GRACE AND GLORY
[p. 347] GRACE AND GLORY
Another point I want to dwell upon is the intimate connection between grace and glory. If you turn to Romans 5: 2, you will see it there; “By whom also” — that is, by the Lord Jesus Christ — “we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God”. In the passage I read tonight it says, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ”. The teaching of grace leads us to look for the appearing of the glory. The connection is this, that grace fits you for glory; you are thus fitted for glory at the very outset, but the more you become acquainted with the grace of God, the more perfectly you are at home, as it were, in the thought of the glory of God. I could not understand what it is to have part in the glory of God if I did not see that I stand in grace, and apprehend the connection of grace with the glory of God. The glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ is, as I understand it, the full display in their result of the purposes of God’s grace; God’s purposes of grace are His glory. The glory of a man is that which he cherishes in his inmost heart, and in a certain sense it is that which God cherishes; so that the glory of God is that in which the heart of God delights and will display itself, and this is in the purposes of His grace; and everything looks forward to the full display of this. These purposes dawned very early in Scripture. The first real expression of the purposes of God’s grace was in the promises that He made to Abraham. He [p. 348] engaged Himself in blessing to Abraham, and said, “In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”, it was the beginning of the revelation of God’s purposes of grace. No doubt you get a hint of grace in the judgment on the serpent, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. The seed of the woman was the Son of God, and the Son of God was the vessel of grace, and was to bruise the head of the serpent. But the first distinct intimation of God’s purposes of grace came out, as I said, in the promise to Abraham. Now, when all is displayed in its full result, when all these purposes are accomplished in Christ (for all are centred and will be accomplished in Him), the great display of them will be the glory of God, and that is what I understand we rejoice in hope of, and so we can look for it. And the more I come under the influence of divine grace, the more ready I am for the display of the glory — I look for the glory, for after all the glory is akin to the grace that I know. It is of immense importance to connect together grace and glory. Do you remember an expression in the Psalms, “To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary”? If we know God in the sanctuary, that is, in the blessed secret of His grace, nothing will content us except the hope of God’s glory. The thought is a positive delight to me that the more I am acquainted with the grace of God, the closer I am really brought to the glory. The same holds good, too, in regard of Christ, the more I become acquainted with grace, the more I am in the light of the glory of the Lord. That is the connection in which the two things stand here, that where the heart is established in grace, the natural outlook is, “Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ”. When all comes to light, when the blessed display of grace comes to pass, then will be the glory of God’s grace, and we shall find ourselves perfectly at home in it; the glory comes in to the delight of the soul, because,
as I said before, God’s glory is the accomplishment and display of all the purposes of His grace, and so of Himself. In the beginning of Stephen’s address before the council in Acts 7, he says, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham”. The God of glory refers to His appearing to him in the way of promise, but “gave him none inheritance”, that is, He gave him a blessed revelation of His own purpose, which the promise was. It was the God of glory; and then at the close of the address Stephen looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; everything was accomplished and pledged in the One who was in the glory of God; he apprehended the greatness of divine grace, he was deeply conscious of standing in the grace of God, that there was nothing between him and God, that he was free of every bit of pressure in the presence of God, and he “looked up steadfastly into heaven”.
The impression which I would like to leave is of the intimate connection between grace and glory, and that the better your acquaintance with grace, the more you are prepared for the display of glory.