Nor is this all. Moral beauty is not the only thing. It is that which makes the one church to be the one pearl. But this priceless gem has a setting of glory. It has a glory from its own qualities, but has also a glory which does not flow from quality but from position. That position of glory is not yet in our possession, but it is ours, and we are viewed as if in possession. The Lord Jesus speaks to His Father of us as if we had it— “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them, &c.” (John 17:2222And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: (John 17:22).) Whatever glory Jesus acquired, earned, or was given to Him of the Father, that is given to the church. Hence if we see Him on the throne we see the church with Him on the throne; as He is now sitting with the Father on His throne, so the church will sit with Him on His own throne. (Rev. 3:2121To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (Revelation 3:21)). And the church will partake of His joy, throne, and kingdom. What is there of power and dominion which will not be His? Are not things in heaven, in the earth, and under the earth, to confess Him, bow to Him? Well, all this glory the church, the bride, will share with Him. And we may say that the highest, sweetest, best of all glories to Jesus is the being head over all things to the Church. It is meet that such a gem, as God calls a pearl of great price, should be set in glory. And in that pearl the fruit of His own love and grace displaying His own nature, the beauties of holiness and purity, and set in the splendor of the glory of Christ, will be the full accomplishment of His own purpose before the world was.
The Lord Jesus, while looking at His disciples here, yet connects them with the beauty, purity, and glory, in which they will soon be displayed, and to accomplish which He sold all that He had.
But what a picture we get here of God; of God as He was manifested in Christ. He was seeking pearls. God was seeking a way wherein He might display Himself, as no mere act of creation could. And here it is not the seeking for the vile and worthless to bless and save them, true and precious as that is; but it is the seeking for what will adorn, for what has beauty and can attract, and what can afford delight. He finds this pearl, and there is nothing like it. The thought in the parable is not how the Church is made a pearl, but how God can most display Himself. And He has incorporated the saints of the present time into one body, that they might be the vessel of this high and special glory, and His habitation forever. Whatever glories there may be above, whatever His delight in the angelic hosts, they are not equal to the Church, they are not His habitation. In other creation some attribute is shown, His glory is seen in the firmament, His power, His wisdom, but He Himself is not there. In the Church He shows Himself “that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace.” He dwells not in the angels, they are not a corporate body. The Church is, and always will be so. It will never be dissolved; it will ever be the habitation of God.
When all dispensational dealing shall cease, and the name of Jew and Gentile, and all other national appellations are gone, when the eternal state begins, the Church will still retain her distinguishing trait as the dwelling of God, and, as the tabernacle of God, will dwell with men upon the new earth.
This is—the pearl. To accomplish that mighty work which was needed to have such a pearl, Jesus gave up all that He had. God could not be displayed in a higher way. Here every attribute shines—righteousness, grace, majesty, love, power, and wisdom—yea, God Himself. And shines more than in any other way God could devise. It is to the praise of His glory.