It is a cheering thought, and no less animating than it is happy, that, richly as we are blest as saints of God, He has not exhausted His measureless ability for blessing us. And His profound delight in blessing us, being commensurate with His resources, no more can the former be impaired than the latter diminished. The present scene and character of blessing can never be reproduced, it is true, but the unexplored fields of blessing that lie before us are as ample as their fertility is everlasting. If He has endowed us with the unsearchable riches of Christ, and in the mystery enriched us with all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, yet He reserves to Himself infinitudes of fresh blessing for us when He receives us to His own rest. Nor does anything so conduce to give us a true apprehension (be it but a feeble one) of the supreme joys that await us, as the heart's bathing itself in its present blessedness. For every bit of appreciation by the Holy Spirit of our portion in and with Christ now, enlarges our capacity for apprehending by faith that to which He loves to conduct us in spirit—the terminal blessedness in His own presence.
If we look at the closing verses of the Lord's utterance in John 17, we find how He by the Holy Spirit, on the night of His betrayal, endowed His saints with a dowry, the which we, by the Holy Spirit, should now in spirit be enjoying, seeing how solid is our title to it in His own Word. 1) There is the glory given Him by the Father, which He shares with us (v. 22). 2) The Father's love equally shared with us (v. 23). 3) He further shares with us His own place in the Father's presence (v. 24). 4) The Father's name; He shares, as it were, that also with us (v. 26). Thus His inheritance from the Father is here rehearsed, and title thereto granted to His saints. The guerdon from His Father of His faultless work and faithful testimony on earth, won by toils and tears and terrors, in anguish and in blood, He solaced His own heart in its hour of untold sorrow by sharing with the men whom that Father had given Him out of the world! The Father's they were and of the Father had they been given to Him; and how could He mark His appreciation of this primary gift more definitely than by sharing with them all else that the Father had given Him? Thus the endless love of Christ to the saints is the suited answer of His heart to the Father's expressed delight in Him.
But Scripture supplies other features of our blessing. These I take to be: 1) The being in His presence at home; 2) The bearing His likeness in glory; 3) The partaking of the fatness of His house and of the river of His pleasures; 4) The speaking of His goodness and singing of His righteousness; 5) The beholding His glorification.
In Psalm 16:1111Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (Psalm 16:11) we read. "Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.' Now, however true these words were of Christ to Jehovah, they are for His saints also, and it is Himself who opens this path of life, really by putting forth, as He will before long, the power of His resurrection to them who in the meantime are privileged to know it by faith. And to nothing short of the goal itself—His own presence—does this path conduct and His power uplift. There is fullness of joy, but nowhere save in the pavilion of His presence. And in that peculiarly blessed but yet measured way in which we apprehend His presence as it is vouchsafed to us when we are gathered to His name, is any true foretaste enjoyed, of the blessedness for which our hearts are panting. Oh! how enjoyable must be the atmosphere which His presence fills in unclouded glory. In that supreme moment we shall taste, as never yet we have, that which the Holy Spirit speaks of as the fullness of joy! And His right hand too is our place of honor. He loves to invest us with a dignity befitting Himself when He has us at His side, and He installs us there that we may be regaled in His banqueting house under the banner of His love!
Again, in the last verse of the next Psalm, we read, "As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness." No less distinctly here also is it that which pertains to Him which enriches us. I shall be satisfied, with Thy likeness, when I awake. Concerning Lazarus we read, "the beggar died"; he awoke in Abraham's bosom! But for us the contrast is greater. The body of our humiliation, this groaning tabernacle, is to be changed in a moment, and fashioned by His hand unto the body of His glory; and with this—His likeness—shall we be satisfied. "I know that my Redeemer liveth," said Job; and the corollary of this is, "In my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." The psalmist says, "I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness." The Apostle John says, "We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." Each adds something to the other. Job's language is singularly literal—"In my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold." The psalmist is more doctrinal; he adds the righteousness in which he would behold Jehovah, and the satisfaction in which he would awake to the discovery that he bore His likeness. The Apostle is more personal, and his confidence is emphatic—"We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is"—the Man in the glory of God!
I only add that in John 17 there is one verse which appears to set forth the crowning joy of the saints. "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." Wonderfully blessed as it is for us to share the glory of Christ, how much greater a thing as to its moral qualities is here! For it is no question of participation, but the perfectly (I say not disinterested, but) unselfish joy of beholding the glorification of Christ. It is that great sight which is to eclipse every other from everlasting to everlasting. And the principle upon which this shall constitute the culmination of all our joys is seen in John 14:2828Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. (John 14:28). "If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is greater than I." His heart counts upon this, that our affection for Him is such that heaven's highest delight for us will be the supreme sight of His glorification—that of the Man who is Jehovah's fellow, God over all, blessed for evermore! Not until then will He see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Not until then will Jehovah rest in His love.
"But who that glorious blaze
Of living light shall tell,
Where all His brightness God displays,
And the Lamb's glories dwell?
"God and the Lamb shall there
The light and temple be,
And radiant hosts forever share
The unveiled mystery."