THE GLORY OF THE LORD
[p. 48] THE GLORY OF THE LORD
2 Corinthians 3 - 2 Corinthians 5
There is avowedly and manifestly in this epistle a contrast to what is found in the first. The apostle’s mouth was open to the Corinthians, his heart enlarged; even though the response in them was not complete. He is free to bring before them the wonderful nature of the ministry, and the way in which the vessel is fitted for and maintained in the ministry.
The ministry, as presented in these chapters, refers to the gospel. It does not go on to the mystery, to our union with Christ and with one another. But the basis of the gospel is enlarged beyond what is found in Romans, where the groundwork is the death and resurrection of Christ. The light, here, is the glad tidings of the glory of Christ. The knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ has shone forth as light. Evidently, the prominent truth is of the elevation in which man, in the Person of Christ, has, so to say, been installed of God; and this glory is producing its effects now on those looking at it.
We have seen, in a previous paper, how, in the first epistle, the death of the Lord is continually introduced as being, for a Christian, the test of everything here; and this must indeed be so, seeing that it is the one point where truth as to everything has been absolutely expressed. The exaltation of man on earth and fleshly leaven in the saints are rebuked by it. In the second epistle we have the great idea presented to us of the glory of the Lord as the standard, and conformity to that glory as the end now for man. This is, manifestly, a completely new order of things for man.
In chapter 3 of this epistle, the ministry, that which marks this epoch, is presented to us. It is an accepted time; a day of salvation. Not the establishment outwardly [p. 49] of the new covenant in the way of public relations with an earthly people, but the introduction of an era in which the blessings (in principle) of that covenant are ministered here, with the view of forming a people for the glory of God.
Instead of there coming from the place of God a demand on man for righteousness, there was the ministration, as from God by Christ, in effective power, of the Spirit and righteousness of that which fitted and qualified man for God Himself in His own place — that which is embodied and expressed in the last Adam, the quickening Spirit — and the result is that the believer, having received all from there, can look at the glory of the Lord and be conformed to it in moral and increasing superiority to all here. That glory is connected in his thoughts with grace, and not with law, with giving instead of demanding. God is known in a new way, as Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, “If thou knewest the gift (giving) of God”.
Now in the glory of the Lord there is, as in the glory in the face of Moses, the witness and proof of the divine origin of the covenant; and hence the apostle made no secret of this glory. He obscured it neither in walk nor word. If his gospel was veiled, it was veiled in them that were lost. If we would understand the nature of the ministry, we need to be instructed as to the glory of Christ: that glory is, in truth, its sanction. All has to be learnt in what has been effected in Christ, and this is the substance of the testimony. In Him, man has been taken from the lowest place (sin having been put away, and God glorified) and exalted to the very highest. Christ has been exalted far above all heavens, to fill all things. He has secured for man a heavenly order and place, and Himself rests in it. He is the image there of God. The Holy Spirit has come to bring report of His glory, and works here in power by gifts for the deliverance of man and for forming him according to Christ. Further, in this [p. 50] exaltation is seen the glory of God, His peculiar blessedness. He has raised up man out of death in the virtue of redemption, and set him in heavenly glory. Satan and man pull down and destroy. God raises up; John 2: 19. It is His peculiar and blessed prerogative to bring man out of death, the fruit and judgment of sin, in heavenly suitability. In this is displayed the power and glory of God; John 12: 28. The testimony of this illuminates and certifies the ministry of the new covenant. The knowledge of the exaltation of man in the Person of Christ in the efficacy of redemption, and the glory of God displayed in it, are the assurance to the soul of the reality of the blessings ministered from Christ. He has reached the glory from the lowest place, where man is in nature, and is in the highest in the interests of man; to deliver him from everything that He has Himself overcome, and to conform him to Himself there. We can understand thus the ministry of the Spirit and righteousness.
There are two other points that come before us in this connection. First of these, are the motives that were effective in the apostle to maintain him suitably in this ministry. If God wrought specially by him in the introduction of this era of heavenly blessing, it had to be made manifest that the power was of God. The vessel must be broken, that the light might shine out. The apostle had to be practically divested of all sense of human competency, and set free from the influence of worldly motives, to be the instrument in carrying out this ministry. He must be independent of every influence, and of all fear of consequences, carrying his life in his hand, confident in every condition. We see how all this was effected and maintained in him by the power and grace of God.
Further, in dealing with men, he must himself be alive to the realities which men have to face, so as to be in a condition to persuade men. He had to deal, practically, with consciences and hearts — the moral [p. 51] elements in man. If men were to find in Christ their life and righteousness before God, it could not be without exercise of conscience. They had to be brought under the fear of the Lord, and to a sense of their state of alienation from God. Here was the point where the apostle was brought, practically, into contact with the moral elements and necessities in man, persuading and beseeching. Not only bearing testimony of the blessings existing for man in a glorified Christ, but dealing with men in reference to their state, beseeching them to be reconciled to God. At the same time announcing to them the great groundwork of this ministry of reconciliation, in that God had made Him, that knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Thus we find, that underneath the fact of Christ having been made sin, lay the wonderful conception of divine grace, that men, once wholly controlled and characterised by sin, should become the expression of this divine righteousness before the heavenly principalities through all eternity, and should be made His God’s delight as regards righteousness.
Such are the glad tidings of the glory of Christ, the blessed answer, to His having been made sin, and the pledge and assurance of what is in Him for man, through grace, and ministered through the inspired word of the apostle.