BEHOLDING THE GLORY OF THE LORD
[p. 355] BEHOLDING THE GLORY OF THE LORD
I add one word in connection with what we have had presented to us, the thought that the servant must come from the Lord. What I add is this: I think the servant needs to be imbued with what is expressed in the Lord, with what is true in Him. I do not think we can enter into service here, according to the mind of God, if we are not beholding the glory of the Lord. The result of beholding it is that it has the greatest effect upon us. We are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Lord the Spirit. The starting-point of ministry is really Christ Himself. Christ is the antitype of what was foreshadowed in Moses. Moses was the minister of the law; Christ is Mediator of the new covenant. What was typical in Moses is now fulfilled in Christ, only what was typical in Moses was veiled. Where he was typical was that his face shone, but when he came to the people he veiled his face, or typically, if I may use the expression, he veiled his glory. There was that which shone in his presence, an effulgence as coming from the divine glory. Here we have the antitype, and as we look at it we are changed into the same image. I want just to say a word in regard to the thought of the glory. Glory has been said to indicate divine satisfaction, and divine satisfaction rests in Christ. He is the true starting-point and principle of God’s ways with man. It is Christ in contrast to law. It is the divine pleasure that the One who bore the curse should be the display — the minister of blessing, and all divine satisfaction is connected with the ministry of blessing. It is the positive delight and pleasure of heaven not only to relieve man of every pressure lying upon him, but to dispense every possible blessing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
[p. 356] There are two features, it is the ministration of the Spirit, as well as the ministration of righteousness — one part is to relieve, the other to establish in the greatest possible blessing. All this really begins with Christ. There is not one single bit of ministry carried out down here but what begins with Christ. “He is ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men”. All divine satisfaction, divine delight is expressed in Christ. It is beholding the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image and we drink in, into the divine satisfaction which rests in Christ. It is a wonderful thing that there is a ministry of blessing as well as of relief and connected with heaven in the power of the Holy Spirit, who is given — as we read in Galatians, “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles in Christ Jesus that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith”. We look at the glory of the Lord: the divine satisfaction expressed in Christ. There is a man there, and all the power for ministry comes from there, and every servant starts from Him, and is imbued with what begins in Him. Now we see that glory in the face of Jesus, and are changed into the same image. I can say, I begin to understand something of my elevation down here — not elevation of the flesh — but I would not exchange places with the greatest person in the world if it were possible. How could I? What greater privilege could you have down here? To relieve man of all the pressure under which he is lying, that he may be established by the Spirit of God in the very greatest and highest blessing. There are three great things which God effects in men. You get them in John 3 and 4. First, new birth; second, the revelation of Himself as love to the soul; third, the communication of the well of water which springs up to everlasting life. Perhaps ministry has not much to do with the first, but ministry has a good bit to do with the second. God [p. 357] has set Christ forth to be a mercy-seat through faith in His blood, to be the starting-point of all His relations with men in the power of the Spirit; and then the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us, and we respond to it: we cry “Abba, Father”. As the servant of the Lord I want nothing, I am independent of all. Of course, I am glad to see fruit in the saints, as the apostle says to the Philippians. He could, and you can, serve down here without any thought of present recompense, but delighted to see fruit in the saints that would abound to their account. That is the blessed pathway of service. I see nothing like the moral superiority of it anywhere else. You can only understand it by beholding the glory of the Lord, and so being changed. There is no reason to veil that face, and that is the starting-point. May God give us to understand it, and to know what it is really to be with our eyes in that direction, and drinking into the Spirit that rules now in God’s ways with men.