THE more you look into Scripture, the more you will see how clear it is. How does the resurrection of the saints take place? We shall be raised in glory — we go in glory before the judgment-seat. How can you have a man in glory, and raise a question about judgment there? God will have you to be conformed to the image of His Son. There has Paul been these eighteen hundred years in heaven; are you going to take him out for judgment?
There is the perfect work accomplished, and hereby also “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Your responsibility is not mixed up with your acceptance, but with your glorifying God. Quickened and born of God, you are responsible to act accordingly. If you were my children, I should expect you to behave as my children. You must first be children. All our responsibilities, beloved friends, flow from the place we are in. Duty flows from the place we are in. When you are a child of God, your duty to act as one begins. It will not stop, of course, in heaven. It is the consequence of the place I am brought into. And now. I have it in a poor earthen vessel, but being sealed by the Holy Ghost, I can therefore look with delight and joy for Christ’s coming. His time is best; “God is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” The saint can rejoice in the trial of his faith. But in it all, the Christian is looking for the coming of Christ. See how a mother watches for her child, because she loves him.
The Christian believes the blessed Son of God became a man on purpose to be able to die and suffer for him! He has been judged for me, has put away my sins, and I say, “Oh! that I could see Him as He is!” And more, when I do see Him, I shall be like Him! God’s purpose is not merely to save you by Christ, but to bless you with Christ! We are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.” “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” How can we think of such a thing? And if I know that it is grace, as it is expressed in Ephesians, “that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus,” I see that He must do something wonderful. If I am reasoning from what I am, it would be impossible; but if I am reasoning from God’s work, if He has given His own blessed Son to be a curse for me, I can expect anything. And I do expect to be like Christ! Why? He has told me so. “When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
See how God has taken care to show me what sin is. But see how He has taken care, if through grace your hearts hate sin, to show you how He has made an end of it, and brought in eternal righteousness. You are guilty? Very well — you are justified by blood! Defiled! — cleansed from all sin by the blood of Jesus Christ His Son! You have offended God? — you are perfectly forgiven! “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” Well now, says God, you must trust My love. You cannot have thoroughly happy blessed affections with God till your conscience is purged. Let your father be the kindest in the place, and the child know it, yet if he has been naughty he will skulk away. He gets a good conscience, and will run into his arms. When the conscience is purged, who did it? Why, God did it! He has made me His child, given me the very same name Christ has, called me His son, and “therefore the world knoweth me not, because it knew Him not.”
Oh, beloved friends, have you got the consciousness that God has interfered on your behalf; that God has not spared His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all; that Christ has come to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself? Have you the consciousness of that? Hating the sin of course; but have you known and believed the love God has toward you, and the efficacy of the work that love has done?
Beloved friends, if Christ were to come tonight, and I don’t know when He may — at even, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning (it is like a man that has his hand on the door to open it at any moment), — if He were to come tonight, where are you? Would you say, “Oh, that is the Lord that gave Himself for me, come to take me to Himself?” Or is there some fear in your heart about Him? Well, if there is, you have not got hold of the perfectness of His work in putting away your sins. Would you like to be with Jesus? Can your heart say, “I am a poor helpless thing; but if He hung on the cross for me, I am certain of His love. I cannot doubt the perfectness of His love”?
Through grace, I say, your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost; do not you do anything to grieve Him. Whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord. Do it in the Spirit; it does not matter what it is. A child wanting to please his father, would want to please him in the trifles. A holy life comes with practice. It is perfect peace, perfect joy, because I am waiting for Jesus to receive me to Himself; and a perfect measure of practice, because I see that I should be more and more conformed to Him now, if I am to be like Him when I see Him as He is.
The Lord give you to be able to say, Come, Lord Jesus! To you who believe, He is precious!
J. N. D.