THE EFFECT ON US OF THE GLORY OF CHRIST

THE EFFECT ON US OF THE GLORY OF CHRIST

I was happy myself at the meeting. I tried to bring out the difference between the effect on us of the sufferings of Christ and His glory. The one divests us of our misery, the other invests us with all that He is and does. I dwelt much on “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures”, etc. (Psalm 23: 2). It is thus that I am formed. I come from a scene where all is divinely beautiful, to combat what is all contrariety. Oh! I see it better than I can express it. I come from the perfectly beautiful to a painful contrast. I know what is beautiful, and I cannot accept anything less.

I was reading for myself this morning, the practice in Ephesians. Read it. It is not as Christ lived here, blessed as that was, that is the measure of anything that we are to do now; but as He lives at God’s right hand. First, we are to keep the unity of the Spirit; that could not have been until He was at God’s right hand. Secondly, we are to grow up unto Him in all things who is the Head; that could not be when He was down here. Thirdly, we are to put off the old man and put on the new, which after God is created, etc. This could not be while Christ lived ^[p. 177] here. Fourthly, we are to love one another as Christ loved us, not only as He was walking down here, but as He hath given Himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling sacrifice. Surely this could not be during His lifetime here.

Again, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 5: 25); not as He was down here, but in giving Himself for it, “that he might sanctify and cleanse it”, etc. Surely all this shews that we are now, as united with a glorified Man at God’s right hand, empowered to act here in a way quite outside the range of the man in the flesh.