I desire to bring a few scriptures before you that speak of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ as He is now as a risen Man in the glory of God. Many of the Lord's people know the blessed truth of forgiveness of sins through His precious blood, and are trusting simply to His finished work on the cross, but they have never thought much of the glory of the Person who did the work, nor of the place where He is now.
Many, when they think of the Lord, only think of Him as dying on the cross for their sins; others think of Him as risen on earth, and then have a sort of vague, indistinct idea that after He left this earth He ceased to be a man, and is now in the form of God again, although still believing that He ever lives to make intercession for us.
Others have said, "I never thought of the Lord Jesus as a Man in heaven; I had always thought of Him more as a spirit."
This has led me to bring a few scriptures together that speak of this wonderful truth of Christ being a Man in the glory of God; for until this is seen there can be no growing in the things of God or in the understanding of His Word.
Many, I believe, spiritualize the Lord's second coming because they think of the Lord as a spirit, and thus His coming must be a spiritual one, too.
The first scripture we will look at is Luke 24:36. Here we find the Lord Jesus appearing to His disciples after He had risen from the dead with the blessed words on His lips, "Peace be unto you." They saw Him who had died for their sins, and saw that He was alive again.
"But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit." They thought, as some do now, that the Lord was a spirit; but what did the Lord say to them? Verse 38: "Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself: handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have. And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet." Here we see the same Jesus that was on earth, now risen from the dead, He Himself with a body of flesh and bones which He assured them a spirit had not. Then verse 50: "He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." And in Acts 1:9: "While they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight." Thus we see that the blessed Lord rose from the dead with a body of flesh and bones, and with that body went up into heaven. He did not vanish from their sight in an instant, but evidently they saw Him go up, as we gather from Acts 1:10: "And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven."
This same Jesus was to come again as they had seen Him go. We can picture those disciples gazing up into heaven, their eyes following their Lord as He went up... until the cloud hid Him from their view. That same Jesus was to come back again, and so He will; but before that day comes we are permitted to look, so to speak, by faith on the other side of that cloud, and see this same Jesus where He is now.
Turn to Acts 7:55: "But he" (Stephen), "being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God."
What a wonderful scene! Here was a man washed so clean in the precious blood of Christ that he could be filled with the Holy Spirit, and the heavens were opened for him to look in. And what did he see? He saw the glory of God, we are told; but he did not speak of that; his eyes were fixed upon a Person in that glory. There was no cloud to hide that blessed One from Stephen's sight; he saw "this same Jesus," the Son of man, in the glory of God. The disciples looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, and the cloud received Him out of their sight; Stephen looked steadfastly into heaven and saw the Savior there-"the Son of man... on the right hand of God."
This same Jesus also spoke from heaven to the Apostle Paul when he was converted. "As he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? And he said, Who art Thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." Acts 9:3-5.
Here is the same One that went up from Bethany, whom Stephen saw in the glory of God, speaking from heaven to his bitterest enemy on earth to "show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." 1 Timothy 1:16.
Another passage is Revelation 5:6 which, although the truth in it is given to us in figurative language, is nevertheless equally clear.
"And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes." Here in the midst of the throne of God and the heavenly saints, represented by the four and twenty elders, is the Lamb as it had been slain. The Lord Jesus who has been slain but is now alive again, and has entered as man into the glory of God, is the object of the praise and worship of all heaven. All power is given to Him (seven horns), and the perfection of sight (seven eyes)-nothing escapes His notice. The Lord Jesus said, "Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye" (those that are His) "see Me." John 14:19. This is true now. "Ye see Me." Believers, not the world, see Him. Of course it is by faith. And where do we see Him? No longer on earth, but where He is now, in the glory of God. "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." Hebrews 2:9.
But in case it might be thought that in pressing the manhood of the Lord Jesus, His Godhead glory has been overlooked, I will quote a verse in Colossians 2 where we have the Godhead glory and at the same time His manhood brought out in one short verse (v. 9): "For in Him" (Christ) "dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (or in a bodily form); that is to say, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in the Person of "the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5).
May the eyes of our faith be upon Him where He is in all His glory, that we, by beholding it, may be changed into the same image from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). That is what takes place now. Beholding Him by faith where He is, we become morally more like Him till that day comes when He "shall change our vile body" (or body of humiliation), "that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body" (or body of glory). Then we shall be like Him, conformed to His image and, although He will eternally be man, He must ever be the object of our worship and adoration, for He is "the true God, and eternal life" (1 John 5:20).