THE LIGHT OF THE GLORY OF CHRIST

The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ has reached us through the apostle Paul. In him we see exhibited the true effect of the gospel, how it characterised his conversion, his ministry, and governed his whole manner of life.

We may consider the fourfold effect of the light. (1) It convicted him; (2) it liberated him; (3) it transformed him; (4) it gave character to his whole manner of life. In describing his conversion, he declared that a light out of heaven shone round him; it was a great light, above the brightness of the midday sun, greater than any created light. What could this be but the light of the glory of Christ? The effect was that he fell to the earth. In one moment it brought down all his pride and glory, it changed his whole estimate of himself, compare Phil 3: 4-6 with 1 Tim 1: 13-15. The first effect of the light is always to expose and convict, to bring us down. God’s way is to kill and to make alive, to bring down and to lift up. The more fully this is realised, the greater our appreciation of the salvation and life which grace brings to us. The worst discovery we can make of ourselves is that which Saul made of himself, namely, that the natural heart hates Christ. We may be like Saul, religious, living a blameless life outwardly, but the natural heart hates Christ.

Then the same light which brings us down lifts us up, the light that convicts is the light that liberates. It reveals to us the One who took upon Himself our sins, died to expiate them, was made sin for us, bore all that was due to us, and thus made an end of all our sinful state before God. That blessed One is now in heaven, in the glory of God, the Object of divine favour. What a complete answer to His death, what a demonstration of God’s satisfaction in Him and in the work which He accomplished on our account for His glory. If God is satisfied, we may well be. What perfect proof that our sins and all our sinful state has been dealt with and left behind. “In that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God”, Rom 6: 10. What peace, what satisfaction it gives to see Jesus in the glory of God. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”, 2 Cor 3: 17.

Now a further effect of the light was that it transformed Saul of Tarsus into another man. Surely there never was so great a transformation in any man. The bitterest enemy of Christ and of His people becomes the most devoted servant of Christ and of the saints; instead of persecuting the saints he would lay down his life for them. He viewed the saints as those in whom Christ lived, the members of His body, the objects of His constant love and service. So that, as he said, he was willing to “fill up that which is behind of the tribulations of Christ … for his body, which is the assembly”, Col 1: 24. Then in living his one desire was not to glorify himself, but that Christ should be magnified in his body. And how beautifully the spirit and grace of Christ shone out in him, in contrast to the insolent and overbearing spirit of Saul of Tarsus. The same effect will be produced in us in the measure in which our eyes and hearts are engaged with the glory of the Lord. “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”, 2 Cor 3: 18. This is the mode in which the Spirit carries on His work in us. Mark this well that whatever is wrought in us subjectively is the result of what is presented to us objectively, we are formed by our object, and the expression is the result of the formation.

In the epistle to the Philippians we see how the gospel of the glory worked out practically in the life of the apostle; he could say, “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”, Gal 2: 20. The light of the Son of God controlled his life in flesh. He was willing to accept a life of self-abnegation and suffering here, to be poured out as a libation upon the sacrifice and service of the saints. On the other hand, it energised him to pursue the upward way that led to Christ in glory, no matter what the road might be. “If any way I arrive at the resurrection from among the dead”, Phil 3: 11. And again, “Forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue, looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”, v 13, 14. In his mind he was daily distancing earth, and drawing nearer to Christ and to heaven. It may be well for us to consider how far the gospel of the glory is known by us, so as to work out in this practical way. How far are we controlled by the glory of Christ and the love of Christ?

From The Believer’s Friend vol 15 (1923)