BUT we must now, for a little while longer, turn our eyes to the right hand of God, where the ascended One, who is man, now is seated and glorified with the glory He had with the Father before the world was. As we have already stated, God's purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the world began is to have His own Son, the glorified Man as the center in glory of a new order of men (redeemed from the ruins of Adam and dead, and risen with Christ), united to Him where He is, and have a common relationship, place, and share with Him in all the glory, and blessing, wherewith His God and Father hath blessed Him in the. heavenlies. Consciousness of oneness. with Czarist, in glory, and the knowledge of the mystery, Christ and the Church give full deliverance of soul; and seeing that this is " the present truth " that needs to be insisted on with constant iteration, we would conclude with the presentation of a condensed epitome of the Christian position, and the importance for deliverance, freshness, and spiritual progress of enjoying in. the Holy Ghost that blessed glorified Second Man who has glorified God on the earth, and who has been glorified by God, and with God in the highest heavens.
Where there is faith in a risen and glorified Christ there will be the conscious enjoyment in Him of divine life, filial relationship, and spiritual liberty. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," and He is with all who believe the gospel of the glory of Christ. The Spirit of God is with those who accept the ministration of life and righteousness in Christ, from the glory of God, and He gives them to know Him, and what God has given us in Him. Trace the path of the Son of God, from His coming in flesh to His ascension into the glory of God, and think of Him as the humbled, victorious, and exalted man. " That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." " 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." The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father He hath declared Him. God has been revealed on earth as a personal God (for " God was in Christ ") and in His relationship as a Father in the person of the Son of Man born of the Virgin. He was born holy-" that holy thing that shall be born of thee." He lived a life of obedience, dependence and holiness, and as God's Pious One, God the Father could claim Him at His baptism, as His by the voice from heaven. " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Heaven opened to Him and the Holy Ghost descended like a dove and rested upon Him, " for him hath God the Father sealed and sent into the world," and told forth at once His relationship to Him, and his well-pleasedness in Him. Thus attested and empowered as God's Sent One, He " went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed with the devil, for God was with him; " and when man rejected Him God testified again from the holy mount, " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." God owned Him at Jordan as His Pious One in His private life, when " He was about the age of thirty; " and now on the holy mount He owns Him in the transfiguration scene in His public life, as the Servant Son of Jehovah, the Messias promised to the fathers; and His place in the midst of His people in the kingdom is given Him in glory, and the Father's voice from the holiest proclaims this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him. From this place in glory which His own intrinsic excellence as Son of God, and His upholding the glory of God in Israel as the Son of Man, the Jehovah-Messiah had given him, we hear from the conversation of the glorious men who appeared, Moses and Elias, how that they talked of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem; and when the vision was past He descended from that " holy mount " to travel onwards as the rejected Son of Man to Calvary to accomplish His decease for God's glory and our redemption; for, " except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone; but, if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.... Father, glorify Thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.... And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me. This he said signifying what death he should die.... Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." God has been glorified by Him in His holy life, and God glorifying death by which at once God in all He is in His nature, character and requirements was magnified, and His glory retrieved and established over sin and Satan, and in the very face of the enemy. God as love as well as light has been glorified in the death of Christ; and not only according to the requirements of man as represented in the court, and at the brazen altar, but according to the necessity of God's nature as He is in Himself in the holiest of all, where all that the light of His glory reveals is of gold. God has been glorified about sin in the sinless One made sin for us; and where the first man was disobedient unto death, the second man has been obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He gave up Himself in obedience to glorify God, and God came in righteousness and in the might of His power wrought for Him and raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in His heavenly glory above every name that is named, both in this world and that which is to come, and has given Him to be head over all things to the Church which is His body the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
The old man came to the end in Christ's cross, and we have died with Christ and are risen with Him, and by faith we are the sons of God and the Risen Man, the last Adam is our life as He is our righteousness. As in the old creation we were in our sins and guilty, and lost in our Adam-head, so in our risen Lord-the Second Man-we are forgiven, have redemption, are saved, and have justification of life; for, as by one man's disobedience we were constituted sinners so by One Man's obedience we are constituted righteous. And not only so, but we are made one with a glorified Christ by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. We are saved by grace-God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, not as incarnate, but as risen from the dead, for Christ in the flesh is known no more (for He is not here, He is risen) therefore, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things have passed away, behold they are become new, and all things are of God who hath reconciled us to Himself by the death of His Son; and in this new, peaceful and happy condition we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation. There is a new creation, and Christ glorified is the Head of it, and we, as individuals have our place in Him, and part with Him, for our new creation in Christ and union with him is individual. By the disobedience, sin, and fall of the first Adam, we all went down under death; by the obedience, suffering, death and resurrection of Christ, the last Adam, we are all raised up with Him, and have life. In the beginning the heavens and the earth were created, and then man was formed on the sixth day, but all this is reversed in Christ, who dies for man on that sixth day, rested in the grave on the seventh day, and on the first day of the week was raised from the dead as the Second Man of heavenly origin, and constituted the Head of a new order of men who, it is God's purpose, should be associated with Him, one with His own Son, the second Man, the last Adam, as the Son of Man but Son of God, in his Manhood as we are, and indeed more closely than we were with the first-not Christ, as is often stated, united to men before and without redemption, which gives us a place in the glory with Him, and He has done all that is needed to bring us there. Of old, before the foundation of the world, He rejoiced in the habitable parts of Jehovah's earth, and His delight was with the sons of men. God prepared Him a body and He came in time, and to do God's will in our salvation, becoming a man, made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, and now crowned with glory and honor. As man in the glory He had with the Father before the world was, and having become our life, and accomplished the work of redemption on the cross, and gone into glory, gone up on high as man, He has sent down the Holy Ghost, Himself our abiding righteousness, that we might know that we are in Him, and He in us; not yet with Him, but in Him, and knowing it by the Holy Ghost (John 14), as it is written, " If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. God has quickened us together with Him, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. But, as said, not yet with Him, or partaking of the glory. Christ as raised from the dead is the head in glory, and we are members of His body. " He is the Head of the body the Church, who is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence " (Col. 1:18). It is a striking fact that Christ the firstborn from the dead is " the Beginning: " the Rock on which the Church is built is Christ: the Son of the living God, the firstborn from the dead. God's risen Son is the Head of His body, the Church, the Beginning of God's new work, just as He is as firstborn of every creature, " the Beginning of the creation of God," " for by Him were all things created-all things were created by Him and for Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist," so as risen He is " the Beginning, the Firstborn from among the dead," that in all things He might have the preeminence. We who believe have our place in Him who is " the Head of His body, the Church, " and have all our privileges, and blessings in Him, and being united to Him by the Holy Ghost come down from Him to seal all believers, and be the earnest of glory with Him, we wait for His coming that we may be conformed to His image in glory.
The Spirit contrasts the first Man, and the Second Man in 1 Cor. 15 The first man, Adam, was made a living soul, the last Adam a quickening Spirit.... The first man out of the earth, made of dust; the Second Man, out of heaven. Such as be made of dust, even also those made of dust; and such as the heavenly (One), such also the heavenly (ones). As we have borne the image of the (one) made of dust we shall bear also the image of the heavenly (One)." " For whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be confirmed to the image of his Son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." " 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 a spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:25-27). Whether as individuals, or as members of Christ's body, our prospect is to be like and with Himself in glory.