"THE GLORY OF GOD, AND JESUS"
“THE GLORY OF GOD, AND JESUS”
Mark 15:33 - 39; Acts 7:55 - 60
These Scriptures come to; my mind as being the setting forth of the only two occasions recorded in the New Testament of which we have any account in detail of the death of any person. I read in Mark because he gives us a fuller detailed account of the death of the Son of God. Everything rested on that death. Mark gives us the sin-offering character; He was forsaken of God in that place. But for that death, there could be no death like Stephen’s; Stephen’s death is typical of the death of believers in this dispensation. All rests on the death of the Son of God — the fullest blessing of man. The veil was rent — it is God coming out in fullest blessing and grace, founded on the death of the Son of God. The believer has no more conscience of sins; he is fitted for the presence of God in all the value of the death of the Son of God.
How good to know that our beloved sister was for years in the profound peace consequent upon the death of the Son of God! Stephen sees the glory of God, and Jesus. With Stephen, everything else has disappeared from his vision, and that is true, in measure, of every saint; there is a point reached where nothing remains but “the glory of God, and Jesus”. Holy rapture then fills the soul. Unspeakable joy was experienced by our sister, everything left behind of the pathway here; all the mercy and grace, even that not engaging her thoughts, but “the glory of God, and Jesus”; not the sorrow and failures, it was “the glory of God, and Jesus”. Any service is ended; “the glory of God, and Jesus” remains. Our sister entered upon her eternal portion while here, and now she is in the joy of what was hers here; our sister reached the glory here; holy joy diffuses itself through our hearts as we think of her portion now. We shall participate in that through God’s eternal day; how we bless God for that!
A Word given at a Burial, 1939