We now come to the believer's next privilege of grace, concerning our future—
3. “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” How different from the hopes of the world is this hope! It does not, like human hopes, end on this side of the grave in painful disappointment, but reaches beyond death and the grave up to the glory of God, where faith will be changed into sight, and hope into possession, and love “abide forever.” Whilst the natural man, even if he, like Saul of Tarsus, had reached the highest round of the religious ladder of human attainments, “comes short of the glory of God,” in that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)), the youngest child of God, who to-day for the first time has learned to stammer, “Abba, Father,” and justified by faith, has found peace with God, is able to say with a heavenward look of joyful gratitude:
“To what glory and bliss,
Blessed God, I am come!
In a world like this
Thy child to become!
As fading as an autumn leaf,
Poor dust—of many sinners chief—
And yet so highly honored!
In Christ I am view'd
With a Father's smile;
With raiment endued,
Like bridal attire.
In Christ, my Righteousness, I'm clothed,
To Him, Thine own dear Son, betrothed,
And call Thee, “Abba, Father.”
Come want, grief, or pain?
I take them to Thee;
Then nothing can pain,
When coming from Thee.
I am Thy child, O blissful thought!
And as Thine heir, to glory brought,
Shall reign with Christ in glory.'
Man's path of life from the cradle to the grave, is strewn with dead hopes. The natural man rejoices and glories in his worldly hopes, which are set on the vain glories and perishable beauties of this world. But his joy is turned into bitterness, and his glorying into shame. When he believes he has reached the desired object of his hope, behold, it is, as everything under the sun, “vanity and vexation of spirit.” But Christian hope, like Christian faith, begins there where the world's faith and hope cease, i.e. beyond and above the sun, where the glories of God and the Lamb do dwell. And as sure as is the Christian's faith, as sure is his hope. Neither of them can ever be disappointed. The man of this world says, “I see, therefore I believe.” The Christian says, “I believe, therefore I see.” This world's faith does not go beyond the range of its telescopes and microscopes. Christian faith says, “Where your telescopes and microscopes cease, there my faith begins.” The child of this age says, “I have the best prospect of soon reaching the object of my hope, for I possess all the means for doing so.” The child of God replies, “What, if God should say to you, 'Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee?' Whose will it all be? Thank God, I can say, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us.”
The hopes of this world resemble those fabled “apples of Sodom,” that were said to grow on the shores of the “Dead Sea,” once the site of voluptuous and libidinous Sodom. They were of an enticing appearance; but when the thirsty traveler greedily stretched out his hand to the lovely fruit and seized it to quench his thirst, it crumbled into little fragments under his grasp. The attractive fruit was nothing but a thin hollow shell, containing nothing but a little dust and ashes! It was “vanity and vexation of spirit.” What a picture of this world's deceptive hopes! What a contrast to the Christian's never-deceiving hope, and to Christ Himself, “Who is our hope” and has procured for us through His cross and victorious resurrection that “living hope,” even our incorruptible, undefiled and unfading inheritance reserved in heaven.
“The heavens now we open see,
O Christ, since Thine ascension;
Thou art our living Way, and we
Draw nigh to God. Those mansions
Will soon receive us, faith knows well,
Where we'll forever with Thee dwell,
Who hast our place prepared.
And if our Head in heaven we see,
Thy members, Lord, we know it,
Can ne'er from heaven excluded be,
Thou'lt leave not one below it:
Where Thou art now, we soon shall be,
And, glorified, Thy beauty see
With joy and praise unceasing.
Thou radiant Light in heaven above,
Our hope and joy and treasure!
Beyond earth's richest treasure throve
Beyond all price and measure.
Our way is open to the throne—
What heavenly wealth, what glorious home
Are ours through grace in Jesus!”