“A continual desire”
“Our Lord Jesus Christ alone perfectly understood wherein the eternal blessedness of them that believe in Him doth consist.
And this is the sum of what He prays for with respect unto that end,– namely, that we may be where He is, to behold His glory. (John 17:24)
And is it not our duty to live in a continual desire of that which He prayed so earnestly that we might attain?”
“This is heaven, this is blessedness, this is eternal rest”
“Alas! We cannot here think of Christ, but we are quickly ashamed of, and troubled at, our own thoughts; so confused are they, so unsteady, so imperfect.
Commonly they issue in a groan or a sigh: Oh! when shall we come unto Him? When shall we be ever with Him? When shall we see Him as He is?
And if at any time He begins to give more than ordinary evidences and intimations of His glory and love unto our souls, we are not able to bear them, so as to give them any abiding residence in our minds.
But ordinarily this trouble and groaning is amongst our best attainments in this world,– a trouble which, I pray God, I may never be delivered from, until deliverance do come at once from this state of mortality; yea, the good Lord increase this trouble more and more in all that believe.
The heart of a believer affected with the glory of Christ, is like the needle touched with the loadstone.
It can no longer be quiet, no longer be satisfied in a distance from him. It is put into a continual motion towards him.
This motion, indeed, is weak and tremulous. Pantings, breathings, sighings, groanings in prayer, in meditations, in the secret recesses of our minds, are the life of it.
However, it is continually pressing towards Him. But it obtains not its point, it comes not to its centre and rest, in this world.
But now above, all things are clear and serene,– all plain and evident in our beholding the glory of Christ.
We shall be ever with Him, and see Him as He is. This is heaven, this is blessedness, this is eternal rest.
The person of Christ in all His glory shall be continually before us; and the eyes of our understandings shall be so gloriously illuminated, as that we shall be able steadily to behold and comprehend that glory.
But, alas! Here at present our minds recoil, our meditations fail, our hearts are overcome, our thoughts confused, and our eyes turn aside from the lustre of this glory.
Nor can we abide in the contemplation of it.
But there, an immediate, constant view of it, will bring in everlasting refreshment and joy unto our whole souls.”
“Because Christ is there”
“Here our souls are burdened with innumerable infirmities, and our faith is clogged in its operations by ignorance and darkness.
This makes our best estate and highest attainments to be accompanied with groans for deliverance: “We which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body,” (Rom. 8:23).
Yea, whilst we are in this tabernacle, we groan earnestly, as being burdened, because we are not “absent from the body, and present with the Lord,” (2 Cor. 5:2, 4, 8).
The more we grow in faith and spiritual light, the more sensible are we of our present burdens, and the more vehemently do we groan for deliverance into the perfect liberty of the sons of God.
This is the posture of their minds who have received the first-fruits of the Spirit in the most eminent degree.
The nearer anyone is to heaven, the more earnestly he desires to be there, because Christ is there.”
“One pure act of spiritual sight in discerning the glory of Christ”
“One pure act of spiritual sight in discerning the glory of Christ,– one pure act of love in cleaving unto God,– will bring in more blessedness and satisfaction into our minds than in this world we are capable of.”
“As a man sees his neighbour face to face, so shall we see the Lord Christ in His glory”
“Christ Himself, in His own person, with all His glory, shall be continually with us, before us, proposed unto us.
We shall no longer have an image, a representation of Him, such as is the delineation of His glory in the Gospel.
We “shall see Him,” saith the apostle, “face to face,” (1 Cor. 13:12);—which he opposeth unto our seeing Him darkly as in a glass, which is the utmost that faith can attain to.
“We shall see Him as He is,” 1 John 3:2;– not as now, in an imperfect description of Him.
As a man sees his neighbour when they stand and converse together face to face, so shall we see the Lord Christ in His glory. And not as Moses, who had only a transient sight of some parts of the glory of God, when He caused it to pass by him.
There will be use herein of our bodily eyes, as shall be declared. For, as Job says, in our flesh shall we see our Redeemer, and our eyes shall behold Him, (Job 19:25–27).
That corporeal sense shall not be restored unto us, and that glorified above what we can conceive, but for this great use of the eternal beholding of Christ and His glory.
Unto whom is it not a matter of rejoicing, that with the same eyes wherewith they see the tokens and signs of Him in the sacrament of the supper, they shall behold Himself immediately in His own person?
But principally, as we shall see immediately, this vision is intellectual.
It is not, therefore, the mere human nature of Christ that is the object of it, but His divine person, as that nature subsisteth therein.
What is that perfection which we shall have (for that which is perfect must come and do away that which is in part) in the comprehension of the hypostatical union, I understand not.
But this I know, that in the immediate beholding of the person of Christ, we shall see a glory in it a thousand times above what here we can conceive.
The excellencies of infinite wisdom, love, and power therein, will be continually before us.
And all the glories of the person of Christ which we have before weakly and faintly inquired into, will be in our sight forevermore.
Hence the ground and cause of our blessedness is, that “we shall ever be with the Lord,” (1 Thess. 4:17),—as Himself prays, “that we may be with him where He is, to behold His glory.” (John 17:24)
Here we have some dark views of it;– we cannot perfectly behold it, until we are with Him where He is. Thereon our sight of Him will be direct, intuitive, and constant.
There is a glory, there will be so, subjectively in us in the beholding of this glory of Christ, which is at present incomprehensible. For it doth not yet appear what we ourselves shall be, (1 John 3:2).
Who can declare what a glory it will be in us to behold this glory of Christ?
And how excellent, then, is that glory of Christ itself!
This immediate sight of Christ is that which all the saints of God in this life do breathe and pant after.
Hence are they willing to be dissolved, or “desire to depart, that they may be with Christ,” which is best for them, (Phil. 1:23).
They choose “to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord,” (2 Cor. 5:8); or that they may enjoy the inexpressibly longed-for sight of Christ in His glory.”
“Herein is He glorious in the sight of God, angels, and men”
“The establishment of the righteousness of God on the one hand, and the forgiveness of sin on the other, seem so contradictory, as that many stumble and fall at it eternally. (See Rom. 10:3-4).
But in this interposition of Christ, in this translation of punishment from the church unto Him, by virtue of His conjunction therewith, there is a blessed harmony between the righteousness of God and the forgiveness of sins;– the exemplification whereof is His eternal glory.
“O blessed change! O sweet permutation!” as Justin Martyr speaks.
By virtue of His union with the church, which of His own accord He entered into, and His undertaking therein to answer for it in the sight of God, it was a righteous thing with God to lay the punishment of all our sins upon Him, so as that He might freely and graciously pardon them all, to the honour and exaltation of His justice, as well as of His grace and mercy, (Rom. 3:24–26).
Herein is He glorious in the sight of God, angels, and men.
In Him there is at the same time, in the same divine actings, a glorious resplendency of justice and mercy;– of the one in punishing, of the other in pardoning.
The appearing inconsistency between the righteousness of God and the salvation of sinners, wherewith the consciences of convinced persons are exercised and terrified, and which is the rock on which most of them split themselves into eternal ruin, is herein removed and taken away.
In His cross were divine holiness and vindictive justice exercised and manifested; and through His triumph, grace and mercy are exerted to the utmost.
This is that glory which ravisheth the hearts and satiates the souls of them that believe.
For what can they desire more, what is farther needful unto the rest and composure of their souls, than at one view to behold God eternally well pleased in the declaration of His righteousness and the exercise of His mercy, in order unto their salvation?
In due apprehensions hereof let my soul live.
In the faith hereof let me die.
And let present admiration of this glory make way for the eternal enjoyment of it in its beauty and fulness.”
“It is a joy of heart unto us that Thou art what Thou art”
“Let the world rage whilst it pleaseth.
Let it set itself with all its power and craft against everything of Christ that is in it,– which, whatever is by some otherwise pretended, proceeds from a hatred unto His person.
Let men make themselves drunk with the blood of His saints.
We have this to oppose unto all their attempts, unto our supportment,– namely, what He says of Himself: ‘Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of hell and of death,’ (Rev 1:17-18).
Blessed Jesus! We can add nothing to Thee, nothing to Thy glory.
But it is a joy of heart unto us that Thou art what Thou art,– that Thou art so gloriously exalted at the right hand of God.
And we do long more fully and clearly to behold that glory, according to Thy prayer and promise.”
“His sufferings and His glory”
“So much as we know of Christ, His sufferings, and His glory, so much do we understand the Scripture, and no more.”
“I will pay that which I never took”
“‘Ought not Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into His glory?’ (Luke 24:26)
But such, were these sufferings of Christ, as that in our thoughts about them our minds quickly recoil in a sense of their insufficiency to conceive aright of them. Never any one launched into this ocean with his meditations, but he quickly found himself unable to fathom the depths of it; nor shall I here undertake an inquiry into them. I shall only point at this spring of glory, and leave it under a veil.
We might here look on Him as under the weight of the wrath of God, and the curse of the law; taking on Himself, and on His whole soul, the utmost of evil that God had ever threatened to sin or sinners.
We might look on Him in His agony and bloody sweat, in His strong cries and supplications, when He was sorrowful unto the death, and began to be amazed, in apprehensions of the things that were coming on Him,—of that dreadful trial which He was entering into.
We might look upon Him conflicting with all the powers of darkness, the rage and madness of men,—suffering in His soul, His body, His name, His reputation, His goods, His life; some of these sufferings being immediate from God above, others from devils and wicked men, acting according to the determinate counsel of God.
We might look on Him praying, weeping, crying out, bleeding, dying,—in all things making His soul an offering for sin; so was He “taken from prison, and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living: for the transgression,” saith God, “of my people was He smitten,” (Isa. 53:8).
But these things I shall not insist on in particular, but leave them under such a veil as may give us a prospect into them, so far as to fill our souls with holy admiration.
Lord, what is man, that Thou art thus mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him? Who hath known Thy mind, or who hath been Thy counsellor?
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! What shall we say unto these things?
That God spared not His only Son, but gave Him up unto death, and all the evils included therein, for such poor, lost sinners as we were;— that for our sakes the eternal Son of God should submit Himself unto all the evils that our natures are obnoxious unto, and that our sins had deserved, that we might be delivered!
How glorious is the Lord Christ on this account, in the eyes of believers!
When Adam had sinned, and thereby eternally, according unto the sanction of the law, ruined himself and all his posterity, he stood ashamed, afraid, trembling, as one ready to perish forever, under the displeasure of God.
Death was that which he had deserved, and immediate death was that which he looked for.
In this state the Lord Christ in the promise comes unto him, and says,
“Poor creature! How woful is thy condition! How deformed is thy appearance!
What is become of the beauty, of the glory of that image of God wherein thou wast created?
How hast thou taken on thee the monstrous shape and image of Satan?
And yet thy present misery, thy entrance into dust and darkness, is no way to be compared with what is to ensue. Eternal distress lies at the door.
But yet look up once more, and behold Me, that thou mayest have some glimpse of what is in the designs of infinite wisdom, love, and grace.
Come forth from thy vain shelter, thy hiding-place.
I will put myself into thy condition.
I will undergo and bear that burden of guilt and punishment which would sink thee eternally into the bottom of hell.
I will pay that which I never took.
I will be made temporally a curse for thee, that thou mayest attain unto eternal blessedness.”
To the same purpose He speaks unto convinced sinners, in the invitation He gives them to come unto Him.
Thus is the Lord Christ set forth in the Gospel, ‘evidently crucified’ before our eyes, (Gal. 3:1),—namely, in the representation that is made of His glory,—in the sufferings He underwent for the discharge of the office He had undertaken.
Let us, then, behold Him as poor, despised, persecuted, reproached, reviled, hanged on a tree,— in all, labouring under a sense of the wrath of God due unto our sins.
Unto this end are they recorded in the Gospel,— read, preached, and represented unto us.
But what can we see herein?—what glory is in these things? Are not these the things which all the world of Jews and Gentiles stumbled and took offence at?—those wherein he was appointed to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence?
Was it not esteemed a foolish thing, to look for help and deliverance by the miseries of another?—to look for life by his death?
The apostle declares at large that such it was esteemed, (1 Cor. 1:21-25). So was it in the wisdom of the world.
But even on the account of these things He is honourable, glorious, and precious in the sight of them that do believe, (1 Pet. 2:6-7).
For even herein He was ‘the power of God, and the wisdom of God,’ (1 Cor. 1:24).”
“Christ’s obedience was not for Himself but for us”
“This was the original glory of Christ’s obedience. This wisdom, the grace, the love, the condescension that was in this choice, animated every act, every duty of His obedience,– rendering it amiable in the sight of God, and useful unto us.
So, when He went to John to be baptized, he, who knew He had no need of it on His own account, would have declined the duty of administering that ordinance unto Him; but He replied, “Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,” (Matt. 3:15).
This I have undertaken willingly, of my own accord, without any need of it for myself, and therefore will discharge it.
For Him, who was Lord of all universally, thus to submit Himself to universal obedience, carrieth along with it an evidence of glorious grace.
This obedience, as unto the use and end of it, was not for Himself, but for us.
We were obliged unto it, and could not perform it;– He was not obliged unto it any otherwise but by a free act of his own will, and did perform it.
God gave Him this honour, that He should obey for the whole church,– that by “His obedience many should be made righteous,” (Rom. 5:19).
Herein, I say, did God give Him honour and glory, that His obedience should stand in the stead of the perfect obedience of the church as unto justification.
His obedience being absolutely universal, and absolutely perfect, was the great representative of the holiness of God in the law. It was represented glorious when the ten words were written by the finger of God in tables of stone; it appears yet more eminently in the spiritual transcription of it in the hearts of believers: but absolutely and perfectly it is exemplified only in the holiness and obedience of Christ, which answered it unto the utmost.
And this is no small part of his glory in obedience, that the holiness of God in the law was therein, and therein alone, in that one instance, as unto human nature, fully represented.
He wrought out this obedience against all difficulties and oppositions. For although He was absolutely free from that disorder which in us hath invaded our whole natures, which internally renders all obedience difficult unto us, and perfect obedience impossible; yet as unto opposition from without, in temptations, sufferings, reproaches, contradictions, He met with more than we all.
Hence is that glorious word, “Although He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered,” (Heb. 5:8).
The glory of this obedience ariseth principally from the consideration of the person who thus yielded it unto God.
This was no other but the Son of God made man,– God and man in one person.
He who was in heaven, above all, Lord of all, at the same time lived in the world in a condition of no reputation, and a course of the strictest obedience unto the whole law of God.
He unto whom prayer was made, prayed Himself night and day.
He whom all the angels of heaven and all creatures worshipped, was continually conversant in all the duties of the worship of God.
He who was over the house, diligently observed the meanest office of the house.
He that made all men, in whose hand they are all as clay in the hand of the potter, observed amongst them the strictest rules of justice, in giving unto every one His due; and of charity, in giving good things that were not so due.
This is that which renders the obedience of Christ in the discharge of His office both mysterious and glorious.”
“I desire to be brought to this loss every day”
“Herein, then, I say, we may by faith behold the glory of Christ, as we shall do it by sight hereafter.
If we see no glory in it, if we discern not that which is matter of eternal admiration, we walk in darkness.
It is the most ineffable effect of divine wisdom and grace.
Where are our hearts and minds, if we can see no glory in it?
I know in the contemplation of it, it will quickly overwhelm our reason, and bring our understanding into a loss.
But unto this loss do I desire to be brought every day; for when faith can no more act itself in comprehension, when it finds the object it is fixed on too great and glorious to be brought into our minds and capacities, it will issue in holy admiration, humble adoration, and joyful thanksgiving.
In and by its actings in them doth it fill the soul with ‘joy unspeakable, and full of glory.’ (1 Peter 1:8)”
“A holy admiration of what we cannot comprehend”
“This is a short general view of this incomprehensible condescension of the Son of God, as it is described by the apostle in Phil. 2:5–8.
And this is that wherein in an especial manner we are to behold the glory of Christ by faith whilst we are in this world.
But had we the tongue of men and angels, we were not able in any just measure to express the glory of this condescension; for it is the most ineffable effect of the divine wisdom of the Father and of the love of the Son,—the highest evidence of the care of God towards mankind.
What can be equal unto it? What can be like it? It is the glory of Christian religion, and the animating soul of all evangelical truth.
This carrieth the mystery of the wisdom of God above the reason or understanding of men and angels, to be the object of faith and admiration only.
A mystery it is that becomes the greatness of God, with His infinite distance from the whole creation,—which renders it unbecoming Him that all His ways and works should be comprehensible by any of His creatures, (Job 11:7–9; Rom. 11:33–36).
He who was eternally in the form of God,—that is, was essentially so, God by nature, equally participant of the same divine nature with God the Father; ‘God over all, blessed forever;’ who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and earth,–He takes on Him the nature of man, takes it to be His own, whereby He was no less truly a man in time than He was truly God from eternity.
And to increase the wonder of this mystery, because it was necessary unto the end He designed, He so humbled Himself in this assumption of our nature, as to make Himself of no reputation in this world;–yea, unto that degree, that He said of Himself that He was a worm, and no man, in comparison of them who were of any esteem.
We speak of these things in a poor, low, broken manner,– we teach them as they are revealed in the Scripture,– we labour by faith to adhere unto them as revealed.
But when we come into a steady, direct view and consideration of the thing itself, our minds fail, our hearts tremble, and we can find no rest but in a holy admiration of what we cannot comprehend.
Here we are at a loss, and know that we shall be so whilst we are in this world; but all the ineffable fruits and benefits of this truth are communicated unto them that do believe.
It is with reference hereunto that that great promise concerning Him is given unto the church, (Isa. 8:14), ‘He shall be for a sanctuary’ (namely, unto all that believe, as it is expounded, 1 Peter 2:7-8); ‘but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence,’—’even to them that stumble at the word, being disobedient; where-unto also they were appointed.’
He is herein a sanctuary, an assured refuge unto all that betake themselves unto Him.
What is it that any man in distress, who flies thereunto, may look for in a sanctuary?
A supply of all his wants, a deliverance from all his fears, a defence against all his dangers, is proposed unto him therein.
Such is the Lord Christ herein unto sin-distressed souls; He is a refuge unto us in all spiritual distresses and disconsolations, (Heb. 6:18).
See the exposition of the place.
Are we, or any of us, burdened with a sense of sin?
Are we perplexed with temptations?
Are we bowed down under the oppression of any spiritual adversary?
Do we, on any of these accounts, ‘walk in darkness and have no light?’
One view of the glory of Christ herein is able to support us and relieve us.
Unto whom we betake ourselves for relief in any case, we have regard to nothing but their will and their power. If they have both, we are sure of relief.
And what shall we fear in the will of Christ as unto this end? What will he not do for us?
He who thus emptied and humbled Himself, who so infinitely condescended from the prerogative of His glory in His being and self-sufficiency, in the susception of our nature for the discharge of the office of a mediator on our behalf,– will He not relieve us in all our distresses?
Will He not do all for us we stand in need of, that we may be eternally saved?
Will He not be a sanctuary unto us?
Nor have we hereon any ground to fear His power; for, by this infinite condescension to be a suffering man, He lost nothing of His power as God omnipotent,– nothing of His infinite wisdom or glorious grace.
He could still do all that He could do as God from eternity.
If there be any thing, therefore, in a coalescency of infinite power with infinite condescension, to constitute a sanctuary for distressed sinners, it is all in Christ Jesus.
And if we see Him not glorious herein, it is because there is no light of faith in us.
This, then, is the rest wherewith we may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshment.
Herein is He ‘a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.’ (Isa. 32:2)
Herein He says, “I have satiated the weary soul, and have refreshed every sorrowful soul.” (Jer. 31:25)
Under this consideration it is that, in all evangelical promises and invitations for coming to Him, He is proposed unto distressed sinners as their only sanctuary.”
“The Rock on which the church is built”
“It may, then, be said, ‘What did the Lord Christ, in this condescension, with respect unto His divine nature?’
The apostle tells us that He ‘humbled Himself, and made Himself of no reputation,’ (Phil. 2:7-8). He veiled the glory of His divine nature in ours, and what He did therein, so as that there was no outward appearance or manifestation of it.
The world hereon was so far from looking on Him as the true God, that it believed Him not to be a good man. Hence they could never bear the least intimation of His divine nature, supposing themselves secured from any such thing, because they looked on Him with their eyes to be a man,—as He was, indeed, no less truly and really than any one of themselves.
Wherefore, on that testimony given of Himself, ‘Before Abraham was, I am,’ (John 8:58)—which asserts a pre-existence from eternity in another nature than what they saw,—they were filled with rage, and ‘took up stones to cast at Him,’ (John 8:58-59).
And they gave a reason of their madness, (John 10:33),—namely, that ‘He, being a man, should make Himself to be God.’
This was such a thing, they thought, as could never enter into the heart of a wise and sober man,—namely, that being so, owning Himself to be such, He should yet say of Himself that He was God.
This is that which no reason can comprehend, which nothing in nature can parallel or illustrate, that one and the same person should He both God and man. And this is the principal plea of the Socinians at this day, who, through the Mohammedans, succeed unto the Jews in an opposition unto the divine nature of Christ.
But all this difficulty is solved by the glory of Christ in this condescension; for although in Himself, or His own divine person, He was ‘over all, God blessed forever,’ (Rom. 9:5) yet He humbled Himself for the salvation of the church, unto the eternal glory of God, to take our nature upon Him, and to be made man: and those who cannot see a divine glory in His so doing, do neither know Him, nor love Him, nor believe in Him, nor do any way belong unto Him.
So is it with the men of these abominations. Because they cannot behold the glory hereof, they deny the foundation of our religion,—namely, the divine person of Christ.
Seeing He would be made man, He shall be esteemed by them no more than a man.
So do they reject that glory of God, His infinite wisdom, goodness, and grace, wherein He is more concerned than in the whole creation. And they dig up the root of all evangelical truths, which are nothing but branches from it.
It is true, and must be confessed, that herein it is that our Lord Jesus Christ is ‘a stumbling-stone and a rock of offence’ (1 Peter 2:8) unto the world.
If we should confess Him only as a prophet, a man sent by God, there would not be much contest about Him, nor opposition unto Him.
The Mohammedans do all acknowledge it, and the Jews would not long deny it; for their hatred against Him was, and is, solely because He professed Himself to be God, and as such was believed on in the world.
And at this day, partly through the insinuation of the Socinians, and partly from the efficacy of their own blindness and unbelief, multitudes are willing to grant Him to be a prophet sent of God, who do not, who will not, who cannot, believe the mystery of this condescension in the susception of our nature, nor see the glory of it.
But take this away, and all our religion is taken away with it.
Farewell Christianity, as to the mystery, the glory, the truth, the efficacy of it;—let a refined heathenism be established in its room.
But this is the rock on which the church is built, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.”
“There is order in the Divine Persons, but no inequality in the Divine Being”
“That we may the better behold the glory of Christ herein, we may briefly consider the especial nature of this condescension, and wherein it doth consist.
But whereas not only the denial, but misapprehensions hereof, have pestered the church of God in all ages, we must, in the first place, reject them, and then declare the truth.
This condescension of the Son of God did not consist in a laying aside, or parting with, or separation from, the divine nature, so as that He should cease to be God by being man.
The foundation of it lay in this, that he was ‘in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God,’ (Phil 2:6);—that is, being really and essentially God in His divine nature, He professed Himself therein to be equal with God, or the person of the Father.
He was in the form of God,—that is, He was God, participant of the divine nature, for God hath no form but that of His essence and being; and hence He was equal with God, in authority, dignity, and power.
Because He was in the form of God, He must be equal with God; for there is order in the Divine Persons, but no inequality in the Divine Being.
So the Jews understood Him, that when He said, ‘God was His Father, He made Himself equal with God.’
For in His so saying, He ascribed unto Himself equal power with the Father, as unto all divine operations. ‘My Father,’ saith He, ‘worketh hitherto, and I work,’ (John 5:17-18).
And they by whom his divine nature is denied do cast this condescension of Christ quite out of our religion, as that which hath no reality or substance in it. But we shall speak of them afterward.
Being in this state, it is said that he took on Him the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a man, (Phil. 2:7). This is His condescension.
It is not said that He ceased to be in the form of God; but continuing so to be, He ‘took upon Him the form of a servant’ in our nature: He became what He was not, but He ceased not to be what He was.
So He testifieth of Himself, (John 3:13), ‘No man hath ascended up to heaven, but be that came down from heaven, the Son of man which is in heaven.’
Although He was then on earth as the Son of man, yet He ceased not to be God thereby;—in His divine nature He was then also in heaven.
He who is God, can no more be not God, than He who is not God can be God; and our difference with the Socinians herein is,—we believe that Christ being God, was made man for our sakes; they say, that being only a man, he was made a god for His own sake.
This, then, is the foundation of the glory of Christ in this condescension, the life and soul of all heavenly truth and mysteries,—namely, that the Son of God becoming in time to be what He was not, the Son of man, ceased not thereby to be what He was, even the eternal Son of God.”
“His laying down His life for us was an act of inconceivable love”
“This love of Christ which we inquire after is the love of His person,—that is, which He in His own person acts in and by His distinct natures, according unto their distinct essential properties.
And the acts of love in these distinct natures are infinitely distinct and different; yet are they all acts of one and the same person.
So, then, whether that act of love in Christ which we would at any time consider, be an eternal act of the divine nature in the person of the Son of God; or whether it be an act of the human, performed in time by the gracious faculties and powers of that nature, it is still the love of one and the self-same person,– Christ Jesus.
It was an act of inexpressible love in Him, that He assumed our nature, (Heb. 2:14, 17). But it was an act in and of His divine nature only; for it was antecedent unto the existence of His human nature, which could not, therefore, concur therein.
His laying down His life for us was an act of inconceivable love, (1 John 3:16). Yet was it only an act of the human nature, wherein He offered Himself and died.
But both the one and the other were acts of His divine person; whence it is said that God laid down His life for us, and purchased the church with His own blood.
This is that love of Christ wherein He is glorious, and wherein we are by faith to behold His glory.
A great part of the blessedness of the saints in heaven, and their triumph therein, consists in their beholding of this glory of Christ,– in their thankful contemplation of the fruits of it. (See Rev. 5:9-10)
The illustrious brightness wherewith this glory shines in heaven, the all-satisfying sweetness which the view of it gives unto the souls of the saints there possessed of glory, are not by us conceivable, nor to be expressed.
Here, this love passeth knowledge,– there, we shall comprehend the dimensions of it.
Yet even here, if we are not slothful and carnal, we may have a refreshing prospect of it; and where comprehension fails, let admiration take place.
My present business is, to exhort others unto the contemplation of it, though it be but a little, a very little, a small portion of it, that I can conceive; and less than that very little that I can express.”
“The line of life and light which runs through the whole Old Testament”
“It is said of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, ‘beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He declared unto His disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself,’ (Luke 24:27).
It is therefore manifest that Moses, and the Prophets, and all the Scriptures, do give testimony unto Him and His glory.
This is the line of life and light which runs through the whole Old Testament, without the conduct whereof we can understand nothing aright therein: and the neglect hereof is that which makes many as blind in reading the books of it as are the Jews,—the veil being upon their minds. (2 Cor. 4:14-16)
It is faith alone, discovering the glory of Christ, that can remove that veil of darkness which covers the minds of men in reading the Old Testament, as the apostle declares, (2 Cor. 3:14–16). I shall, therefore, consider briefly some of those ways and means whereby the glory of Christ was represented unto believers under the Old Testament.
It was represented in the institution of the beautiful worship of the law, with all the means of it. Herein have they the advantage above all the splendid ceremonies that men can invent in the outward worship of God; they were designed and framed in divine wisdom to represent the glory of Christ, in His person and His office.
This nothing of human invention can do, or once pretend unto. Men cannot create mysteries, nor can give unto anything natural in itself a mystical signification.
But so it was in the old divine institutions.
What were the tabernacle and temple?
What was the holy place with the utensils of it?
What was the oracle, the ark, the cherubim, the mercy-seat, placed therein?
What was the high priest in all his vestments and administrations?
What were the sacrifices and annual sprinkling of blood in the most holy place?
What was the whole system of their religious worship?
Were they anything but representations of Christ in the glory of His person and His office?
They were a shadow, and the body represented by that shadow was Christ.
If any would see how the Lord Christ was in particular foresignified and represented in them, he may peruse our exposition on the 9th chapter of the Epistle unto the Hebrews, where it is handled so at large as that I shall not here again insist upon it.
The sum is, ‘Moses was faithful in all the house of God, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken afterward,’ (Heb. 3:5).
All that Moses did in the erection of the tabernacle, and the institution of all its services, was but to give an antecedent testimony by way of representation, unto the things of Christ that were afterward to be revealed.
And that also was the substance of the ministry of the prophets, (1 Pet. 1:11-12). The dark apprehensions of the glory of Christ, which by these means they obtained, were the life of the church of old.
Promises, prophecies, predictions, concerning His person, His coming, His office, His kingdom, and His glory in them all, with the wisdom, grace, and love of God to the church in Him, are the line of life, as was said, which runs through all the writings of the Old Testament, and takes up a great portion of them.
Those were the things which He expounded unto His disciples out of Moses and all the Prophets. Concerning these things He appealed to the Scriptures against all his adversaries: ‘Search the Scriptures; for they are they which testily of Me.’ (John 5:39)
And if we find them not, if we discern them not therein, it is because a veil of blindness is over our minds.
Nor can we read, study, or meditate on the writings of the Old Testament unto any advantage, unless we design to find out and behold the glory of Christ, declared and represented in them.
For want hereof they are a sealed book to many unto this day.”
“His sufferings and His glory"
“These are the two heads whereunto all the prophecies and predictions concerning Jesus Christ under the Old Testament are referred– namely, His sufferings, and the glory that ensued thereon (1 Peter 1:11).
All the prophets testified beforehand ‘of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.’
So when He Himself opened the Scriptures unto His disciples, He gave them this as the sum of the doctrine contained in them, ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?’ (Luke 24:26). The same is frequently expressed elsewhere in Rom. 14:9 and Phil. 2:5–9.
So much as we know of Christ, His sufferings, and His glory, so much do we understand of the Scripture, and no more.”
“The sighs, groans, and mournings of poor souls”
“There is more glory under the eye of God, in the sighs, groans, and mournings of poor souls filled with the love of Christ, after the enjoyment of Him according to His promises— in their fervent prayers for His manifestation of Himself unto them— in the refreshments and unspeakable joys which they have in His gracious visits and embraces of His love— than in the thrones and diadems of all the monarchs on the earth.”
–John Owen, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000)
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