1.
GOD, came down, in the Person of Christ the Son, to dwell in the midst of men, and to declare the Father. He became the servant of their necessities, and the bearer of their griefs and sorrows. Yea, more than this, for He manifested His love to needy man by an unwearied life, spent in going about “doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil.”
2.
Christ came to lift up man, morally, out of the state of mind and heart to which a fallen nature had reduced him; so that those who heard Him bore witness, that “never man spake like this man.” In all this God was with Him, so that Jesus could say, “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.” Miracles thus accompanied His teaching and His doctrines, that any who were astonished at His words might be encouraged to believe them, by the works which accredited them and Him.
3.
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son and upon subjects which were in this way brought down to the comprehension of a guilty conscience (as with the woman of Samaria, in John 4); or else meeting the lack of intelligence, so often displayed by His disciples, as in John 14.
4.
Beyond all this, “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;” so that, finally, the Lord Jesus, as the Lamb of God, the taker away “of the sin of the world;” stood in the guilty sinner’s place on the cross, and put away sin forever, by the sacrifice of Himself.
5.
God has now brought in the gospel of His grace, and the gospel of Christ’s glory, too, founded on what Jesus did on the cross, and on what God wrought, in raising Him up from among the dead. And this Christ is now preached as His power unto salvation, to every one that believeth. “God sets forth Christ, to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins.... that God might be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.”
6.
The gospel of the glory makes known the fact that man, in the person of the risen Lord, is now in the heavens, sitting at the right hand of God. Man is thus seen in an entirely new position with God, and is there not only in righteous title for Himself, but, having in grace suffered, bled, and died, to bring us there, is become our representative and forerunner; till He comes forth a second time, to meet us in the air, and present us before the presence of God faultless, and with exceeding joy.
7.
As regards ourselves, we are made “the righteousness of God in Him,” as truly as Christ was once made sin for us; and being quickened by the Holy Ghost, and made new creatures in Christ, what remains, but that God should take possession of us, and assert His new title, and dwell in us? “What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
8.
God has us for Himself; not to judge us about our sins―how can He? for Christ is at His right hand―but, as having redeemed, to bless us; and, as indwelt by His Spirit, to change us into the image of the heavenly man: or else, “He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, because of “is Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
9.
Besides this, we are brought into relationship with God, through the Son of His love, and taught to “behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. And though it doth not yet appear what we shall be, we know that when Christ shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
10.
There is yet another order of relationship in which we are set, besides those of which we have bien speaking; and which may be called our collective and corporate one with Christ in heaven. The Holy Ghost came down at Pentecost to gather the individual members of Christ together in one―to baptize them “by one Spirit into one body.” Moreover, “we have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”
11.
God has thus formed a unity between those who are joined to the Lord (and are consequently one Spirit with Him), and Christ in the heavens; who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, and Head of His body, the Church. There is also “a habitation of God, through the Spirit, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief comer stone; in whom oil the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.”
12.
Believers are thus members one of another; and also members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, and the Lord nourishes and cherishes them. Further, as the ascended and glorified Head, “He gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, and for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
13.
The Holy Ghost is thus on the earth, gathering out of the world the Church of the living God; and forming the Body of Christ―the Bride, the Lamb’s wife―as a witness to the absent Lord and Head, and for a testimony, to those who have rejected Him, of the present grace that is open to them.
14.
The Lord Jesus Christ is not only the foundation which God has laid for all our confidence and hope, but also the Head and Source of life, joy, and peace, to those who are the purchase of His blood. Moreover, He is the center of every purpose and counsel of God, round whom will be gathered all things in heaven and earth, in the dispensation of the fullness of times.
15.
Finally, the Son of man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will come a second time, to bring in the glory in which all is to be displayed that stands before God, in the fide of redemption by the precious blood of Christ. It is His prerogative to lead all the families in heaven and in earth into their respective places, and to put all into relationship with God, even the Father.
16.
Christ must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet; and when He shall have put down all rule, authority, and power, “He will deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, that God may be all in all.”
What a beginning, and what an end! What a consummation for Him who is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last! Christ will expel Satan and evil out of the creation of God, and fill the heavens and the earth with righteousness and praise. Christ has redeemed a new race of creatures to God by His blood, that―by resurrection into His own life, and righteousness, and image―He may see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied.
Another purpose, dear to Him and to us, was expressed in His own prayer: “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.”
Another great result had reference to the future dwelling-place of God: “I heard a great voice out of heaven, saving, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.”