IT is remarkable, that Paul, in his epistles to the assemblies, only twice addresses any of them as " in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ." Both of these occasions were in his writing to the Thessalonians. He addresses them in the first epistle as " in God the Father," and in the second epistle as " in God our Father;" but with the exception of this variation, the superscription is the same to the Thessalonians on both occasions, and is peculiar to the letters addressed to them.
The first of these epistles shows us many of the blessed bearings of the coming of our Lord Jesus; the second guards against the abuses of the doctrine. But in both letters the Hope of the Coming has a place preeminent. This is recognized by all; and is, indeed, evidently on the face of each of the chapters.
Among the first, if not itself the first, of Paul's epistles, this 1 Thessalonians is supposed to be. This, if so, gives a peculiar appropriateness to the superscription, even as the superscription certainly is peculiarly appropriate to the doctrine of the two epistles. For in Scripture there is moral connection between the various parts of things treated of, and a responsiveness of one part to another constantly to be traced.
And, indeed, what could be more natural than that as the infant church became first manifest to the eye of the Apostle, his thought from the Spirit should be of it, as being in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church was a divine thing, something for God, as much as of God and by God, and it had no human precedent as had the kingdom; it was something, too, for heaven, and as to earth merely a pilgrim on it. With the Church in its early infancy; there seems to be as much consistency in the words, " in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ," rising to an inspired apostle's mind and dropping from his pen,-as there is harmony and consistency between the commencements and the salutations found in connection or with the first appearing of her Lord in the gospels.
The Lord Jesus Christ in God the Father (in heaven), and a Church sentient and conscious of such its place on high, and on earth of grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:-such is the blessed revelation to us, through the Apostle's pen. Well might he give thanks to God always for them; well might he remember such a people always in his prayers (ver. 2); and that not only because he knew the spring opened for them on high, where their fountain and spring was, and what the blessed streams were that flowed down from on high to them; but that he knew that (ver. 3) they also, even as he had been, were partakers of the faith, love, and hope of the gospel of a risen and ascended Lord. The God, whose love they now knew by faith, would realize to them, in due time, a glory and a portion worthy of Himself and of the Lord they served; and this, too, they knew.
God had been manifested in flesh and seen on earth; the Son of Man is now seen by faith in heaven, on the throne of the Father in the majesty of the highest, and seen there as our Life. " Ye are dead and your Life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:33For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)); " for the time spoken of by the Lord is come, in that day ye shall know that I am in the Father and ye in me and I in you." (John 14:19,2019Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. 20At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. (John 14:19‑20).)
In connection with such a blessing as Paul had tasted and knew to be a portion and blessing common to himself and the Church, or assembly, of God-there were three things-as he states them to the Corinthians in his first epistle and thirteenth chapter-faith, hope, and love; or, in the order in which he names them here, faith, love, and hope. These three were not found in connection with Judaism, or with the law, or with the 'governmental ways of God in the same way as they are with Christianity. Paul knew very well that, while he was Saul, these three were not known, to him; that when he was converted, he learned somewhat about faith, love, and hope-such as he never knew before, and that what he had learned that he had to preach. For the governmental ways of God are not the same as the revelation of His heavenly grace.
Sight or sense, righteousness and possession-rather than faith, love and hope-had characterized him while he was Saul. And there were two reasons for this; one on God's side, the other on man's. Until Christ came, man was being tried, to see whether anything could be made of him, in himself. This necessarily supposed that 'God, restricting His action to what man was, should deal upon the ground of what was in man, and upon the ground of righteousness, and of what was seen to be in man. On the other hand, man, being a sinner, while under the process was blinded; had a veil over his heart; was self-righteous; and really self-deceived. The law was the claim of the King of Israel, as creator too, over Israel for works; Sinai was a visible display; there was no aggressiveness of love in the law. It blessed a man if perfect,-cursed him utterly if short of perfection in one single thing. It restricted itself to Israel, and shut Israel up in itself,—upon the ground of righteousness too, and of blessings already received. The gospel was the opposite of all this. It was by the foolishness of preaching; faith not works,-faith built upon a report of something in heaven, and not seen down here as yet-; love too came out, for its proclamation was that God was seeking the lost, and this upon the ground that. His Son had died for those who were His enemies, sinners without strength; and it taught strange and marvelous things to come. Judaism, the law, governmental ways had a being and something tangible to sense, apart from any; thing to come and believed in. Christianity is a delusion-if there is not an unseen world of invisible realities, and if there is not a world to come. Faith, love, and hope, were new doctrines of Paul-they were not his while he was Saul.
The declaration-The seed of the woman shall bruise thy [the serpent's] head was the expression of God under the circumstances of the fall of man, and presented the truth in itself, that to man as ruined, an unseen God was the alone stay and deliverer. Surely His character shined out therein; and, where He is known, His character communicates itself to those that rest on and hope in Him. When " Hope shall change to glad fruition,- faith to sight and prayer to praise' then, still LOVE. will abide. God will then be known as a present God, in whose blessed presence we shall be,-whose glory we shall then enjoy;-Himself, God, is love; ourselves filled into all the fullness,-for God shall then be all in all. Though man kept not his first estate in Eden's paradise, God will introduce the believer who hopes in Him into the paradise of God; the world, the flesh, and Satan, notwithstanding.
The faith, love and hope of the Thessalonians were theirs, and exercised by them " in the sight of God and our Father" (chap. 13). His presence were the springs of these-faith, love, and hope; and faith, love, and hope -in them too, were in exercise (happily for them) in the presence of God and our Father. Yet, on the other hand, they were spoken of by the world, and by the men in it among whom their practical results were seen (ver. 7-10). It is only when He, who is in the presence of God, and is the object and subject of faith, love, and hope, is seen by us, as ourselves being in that presence, that there is vigor and power in us: but, when we live in that presence, then both they that believe and the world have help and testimony from us; such, too, as forces itself home upon them.
And mark, here, that there was, in these Thessalonians, not only an ensample to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia (ver. 7); nor only an anticipating of the need of the Apostle's speaking anything among men where the report of their faith was spread abroad (8-9), but also, in the sight of God, there were practical proofs in them, that if their springs were in Him, He had also His testimony made good in them-your work of faith, and labor of love and patience of a the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world knew that the faith was the plea of these Christians for the work of turning from dumb idols; that they professed to have so known the love of the living and true God as to have left all to serve him; and that they plainly declared that they waited for God's Son from heaven.
It is said of them of old, that they looked for a city which bath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. But God's Son from heaven is that for which the believer now looks:-a person rather than the blessings which He will surely bring with Him. There may be light about the glory to come without the Person who is the introducer and center of it all being looked for; but, if He be looked for, the glory is looked upon as His a glory and the heart counts its treasures in His presence; and not by their suitability to us (contrasts to scenes now present), but by their connection with Him. It is of importance to keep Himself before us, that Himself bear our sins in His own body on the tree; that Himself, a living anointed man, who is upon the throne of God in heaven, cares for us; that Himself will come again to receive us to Himself, that where He is there we may be also. For otherwise the Spirit will be hindered in the free communication to us of the place, portion and expectation which belong to those that have Christ Himself as our exceeding great reward. And, moreover, it is His person which shows the unity and the harmony of who He is, and of what He has done, is doing, and yet will do. Our faith, our love, our hope are all Himself, and from and in Himself.
There is a moral propriety, a graciousness and a divine power in the coming of the Son being our hope which ought not to be lightly passed over. If the Church be the Church of the living God, it was chosen in and formed for Christ. Who ought, or who could, God put forward as the opener of His glory, the introducer of her to Himself, save this Son of His love. And how gracious to us-ward the being turned from the lust of our own hearts to wait for His son from heaven. On the other hand, it is, according to the power of God,—the power of God, both according to His glory, in which we shall meet Him, and according to all the weakness and manifest infirmity found in us until then-that the hope is to meet His son. God has thus marked as the goal an event which brings with it all that God desires in us,, and all that we can think to be necessary, in order for us to stand in perfect freedom in His presence.
When the Lord is come I shall be like Him, for I shall see Him as He is. This corruptible will then have put on incorruption, and this mortal have put on immortality; not one thing absent from me which the heart of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ can desire to see upon one who is predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son that He may be the first-born among many brethren; not one thing absent, but everything abounding to me which my own heart (then fully taught in all the Spirit's thoughts) could wish. The salvation of my soul, I have: for the salvation of my body, I have to wait.. The body which I have now is sinful, al] its circumstances too, here below, tell of sin and conflict; true, I can, by faith, look up to Him in heaven who is at once the answer of a good conscience to me,-and in whom I find God's faithful promise of my change of body, and transfer to other circumstances than these here below. But, so far as I am spiritual, I now groan from and by reason of the wilderness, and for or after the glory. The goal of the redemption is, as to myself, His coming. Then, all that God has to change will be changed for me,-for us; all that God desires, or intends to give to, to put into me,-to, into us, will be mine,—-will be ours. That bourne reached, and then, farewell all humiliation to our human selves, welcome then all the divine portion. And heartily does the soul own that this climax is fitly connected with the Lord Jesus's taking possession of the place and the glory which His love, will share with us; fitly is it made dependent upon the hour of His leaving, as Son of Man, the Father's throne, to take possession of the place which, in love, He will take and share with us. I shall see God then; and be with Him,-a son who will have nothing, as now, about him unfit for that presence (though the ready answer to that unfitness is now in Christ, whether that unfitness in us be of deficiency or of evil; or in us or around). The living God will then have glorified sons, and the glorified sons will have perfect rest before Him. His presence too our abode. Now this is an honor which God has reserved for His son at His coming. I am now in the wilderness in a body of sin and death; my soul has its perfect answer in Christ as to itself, as to the body, as to the circumstances around it. But I have to wait for Him, who will change the body as well as take me into His own circumstances then; circumstances glorious in heavenly places, and such as He can share with me, with us. If called to leave the body now, I leave it to His care who knows alone where the dust of a Paul, of a. Peter, a Stephen or a John is; my soul goes on high to Himself: but the position is an anomalous one for a man; for the soul to be in one place and the body in another was not part of the order of creation or of Eden. Divine power call do it in judgment. The wicked go to their own place, their bodies to the dust, just sentence upon sin until the general judgment.. The justified by faith, judged according to their faith in Christ, lay their bodies 'down, bodies of sin and death still in a world of sin, but themselves go in soul and spirit on high, fruit of God's judgment of the worthiness of His Son; absent with the body, present with the Lord. With the Lord' is enough to faith, enough for faith; this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise' was enough for the poor thief. About paradise he knew little, its peculiarities were not the matter of consolation to him, but with Me' was enough for him to whose heart 'Christ was known. Absent from the body, at home with the Lord, is enough for us too.
If we examine the why and wherefore of the want of power by the saints (alas, of our own selves I), as to this hope, we may find profit.
Perhaps with most of us, that which gave power to the revelation to our souls of the coming of our Lord, was emphatically its blessedness as something to be brought to us, whether we might be alive in the body and ' remaining until the coming, or whether our bodies might then be in the grave. Fraught with blessings to our own selves, to our souls, and to our bodies, that coming most surely is; and it is sweet to think how grace divine has anticipated a portion for us, the hope of which forms our hearts after God's mind. Not only a portion which will meet every desire which we now can have in spirit, but a portion to the which we must be formed, and the forming of our thoughts to which is by the hope set before us. But God who has shown it, He will bring it. The bringing of it is not my work. I have to wait for it, and by having my heart and mind set upon it, to be farmed for it. God is the counselor, the planner, the introducer of it, the revealer of it to us; an exceeding and eternal weight of glory it is. But, then, I find that many a soul which was first caught with the grace of God's being the propounder and setter forth of this hope, and which was bright in the joy of it at first, has so got occupied and' absorbed in the suitability to itself of the blessings that it has lost sight of that fullness of weight found in it when it is looked at, not on the side on which it bears on us, but on that in which it reveals God Himself and His Christ.
True, nothing but seeing my Lord for myself ever can enable me to say " satisfied." And truly I am glad that my full satisfaction waits upon him, and is, by divine wisdom, made to hang upon the, next great public act of that blessed One in obedience to His Father; He will bid him, in His own time, to rise up from the throne of the Father; to come forth from the majesty of the highest, and I shall see him and be satisfied. (1 Thess. 1:3,103Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; (1 Thessalonians 1:3)
10And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:10)). Then too my, our, walk will issue in the kingdom and glory to which we are called; and worthily of which we have now to walk (chap. 2. 12, 19, 20).. Truly, then all the conflict of the wilderness now, with its ever-varying face of woe, will then have its issue to me, to us, in a permanently established unblamableness in holiness before God, even Our Father (chap. 3. 13.) But, besides all this, as we see by the allusions of chap. 4. 13-18, God's counsel and plan is, that He who as Son of Man is at His own right hand now, hidden from man, and who is there the spectator of the working of Satan in the heavenlies and in the earthlies (space and place being to all appearance given up to the adversary), He will rise up and come forth. Oh, the delight of God in that blessed One! and may we not, with reverence, say it-Oh, the joy of God over Him when the hour comes for his manifestation; His own joy, too, in the revelation of that Father's faithfulness to Him, and to those He loves, -His joy in the consciousness that it is in and by Him, as Son of God and Son of Man, that, at that time, the full vindication of God and His people, and of the faithfulness of God, will be made. He will descend from the throne on high into the heavenlies,-they purged and all the enemies driven out,-He will search all the dark corners of the grave (prison-house of Satan), find all the dust of those whose faith was in Him,. display His divine almighty power in uniting the souls that were with him to bodies now glorified; change the living, and catch all up into the air The movement rolls through space from the throne of the Father, from the majesty in the highest, down to the prison-house of the grave and its keeper, and Himself, the leader and power of the movement, shows forth what God is to those that, in spite of all appearances, put their trust in Him. Oh, the blessedness of His taking thus the lead in action as Son of Man! and heaven above in the highest being witness that this Son of Man, whom it thus sends forth a second time, can tell forth, as man, in the heavenlies, in the earthlies, in the parts below the earth, of the faithfulness of God to his man-rejected Servant, and that the blessedness of all those who have put their trust in him is His joy and his reward.
Body, soul, and spirit now sanctified to him, and preserved blameless, shall, in that day, in fields of light, 'witness for Him (chap. 5. 23.) It must be so. God has not forgotten the son of His
love that served Him. The counsel is firm. The plan is complete. If he tarries in the execution of it, it is not because He has two minds, but because he is still adding to the number of those who are to stand in the glory.
But the glory of the Son of Man in heaven, and the glory of those that believe in Him, is a sure part of the divine work; work that divine glory makes needful and counts to be due to Christ. It is this, the divine side of it, this the way in which the coming of the Lord (next grand expression of God's actings in redemption) presents that which God desires and purposes for the manifestation of the Son of His love, which alone, I conceive, can keep the heart lively as to it, and occupied with it, under all circumstances.
Such a view of it is as bright to a dying man, while—a-dying, as to a man toiling through life.
The end of my life here below, the fruits of it, they are each and all to be found in that day; and how bright will they then be to the heart! and how important to keep that in contrast with things present within or without one ever before the soul! But there is also God's side of it-God's view and portion in the coming; and in that view we measure (not by contrast with things within and around us now, but measure) as those let into divine counsels, plans, and thoughts; measures according to God's honors put upon THE Man whom He delights to honor-Our Lord and adorable Savior. That the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches,' and the lusts of other things choke 'the word, is in the nature of things but too true; that nothing but purpose of heart and a walk in which, through grace, we firmly put self down and lay aside earth, seeking heaven and eternity, can enable the soul to be lively, is conceded as true also; but, over and above this, the soul needs to see the hope in its highest and brightest aspect, so as to have
the full benefit of its power.
Set between the first coming of Christ and His second coming, we are; and, as such, what manner of persons ought we to be?
Thou dolt not ask 'for worthy saints,
Sinners Thou called'st solely,
Whose root lay deep in bitterness
In birth and life unholy.
I durst not cry-I've done my best,
And so prepare to meet Thee,'
'T was Thou didst bare Thy loving breast
'T was then I flew to greet Thee.
Then Satan raged, and bade me own
Thy Word was all a fable;
From him I turned to Thee alone-
Thee who alone art able-
Doubt to dissolve, in blaze of day,
The seeds of life to nourish;
To scare the invader from his prey,
And bid the soul to flourish.
Sunday, April 13th, 1862.
THE CHRISTMAS ROSE.
(By a pleasing coincidence, Veratrum Album, a plant yielding a most soothing medicine, is called the Christmas Rose.)
THERE is a flower all flowers above,
Unlike the flowers of earth,
It tells a mystery of love-
A flower of Heavenly birth.
It blows not when the summer sun
Has bathed the world in. light,
But ever seeks its race to run
In winter and in night.
It blows when storms have swept the sky,
When streams forget to flow,
When fair broad fields all hidden lie
Beneath a robe of snow.
Fair flower, in thee my Lord I see,
In thee I love to trace
His undiminished love to me,
His beauty and His grace.
When sin its bloody plowshare drove
Across my quivering breast,
Thy soft white leaves a covering wove,
And soothed my soul to rest.
When all around is dark and drear,
And Summer flowers depart,
Then is the time thou com st to cheer
The Winter of my heart.
Whate'er bright summer tints are given
To garnish flower or tree;
While Jesus lives and loves in Heaven,
The Christmas Rose for me.
April 23rd, 1862. B.