The vision of coming glory, as revealed in the Word, sustains the believer in the path of faith. He lives in a new atmosphere, with new thoughts, new hopes, new pleasures. We know that Christ is “head over all things to the church, which is His body” (Eph. 1:22-23). The knowledge of resurrection’s glory with Christ strengthens the inward man, so that we faint not, knowing that “our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:16-17).
The church, united to Christ in glory, is absolutely heavenly in calling and hope. We are now gathered to a rejected Christ (John 12:32). At His coming we shall be gathered to a glorified Christ (Eph. 1:10). The life we have received is heavenly in its source (1 John 1:13). The object of that life is Christ in glory (Phil. 3). The hope of that life is our being “glorified together” with Him (Rom. 8:17). The church will be the Eve in His paradise, the Queen on His throne, the richest and brightest glory of the inheritance He has won. In calling any out of the world, He entrusts them to His Son, to be one with Him in thought, desire and hope now, and eventually to be glorified together with Him in His glory! Oh, let us not lose in our souls the preciousness of what the church is to Him! Let us rejoice in being gathered as members of His body, bearing His reproach, because of our heavenly calling, as we remember Him in His death, while living in daily expectancy of His coming for His bride. While rejoicing in our individual blessing, may we hold fast and rejoice in the rich revelation of the truth that “Christ . . . loved the church and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25).
H. E. Hayhoe