THE MINISTRY OF THE GLORY
[p. 425] THE MINISTRY OF THE GLORY
2 Corinthians 4: 1 - 7; Galatians 4:21 - 26; Revelation 21: 10, 11.
My thought is to seek to show the character of the ministry through which the light of God has come to the Gentiles, and correspondingly to show the product of it; that is, it began with glory, and the product of it becomes the vessel of the glory, so that what I may have to say will fit in between these two points.
Nothing can be more exhilarating to us than that we belong to a glory system, and nothing is more important than that we should rightly understand that we belong to such a system. Now as I have called your attention on a previous occasion to Psalm 19, I would again refer to it for a moment as intimating to us what God had in His mind in the formation of the present physical universe. He had set there a testimony to what was in His mind to effect; namely, a system of infinite variety of glory. “The heavens”, the psalmist tells us, “declare the glory of God”. The apostle tells us in writing to the Corinthians that there are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, and the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
Now what came to pass was that the true glory of the terrestrial disappeared when lawlessness obtained a footing upon earth. Adam was really for the glory of God and he was placed upon earth. There was a glory there, but it was an earthly glory, a glory that God will return to, for He never surrenders any thought of His. He will return to it, but for the moment it disappeared with the entrance of lawlessness into the scene. So that all earthly glory, passing by for a moment what was typical in Israel,
[p. 426] is now the product of lawlessness. It is the outgrowth of man’s ambition as away from God. So that, in the types, for the cleansing of God’s people it was necessary for the,”scarlet” to be cast into the burning. That is, all that order of glory has to go in judgment; but then there is the terrestrial glory, and the law was the demand for it. It was as if God, as it were, missed it, and He makes His demands upon man which, if answered to, would result in the re-establishment of the terrestrial glory. In other words, if the law was answered to in man when it was promulgated there would be a vessel here answering in every way to God. Man would be moving about on earth under the direction of the divine will just as the heavenly bodies move in their orbits. That is what we should have had, if the law of God had been complied with.
Now when the psalmist places both together, the heavenly and the earthly glory, he speaks of the perfection of the heavenly glory. There the glory of God was declared, but when he turns to the earth all he could say was to eulogise the law, not the man who kept it. As yet that man had not appeared. He eulogised the law and its qualities. But it awaited the presence of the Lord, of the true Man upon earth, to have it exemplified. Now what I understand by the presence of the Lord upon earth is, that the heavenly glory took form upon earth. The heavens hitherto had declared the glory of God. His will had never been contravened there. That testimony remains for every man to see. The declaration of the heavens abides. The psalmist tells us, “Their line is gone out through all the earth”. There is the universal testimony of the heavens. They have remained under the influence of the divine will, and I may add that the heavenly bodies which are visible to us are but an index to what is beyond them. They are but an index to the moral system that lies [p. 427] behind them, and it is to that that the Lord alludes when He teaches the disciples to pray; when He instructs them as regards what is in heaven it is that they should pray to the Father, — “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. It is not to the heavenly bodies the Lord alluded; the heavenly bodies are a testimony to that to the eye of man on earth, but the Lord alluded to what was behind that testimony, and that is to the intelligent beings that are in heaven who have ever remained subject to the divine will.
Now, when Christ became Man the heavenly glory came to earth, for the second Man is out of heaven, and He brought to earth the essence of obedience to God. That is what He brought to earth, so that for once we have the will of God done upon earth as it is in heaven. After He is publicly proclaimed to be the Son by the Father out of heaven, He is driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. That was the crucial point, and there, beloved friends, was brought to light infinite perfection in Man here below. He maintained in every possible way what man’s place was, and that is, that man was not to live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. That was what came to light in the wilderness. He expressed in man’s place here on earth infinite perfection.
But there was more than that required. He was the only One fully in that position. He was alone in His perfection; there was the testimony under God’s eye of infinite perfection as to what man’s place here on earth should be. But, further, what He proposed to do was to bring in an order of man, a race of men, like Himself, and not until He has that fully accomplished will the connection between heaven and earth be fully and eternally established. Heaven and earth must be correlative, but in order to bring that about He has to set aside judicially the [p. 428] man that is lawless. That is a task, beloved friends, even greater, if they may be compared, than to set forth what man should be before God. Hence Gethsemane involved greater exercises to the Lord than the wilderness did. In the wilderness He was with Satan: in the perfection of His manhood in dependence on God, and as such He is the manna, the food for the saints in the same position. But to effectuate God’s will in regard to man, to retain upon earth man to God’s pleasure, and at the same time to set aside the lawless man, was a work which far exceeded the Lord’s wonderful exploit in the wilderness; so that Gethsemane involved far deeper exercises for the Lord than the exercises of the wilderness, I cannot dwell upon it in detail, but there it was that Satan brought death to bear upon Christ’s spirit. Satan having departed from Christ in the wilderness when the Lord overcame him, returned to Him in Gethsemane with death. Death as the penalty of a broken law lay upon man, upon the nation of Israel and upon man, for death, as we are told, passed upon all men, and the Lord was taking up man’s place vicariously. It was infinite obedience when He said to the Father, “not my will, but thine be done”. The Lord deliberately took the cup from the Father’s hand knowing what was in it. It was no question now of the power of the enemy; that was there; Satan was there with the power of death, but, beloved friends, it was a question, in anticipation, of the forsaking of God, and hence it was there that perfection, the perfection of obedience, shone in the Lord. Beyond all telling, beyond all comprehension on our part, there was perfection in Man in the utterance, “not my will, but thine be done”. He recoiled from it, and that was perfection. It was perfection in the Lord to recoil from that cup, because it meant the forsaking of God.
Now contrast Christ there with Moses. Moses, in.
Exodus 32, said, “peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin”; and truly he went up to Jehovah in a wonderful spirit; a wonderful forecast of Christ was in that man. He said, “blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written”. He places his eternal welfare in the balances for his people. That was the spirit of Christ. But Moses could make no atonement for Israel. It waited the coming of the Son of God, for none but He who was the Son of God could effect atonement, and so the Lord takes the place of His people on the cross, and there He set aside the lawless man. I think that if there is anything that gave peculiar satisfaction to Christ on the cross, it was that He was setting aside vicariously the lawless man. If there was anything that gave Him peculiar satisfaction, it was that. But then, while He terminated the lawless man, on the morning of His resurrection there appeared a law-abiding race. Two things marked them. The pressure of death was removed from them; the Son of God had removed from their spirits the pressure of death which lay on all men, and in their hearts was the desire to please God. He had taught them how to do that. He had, in principle, put the law of God in their hearts and written it upon their minds. The prayer that He had taught His disciples involved that. Now that was what Christ effectuated. He answered to the ascent of Moses the second time to the mount. When Moses first descended with the tables of the covenant in his hands, he was the type of the Lord Jesus coming down, but instead of the Lord having the tables in His hands He had the law in His heart, and He set forth what man should be before God. He maintained the law, and He effectuated God’s will by removing the lawless man. He, in principle, clears the scene of the lawless man, and brings in a law-abiding race. He had formed that race Himself, and He removes the pressure of death [p. 430] from their spirits and sets them up here in righteousness; and then He ascends, and as He ascends the glory system is established. It was when Moses had ascended the mount the second time, not the first time, that the glory was seen in his face. Christ in heaven, having accomplished redemption and set aside the lawless man, inaugurates the glory system. That is, as Man He receives from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and sheds Him forth on the law-abiding people below.
God would never give the Spirit to others than those who were in principle brought under His sway. The disciples were formed by Christ. Acts 1 shows that the stamp of Christ was upon them, and the Lord is on high as Man, glorified by God, and He gives them the Spirit. As the apostle Paul tells us in writing to the Hebrews, “Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us”. He witnesses to what Christ accomplished in carrying out the will of God. He is the witness in our hearts of that, so that in the presence of the Spirit there is the testimony here upon earth to the heavenly glory. Is not that wonderful? In principle, therefore, the heavens and the earth are brought into moral correspondence in the presence of the Holy Spirit being in a law-abiding company on earth, so that you have now not only a description of the law in its abstract perfection, as in Psalm 19, but what has come to pass now. What does Paul say triumphantly? “That the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh, but according to Spirit”, Romans 8. Therefore there is now upon earth the testimony to the heavenly glory. It is now upon earth as well as in heaven. It is in heaven in Christ, for really the first part of Psalm 19 is Christ in the heavens. There God has set a tabernacle for the sun; that is Christ. And upon earth He has a people who love His law; in [p. 431] whom the will of God is carried out, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Paul was the vessel to carry all that wonderful light into the Gentile world, and I wish for a moment to call attention to him as a minister. He says, “having this ministry, ... we faint not”. And he describes himself thus: “But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God”, 2 Corinthians 4. Now that is the minister. In chapter 3 he dwells on the ministry, and he tells us that it is a ministry of the Spirit, a ministry of righteousness, and hence he says if the first was inaugurated with glory, much more does the second abound in glory. The fact is, that the glory of the first is completely eclipsed by reason of the surpassing glory of the ministry of the second. The apostle’s heart bounds with delight in the presence of the marvellous ministry which he had received.
Now that was the ministry, and chapter 4 shows us how Paul corresponded with his ministry; he was in every way in keeping with the ministry of glory that he had received, so he says if our gospel be veiled, referring to the veil on Moses’ face, we are not veiling it. One has to confess that at the present time we do often veil the ministry. Those who are in the place of ministers, alas! often veil the ministry; there is not a clear shining, but it was not so with Paul. He says, if our gospel is veiled, we are not veiling it. Moses had to put a veil on his face. The people did not put it on. That marked the character of the dispensation, but he says, if ours is veiled, we are not veiling it. If there is a veil, it is on the heart of the lost. Solemn word! It shines resplendent in the vessel without a veil. There was no veil there. If there was a veil, it was on the heart of the lost. The god of this world put [p. 432] it there. Paul did not put it there. The god of this world did it; it is his occupation to put a veil on the hearts of men, so that this marvellous ministry of glory should not shine there.
Paul was the vessel through which the ministry of all that wonderful system of glory came into the Gentile world. The apostle further shows why Satan casts a veil over the hearts of men; “that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine forth for them”. Satan does not want the light of that to shine into hearts; it is the light of Him who is the image of God. If the light of the glory of Christ shines into your heart, it forms you after Christ. The image is reproduced by the Spirit in you, and Satan hates that image. He would obliterate the image of God in the world. He did it in Adam, but he could not do it in Christ. It remained radiant in Christ in spite of the enemy’s temptation. And now it is the radiancy of the glory in the face of Christ who is the image of God, which is to shine into the souls of men, and the effect is that there is an order of man here patterned after Him who is the image of God. Now what is Satan doing at the present time? He is endeavouring to prevent the light of Christ from shining into the souls of men. It shone brilliantly in Paul, and without a veil. He tells us that he did not preach himself. He preached Christ as Lord. We announce, he says, “Christ Jesus, Lord”, and as to ourselves, we are your servants for that Man’s sake. And then he says, “it is the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us”, 2 Corinthians 4: 6, 7. Such was Paul.
Now having endeavoured to make clear to you the [p. 433] character of the vessel through which the light has come into the Gentile world, I want to show you just for a moment that the heavenly city was the great product of that. I think it has been said that the city is the result of the covenant, and I believe that is so. Galatians 4 shows that the allegory of Hagar and Sarah, and Ishmael and Isaac, refers to the two covenants, the first one beginning at mount Sinai, which, he says, gendereth to bondage; it produced bondage. That is the working out of it, and the apostle says it answers to mount Sinai in Arabia; “for Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which is now, for she is in bondage with her children”. That is also seen in the present religious world, which is the product of the legal system. Referring to the second covenant, the apostle says, “Jerusalem above is free”. What does she gender to? She gendereth to liberty. She produces liberty. Her children are children of liberty, children of promise; they are born of a free woman. In other words, the wonderful ministry, the ministry of the glory, has brought into effect that order of city, and Jerusalem above is free. One could dwell at length on that if one had time, for it not only depends on the covenant but also on relationship.
As to the latter, I would like to make clear to you the relation that exists between a system involving sonship and the idea of righteousness as seen in the true Man here upon earth. Both are seen in the church. The will of God is carried out in the church here, and at the same time the church knows the relationship of sonship with God, and that is the secret, as I understand it, of the liberty in which the church is in heaven. Jerusalem which is above is free, and she is our mother. I take it that the apostle Paul’s ministry, whilst not excluding the ministry of the twelve, really introduced the idea [p. 434] Of the heavenly Jerusalem. The idea came into evidence when the bond between God and the earthly city was severed; then the necessity for the heavenly city came to light, and this was by the apostle Paul’s ministry; he preached the Son of God.
Now I want to go one point further, to Revelation 21, where the city that the apostle alludes to in Galatians is seen coming down from God out of heaven and she has the glory of God. You will find that there are wonderful thoughts bound up in that when you reflect upon it, for the Spirit of God is presenting ourselves to us in the vision. Put yourself in that city. Nothing can be more encouraging to us than that the Spirit should bring into evidence in the vision what we are to be. Hence our position at the present time. There is a sort of double light thrown in upon us; the light of what the city was at the beginning, and then the light coming from the heavenly city as seen in the future. Both these lights, as one may say, are focused upon us. Her light is like a stone most precious. Is it not precious to you, the thought of the wonderful position of the church in God’s counsels? Then will be seen, I believe, fully, what Psalm 19 indicates; that is, how the heavens declare the glory of God. What a declaration there will then be publicly! But then in whom? In those who have been the product of Paul’s ministry. It is formed of persons who are the reflection of the image of Christ, and Christ is the image of God. That is what the church will be God’s thought in the gospel is that each one of us shall be the reflection of Christ, who is the image of God. That is the idea of the glory of God; God is reflected in those who are formed after Christ, who is His image. The heavens will declare in that day God’s glory. Out of heaven shall come, not a multitude of angels that do His will, but a multitude [p. 435] of men, formed in the will of God; in that way there is in the heavens a full declaration of the glory of God. What a shining in that day! And then upon earth; what is there below? Not, as I said, the Lord Himself alone, but a race of men into whose hearts God has put His laws and in whose minds He has written them; so that the heavens and the earth shall be in perfect accord; but I need not remind you that the heavenly far exceeds the earthly in glory. There is one glory that is celestial, that is ours; we may lay distinctive claim to the celestial. The idea of a race of men, heavenly beings, but yet men, coming out from God and for God, presented in the form of a city, having the glory of God and the “light most precious”. And then down below there is Israel. As to them, the pressure of death is removed from off their spirits; and as to the nations, the veil that is upon them shall be removed and death swallowed up in victory by the power of God. All that having taken place on earth; death gone, lawlessness and idolatry gone, what is the result? Eternal life. The nations go into that order of things; and then there is the celestial glory illuminating all below. The heavens hear the earth. There is a connection between the heavens and the earth, and God is supreme in all.
Well, we might say much more about that, but I think that what I have said indicates to us the great result of the obedience of Christ who effectuated God’s will. May the Lord encourage us. I feel that He has been reminding us of the importance of obedience as marking that in which Christ is reflected. As formed in obedience we become practically vessels of glory.
May God grant that the thought of it may be before our souls.
Pages 436 - 503; “Headings on Isaiah”, New York, 1912 (Volume 16).