THE EFFECT OF KNOWING CHRIST IN GLORY
[p. 331] THE EFFECT OF KNOWING CHRIST IN GLORY
Every truth has its own peculiar effect, one which no other truth could produce, any more than one kind of tree could produce the fruit of another. In practice the lack of any truth can be discovered, and even where it has been learned, the measure of its acceptance is tested and disclosed by the way in which it is practised.
The glory of Christ is an admitted truth with every believer, but if we really knew Him in glory, it would impart to us its own mark. We are conversant with man in death and sin and distance from God, for that is our own state by nature; but to know a Man in glory, One in acceptance with God according to all His moral greatness, is new to us and magnificent; and according as we know Him there we become not only superior to, or distanced from, our own state as men, but morally suited to the glory with which we are associated.
It is plain that the Son of God came to earth, born of a woman, born under the law, and lived here a life of perfect obedience, in every detail well-pleasing to God, fully setting forth in His own walk what man should be before God, from His birth to the holy mount, and until He descended to death to bear in Himself the judgment which lay on man, because he had sinned and was not what he ought to be. Thus He suffered, “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”; and under the weight of everything which was upon us and against us, He glorified God. The Son of man was glorified at the very moment when our Substitute; the moment of His greatest agony only disclosed the entire and perfect subjection of His heart to God, so that then the Son of man was glorified; God was glorified in Him, and God straightway glorified Him. He claims glory on the ground that He had glorified the Father on the earth — “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17) — and He has been received up into glory. The cross is the pedestal of the glory.
Now if I do not see that Christ has glorified God under the judgment due to me, I cannot look after Him into the glory of God. I must first see that He encountered all on my side, as we see in Psalm 22, where every obstacle, every form of it, from sin to personal weakness, is encountered by Him; and subsequent to that, or rather following on that, He declares the Father, as He says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren”, verse 22. If He has in His own Person perfectly removed all that man was exposed to, and is now declaring the Father, then, as I know Him in the latter, I not only know Him as my Saviour and Deliverer from all my sin and ruin, but I know Him in new and divine associations, even in relationship with His God and Father, and on the same ground as Himself; as He says to Mary Magdalene, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. Hence the effect of knowing Christ in glory is the consciousness, not only of full deliverance from every shade of evil, but of an introduction into a new scene altogether, in company with Him who, having saved me from my own sad order of things, has not stopped there, but has conducted me into His own. Saul of Tarsus passes from being the chief of sinners to the knowledge of a Saviour in the glory of God, who ignores everything of man and presents Himself as the only One to engage his heart. He had through His death on the cross placed Saul’s sins in the land of forgetfulness, and now He can present Himself to the chief of sinners as his Saviour in full acceptance in the glory of God.
There is not clear and full deliverance from man’s ruin, or conscious admission into the divine order, until one knows Christ in glory. A soul who believes [p. 333] that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; one who by faith sees Him bearing judgment on the cross obtains relief for his sins; and when he sees Him raised from the dead, he is assured of his forgiveness; but until he knows Him in glory, which is the expression of God’s satisfaction according to His own attributes, he has not the distinct sense of belonging to a Man in glory, and thus being separated from the man on earth, though still in the body. A man might feel himself thoroughly rescued from ruin, and yet, if his surroundings were not altered, he would still connect himself with an order of things in which his ruin occurred; but if he were transferred to the position of his deliverer he would be in an order of things in which no trace of his ruin could appear. One may be fully assured of peace, and yet connect it with earth and the things here; he is rescued from judgment and he knows it, but he rises no further than the completeness of the Saviour’s work through death and resurrection, and he still connects all His mercy with the place in which it found him. But if he knows his Saviour in the glory of God, he is not only assured of his own safety, but of his personal acceptance because of God’s satisfaction, of which the glory testifies. In order to enjoy God’s satisfaction in the Saviour, in the Person who wrought the work, I must be connected with the glory. I may through faith see God’s satisfaction about my debt, my sins; but this, though known, requires to be repeated in order to ensure enjoyment and assurance. Whereas when I am connected with the Person who paid my debt, where God’s satisfaction is expressed, I am at home and established there. Both speak of satisfaction, but in a very different way. I am assured of my safety, but I connect it with the state of things in which I required it, if I know no other. If I were rescued out of a deep pit, I should be perfectly safe, but I should still be in the place of the pit. If I were in prison for debt and were released because all my debts were paid off by [p. 334] another, I should owe nothing, but I should still be in the place in which I had been imprisoned, and withal poor; but if I were transferred to the home and affluence of my deliverer, a very different state would be given to me. No matter what has been done for me, as long as I remain in the place where I needed the mercy, I must connect everything done for me with the place of my need; but if I were transferred to the place and greatness of my Saviour, I should not only rejoice in my salvation but I should enjoy it in a scene where there could be no check or abatement of it. Then I know what is to be accepted in the Beloved, where I am supremely apart from the scene of my ruin. Hence there cannot be a full sense of divine deliverance or of personal acceptance but as I see Christ in glory.
Again, I never become dissociated from earth until I see a Saviour in glory. I may look to God for favour or mercy, but I look for expressions of it in my surroundings instead of in the glory with Christ. Now when I know Christ in the glory I have the consciousness of association with Him, where all is of God, and according to His holiness; I am in a scene where I am not only separated from all evil and sin, but where sin never was, and where the scene of my ruin is morally distanced.
Again, it is as Christ is known in glory that I am His epistle here. As the law was written on stones in the glory, so is Christ now written on the fleshy tables of the heart. It is only there the transforming power is experienced. It is there we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. Again, there is no true sense of union, or practical expression of it here, unless I am, through the Spirit, where He is; and hence I cannot walk as He walked, for without Him I can do nothing. Christ could not be formed in us anywhere but in the glory, for otherwise union would refer to where He was, and not where He is, which would have no sense. It [p. 335] is as I see Him by faith where He is, and realise my union with Him through the Spirit, that I am empowered by Him to be like Him as He was here, where I am still. I draw from Him in His exaltation, and as I do, I act and walk as He acted and walked when He was here in humiliation, when His heart is made known to me. The thought that one can be like Christ by observing Him in the gospels is at the root an assumption that there is power in oneself to appropriate His perfections without union. The gospel narrative tells me how He walked and loved me, but I am only empowered to follow His steps and understand Him as I am in union with Him. Then I walk as He walked, and His life will be expressed in me in a similar way as it was in Himself on earth.
Again, if Christ be not known in glory there is no ability to rise superior to all that affects one personally, whether it be attraction or suffering. It is “the glory of that light” which alone can eclipse all the light here. It is above the brightness of the sun, and in the light of it I can happily and fully surrender everything of my own. Like the queen of Sheba, I am not only relieved of my own heart-troubles by the wisdom of the greater than Solomon; but when His concerns and glory fill my heart, there is no more spirit in me; I am really devout and I can travel on here with joy unspeakable and full of glory. So also with regard to affliction. When I know Christ in glory, I know that it is but for a moment, and that it worketh for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while I look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen and eternal. Hence, the way Stephen was prepared for the greatest personal suffering, whether we think of those who perpetrated it or of the pain they inflicted, is by the Spirit of God leading him into heaven and showing him the glory of God and Jesus there. In Colossians the apostle prays that they may be “strengthened with all might, according to his [p. 336] glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness”. Again, Christ in us is the hope of glory, and hence our presentation before God depends on our continuing in the faith and not being moved away from the hope of the gospel.
Again, there is not courage or qualification for service unless I am so at home and at rest in the glory of God that I can face the worst and lowest state of things here. Isaiah is not fitted either by the word or the vision for encountering the ruin of Israel, until he had seen the glory of Christ and learnt his acceptance there; Isaiah 6. When Israel had failed in the wilderness, and Moses was hopeless about everything here, he turned to the Lord with the prayer, “Shew me thy glory”. And thus too was it that Saul of Tarsus was prepared to go to the people and to the gentiles from whom he was separated; Acts 26: 17.
Again, if Christ be not known in glory how can He be the Object of my heart? how can I count all things but loss for the excellency of Christ? for as I have no union with Him but in His ascension, I cannot make Him my object except where He is; and there also He is my “mark” too, the goal to which I am hastening, where I receive the prize of my calling of God on high.
Lastly, the greatest ornament of the Bride descending from heaven, in Revelation 22, is that she has the glory of God. But I have touched on enough to show the immense gain of knowing Christ in glory. I trust the Lord may awaken us all to the sense of how little we seek to enjoy Him where He is, while the truth in terms is so generally accepted or admitted.