yet what holy fellowship of eternal joy between the One who sowed and the multitudes "who receive wages, and gather fruit unto life eternal!" Truly, "He that soweth, and he that reapeth shall rejoice together."
But if, as we have seen in chap. 3, and might have seen also in chap. 1, the seed sown by this heavenly Stranger was such as found no kindredness in the soil of the natural human heart; if a new life was needed for the reception of the testimony of the One who was from heaven, and above all; it follows, as a matter of course, that the harvest produced by this seed is a harvest to be reaped in resurrection. And what prominence, accordingly, is given to the subject of resurrection in this gospel, of the Divine glory of the Son of the Father. "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will." Nor is it only in the quickening of dead souls now that the power of the voice of the Son of God is manifested. It is manifested thus, blessed be His name! But it is to be displayed in quickening dead bodies too. " Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment." It is with the resurrection of life that the subject before us connects. itself. And how Jesus seems to delight in the prospect of this! Four times over, in chap. vi., does He anticipate it. " And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day" (ver. 39). Then again, " And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day" (ver. 40). Again, " No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day" (ver. 44). Then, finally, "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day" (ver. 54). How true what another has remarked on the expression used in these passages-the last day. " As regards John 6, the Lord is evidently substituting a blessing in resurrection for any royal Jewish blessing. Owned the prophet, and refusing to be king carnally, He goes up alone on high, and the disciples are sent away alone, toiling on the sea (a Jewish remnant strictly) and arrive as soon as He rejoins them; but He is fed upon in humiliation and death in the interval; and hence to such the blessing comes in resurrection: he (that is, the believer) Will be raised up in the last day.... The last day is in contrast with their present blessing, as [under their expected] king.... He does not come an set up the Jews, but the Father draws, and a man comes to Him, and the way He blesses him is in the power of eternal life, raising him up when the close of all this busy and rebellious scene arrives: that shall be his portion in that day-not Messianic security now." Towards the close of the chapter, our Lord hints at His return to the heaven from which He had descended. "Doth this offend you? What, and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?" To one grand present result of His ascension into heaven He testifies in the next chapter. The time had not come for Him to show Himself openly to the world. Alas! when it does come, it will be for judgment; and woe to the world then! He goes up privately to the feast, however; and to the officers who are sent to take Him, He says, "Yet a little while I am with you, and then I go unto Him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, thither ye cannot come." But while thus absent from the earth, and hid where the unbelieving cannot come, what is the character of this absent, rejected, exalted, heavenly Christ? What are His relations to poor sinners, and to His people, who have been brought to know and to own Him? How blessed the answer r "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified." The Holy Ghost, on earth, was to be the witness of the heavenly glory of this earth-rejected Christ; and while out of the belly of the believer rivers of living water were thus to flow, any poor thirsty sinner was to know how welcome he was to come to Christ and drink. Perfect, illimitable grace, and the presence here of the Holy Ghost from heaven, were to be, as to the enjoyment of them, the fruits to us of the exaltation of the rejected Son of Man.
Passing over our Lord's controversies with the Jews, in which He continually speaks in such language as "I know whence I came, and whither I go"; " Ye are from beneath, I am from above"; "Ye are of this world, I am not of this world"-passing over, likewise, the bright display of His glory in the raising of Lazarus-we arrive at chap. 13, where this heavenly One begins to unfold to His disciples the deeper secrets and mysteries of that place whence He came, and whither He was about to return. First, we have the symbolical instruction conveyed by the washing of the disciples' feet; then we have the direct communications of Christ to the eleven when Judas had gone out.
"When Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father." His hour was come to depart out of this world to the Father; but He was leaving in the world those who are here styled "His own"; and He would leave with them the pledge, assurance, and representation of that in which His love would be " to the end" occupied for them. It was an humbling-what man would call a menial-act, by which He taught them this lesson; but we are here let into the secret of the humility which could stoop so low as to wash the feet of the disciples. "Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God, He riseth from supper and laid aside His garments, and took a towel and girded Himself." The consciousness of being above all was that which enabled Him to take a place of service at the feet of all. So is it in His measure with the saint. The apprehension by the Spirit of heavenly things, enables him to take the lowest place on earth. What could earth's dignities be worth to the Son of God? What are they worth to the heart that knows, through grace, the secret of fellowship with Him?
But all this was in the presence of the traitor. "Ye are clean, but not all." "I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the Scripture might be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me." When the traitor was gone out, the heart of Jesus, pent up as it were till then, pours out itself in the midst of the remaining few. The Son of man was now glorified, and God was glorified in Him; and if God was glorified in Him, God would glorify Him in Himself, and would straightway glorify Him. Now He speaks plainly of what He had but hinted at before. He was to be but a little while with them; and as before He had said to the Jews, now He said to them-" Whither I go, ye cannot come." This He explains to Peter-" Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterward." He would not have their hearts to be troubled; they had believed in an unseen God; and now that He was no longer to be an object of sight, He would not cease to be an object of faith. They believed in an unseen God-they were to believe in an unseen Savior also. It was the Father's house to which he was going, and in it were many mansions. Had there not been accommodation for them as well as for Himself, He would have told them: He would not mock them by awakening hopes only to be disappointed. " I go," says He, " to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." Heaven was not only to become everything to them because of its having received their Lord, and because of its being the place whence they expected His return.-No, He plainly tells them that, besides this, it is to be their own abode;. and that His errand, when He comes again, is to receive them to the place He has gone to prepare for them, that where He is, there they may be also. Then He adds, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." He had told them He was going to the Father, and had spoken of the many mansions in the Father's house. Now what is it makes the Father's house what it is? Doubtless there are glories and privileges there, infinitely surpassing human thought. But what is it stamps its character on the Father's house? The exile from his native land, when his thoughts wander to the home of his infancy, and he fancies himself again in his father's house-what is it that is the soul of his imaginings? The furniture, the pictures, and the grounds? No, the situation may be ever so pleasant, the furniture ever so rich, the decorations ever so superb-it is none of these that give form and color and substance to the vision of home that floats before the eyes of the banished one: "My father's house," is his idea.
Well, Jesus had said that He was going to the Father; and from their knowledge of the Father, they may conclude what the Father's house must be. But how did they know the Father? In knowing Jesus. "No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." Jesus was Himself the Revealer and the revelation of the Father. In knowing Jesus, they knew the Father; in knowing the Father, they knew where Jesus was going-for He told them it was to the Father's house: and in knowing thus the Father's house, they not only knew the place, but also the way. "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." But though the Savior gives them credit for knowing what had been so fully made known-what they had such opportunities to know-as matter of fact they did not apprehend it.; they were dull of hearing. First one, and then another, makes this manifest by his questions. To all these questions our Lord patiently replies, promising that on His departure He would pray the Father, who would send another Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who should not only be with them, as He Himself was, but in them. And then He says, "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you."
It is not only that this could not be known before the ascension of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Ghost-I speak of the latter clauses of the verse-the thing itself did not exist till then. They ought, indeed, to have known that Christ was in the Father, and that in knowing Him they knew the Father; but they were not in Him till He had taken His place on high as the glorified Head of His body, the church; nor was He in them till the Holy Ghost descended, to constitute as well as to make known the fact. Far as these things must have surpassed the power of apprehension they then possessed, they were not to lose anything by this. "These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." "Henceforth," He says in the next chapter, " I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you." True, indeed, these passages describe our present place of privilege and blessing; but do they the less assure us of what our future portion will be? Will any of our privileges be curtailed in heaven? Do we now know that Jesus is in the Father, and we in Him, and He in us? And will not this continue forever? And shall we not better know the heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths, of blessedness it expresses, when we are with the Lord in the Father's house, than we do at present? Does He now treat us, not as servants, but as friends, keeping no secrets from us, making known to us all that He has heard of the Father? And will there be more reserve in the intercourse between this blessed One and us in the glory than on earth? Impossible! True, we shall be in no nearer relationships to Him than at present; but it is because nearer cannot be; and though we shall be in no nearer relationships, we shall be in a position to enjoy the blessedness of those which already exist, unhindered by all that mars our enjoyment of them now.
But full as were these communications of Christ to His disciples, their state would not admit of all being told to them. There was no hindrance on Christ's part; He yearned to pour out to them all that His heart contained. But until the Spirit came, they were incapable of receiving the whole of what He had to impart. "I have yet many things to say unto you; but ye cannot bear them now." But there was One to come who should fully supply the lack. "Howbeit, when he the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth; for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak; and He will spew you things to come." It would appear from this that the things in which the future blessedness of the saints consists, were specially included among those things which the disciples could not then bear, but which the Holy Ghost, when He came, was to make known. But if the disciples could not as yet bear these things, and if to them, therefore, the Savior did not declare them, there was One to whom He could absolutely without reserve pour out all the thoughts, and feelings, and wishes of His heart! Yes, and to the Father He does thus pour out his heart in the presence and hearing of the disciples. It is for us He prays, as well as for the disciples, even for all "them which should believe on Him through their [the apostles'] word." Much of His prayer relates to our position here below; but it is not confined to this. " And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one even as we are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou Last sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." Does not this afford us a soul-enrapturing view of what lies before us? Christ in us, and the Father in Him, that we may be made perfect in one. The glory given to us Which the Father has given to Christ; and this to be manifested, so that the world itself, seeing us in the same glory with Christ, shall know that we have been the objects of the same love. But more than this. Our Lord credits the love of His saints as delighting to behold His glory, and witness the love of which He is and has been from all eternity, the object. And which does give the deepest delight to our souls, beloved-the prospect of sharing Christ's glory ourselves, or the prospect of beholding His glory-the glory with which that Blessed One himself is crowned; while witnessing, at the same time, all that creatures can witness of the love wherewith the Father has from eternity loved the Son? Well, all this is to be ours. "Father, I will [or I desire] 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." What a testimony of His affection towards us, that He should so trust ours to Him as to ask on our behalf as the very best thing He could ask for us, that we might be with Him where He is, to behold the glory which the Father has given Him! And if our hearts be but dull and insensible to these touching proofs of His affection now, they will not be so then. Would that they were more tender now! More ready to respond to this love which so truly passeth knowledge
The only other passage in John 1 would notice, is that in which He says to Mary, after His resurrection, " Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God." In ascending to His Father, He placed us in one common position with Himself before the Father, before God. Wondrous words! Who can fathom their depth of blessed meaning? " My Father and your Father!
My God and your God"! What must heaven be, where this is not only known by faith as at present, but unhinderedly enjoyed in all the depth and extent of what it means?
It is thus in the Gospel of John, that the truth begins to dawn upon us, of our union or identity with Christ. "At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you" (this from chap. 14). "I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in me" (this from chap. 17). " My Father and your Father, My God and your God" (this from the passage just quoted in chap. 20). How natural the transition from this. to Acts 9 The earlier chapters of Acts follow on after Luke's Gospel. We have seen the end of this already in Stephen's death. A young man is first introduced to us in the record of that event as holding the clothes of those who stoned the martyr. Acts 9 records the conversion of that young man. And to him from the very outset was revealed in a special manner this oneness, this identity of the saints with Christ in glory. Stephen, looking up, had seen heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right-hand of God, ready to receive the spirit of His martyred servant as soon as his murderers had accomplished their work of cruelty and blood. Here Saul, who was one of them, or at least consenting to their deeds, and eager to imitate them, is stopped at mid-day on his way to Damascus, by a light shining round about him, brighter than the light of the sun. Struck to the earth by the insufferable blaze, he hears a voice crying to him in the Hebrew tongue, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME?" To his agonizing inquiry, "Who art thou, Lord?" he receives for answer, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." Thus it is made known to him with the first entrance of divine light into his soul, that Christ and His saints are one. If he sees not heaven opened, as Stephen did, he sees the Lord; and His glory makes him blind for three days. And to him at that moment is it at first explicitly revealed, that the saints whom he has been persecuting, are so identified with this Lord in glory, so absolutely one with Him that He calls them Himself! " Why persecutest thou ME?
I am Jesus, WHOM thou persecutest!" Of this fact he becomes, from this time, the devoted and indefatigable witness. First, -he preaches that Jesus is the Son of God; secondly, he testifies that the church is one with Him. This is what he terms his Gospel, the dispensation committed to him; and in the face of stripes, and bonds, and imprisonments, and death itself, in almost every horrid form, he goes on to testify both to Jews and Gentiles, but specially to the latter, this mystery, hid from all ages and generations past, and only now revealed by the Spirit to Christ's holy apostles and prophets. But let us turn at once to the epistle in which he specially treats of it.
The epistle opens with the well-known words-" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Observe, heaven is the place of our blessings, and they are spiritual in their character; it is in Christ we have these blessings; and they are not blessings that we wait for, but have: " who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Need we wonder at the ascription of praise with which the mention of these blessings is introduced? Rather let us wonder at our own dull, stupid hearts, which can hear and read of such things with so much unconcern. Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, predestinated to the adoption of children, and accepted in the Beloved; having redemption in His blood, the forgiveness of sins, made to know the mystery of God's will, and having obtained an inheritance in Christ- an inheritance, the earnest of which we at present possess in being sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Such are the blessings here enumerated. But what is this mystery of God's will, which, treating us as His confidants, He has thus made known to us? " Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him." The unity of all things in heaven and in earth in and under one Head, even Christ, this is the glorious mystery, the knowledge of which has been entrusted to the Church. But what is the Church itself-made thus the vessel of this divine knowledge? First, we must learn what Christ's place is; and thus we shall learn what is the hope of God's calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints; but, be it remembered, that for this we need the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him-we need the eyes of our under. standing to be enlightened. The Apostle speaks of " the exceeding greatness of His [God's] power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him [here it is we learn what the Church is] to be the Head over all things to the Church, WHICH IS HIS BODY, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all"! Such is the height of glory to which He is raised, who, for our sakes, went down into the dust of death. It is in the dispensation of the fullness of times that all this glory is to be manifested; and it is then we shall possess with Christ the inheritance which in Him we have obtained. The inheritance here is not heaven; it is our participation with Christ of His inheritance of all things. All things are put under His feet, and we are His body; all things both in heaven and in earth are to be headed-up by Him, and we are the body of Him in whom this is to be accomplished; He is raised far above every name that is named, whether in this world or in that which is to come: yet we are His body. God has given Him to be the Head over all things, to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. So absolutely are we one with Christ, that having glanced at our fallen state by nature, the Apostle proceeds to say-" But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Thus are we co-quickened, co-raised, and co-seated with Christ in heavenly places. Such is the Church's estate. Why is all this? " That in the ages to come [when Christ possesses His inheritance, and we possess it along with Him], He [God] might spew the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." In the presence of the exceeding riches of this grace, and of the heavenly unity in Christ, into which it has introduced poor sinners, by nature dead in sins and children of wrath, all human distinctions vanish away. Even those once instituted by God Himself between Jews and Gentiles, have no existence here. Both are by nature dead in sins; both have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ. " That He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross," the blessed Savior endured its unspeakable anguish and horror. He suffered thus, " to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace;" and now, " through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." In Christ Jesus, the chief corner-stone, " the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." This is what. the Church will be when in glory, while even now it is builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
Passing over chap. 3, the closing verse of which testifies that the Church is to be a vessel of the Father's glory by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, we meet with a passage in chap. 4 which can hardly fail to remind us of a passage already considered-John 3:1313And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. (John 3:13). Christ's ascension on high, having been referred to, the Apostle proceeds-" Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also 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." Yes, there is One who could only ascend by first descending; and He did descend, even into the lower parts of the earth; that having thus vindicated and accomplished the glory of God in the scene of sin, and Satan's most complete triumph, He might, ascending up far above all heavens, fill all things, so that for God's glory, and the creatures' blessing, and the saints' joy and triumph, there is not a point between the dust of death and the throne of the Eternal, " far above all heavens," where Christ is not, or has not been. And it is to this wondrous One that we, according to the doctrine of this epistle, are united. " There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." The heart finds it difficult to pass by all the precious teaching even of this chapter on this unity or identity of the Church with Christ; but, reminded that heaven is our present subject, we must pass on.
Two things in chap. 5 demand consideration: first, Christ's love to the Church; secondly, the Church's relation to Christ. It is incidentally, as it were, amid the exhortations to walk worthy of our wondrous vocation, that this instruction occurs. But it is often thus that the most deep and blessed instruction is imparted.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing Of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Beloved, this is what is before us. It was for this Christ gave Himself, and it is for this that the whole process of washing of water by the word takes place. The Church, from all eternity the object of Christ's affection as the gift to Him of the Father's love, already redeemed and now being purified, is finally to be by Him presented to Himself, an unblemished, holy, glorious bride, free from spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing-to be the eternal delight of His heart, in the satisfaction of that love in which He gave Himself for her, to present her thus to Himself. The apostle having further said, " No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church: for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones"-adds (and well may he add), " This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church."
But while Christ's love to the Church, and its eternal satisfaction when He presents the Church to Himself in glory, is surely one of the highest (if not the highest) elements in heaven's joy, there is something taught here as to the relation of the Church to Christ, which must not be overlooked: " For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the Church: and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." The conjugal relationship is so close and intimate, that, by Divine ordinance from the beginning, it supersedes every other. " Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." This ordinance is not repealed in the chapter before us; but it is set up on the new basis of this conjugal relationship between Christ and the Church (see ver. 31). But while the Church is thus brought into a relation to Christ-the closest and most intimate that human language can express, or the heart of man conceive-what does this involve on the part of the Church? The most perfect subjection to her Lord and Bridegroom. And surely it would be thus even now (it will be so in the glory), that the Church would find her own proper, becoming, satisfying delight in yielding absolute, unquestioning, universal submission to the One who has made her His at such infinite cost to Himself. Thus in all things He has the pre-eminence. I speak not now of His Godhead-glories; but in all the offices He fills, in all the relations He sustains, however we may be by grace associated and even identified with Him, in each one He is necessarily pre-eminent. If we be in Him a habitation of God, growing up into a holy temple, He is both the foundation and the chief corner-stone. If He be not ashamed to call us brethren, we know Him to be the First-born among many brethren. If He and we rise from the dead on one common principle, so that we together form a glorious harvest of full, ripe sheaves, we know who it is that is the consecrated Sheaf of first-fruits-" the Beginning, the First-born from the dead." If the Church be His body, He is the Head of His body, the Church. And if, as here, the conjugal tie is used to express the marvelous unity of the Church with Christ, and the unbounded affection with which He regards her, her place in this relationship is that of the weaker vessel, subject unto Christ in everything. "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the Church." Blessed Jesus I we shall one day fill our place in this ineffable mystery, even as Thou past filled, and dost fill, Thine. Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord," we, who through grace can even now call thee Lord (but contradicting ourselves, alas! by our waywardness and self-will continually)-we shall call thee Lord, and own thee such, in every movement of heart, will, desire, affection; subject to thee, and finding our perfect happiness in being subject to thee in everything!
Instead of entering here into the detail of the walk suited to the heavenly mysteries unfolded in this Epistle, I would turn back for a moment to an important chapter, purposely omitted till now: it is 1 Cor. 2 The apostle is here addressing those who affected the wisdom of this world, and is reminding them how his speech and preaching had not been with persuasible [see margin] words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that their faith might not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. " Howbeit," he says, " we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." The apostle had a wisdom to speak among those who were able to bear it-a hidden wisdom -the wisdom of God in a mystery-a mystery which had the rulers of the Jews known, " they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." Had they known that He was the Lord of glory, and that the effect of His crucifixion would be to introduce Gentiles as well as Jews into the place in which the Epistle to the Ephesians exhibits the Church, they would not have perpetrated the decd. But the Corinthians themselves were not in a state to receive the knowledge of this mystery: they savored too much of human wisdom, being carnal, and walking as men; and so the apostle could not write to them as spiritual or "perfect," but as unto carnal, even as to babes in Christ. But though he could not open out to them this mystery as he did to the Ephesians, he adverts to it as above; and more than this, he proceeds to speak of the power by which, and the way in which, it is made known-and thus affords important light on our whole subject, as to the way in which it practically operates on the walk.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." Thus far the prophet could go in Old-Testament times; and these are the prophet's words quoted from Isa. 64:44For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. (Isaiah 64:4). But the apostle adds-what the prophet could not say" But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." This is that power of apprehending heavenly things which we found to have been so lacking even in the disciples all the way through John's Gospel. "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." The mystery which had been hid from ages and generations was surely among the deep things of God which He only knows, and which His Spirit only can make known. But " now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." And while " revealed them unto us by His Spirit" may specially refer to the apostles-as in Eph. 3, " as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit"-the passage just quoted as to the having received the Spirit of that we might know the things freely given to us of God, surely includes us all. So, while verse 13 describes what in the full sense could only perhaps be said of persons inspired as the apostles were, from verse 14 to the end is surely of universal application. " But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth [discerneth] all things, yet he himself is judged [discerned] of no man. For who path known the mind of the Lord, that He may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." The spiritual man, taught of the Holy Ghost, either by direct revelation, as the apostles and prophets, or by the reception of what they have declared and recorded, discerns all things. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: they may be declared to him, or he may have them in the written word, but he receives them not; neither can he know them; they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man, receiving the things of the Spirit of God, discerns all things, while he is himself discerned of no man. Placed in such intimate relation to Christ that nothing is now withheld, but everything revealed; those things which eye never saw, ear never heard, heart of man never conceived, now revealed unto us by the Spirit of God who searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God; there is now an answer to the challenge which in the prophet's mouth met no response; "but we have the mind of Christ." The spiritual man has thus intelligence by the Spirit of God of a whole world of objects invisible to others; and acting from motives which these unseen objects supply, his conduct is inexplicable to others; he himself is discerned of no man. The mind of Christ thus makes him in measure what Christ Himself was perfectly when He was here. By virtue of His Godhead He was, even while on earth, the Son of Man in heaven. He was thus amid human relations and earthly circumstances manifesting the mind of heaven; acting from motives associated with those things discerned by Him, but hidden from all else-the things of which he said, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." Now, in his measure-yea, and according to the measure of his spirituality-the spiritual man resembles Christ in this. He has not, like Christ, been literally and actually in heaven. But he is one with Christ who is there, so that he is said to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. And the Holy Ghost, who unites him to Christ in glory, is, by virtue of His Godhead, both in heaven and earth, as really as Christ was when He was here upon earth. By virtue of this indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the spiritual man discerns heavenly objects, and knows them too as things freely given to him of God. He has thus a vast world of objects with which he is conversant-objects of delight, and affection, and desire, and hope, of which the world knows nothing. Is it any wonder that his conduct should be a riddle to the world-that he should seem a stranger here? Would that it were more so with us, beloved? That dwelling amid, meditating upon, and occupied with, those things of heaven, of Christ, of the Spirit of God, our thoughts, tempers, habits, and ways, might be cast in a heavenly mold. Thus, and thus alone, we should be enabled to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called.
It may seem strange to pass at once from this chapter to a passage which speaks of perfect knowledge as a part of our future happiness. I refer to 1 Cor. 13:9-129For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:9‑12), "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.... For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." But there is no real contrariety between this and the statements of chap. ii. True, we are even now one with Christ. True, the Holy Ghost dwells in us; and while he searches all things, yea, the deep things of God, makes known to us the things freely given unto us of God, so that the spiritual man discerneth all things. True, we have thus the mind of Christ. But who of us is not aware that while all is thus perfect on the part of God, of Christ, of the Holy Ghost, of the written revelation by which He acts, those on whom, and in whom, He acts, are far from perfect indeed? Nay, in the very portion where such great things are said as to the present privileges of the believer, the apostle declares he could not act towards the Corinthians on the ground of those privileges, they walked so carnally. And is carnality no hindrance to us? Who of us but might know the mind of Christ, and all the blessed objects of faith, hope, and love, better than we do, were we not hindered by it? And as to the communication of the mind of God by those who were inspired for that purpose, while it is true that all is now revealed, was it by one vessel that all this was accomplished? Had not Peter his line of truth, and Paul his? Thus, as the apostle says, "we know in part, and we prophesy in part." How blessed when that which is perfect is come, and that which is in part is done away! We shall not know in part in heaven. Prophesying, whether in part or in full, will not be needed there. No more seeing through a glass darkly then. We shall see face to face. We shall know even as we are known. If to know the Father and Jesus Christ, even as now by faith, be eternal life, what shall our enjoyment be, when all the hindrances which are inseparable from the poor earthen vessels of this knowledge, of this life, shall be done with forever, and we shall know even as we are known?
It is in chap. 15 we get the fullest instruction as to the change these vessels shall undergo at Christ's coming; a change which will equally be accomplished whether He finds us asleep in the grave, or alive and remaining to His coming. One passage would probably be clearer to most minds if the word heavenly were substituted for celestial. It is the same word as is rendered heavenly in other parts of this same chapter. " All flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also heavenly (ἐπουράνια) bodies, and bodies earthly (ἐπέγεια), but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another." This is the more important, as further on in the chapter these two are placed in contrast. " It [the body of the sleeping saint] is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." First, we are told there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, diverse from each in glory. Then this blessed contrast between the body as it is sown in the grave, and the body as it rises from the grave. Corruptible, dishonored, weak, natural, are the qualities of the one; incorruptible, glorious, powerful, spiritual, are the properties of the other. The last point is further dwelt upon-there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. Then we find that the first Adam was the type of the one; that the second Adam is the type of the other. " And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." Then we are told that the spiritual was not first, but the natural; and afterward the spiritual. " The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." This is most explicit; and equally so what follows: "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." Here we get back to the distinction with which the apostle commences this part of his reasoning. There are heavenly bodies, and bodies which are earthy; and each has its glory. Adam's body, doubtless, had a glory peculiar to it before he fell. We know that that of the second Adam has a glory which immeasurably excels it. Well, "as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." Yes, "this corruptible must put on incorruption; this mortal must put on immortality." Death must yet be swallowed up in victory. "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?... Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ."
In connection with this triumph over death, there are two passages it may be well to notice. The first is 2 Cor. 4 and 5 The Apostle speaks of himself as " always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," as " always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake;" and then, quoting Psa. 116, describes the faith, kindred to that of the one whose utterance is there recorded, which supported him under this daily death" Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you." For this cause he fainted not. The outward man might perish—the inward man was renewed day by day. The light affliction, which was but for a moment, he knew to be working for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. What a thought-" a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory"! The things which are seen are unworthy of a look, or a thought, when compared with this. The things which are seen are but temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal. "For we know," says the Apostle, "that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God; a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." In this present tabernacle we may and do groan, being burdened. Even to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord, is better than to be at home in the body, and absent from the Lord; but it is not to be absent from the body that the Apostle sighs. "Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." "Earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven." How blessed these pantings of the renewed heart after its heavenly abode! " He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit." And how we find here that this absorbing occupation of the heart with its own proper heavenly hopes and objects produces a walk which others cannot comprehend! It caused the Apostle to be accounted " beside himself." Was he anxious to rebut the charge? Far from it. He was anxious to commend himself to the consciences of his brethren at Corinth, who ought to have understood and appreciated his course. " For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us." It was not merely that gratitude to Christ, for delivering him from hell, had this effect on the Apostle. No; there was the intelligent apprehension of the needs-be for Christ's death, and the object of it, and to that object Paul himself had become entirely devoted. He judged that if one died for all, all were dead; and that He who when all were dead, died for all, did so, not that they who lived by His death should occupy themselves with anything in this wide-spread scene of death here below, but that they might live unto Him who died for them and rose again. Henceforth, no man was to be known after the flesh. Even Christ is not now known after the flesh, but in resurrection and heavenly glory. If any be in Christ, there is a new creation. To be in Christ is to be introduced into a new creation, of which He, risen and glorified, is the Head. The whole natural scene has with such a one passed away, and all things are become new; and all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. Do we, my brethren, thus realize the power of our heavenly position, as identified with Christ? Has earth, with everything belonging to it, become, in our estimation, but one wide-spread scene of death, from which the death and resurrection of Christ has freed us, introducing us into that new creation, of which He is the Head, and which, as to us, will be completed when we are clothed upon with our house which is from heaven?
The other passage referred to is in Rom. 8, there we read-" But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Here is the same prospect as we find expressed in other words in the passages already considered. But, further, having glanced at our present blessedness as God's children, the Apostle adds-" And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." And such was the effect of this prospect on the soul of the Apostle, that it made all earthly affliction light. " For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Here is a glory anticipated by faith, a glory to be revealed in us. From this the Apostle passes on to consider the state of the whole creation, which lie represents as waiting for the manifestation of this glory: Made subject to vanity, and groaning and travailing together in pain until now, it is yet in hope of being delivered from its present bondage into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. " And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."
We find in 1 Cor. 15, that as we have borne the image of the earthy, i.e., Adam, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly, i.e., Christ. We shall have heavenly bodies. In 2 Cor. 5 the Apostle exults in the assured anticipation of this " house from heaven, the reception of which by the saints will be, as to them, the completion of the new creation, into which a man is introduced by being in Christ Jesus. In the passage before us there are the same anticipations: the quickening of our mortal bodies, the glory that shall be revealed in us, the redemption of our body. But here we find that not only shall we thus reach the utmost perfection of our being, personally conformed as we shall be to the second great Head of the human family, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, glorified together with Him; not only so, the whole creation shall feel the effects of this mighty event-shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty which this glory of the children of God shall diffuse throughout creation. Thus are the heavenly hopes of the saints linked with the brightest prospects for creation itself. Now, as having the first-fruits of the Spirit, and being thus linked to Christ and to God, we are, in our yearnings after incorruptibility, made the intelligent vehicles for the expression of the unintelligent, but not less real, groanings of creation at large. And when creation, reposing peacefully under the scepter of its now rejected Lord, is vocal throughout with praise, shall we have no connection with it then? O yes, it is for the manifestation of the sons of God it waits; and it is in the liberty of the glory of the children of God it will then rejoice. True, that it will be under the scepter of Jesus, the Prince of peace. But are we not His co-heirs? heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ? Yes, if so be we suffer with Him, we shall be also glorified together.
Before taking leave of these earlier Epistles, I would notice a passage in 2 Cor. 12, which teaches as much by what it omits, as others by what they declare: " I knew a man in Christ about 'fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful [or possible] for a man to utter." What must paradise, what must heaven be, when an inspired apostle heard and witnessed there what he could not communicate to others? Men who have pretended to heavenly visions and revelations, have been lavish of their communications as to what they pretend to have seen and heard and felt. The apostle, who really had such visions and revelations, keeps total silence as to them (for anything we know) for fourteen years; and when he does speak, it is to say, that what he had seen and heard it was impossible for man to utter. What a lesson this!—-that while it is all-important for us vividly and distinctly to realize what is revealed of heaven, there is that there which, when it even has been witnessed and enjoyed, cannot in human language be expressed.
Philippians shows us that what made heaven so attractive to the heart of the apostle, was the presence there of Christ Himself. Does he regard it as the abode of his disembodied spirit, in case he should fall asleep prior to the Lord's return? " Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better." Such is his language. Does he look forward to the coming of Christ, and to all the glory and blessedness for which he has been apprehended of Christ Jesus. It is still the same thing—" That I may win Christ." He had seen Christ in glory: the sight so affected him, that his legal righteousness, his Jewish privileges, his worldly advantages and hopes, all became to him worthless dung and dross. " Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."
The Christ he had seen, Christ risen and glorified, is the Christ he still sees at the end of his path of sorrow and privation here; and to be with Christ and like Him-to possess Him-to win Christ, as he says-this was what drew him onwards with an energy that nothing could divert, that nothing could abate. " This one thing I do." " Brethren," he says, " be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample ... For our citizenship (πολίτευμα) 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, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." No wonder that in the next chapter we find him saying, " I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." With the heart fully set on Christ and heaven, earthly things become, in a certain sense, all alike. Such a one as Paul could say, " I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need." The Lord grant us to know fully this heavenly secret of contentment in any earthly lot!
Colossians treats of heaven partly as Ephesians does, and partly as Philippians. Dead with Christ, and risen with Him, the things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, are those on which our minds are to be set. It is not, however, exactly as seated together in heavenly places in Christ, that this epistle regards us. We are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God; and when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we are to appear with Him in glory. There is the unity of the body too; for we read of " the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands has nourishment ministered, and is knit together." Still heaven itself is our hope in this epistle; it is not entirely, as in Ephesians, the Church calmly seated together in heavenly places in Christ, and with Him awaiting the inheritance of all things in heaven and in earth. Here, at least in some passages in this epistle, heaven itself is the hope. But what a hope! The mystery here, too, is, " Christ in you, the hope of glory." But what a mystery! How the apostle reckons on the certainty of this hope! He gives God thanks for it on their behalf, as though they had it already in possession. Ah! he knows in whose keeping it is. " We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.... for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven." What is it, beloved, that can enable us thus to reckon with certainty on this hope—giving thanks for it, as though it had been already fulfilled? Confidence in the Testifier by whom it has been made known to us, and in His testimony: " The hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the Gospel." Ah, yes! if heaven is to be a reality to us, we must know on whose testimony it is we look forward to it. We need something solid and certain on which to base such expectations. Could heaven or earth afford us such a basis as "the word of the truth of the Gospel"?
It is in this Epistle we read of " the inheritance of the saints in light"; of being presented " holy, and unblameable, and unreproveable in God's sight"; and of " receiving of the Lord the reward of the inheritance." But we must hasten on.
1 and 2 Thessalonians treat rather of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, than of the details of that to which He introduces us. It is, however, the Son of God from heaven for whom we wait; " the kingdom and glory" of God to which we are called; and in that kingdom,. at the coming of Christ, each will receive the reward of his own labor. " For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For ye are our glory and joy." The grand truth revealed in the first epistle is, the descent of Christ into the air; whither the changed and risen saints shall be caught up to meet Him. But what as to us ensues on this event? " So shall we ever be with the Lord." Blessed hope! -a hope of salvation indeed, which may well serve as a helmet to resist the heaviest strokes aimed at our heads amid the conflict which intervenes. What is there of hardship and of peril that we may not risk-what that we may not dare-with the certainty " that God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us; that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him"?
The ideas presented to us in the second epistle, having any bearing on the subject before us, are-the being counted worthy of the kingdom of God-rest recompensed to the troubled and persecuted saints, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven-Christ's coming " to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe"-and God's having called us by the Gospel " to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ."
2nd Timothy testifies of death abolished, and "life and immortality [or incorruption] brought to light by the Gospel." In it Paul speaks of enduring all things for the elects' sakes, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ, "with eternal glory." "It is a faithful saying," we are told, that "if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him." The apostle himself exults in prospect of " the crown of righteousness, which the Lord," says he, "the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." He thus expresses his happy confidence: "And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me to His heavenly kingdom." Such is the light, as to the future portion of the saint, afforded by this epistle.
" Hope of eternal life," and " looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ," are the only expressions bearing on the subject in the Epistle to Titus.
Passing by Philemon, we come to the Epistle to the Hebrews, on which we may welt bestow a more lengthened notice. The expression, " heavenly calling," occurs but once in Scripture; and it is in this epistle that it is found. But first let us see how the subject is introduced. God has spoken at sundry times and in divers manners to the fathers by the prophets: but in these last days He hath spoken to us by His Son. Thus we have at the outset a Divine, heavenly Messenger: this Messenger is He "whom He [God] hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person, and upholding all things by the word of His power." Such are the titles and acts and dignities of the One by whom God hath in these last days spoken to us. But He has fulfilled a work, and taken a place, for man, as well as brought a message from God. " When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Thus is He a heavenly Priest, as well as a heavenly Messenger; and it is in these two characters He is presented to us throughout this epistle. His Godhead, His Sonship, His glory as Creator, His eternity, and His session at the right hand of the Majesty on high, are further dwelt upon in chap. 1, and His superiority in all these respects to angels, the most exalted of God's creatures, solemnly pointed out. We are therefore to give the more earnest heed. The law had been given by the ministry or disposition of angels (compare Acts 7:5353Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. (Acts 7:53) and Psa. 68:1717The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. (Psalm 68:17)), and escape was impossible for the transgressor. "How then shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation," spoken at first, not by angels, but by the Lord, " and confirmed unto us by them that heard Him;" God also attesting their word by signs and wonders, with miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost? Such is the commencement of chap. ii.; and here ends the opening argument of the apostle.
But the contrast between Christ and angels very naturally introduces another subject; viz., that the world to come-that is, the millennial earth-is not subjected to angels, but to man; i.e. to Christ, and to others of the human family associated with Him in this dignity. To associate us thus with Himself, He to whom all those glories belong which are enumerated in chap. 1, and by which He is so infinitely exalted above the angels, had to be " made a little lower than the angels," that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for every man. The fact was, that both the inheritance and the predestinated co-heirs were, by the just judgment of God against sin, under the power of the adversary and usurper, who had the power of death. To possess Himself of the inheritance, and associate the co-heirs with Himself in the enjoyment of it, Christ had to endure atoningly the judgment of God against sin, and He had thus to encounter and overcome the adversary. Thus He sustains the characters not only of Priest and Messenger, but also of Captain of our salvation; though, more properly, this latter, is included in the office of Messenger-inasmuch as a messenger may be sent to do a work, as well as to deliver a communication. Thus Joshua, who victoriously led Israel into Canaan, was an apostle or messenger as well as Moses, who delivered to them the law; indeed, Moses himself conducted them out of Egypt and through the desert, as well as gave them the laws and ordinances with which he had been charged. Hence Christ is only spoken of as Apostle and High Priest-Aaron being His type as the latter, Moses and Joshua as the former. How affecting the testimony in chap. 2!-"For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Nor is it only as Captain of our salvation He has thus been made perfect through sufferings, but as High Priest also. "Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself' hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." Such is the doctrine of chap. 2.
It is at the commencement of chap. 3 that the inference is drawn from all that has preceded it. "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus." Brethren of Christ, and holy brethren too! Yes, holy brethren! "for both He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." It is not because Christ partook of our nature that this is said, but because He has in resurrection made us partakers of His. It is not the unity of the body here, as in Ephesians and Colossians: it is family unity-Christ the Son of God owning as His brethren the many sons of God through grace made partakers of His nature, and by Him, the Captain of their salvation, brought through suffering triumphantly to glory. Holy brethren, called of God their Father, speaking to them by His Son from heaven, to find in heaven their present place of worship, where their High Priest is-and their future home and dwelling-place, whither the Forerunner hath for -them entered, and whither He will not fail to conduct them at the close of their present sojourn in the wilderness. " Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus." It is in considering Him, we shall learn both what our calling is, and what the spirit and walk suited to it while here below.
It must already have been evident, that in this Epistle heaven is set forth under two typical representations-the land of Canaan, in which case our entrance is by traversing the wilderness-and the Jewish sanctuary, and then our access is by sacrifice and priesthood. Chapters 3 and 4, down to verse 13, are occupied with the former, as well as part of chap. 6. The rest of the Epistle, to ver. 22 of chap. 10, is occupied with the latter; the part that still remains being a diverse practical application and use of both.
In respect to both these representations of heaven, and the corresponding types of our Lord Jesus Christ-viz., Moses, Joshua, and Aaron-the instruction conveyed is quite as much by way of contrast as comparison, or even more. Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant-Christ as a Son over His own house. Joshua did not give them rest; for then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. In Israel's passage from Egypt to Canaan, there was no anticipative entrance of the commander while the congregation was yet toiling in the wilderness. Here we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor, while as yet all things are not seen to be put under Him: and in chap. vi. we read of the " hope which we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus." The grand lesson in all this part of the Epistle is, " that we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end." Those whose carcasses fell in the wilderness, perished because they had no better thoughts of God than that He would bring His redeemed nation out of Egypt, without bringing them safely into the land of promise. Those who were actually brought in were Joshua and Caleb, who assuredly trusted God to bring them in, and the little ones that the unbelievers said should be a prey. God grant us so to know His ways, beloved, as to connect thus, by faith, redemption out of Egypt and entrance into the land! Unbelief forfeits, as in the case of Esau, the blessing, the birth-right title to which it profanely despises; it brings upon itself the destruction it dishonors God by anticipating. May we learn the solemn, salutary lesson, as well as feel the full comfort of the assurance that there " remaineth a rest for the people of God"! Into that rest we are in the act of entering. Just as Israel's whole passage across the desert might be said to be their entering into Canaan, so is our entire course, from the reception of the good tidings, to our actual participation in the rest which remains. " For we which have believed do enter [rather, are entering] into rest." " For unto us was the Gospel or, good tidings] preached, as well as unto them." What were these tidings preached to the Israelites? Not, surely, that God would bring His people out of Egypt to let them perish; no, but that He would bring them into the land promised to their fathers. And God did bring them in. Caleb and Joshua, who believed the good tidings, were brought in: the little ones, as we have seen, were also, when they had grown up, put in possession of the land. None fell but those who cared so little for the land, and had such unworthy thoughts of God-who, in short, so disbelieved His word and distrusted Himself, as, in utter and sullen despair, to refuse to go up into the land. What are the good tidings preached to us? That God has redeemed us to Himself, by the precious blood of Christ, to let us perish by the way? No, surely; but that we may enter into His rest, and be in His presence in glory forever. Well, then, we who have believed are entering into rest. God, in His grace, has called us. We, through grace, have heard the call, responded to it, and are on our way, through toils, and hardships, and conflicts, and sorrows, to the " rest which remaineth for the people of God." "Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest." Never let us despond. Never let us grow weary. Never let us think the way too long, the trial too great, or the result uncertain. It was Caleb's undoubting certainty of entering and possessing the land, that supported him through all the forty years he had to wander in the wilderness with his unbelieving brethren. It was this gave him courage, at fourscore years and five, to encounter and to vanquish the tall sons of Anak, and to take possession of the very fortress which, five-and-forty years before, was assigned to him by Moses. Let us, in like confidence, and with like constancy, labor to enter into that rest, Of which the earthly Canaan was but a feeble and imperfect type.
Heaven, as our present place of worship, in contrast with the earthly Jewish tabernacle, is perhaps even a more prominent subject in this epistle than the one just glanced at. But though heaven, with the sacrifice and priesthood of Christ, be contrasted with the Jewish tabernacle, and its sacrifices, and priesthood, the latter are distinctly declared to have been types or figures of the former. "Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle-: for See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern spewed to thee in the mount." "It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices." "While as the first tabernacle was yet standing; which was a figure for the time then present."
The Jewish tabernacle, with its services, sacrifices, and priesthood, is thus at once a figure to illustrate, and a foil to set off by way of contrast, the heavenly realities into which we are introduced. We have then a sacrifice which has once and forever taken away sin; which has purged the conscience, and made the repetition of it equally unnecessary and impossible. We have a great High-Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. He was not self-ordained to this office, glorious as He is in His person, in Himself. He glorified not Himself to be made an high-priest; but He that said unto Him, " Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee." Called of God a High-Priest after the order of Melchizedek, He is really what Melchizedek was mystically, and according to the import of his name. Melchizedek's name being interpreted, means king of righteousness, and king of Salem, or king of peace. Our High-Priest is really this-not yet manifested as such, indeed-but not the less really so. Melchizedek was mystically, as to what is recorded of him and his priesthood in Scripture, without father, without mother, without pedigree, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually. But He to whom Melchizedek was made like is a Priest, and is actually, in His own person and priesthood, all that the other thus mystically represented. He has no successor in his priesthood, as Aaron had, and each of his descendants, but is made priest, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. They were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death; but Christ, because He continued' ever, hath an untransferrable priesthood, and is able to save evermore them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. Such a High-Priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. He needs not daily, as they, to offer sacrifice, first for His own sins, and then for the people's; for this He did once, when He offered up Himself. Those high-priests were men who had infirmities; this One, made Priest by the word of the oath, is the Son, consecrated for evermore.
When the Apostle has proceeded thus far with his subject, he pauses to sum up what has been stated. Let us hear his summary:-
"Now, of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such a High-Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." He goes on to spew how His is a more excellent ministry, He being the Mediator of a better covenant, established on better promises. Then he returns to his summary, speaking of the worldly sanctuary, with its ordinances of Divine service. The first tabernacle, with its candlestick, table, and shewbread, into which the priests always entered, accomplishing the service. Then the holiest of all, with its sacred furniture, into which the high-priest alone went once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people. This was when the way into the Holiest was not yet made manifest. But Christ being come, a High-Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. The holy place into which He has gone is thus described. " For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." Nor is entrance there confined to Him, while a veil separates His place of service from that in which the priests daily serve. No; that veil, which once divided thus the Jewish tabernacle, was a type of Christ's flesh. And when the real veil was rent upon the cross, the typical one also was rent from top to bottom. Mark, from top to bottom. It was not from the bottom upwards, as though man on earth had done it; it was from the top downwards; and now the exhortation is, " Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having an high-priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith [literally and really our hope, ἐλπίς] without wavering; for He is faithful that promised." The remainder of the Epistle is filled with exhortations to faith, and hope, and patience, based on all that has now so rapidly passed under review.
Some things, however, in these concluding chapters, we must not pass by. The Apostle reminds his brethren, to whom he writes, of some former period in their history as Christians. " But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions." Not only had they been persecuted for their own profession, of Christianity, but they had voluntarily shared the afflictions of others. What was the secret of their power thus to endure affliction for Christ's sake? Hear the answer. "For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance." Ah yes! it is the certainty of heaven that makes the heart willing, yea, glad, to let go its hold of earth. This is the confidence which the Apostle would have the Hebrew believers to hold fast and never cast away. It has great recompense of reward. True, patience is needed, that after we have done the will of God, we may receive the promise. But the promise is unfailing, and its fulfillment hastens on. Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. The just shall live by faith; and while it is true that God says if any draw back, His soul shall have no pleasure in them, the Apostle expresses his confidence that they, to whom he writes, are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. This leads him, i n the well-known eleventh chapter, to treat of faith itself, and all the notable instances of it there enumerated. Thin gs not seen are the proper objects of faith; objects as to the existence and character of which it has the firmest convictions, based on the testimony of God. Things hoped for come thus to have a kind of present subsistence to the soul. Faith, like God, whom it believes, reckons on things which as yet are not, as though they were. Thus it was that Enoch walked with God; thus it was that " Abraham sojourned- in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." How simple, and yet how precious a testimony is here borne of those ancient heirs of heavenly promises and a heavenly hope. " These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." And how God appreciated and honored their faith. " For they that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned; but now they desire a better country; that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city." Whether you regard this latter statement as meaning that God was not ashamed to be called the God of a people who looked beyond everything on earth for a country and a city in heaven; or whether you understand by it that God was not ashamed to be called the God of those for whom He had made such provision, having prepared for them a city;-in either case, how precious, how full of encouragement, is such a statement.
But further, Moses had respect to the recompense of reward in practically esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. It was in like faith and hope that " others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection." The world, indeed, esteemed them worthy of no better lot than to have trial of mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented. But what was God's estimate of them? How it is told out in these words: "Of whom the world was not worthy!" And if God has provided some better thing for us, that they, without us, should not be made perfect in that resurrection for which they looked, and in hope of which they suffered and died; if we are all to rise together, or be changed at Christ's coming, O shall we not, stimulated by this still better hope, follow in their self-renouncing, and earth-renouncing steps? Seeing that we are encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us, and run with patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus; yes, looking unto Jesus. He is a nobler example still of this patient, victorious faith. He is the Beginner and Perfecter of faith. He has run the whole course. Yea, and He has reached the goal, and obtained the prize. The witnesses of chap. 11 are yet waiting for the resurrection. Jesus, "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." Mystery of mysteries! The One whose glory is set forth in the first chapter of this epistle; the One who for us stooped so low, as in the days of His flesh to offer up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death; also stooped so low as to act while here with a regard to the joy set before Him: "for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross." O let us consider Him. Looking unto Jesus, we shall, indeed, both learn what the heavenly calling is, and be drawn onwards and upwards by the force of His wondrous example, as well as by the attraction of His love.
Towards the close of chap. 12, we have a summary-of all to which we Christians have come, in contrast with Sinai and its terrors and its law. We have not come to the latter; " but," says the Apostle, " ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, a general assembly; and to the church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God, the.
Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." What an enumeration! And how stable is all that is here mentioned-how abiding! Once God spake on earth, and then His voice shook the earth. Now He speaks from heaven, and promises yet once more to shake not earth only, but also heaven. When He does so, everything that is shaken will be removed, as of things that are made-things that only stand in creation, stability and strength-all such will be removed, " that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." Can any one of those be shaken to which we have come? "Wherefore we, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us hold fast grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear." Let us never forget, however, that this kingdom which cannot be moved, is outside this earth and all that appertains to it. If there was any place on earth which God could have owned, it was Jerusalem, where He had placed His name, and where His sanctuary stood, and where all the solemn services of that sanctuary were celebrated. "But Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him, without the camp, bearing His reproach. The blood of that sin-offering was not carried into any earthly sanctuary, or within any earthly veil. It was borne by Jesus risen into heaven itself, and there establishes, in immoveable security, the acceptance and blessedness of every one and everything which stands in its efficacy before God. Everything else must be removed. Everything else must perish. Let us then follow Him, bearing His reproach; "for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come." O that we may seek it with earnest zeal, with patient faith, with steady, unwearied, undeviating step. In it we shall find, that whatever we may have heard, or whatever we may have anticipated, "the half has not been told."
In James we have "the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him,"
In opening the first Epistle of Peter, the impression one receives is, that the apostle had been by faith surveying the heavenly country, contemplating its varied glories, and feasting his hopes on the prospect of its rich and endless blessedness, until his heart, full to overflowing, finds vent for its emotions in the words with which he commences: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." Here the inheritance is in heaven; and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is that by which we have been, through the abundant mercy of God, begotten again to a lively hope of it. But what an inheritance this is-" incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away"! And how it is secured to us-the inheritance itself reserved for us in heaven! while we, by the power of God, through faith, are kept for it while sojourning here below. So powerful was the influence of this hope on those to whom Peter wrote, that in it they greatly rejoiced, notwithstanding the heaviness, through manifold temptations, of which they were the subjects. The very trial of their faith was precious, in that it would surely be found to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And how what is here said of their present joys demonstrates what their and our future happiness must be " Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." If faith can give such warmth of affection and such depths of holy joy in Christ, what must it be to see Him for ourselves-to behold Him face to face? And how forcible the exhortation-" Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ"! And if all our present joy be in Christ by faith, and our position that of waiting to behold Him in glory, how suitable the entreaty of the apostle in the next chapter!
"Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." It is this hope of an inheritance in heaven which makes us strangers and pilgrims on the earth; and it is in proportion as we maintain our strangership, our pilgrim-character, that the hope will glow brightly in our souls. Yea, and if fiery trials should overtake us, we need not be dismayed, as though some strange thing had happened to us. Even in this case, says the apostle, "rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."
Peter, himself an elder, describes himself as a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed, and exhorts those who are elders to feed the flock of God; urging, as a motive, "And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." In praying, also, for all those to whom he writes, the apostle thus speaks of God: "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus." We are said, in Rom. 5:22By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2), to " rejoice in hope of the glory of God:" In Rom. 8, as we have seen, we are said to be "heirs of God." In 1 Thess. 2:1212That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:12) we read of "God, who hath called us unto His kingdom and glory." And here the God of all grape is He who has "called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus." We have not here the expression, "heavenly calling"; but surely it is the heavenly calling which is thus described.
The inducement held out in 2 Peter 1:1111For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:11), to diligence and faithfulness, is, "For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Then follows the allusion to the vision on the holy mount, which has been already considered as the Gospels passed under review. In the last chapter of this Epistle it is not heaven distinctively which the apostle anticipates; but the passing away, in the day of God, of the heavens and earth which now are, to be succeeded by that of which he says, " Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." In this post-millennial heavens and earth evil will have no place; all things will then have been made new, and have become the dwelling-place of righteousness -" wherein dwelleth righteousness." But we must pass on.
1st John, like the Gospel of John, is most essentially heavenly in the character of the truth it unfolds; but it is rather the display of the heavenly, eternal life down here, than what specially relates to its existence above. The Gospel gives us the manifestation of the Eternal Life in Him of whom it is said, " In Him was life; and the life was the light of men." The Epistle presents it in its varied characters and manifestations, as existing derivatively in the saints. It commences, indeed, by adverting to its perfect manifestation in Jesus; so that John and the others had seen, and heard, and looked upon, and handled with their hands, and now declared unto the saints, that Eternal Life which was with the Father, and had been manifested to them: but all this is in order that we might have fellowship with them; " And truly," says the apostle, " our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." All this is most heavenly; but it is the enjoyment and display of the heavenly life on earth amid existing circumstances—not what will be distinctive of our enjoyment when that which is perfect is come, and that which is in part is done away. Still, this latter is not left out: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." In what perfect harmony is this with all that has been considered I To see Christ as He is; to be, in consequence, like Him-this is what we know as to what we shall be, though it be-not yet manifested openly. And mark the certainty with which the apostle writes: "We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." Human reason and the unbelief of the heart would say, that to be certain of heaven, would tend to make us careless as to the way thither. But how does the apostle say this certainty of being with Christ and like Him acts on the soul? "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." It is only to a new and heavenly nature that the certainty of being with Christ, and like Him, can afford enjoyment. And if, through grace, I am now partaker of a nature which rejoices in hope of this, as the consummation of my happiness, it is impossible but that I seek present moral conformity to Him, whose resemblance I hope to bear perfectly when He appears. What saint of God is there who cannot say in the brighter light of our own proper hopes, what the Psalmist said in Old-Testament times?-" As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness."
The doxology with which the Epistle of Jude concludes, gives us one delightful view of the future blessedness of the saints. " Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen." What a view both of God and of our own heavenly future, for those who in these last days have to wend their way through the intricate mazes with which the apostasy has surrounded the path of faith! That path, blessed be God! is as direct as ever. But the by-paths, right and left, are so multiplied and so seductive, that it is unspeakable strength and comfort to the heart to know that we are cast on the care of Him who is able to keep us from falling-able to lead us right on to the end; and then to present us " faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." Well may our hearts respond, " To Him be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."
Revelation remains-a book which of itself, as to its bearing on our present subject, might well furnish matter for an essay as long again as that we must now draw to a close. The second and third chapters afford a sevenfold presentation of heavenly glory for the encouragement of those who, amid decline and apostasy and evil, seek in the strength of grace to overcome. To eat of the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God; to receive a crown of life, and not be hurt of the second death; to eat of the hidden manna, and to receive a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it; to have power given him over the nations, even as Christ has received of the Father; and to have given to him the morning-star; to be clothed in white raiment, and instead of having his name blotted out of the book of life, to have it confessed by Christ before His Father and His angels; to be kept from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell on the earth; to be made a pillar in the temple of Him of whom Christ speaks as " my God," and to go no more out; to have written upon him the name of his God, and the name of the city of his God, the New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from his God, and to have written upon him Christ's new name; to have granted to him to sit with Christ in His throne, as He has overcome and sat down with the Father on His throne-such are the promises of future rest, and fellowship, and triumph, and blessedness, and security, and stability, and glory, held out to him that overcometh.
After this, a door opens in heaven itself; and the prophet of Patmos relates to us both what he beheld there, and the course of events on earth which he was given to witness from this heavenly position. A throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne; and He that sat on it was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone. Round about are four-and-twenty seats, and upon them four-and-twenty elders in white raiment, with crowns of gold on their heads. There is a rainbow, moreover, round about the throne, and before it a sea of glass, and seven lamps of fire burning, which, we are told, are the seven Spirits of God. Four living creatures are in the midst of the throne and round about it, who rest not day and night, saying, " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." When they do thus give glory, and honor, and thanks to Him that sits on the throne, the four-and-twenty elders fall down and worship Him, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, " Thou art worthy, O Lord." A book is seen by the apostle in the right hand of Him that sits on the throne, a seven-sealed book. The question is raised, " Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?" But neither in heaven, nor in earth, nor under the earth, was one found able to open the book, or so much as to look thereon. John weeps, even though in the spirit in heaven, because no one is found worthy to open and read the book, or to look thereon. But his tears are wiped away when he beholds, and lo, in the midst of the throne, and of the living creatures, and of the elders, stands a Lamb, as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God. He comes and takes the book out of the right hand of Him that sits upon the throne: this is the signal for prostrate worship and universal praise. The living creatures and elders fall down before the Lamb; they sing a new song, saying, "Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou vast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and past made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth." To the chord thus struck by those who form the innermost circle around the throne, ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels respond; and then, as it were by anticipation, "every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, are heard saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever." The strain of heavenly harmony thus raised in heaven's innermost circle of glory and of blessing having caught from lip to lip, till it is echoed back by the utmost bounds of redeemed creation, returns as it were in full chorus to the center from whence it proceeded: "And the four living creatures said, Amen; and the four-and-twenty elders fell down and worshipped Him that liveth forever and ever."
I dwell not further on these, or on the twelve succeeding chapters. The difference between heaven as exhibited in Hebrews, and heaven as exhibited in the Apocalypse, has lately been pointed out by another (see No. XX. Vol. Iv. of Pres. Test., pp. 306-308). In the Apocalypse it is the place whence the judgments issue by which Christ's rights are asserted and vindicated, and by which the corrupters and destroyers of the earth are themselves destroyed. It is the place whence, as in chap. 19, Christ Himself, the Rider upon the white horse, and the armies which were in heaven-the saints previously caught up there, and seen in heaven again and again, from chap. 4 to chap. 19-come forth to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. But one event in chap. 19 must not be passed over: it is the marriage of the Lamb. Espoused on earth, as a chaste virgin, to Christ, knowing by faith that she is the object of the full affection of His heart, and nourished and cherished by Him according to Eph. 5, she is still not the Lamb's wife till the period marked in this chapter. In expectancy she is so now; and forming for Christ under the hand of her Divine Fashioner, the Holy Ghost: but it is not until the Church is completed, and in glory-and more than this, the false pretender judged-that the voice is heard, " as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." Yes, it will be then that the mutual affections of Christ and His elect bride (always perfect and infinite on the part of the heavenly Bridegroom) will not only receive their perfect and mutual satisfaction, but the nuptials in which this is consummated will be publicly solemnized, and give occasion to those bursts of loudest praise and acclamation with which, as one reads the prophecy, one seems to hear the expanse of heaven resound. A voice comes out of the throne, saying, " Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear Him, both small and great." And again, when the marriage has been spoken of: "And He saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And He saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God."
The twentieth chapter gives us the thousand years' reign of Christ, and of all those who have part in the first resurrection-" Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." At the close of this period, when Satan has been loosed for a little season, to stir up the last revolt against God, and when judgment, final and overwhelming, has overtaken both him and those whom he deceives; when the judgment of the wicked dead before the great white throne has taken place, and heaven and earth have fled away from before the face of Him that sitteth on that throne; when, as John sees it in vision, a new heaven and a new earth are made, in which there is no more sea; then does he see also, "the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." The lapse of a thousand years has made no change in the bridal character of the Church. The last glimpse afforded of her by inspiration, as she enters on those everlasting ages, which succeed not only her own travail and sorrow upon earth-that had closed a thousand years before-but which succeed the millennial dispensation, the period of the kingdom, which, at the end, is delivered up to God, even the Father, from which point, all dispensations having run their course, God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is all in all-the very last glimpse we get of the Church, is to see her in her full bridal glory, as when the marriage of the Lamb had just come, His wife having made herself ready "And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God, out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband! It would seem too that in the new heavens and earth, which succeed the millennial state, she will still retain a peculiar place. The habitation of God through the Spirit even now, she will then retain this high and holy character. "And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, 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." The happy effects of this residence of God among men (the Church being, as would appear, his tabernacle) are then described. " And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; [this He will have done, for the Church long before]: 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." All evil and evil-doers shut up forever in the lake of fire, which is the second death: all things else made new: the whole of that new creation becomes the inheritance with Christ of those who have overcome. " He that overcometh shall inherit all things: and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.''
It has just been said, that the last glimpse of the Church, which inspiration affords, is at the commencement of the eternal ages, and that she still retains her full bridal character and glory. There is another view given us-not a later one-but another. It is a detailed symbolic description of her glory, as connected with the millennial earth. All in it, however, which is essential to her own state, will remain forever. And where is there a saint, whatever the amount of his intelligence as to the import of the symbols employed, whose heart has not been warmed and cheered and filled with holy joy in hope, as he has read this description of the heavenly city? Its golden streets, its jasper walls, its gates of pearl, its foundation of precious stones-do they not impart to the soul an impression of magnificence and glory, which the tongue cannot utter, which human language is too poor and feeble to express? And then the relationship-the bride, the Lamb's wife. The corporate order, arrangement and stability. A city-the pilgrim and stranger state exchanged for eternal establishment and rest. The dimensions-that great city. No longer "a little flock," as the children of faith have been in each successive generation. In the aggregate, they are a great city. Then there is the character-holy. The name-Jerusalem; recalling to the heart, even in that which has been and will be the earthly copy of this divine and heavenly original, the earthly Jerusalem, such thoughts of grace and of glory. The source-descending out of heaven, FROM GOD. To crown all, there are the words, " Having the glory of God." Yes, it will be the fulfillment to the uttermost and beyond everything that either faith or hope can now conceive, of the words, "heirs of God"—"called to His, kingdom and glory '' -"called to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus." The One seen sitting on the throne in chap. 4 was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone. Of the city it is here said, " Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper-stone, clear as crystal." Conformed thus to the glory of God, and become the vessel for its display, the city has no temple, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. It has no need of the sun, nor of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. The happy nations of the spared inhabitants of the millennial earth, walk in the light of it. The rays of the Divine glory, softened and qualified by the medium through which they pass, the jasper walls of the golden city, give light to the nations of the earth, fulfilling thus the ancient prophecy to Jerusalem below, "Arise, shine: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." The gates of the city are not shut at all by day, and there is no night there. The glory and honor of the nations are brought into it; but anything that defileth or worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, can have no entrance within its holy precincts. A pure river of water of life issuing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, flows through the midst of the street. On either side of the river there is the tree of life, its fruit finishing immortal food to the immortal inhabitants, while the leaves of the tree minister healing to the nations below. There is no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb are in the city; and His servants serve Him. They see His face, and bear His name on their foreheads, and reign throughout one uninterrupted, cloudless, eternal day. Bright, blessed, glorious vision of our eternal home! May its brightness light up the whole path by which we are hastening onwards to it; and may it endear to our hearts the hope of Him who announces Himself to us as the bright and morning star, whose presence, while it introduces us to all this blessedness, is itself the highest and chief element of which all this blessedness consists.