Open—T. Ruga, E. Staggs
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I'd like to say a few words.
Simple words, perhaps, on a subject that I feel wholly inadequate to speak on.
But we had much this morning about the glory of the Lord Jesus.
And I'd just like to speak a little bit about that. We can start in First Timothy Chapter 6.
First Timothy chapter 6 and verse 15.
The end of verse 14. Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Which in his time shall show who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality dwelling in the light.
Which no man can approach, unto whom no man hath seen nor can see, To whom be glory and power.
Everlasting. Amen.
This first tells us something about the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, as we know, is God.
And the verse speaks about His glory as God. We might refer to it as His intrinsic glory, His essential glory, that glory which belongs to Him as God. And that glory is a glory that goes beyond anything of what we know.
And our experiences, man, it's a glory that is overwhelming in a sense.
And just taking that part of what we have, what it says here in verse 16.
Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto.
That's a glory that man cannot bear, and he has it in his person as God now in the Lord Jesus.
Came into this world God had prepared for him a body and he took that body and we had that part of it a little bit before us this morning and the remembrance meeting and if I could just go back again to.
What we have there in John chapter one.
And look at that again.
These are not umm.
Thoughts perhaps that haven't been expressed before, but I hope I have the Lord's mind to save them because.
When we talk about the Lord's glory, it should have a direct and moral effect upon ourselves, and so it's important.
John chapter one and verse 14. It says 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. Now something happened, this one who had this essential eternal glory.
That brightness that was beyond what man could approach unto. Now it says that He was made flesh and he dwelled among us. Now how could that be possible? It could only be possible as Brother express in the meeting before that He took that glory. And as it says in in hymn #27, in our little flock hymn books, He laid his glory.
I or He took that glory, and He shielded it there in His flesh. Maybe the thought even of the words here He was made flesh and dwelt or tabernacled among us. It's often been expressed in connection with the Tabernacle in the Old Testament. There was a house that was made for God, and God Himself came down and He dwelled in that house.
And there his glory was, inside that holiest of all.
But it was shielded, the people couldn't bear that glory. And so there it was, clothed there in that Tabernacle, the Lord Jesus in similar fashion, coming into this world, He comes. He couldn't come here in his essential glory. Who could bear it? And so he takes upon him a body.
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And that glory then is, we might say, laid by, because He doesn't bring it all here with him. Or we might say it was Tabernacle. It was concealed in his flesh.
And he walked here as a man in this world as he grew up as a child. Men didn't see that glory. They couldn't, they couldn't bear it. And yet glimpse of that glory did shine out of him. And we read that it's recorded in the Gospels on different occasions when he did things such as.
Calming disease. And they would see, the disciples would see that, and they would say what manner of man.
Is this well, that certainly went beyond what a man could do. Here was a glory coming out. And I know from the Lord's own words in the Gospel of John.
Chapter 5 for instance, he says that their works that his father gave him to do, he didn't go beyond one thing that his father gave him to do. He didn't let his glory just go out in his power, but it was carefully according to the mind of what his father.
Commanded Him to do at that time. And yet there was another occasion in which His glory went out even further again, no doubt with the perfect plan and program of His Father. And that we have recorded in Matthew chapter 17, where the Lord Jesus took Peter, James and John, and they went up into the mountain, and there He was transfigured before them.
A little bit of that essential glory.
So now there.
And so that was the Lord in his life on earth, in that glory that he had.
But you know, there were other glories that the Lord Jesus had.
Beyond His essential glory, Glory is which He has. Beyond His essential glory and those glories we often refer to as His acquired glories. Glory said at one time he did not have, but now he does. There was a time when the Lord Jesus Christ was not the Creator.
But then he undertook to create the world.
And he became the creator of the glory that he has.
Wonderful. He's worshipped that way in Revelation chapter 4.
And then he goes on further, and there was a time when he was not yet Redeemer, but he came into this world, having taken that body, and he completed that work that his God and Father gave him to do, and he then became the Redeemer. He had the glory of redemption and acquired glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Wonderful.
There's also a Kingdom.
And that Kingdom was one that the Lord spoke of when he was on earth. And now that Kingdom exists in its mysterious form, and we acknowledge him in a glory that the world doesn't yet acknowledge him as King.
He's the rightful king and heir of all things and we recognize that and soon the world will the Lord Jesus will take that Kingdom and he will reign. They said glory that is his and it's been acquired glory. These are wonderful things and if we go over to.
John chapter 17. I just want to see something more about that.
Because we talked about his essential glory and how he laid that aside when he came into the world.
He speaks about that a little bit there in verse.
Verse 5 Now, O Father, glorify thou may with thine own self.
With the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. That's His essential glory there. He had that glory with the Father in heaven, and eternity passed. It was there in all of its brightness. But now the Lord Jesus had come into the world and He had laid that aside. And He's looking on to the time in this prayer when He would have that glory again with the Father.
And so it was, He rose from the dead and ascended to his Father, He seated there in glory.
All that essential glory there, no longer shielded, but there in its brightness.
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Again.
But he goes on and says something else in this chapter that brings us in.
He says.
In verse 24.
Here's another part that I'm looking for here.
I'm sorry.
No, it's, uh, it, no, it's looking beyond that. I'm, I'm, I'll find the verse here.
We're over 22 as the first I was looking for, and the glory which thou gave us, me, I have given them that they may be one even as we are one. Now I want to talk about that glory and that goes beyond what we've talked about so far, but I do believe it might take in that acquired glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's going to share that with us. His intrinsic glory He does not share with us.
But when it comes to his acquired glory.
Particularly that part where he reigns, He takes us in to himself with that. And so it tells us in a number of places like Romans chapter 8, that we shall reign with him and we are going to be one with him in that day of the display of his glory. And we're going to, together with him, enjoy that.
But I believe there's something else here, and that's really what's on my heart.
This morning is to talk, this afternoon is to talk more about that side of it, because we talked about the Lord in His essential glory and we talked about Him in His acquired glory and these tremendous things that He had, but they were not openly displayed in this world and they are still not acknowledged in this world. But when the Lord Jesus was on earth, neither of those glories were those things.
That he was giving credit for.
Or that we're seeing in him directly. But there was another glory that the Lord Jesus had in this world that he could not lay aside and that he could not shield, and that was that he had a moral glory.
And we talked about that already a lot, too. Brother Paul read it at the end of the meeting, at the end of the breaking of bread. He had gone all things well.
The sense the, uh, the, the man who was sent out to take the Lord Jesus, the officer came back and said, never man speak as this man. I think it's the end of John 9. Everything that the Lord Jesus said, everything that he did was an absolute perfection. And so that was a glory that he had, that it could not be ignored. Everybody who saw him understood it.
And the ones who refused him hated it.
The ones who received him acknowledged it, but it was obvious in his person that this was one who went beyond all others and the Lord Jesus when he spoke of it, he could say honestly and there in John chapter, I think it's 14 says now have they both seen and hated both my father and me and what he said and what he did. They saw that and they saw.
Father and they saw the sun. What was that? His intrinsic glory? No. Was it his acquired glory? No. Was it some of the power of God? Yes, it was, certainly. But that's not what he's talking about. It wasn't the healings. It wasn't the works of power. They heard His words. They saw what he did, how he acted, how He treated people. And that was an absolute perfection.
In fact, they rejected. They said no, we will not have this man. We won't have him to reign over us, away with him off the earth.
It's not fair that he should live either.
And they would get rid of Him. But that glory is a glory that He shares with us.
Because having gone up, ascended into heaven, He's now given us His life. And I'm not going to belabor this, we don't have much time, but we have His life. Colossians 3 says When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall we appear with Him in glory. But He's our life now. Galatians 220, the verse that we were talking about earlier.
I am crucified with Christ, and nevertheless I live, and yet not I, but Christ.
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Listen me, he's the one that lives there. It's his life that lives in me. It's his life now that is given to shine out of me. And what is that to be?
That is to be what he is in this world. It tells us in First John. Let's look at that for a moment. First John. Chapter one or Chapter 2, sorry.
First John 2.
Verse six he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk, even as he walked. And we can too, because we have his life, but this is what we're called to. He's our object, and so we walk as he walked. And is that moral glory of the Lord Jesus Christ could not be hid, because that's what he was in this person. They would say, Who do you say that you are? He says, I'm altogether that which I say unto you.
No difference between his words and what he was. Absolutely he was.
That glory of his person that shone out of every bit of him, and it is to shine out of us as well.
How does that happen?
Well, our brother was bringing before us a lot of that in the last meeting.
And it's important. We need to take up with Him who is our life and our object. We need to take up the Word of God and to learn of Him and let the Spirit of God take those things and make them real to us. And that brings us really to the last part of what I want to say in this meeting. There's much that can be said of it, but I just want to look at it in connection with the glory in Second Corinthians chapter 3.
2nd Corinthians chapter 3 in the early part of that chapter.
We find there that there's something happening, happening to us as Christians and that is, and there's a work being done in US, and it's a work that's being done in us by the Spirit of God. And it has as its result something that goes out to others who are around us, and not just other Christians, but out to the world itself that we have in verse 3.
Says For as much as you are manifestly deca declared to be the epistle of Christ.
Ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.
Now just go back up to verse two. It says you are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men. And now here's something being written by the Spirit of God, and it's being written in our hearts and it's being known and read of all men.
What that is is when we take up.
With the word of God. And the Spirit of God takes that word of God. He applies it to the heart, and what does he do?
He writes Christ there and does it stay hidden away there so it can't be seen? No, just like the Lord Jesus Christ in his life, it goes out and it's seen by all. It's seen by all those who around all man. It says here known and read of all men. It can't be hid. When the Spirit of God takes Christ and writes them in our hearts, that can't be hit either.
That shines out to everyone. That's his moral glory, working out.
In our lives, and that's something that he does.
Continuously in our lives and it is to go on to a greater and higher thing. That's what we have in verse 18, but we all with open face beholding is in a glass of glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
It's the Spirit of the Lord that takes.
US and attack and focuses our gaze on the Lord Jesus Christ himself and no doubt he does it through his word and he takes us and he takes us from step to step in learning more of him to learn more of his ways. And it puts it this way, changed from glory to glory, we've become more and more.
Like Him, it isn't that acquired glory that will come, but right now in our lives as we allow the Spirit of God to take our hearts.
And occupy them with the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we become transformed more and more into His image. And that's a glory. It's His glory. It's His moral glory. And that glory is the way that the world sees Him right now. When they reject Him, they see it in us. This is how He wants it to be. This is how it is to be in our lives.
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That's the exhortation, the comfort is.
However much we may fail in this, in a moment this work is going to be completed and Brother Gary and I were talking about this before the meeting.
I'm just going to reference it because I need to let someone else speak, but first John chapter 3.
It tells us that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
In a moment, it's going to be that way perfectly. That moral likeness is going to be completed the moment we see him. When he comes at the Rapture, that work will be done.
But we're not gonna have a chance then to be that epistle, known and read of all men. This is our opportunity to let the Spirit of God transform us.
And to be used in a world that still rejects them. So there is a responsibility. But thank God, there's going to be that moment, and it may be at any moment where the work will be completed and we're going to be just like the Lord Jesus Christ. And then I was glad Brother Gary reminded me the next verse. He that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure. And so we look forward to that moment, the Lord.
And I come and finish the work too. And it's going to have a purifying effect that to help that transformation to become more like Him. Now, may the Lord help us to reflect more of His glory in this world until He comes.
I have on my heart some of the.
Some of the portions I'm going to be looking at are are actually some of the verses our brother had already read. Umm, perhaps a little bit different aspect, but I want to talk about love.
You know, sometimes we talk about nature.
And, you know, we look outside and we see the trees, we see the grass, we see the flowers, we see the beauty of of God's creation.
But when I look at nature, I look around this room.
And I see what is nature, what is natural.
And I see that even though God might speak to us, the Father might speak to us, Christ might speak to us through the Spirit of God, of something of nature, something about his, his creative power, his his variety of what? What a God we have that he could create so many beautiful things. But.
What I appreciate and enjoy is.
The creation that we have amongst us and inside this room there's something very interesting and and that is that everyone in this room is loved by somebody.
And love somebody, everybody.
And I think that God uses that love to teach us about his love, to teach us about Christ's love, and he uses that as an opportunity to mold and to form us and to build us up.
We have what I believe is the highest love you have in this room, and that is the love between a man and a woman, husband and a wife.
There is nothing that reflects more the beauties of of what we are going to be in eternity with Christ in glory that we are loved by the Lord Jesus and that we will love him and it'll be a perfect love. It'll be unhindered speaks a little bit about what our our brother that glorious scene where he will present us to the Father and we will enjoy the same love that he.
Had with the Father, which is by far the love between the Father and the Son, the highest of all loves. In fact, when we look at love in Scripture the very first time that we find it in the word of God, is it not in Genesis chapter 2 when the Scripture God speaks to Abraham and he says, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.
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And offer him on amount that I will show thee. Of course, that was Mount Moriah. Mount Moriah was the very place Jerusalem, that the Lord Jesus would be crucified in the future. And So what is the stage is set?
What is the stage?
Well, the highest love that can be known to us in eternal things is the love between the Father and his Son. And then we find only that in that particular scene, as he's walking along with Isaac, he says, Father, where's the lamb?
And he says God will provide for himself a lamb. That's what that means there. It's not taking up the work of atonement, but it's taking up the glory.
That the Lord Jesus accomplished for the Father as He gave Himself on Calvary's cross. It was the glory He came to glorify the Father. Now we're not really a byproduct, but the highest.
Of the love that could be manifested was that seen on Calvary for the glory of God.
The next time we find love in Scripture is in UH Genesis chapter 24.
And there is a picture of Isaac and Rebecca, which of course is Christ in the church. And what does it say? He said he took Rebecca, umm, into his mother, uh, Sarah's tent and he loved her so in, in eternal things.
And it's, it's, it's beautiful.
Look around.
Look around.
The greatest expression of love.
Is Christ for the church? And I look around and I see the church. Oh, we're a small group of the whole.
But nonetheless, when I look around, you are the most valuable people ever created by God to have the highest place and the highest portion.
And so we've, we've had early on, umm, uh, in uh, Ephesians chapter 5 and, and there we find that Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.
But I wanna, I wanna just read, uh, umm, well, I'll, I'll go to that. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 5. It's, it's not, it's not at all my intention. As though, umm.
That umm, I wanna take up the an aspect perhaps that umm, that that we didn't exactly touch on umm, even though it was alluded to, but I would like to just bring this out because, umm, as I said earlier, the the highest, highest place that I can see if you really if you want to know.
What the character of the love that you're going to be enjoying in the future?
You're going to get it by your relationship with your, with your spouse, with your wife.
And to me, it's a wonderful thing that that as I look around and I see both men and women in this room that that I can, I can and you can as men take up a position where we long to be in connected with those bridal affections as being identified with the bride of Christ. It's unnatural to us, and yet in some way it's very natural.
It's very pure and very loving.
But in this portion what I what I want to to bring out is and and not so much the husbands love your wife side, but the the love that Christ has for the church.
And it says that Christ also loved the church. Verse 25 of Ephesians 5 Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the Word, that he might present it to himself. A glorious church. And our brother spoke about the glory.
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Imagine being a suitable companion for the Son of God.
Imagine having a life that no longer is connected with the flesh that has so dishonored him in this world. And you know, just to touch on this when we talk about husbands and wives.
You know, one of the things that I've noticed here.
Is that?
Christ loves the church. That's not perfect.
Not interesting. He's really setting himself as a standard. But Christ loves the church. That's not perfect. If we were perfect, he wouldn't have to sanctify and cleanse us by the washing of the water by the Word.
The point that I'd like to make here is that because we're so inconsistent with the perfection of Christ, he does tell us here what we have to do to enjoy his love and to be more like Him day by day. And what is that? That we might be sanctified, set apart wholly.
And cleansed, that means that there are those things like our brother brought out when the feet had to be washed, that there are those imperfections in us that need to be cleansed away. And then it goes on and it says with the washing of the water by the word. That is how we grow to be closer with Christ, to enjoy His love, to become more like Him day by day.
Is to allow Him to minister to us through His Word. And the more that we understand about who He is and what we are, the more will take sides with God against ourselves, that we might be more and more and more day by day. Like the precious Lord Jesus, He wants to present us to Himself.
A glorified church.
Now I want to go to John chapter 17 real quickly because I'm almost out of time.
What John 17?
And like I said, I I actually had umm, chapter one on my heart as well, but I'm I'm bypassing that to go to 17 here.
And down below, we're going to find another.
It says.
I'm going to, I'm just going to go straight to to 16.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth.
How valuable and important it is to see this.
There needs to be an exercise of reading the Word of God.
So that we might have God's mind and thoughts about the activity of our lives, about ourselves, that we might be conformed more and more.
And then there's one other thing that we find here. This is now remember, this is the Lord's desire.
As thou hast sent me into the world, Even so have I also sent them into the world. So here we're not taken out.
It's talking about how to go on in a world where everything is against us, where there are the drawings to pull us away from the exercises of who and what we are.
But he doesn't say take them out of here. No, no, we're going to learn about more of God's love, Christ love for us, and we're going to be changed and conformed. And then one last thing.
And for their sakes, I sanctify myself.
That they also might be sanctified through Thy truth. That is, I believe that the Lord has set Himself as the perfect example for us to follow. He has sanctified Himself for us that we might learn obedience.