That unveiling is in the text represented as coming along with the
glory which shall be revealed to usward, and as being contemporaneous
with the deliverance of the creation itself from the bondage of
corruption, and its passing into the liberty of the glory of the
children of God. It coincides with the vanishing of the pain in which
the whole creation now groans and travails, and with the
adoption--that is, the redemption of our body. Then hope will be seen
and will pass into still fruition. All this points to the time when
Jesus Christ is revealed, and His servants are revealed with Him in
glory. That revelation brings with it of necessity the manifestation
of the sons of God for what they are--the making visible in the life
of what God sees them to be.
That revelation of the sons of God is the result of the entire
dominion and transforming supremacy of the Spirit of God in them. In
the whole sweep of their consciousness there will in that day be
nothing done from other motives; there will be no sidelights flashing
in and disturbing the perfect illumination from the candle of the
Lord set on high in their being; there will be no contradictions in
the life. It will be one and simple, and therefore perfectly
intelligible. Such is the destined issue of the most imperfect
Christian life. The Christian man who has in his experience to-day
the faintest and most interrupted operation of the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus has therein a pledge of immortality, because nothing
short of an endless life of progressive and growing purity will be
adequate to receive and exemplify the power which can never terminate
until it is made like Him and perfectly seeing Him as He is.
But that unveiling further guarantees the possession of fully
adequate means of expression. The limitations and imperfections of
our present bodily life will all drop away in putting on 'the body of
glory' which shall be ours. The new tongue will perfectly utter the
new knowledge and rapture of the new life; new hands will perfectly
realise our ideals; and on every forehead will be stamped Christ's
new name.
That unveiling will be further realised by a divine act indicating
the characters of the sons of God by their position. Earth's
judgments will be reversed by that divine voice, and the great
promise, which through weary ages has shone as a far-off star,--'I
will set him on high because he hath known my name'--will then be
known for the sun near at hand. Many names loudly blown through the
world's trumpet will fall silent then. Many stars will be quenched,
but 'they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the
firmament.'
That revelation will be more surprising to no one than to those who
are its subjects, when they see themselves mirrored in that glass,
and so unlike what they are here. Their first impulse will be to
wonder at the form they see, and to ask, almost with incredulity,
'Lord, is it I?' Nor will the wonder be less when they recognise many
whom they knew not. The surprises when the family of God is gathered
together at last will be great. The Israel of Captivity lifts up her
wondering eyes as she sees the multitudes flocking to her side as the
doves to their windows, and, half-ashamed of her own narrow vision,
exclaims, 'I was left alone; these, where had they been?' Let us
rejoice that in the day when the sons of God are revealed, many
hidden ones from many dark corners will sit at the Father's table.
That revelation will be made to the whole universe; we know not how,
but we know that it shall be; and, as the text tells us, that
revelation of the sons of God is the hope for which 'the earnest
expectation of the creature waits' through the weary ages.