OUR PLACE IN GLORY
[p. 5] OUR PLACE IN GLORY
Isaiah 6: 2; 1 Corinthians 4: 4
When man first encountered God after the fall, he said, “I was afraid ... and I hid myself”. Now for the believer the place of the greatest fear is the place where I am most at home. We are as much out of judgment as Jesus is on the throne of God — “As he is, so are we in this world”; “He that feareth is not made perfect in love”. We cannot be in the presence of God in innocence, for we are guilty, so that we must be there in righteousness, and more at home there than anywhere else, and that place which used to repel now forms me into a likeness of itself. I am not tolerated there, I am at home, and where the distance was, there is now nearness and attraction.
Isaiah was a distinguished prophet having received the word and vision from God; but now he sees the Lord on His throne. Note that it is the year Uzziah died, — the glory is not gone yet, but it is on the move. This man, distinguished as he is, what is his language? “Woe is me!” etc., — he is filled with fear. I like to see a child afraid of the dark, there is nothing worse than no fear of God. Not only is he unclean, but undone. Look at Peter in Luke 5, he is an object of favour, and yet he says, “Depart front me”, for he was in the presence of God. It was not one craving for mercy, but he had the sense of his unfitness for the presence of God. But mark, the place from whence the fear comes, the relief comes also. The Lord says, “Fear not”. So with Isaiah — “then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal”; not a jot of holiness is abated, it is a live coal; thus the relief comes from the place of fear.
Divine truth always leaves its impress on us, and [p. 6] so Isaiah having got, as it were, a base of operations, can say, “Here am I; send me”. He is with Him that is above and consequently can go down to the lowest place of God’s people uttering the words (verses 9 and 10) quoted both by the Lord and Paul.
There is a simple word that the lips utter — “the just for the unjust”, but mark, it is not merely to bring me from hell, but to bring us to God. The Lord says to the dying thief, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”. He would bring a man that the world had driven out of the world (not God, as with the first man) to paradise. God had sought to connect Himself with man in glory on the earth, so that Moses’ face shone with the very impress — a significant intimation that the glory would conform to itself.
In Ezekiel 1, man’s wickedness had driven away the glory of God from the earth. As it was departing, the prophet sees, in verse 26, as the likeness of a man in it, — that is, the bright amber spot. In Luke 2 the glory comes back; in verse 9, “the glory ... shone round about them”. They were sore afraid, but the word is “Fear not” — where there was unspeakable fear there is unspeakable rest; — “Ye shall find the babe ... in a manger”. There is the man in the glory, — in Luke 9 He, as a man, is glorified on the holy mount, and a voice from the excellent glory proclaims, “My beloved Son”. We have the Man there, but nothing about us yet. It is at that moment that Moses and Elias (the law and the prophets) speak of His decease. This glorified Man has to descend from that scene, for all turns on His death, as the law and the prophets witness.
In 2 Corinthians 3 we have two ministrations, — one of condemnation and one of righteousness, and both come from the glory. God comes in a tempest, making a claim, and what is the answer? “There is none righteous, no, not one”. We always avoid the [p. 7] person who has a claim on us, the effect of a claim was condemnation, and the claim, even of the glory on the face of Moses, was such that they could not bear to look on it, a glory that introduced law.
I do not want to mitigate the claim of a holy God. It is true we cannot meet it, it brings nothing but condemnation; but it is “that he might have mercy upon all”.
Now look at the One who enters the earth in Luke 2: the world could not contain the books that could be written of all He did, because everything He did was worthy of being recorded, and God glorified Him, that is what we see on the holy mount. He descends from the mount to die. Nothing shews me more how unfeeling I am, than when I speak of the cross. Ah! we are like sons who live on the means their father toiled to procure, without feeling it.
Look at Psalm 22 — all the accumulation of evil pouring down on the head of the blessed One. I note seven things in that Psalm, from sin in verse 1 to the lion’s mouth in verse 21. No one ever knew the extent of the offences against a holy God, but One, the Lord Jesus Christ. How do I know what sin means against God? Nothing can tell it but the cross. Nobody ever knew distance but the One who knew nearness; — there are two things which only He knew, — the sin of man and the heart of God. He is left, the solitary One, with all the force of sin and Satan on Him — Oh, how unfeeling we are to walk about the earth with so little sense of the death of Christ; there is more feeling in people walking in a cemetery where a mother lies.
In Mark 5 He delivers the man who had the legion of demons from the power of Satan, the woman from the power of weakness, and the young daughter from the power of death. His word, His grace, His hand, accomplished them, He gave her His hand; but now it is not merely deliverance, but victory. He conquered “him that had the power of death”.
In John 11 the Lord goes into our side of death; in chapter 12 He speaks of going into the place Himself on God’s behalf. Look now at John 13, verses 31 and 32. “Now is the Son of man glorified”. Where? On the holy mount? No, it is the One who propounded the law and fixed the penalty, who takes that penalty and maintains the inviolability — God is glorified when paying the penalty. He is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and now I have a Man in the glory who bore my penalty, and it is a ministration of righteousness from the glory. I look up and see I have a Saviour where there was a law.
In Acts 26 we have a man doing everything wrong; not immoral, but going against the mind of God. In verse 13, “At midday”, etc., and what was the effect? “We are all fallen to the earth”. What now greets him from that glory? “I am Jesus ... rise, and stand upon thy feet” — not condemnation. But it is now not that the glory looks down, but that I look up into it, and I say boldly, if it were possible to push a man into the glory, he would be saved, for he would find a Saviour there, nay the glory as a balance to his credit. Look too at the divine intelligence which shone into the heart of the poor woman, “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole”. If it were not for Christ I should be afraid to go about for fear of the devil, but His word casts him out. There is never any violence but he is there, therefore it is said, “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil”.
There is not evenness in the course until we have a mark; the effect on Isaiah is; “Send me”. On Peter, he brought his ship to land and followed Him. People maintain dignity etc. because they have not a mark — Christ in glory. It is not now God requiring of us, — “If thou knewest the gift of God”.
[p. 9] Now I am not repulsed, but attracted — nay, “changed into the same image” by “beholding”. I get a taste, — it is not conscience that is in question, but cultivation of taste through communion with what is blessed. Look at a rushlight and a wax candle together: the one helps the other and you cannot tell which gives the light.
There is not a particle of light that has reached any soul in this whole earth, but came from the glory; follow the history of that ray in your own soul; trace it, eagle-like, up to its source. This is an immense comfort. People may preach, but if light breaks in, it is the glory in the face of Jesus, who paid my debt and satisfied the glory. It is not now compulsion, but that I am afraid to do this or that, — to read such a book, to talk politics, — lest I should lose my enjoyment in Christ. To Paul, Ananias said, Receive thy sight, and he filled with the Holy Spirit, as much as to say, If you open your eyes again on this world let it be in company with the Holy Spirit. Christ satisfies the heart; you may say, ‘I have not entered into it;’ but if the Lord has lighted a light in your heart it came from the glory, and you follow it up to the source whence it came.
We are left to commemorate death. No saint of old ever did that. Oh, retire into your privacy and rejoice that you have a Saviour and not a law! and that you have boldness to find your place in that scene of unbroken delights where Christ is!