There is a remarkable difference in the aspect and hope connected with the Lord’s return in Old Testament scriptures from what is suggested to the believer in reading such a scripture as this in Philippians.
In the Old Testament the glory of the kingdom is connected with the coming; with us, the proper hope is not the glory of the kingdom, but that He, whose the kingdom is, is coming.
Doubtless there will be the full display of the glory of the kingdom then; but it is not what we are looking, for, but for the Lord Himself. “Our citizenship is in heaven, whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
‘We often sing the words,
Heaven is our father-land—
Heaven is our home.”
There is our citizenship. If we consider the people of God as we see them in the world, we behold them a pilgrim band passing through the wilderness, but when they lift up their eyes to heaven, they are all gladdened with the sweet thought of home. Here it is the wilderness, but we have a city. Our citizenship is in heaven. When the people of God raise their eyes to heaven, all is bright and full of joy. Ah! is it not bright to our souls to look up there? But what is it that makes it so bright? what makes it our home? Is it not that Jesus is there? We shall be greeted there by His own welcome. We shall see His face in undimmed glory. There will be no cloud upon that blessed countenance then.
Nothing to dim His beauty. All will be bright. We shall see Him as He is. Heaven is to us the place whence we look for Him whom our souls love. We are not looking to go to heaven, but we are looking for the Lord Jesus from heaven. Mark that expression, “We look for the Savior.” There is exceeding beauty in the introduction of the word “Savior” here. We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If, I, as a man, had penned these words, I should have simply said, We look for Jesus, or the Lord Jesus: The Spirit of God presents another thought to our souls. We look for the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior. True, indeed; we already know Him thus in having saved our souls, and delivered us forever from our sins; but we cannot look at this character of the blessed Lord as what applies only to the past. It is the character in which we know Himself personally If a man could tell me everything about the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ save this glory in connection, with Himself as Savior, with the cross of Calvary, I should say to him, Well, but cannot you tell me something about the blessed Lord as Savior? Do you not know anything about Him for yourself in connection with the cross. If not, I must say that after all your knowledge about Him, you do not know Himself. As a Savior it is alone that any can learn what He is. Unless, dear friends, you know His cross—unless you have met Him there, saving you as poor lost sinners-you are as yet strangers to His love, you know not what lie is Himself.
And here I would add a practical word on this expression, “We look.” It is significant, and reveals the inward condition of the soul, it expresses practical communion with Christ. It is the Lord Jesus saying to your heart, “Surely I come quickly,” and your heart replying, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” What do you know of this sort of intercourse with Christ? How often is your heart thus lifted up to Him during the day? It is the same thing which we find in Thessalonians, “Waiting for his Son from heaven.” This is quite another thing from the understanding, the doctrine of the coming. That is important solely as a means to an end, even to lead us into this waiting position of soul, this quiet, continued breathing of the ‘heart after Himself. “I have waited for thy salvation, O God.”
I dare say many of you can look back to the time when the Lord had to teach us what His coming meant. We had a vast number of things to unlearn; the idea that the coming. of the Son of man meant our death, for instance. Now this process is very important. It is the work of the Spirit in us teaching us to bring all our notions to the word of God, that that furnace may try them, and show us what they are worth. Then we found how one thought after another had to be given up, till the Lord had cleared the ground to lead us into His truth. But this searching out the doctrine of the coming is not looking for the Savior. We may hold the truth of the coining quite clearly in our heads, and yet not be waiting for the Lord in our hearts. Ah! we well know whether this is really the posture of our spirits, quietly waiting for Him as the One whom our souls love. He says, Surely, certainly, I come. As surely as the blessed Lord Jesus is still a man in heaven, having a human heart and human thoughts and human affections, so surely He will come. Do you know, then, this kind of intercourse with the Lord, He saying, by His Spirit, “Surely I come quickly,” and your heart responding, “Quickly come.”
But it might be said by some, who heard us speak of heaven as our home, from whence we expect the Savior, Truly, yours is a large title-you have vast expectations, if you can lay claim to heaven itself as yours; but what about possessing your home, carrying about with you, as you do, a body of sin and death. The next verse, which now I turn to, meets this question by that which will enable us to enjoy this glorious home. “Who shall change our vile body, and fashion it like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”. Here we have indeed a body that savors of the wilderness. Then we shall have a body that savors only of the glory: Here we have a body that Well accords with groaning and tears, a body weighed down with the corruption of sin, and with the circumstances of sin and death, which form the sorrows of the way: Well, He ‘shall entirely change this body of humiliation, that not a trace of sin, or of the wilderness,’ shall remain. It shall be fashioned like unto His own body of: glory. You will not be able to, sigh’ or groan in the glory. Now we sigh and -gum, not only by ‘reason of sorrow, but sometimes a view of the glory brought home to the heart— by the power of the Spirit, produces a groan by reason of incapacity—to receive, it in this present condition. Like Daniel, we are ready to faint under it. It is too much for this poor body of humiliation. As in Romans 8, we groan Within ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, because our body is entirely unfit to sustain the glory. “Well, we shall have a body capable of enjoying it all in peaceful’ blessedness. We shall be at home in that bright glory, quietly at rest in all its brightness. There will be no groan because of incapacity. We shall enjoy the rest of God, and be at rest in His own glorious home.
And now, what, let me ask, is to you the Most blessed thought in this verse? Is it that then we shall be at home, freed forever from the sorrows of the wilderness? or, that then there will be no more groaning after the glory through possessing a body of humiliation? Oh, there is a more blessed thought than either of these. I shall have indeed, a body meet for the glory, but the sweetness of the hope is this, —that body of glory shall be the gift of the personal love of Christ to each individual saint. He shall change our body, of humiliation His own power be put forth to bestow on me this blessedness. We shall be able to look at ourselves in that day, and say, So much does He love me, that He has made me entirely like Himself. Mark how His love comes out in the entire action. “He shall change.” Not your being able to slip the body and get into the glory. No; you must have the glory from Him when and how He pleases. Now He may say to you, “I give you the wilderness, for I wish you to pass through it, that you may learn that it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” He gives you now the wilderness, and He will be with you all the way, that there you may learn more of His love. Ah! and in which of all your troubles was He not with you. You cannot mention one. I do not say, that in looking back you cannot name one in which you did not find. Him, for, alas! we often see Him not through unbelief, though He is with us all the time. Has He not been with you, watching how you have borne the cross? He has seen every time you have pushed. up your shoulder under it, and often then He pressed it down more heavily, that your will might be broken.
Thus He who gives you the wilderness now, will give you the glory afterward; both are alike the gift of His love. If we could get the glory when we liked, we should never know. His love in changing our vile body to make it like His own. Yet this is the sweetest thing of all, that He has loved poor creatures so wondrously, that He will fit us to dwell in heavenly clouds loving us so much that He will not rest until He has made our body of humiliation exactly like His own body of glory according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.
In conclusion, I would press this again upon my own heart and yours. Are we looking for Him, not looking for the glory or the rest, but for Himself?