'The glory of God' is the lustre of His own perfect character, the
bright sum total of all the blended brilliances that compose His name.
When that light is welcomed and adored by men, they are said to 'give
glory to God,' and this doxology is at once a prophecy that the working
of God's power on His redeemed children will issue in setting forth the
radiance of His Name yet more, and a prayer that it may. So we have here
the great thought expressed in many places of Scripture, that the
highest exhibition of the divine character for the reverence and
love--of the whole universe, shall we say?--lies in His work on
Christian souls, and the effect produced thereby on them. God takes His
stand, so to speak, on this great fact in His dealings, and will have
His creatures estimate Him by it. He reckons it His highest praise that
He has redeemed men, and by His dwelling in them fills them with His own
fulness. And this chiefest praise and brightest glory accrues to Him 'in
the Church in Christ Jesus.' The weakening of the latter word into _by_
Christ Jesus,' as in the English version, is to be regretted, as
substituting another thought, Scriptural no doubt and precious, for the
precise shade of meaning in the Apostle's mind here. As has been well
said, 'the first words denote the outward province; the second, the
inward and spiritual sphere in which God was to be praised.' His glory
is to shine in the Church, the theatre of His power, the standing
demonstration of the might of redeeming love. By this He will be judged,
and this He will point to if any ask what is His divinest work, which
bears the clearest imprint of His divinest self. His glory is to be set
forth by men on condition that they are 'in Christ,' living and moving
in Him, in that mysterious but most real union without which no fruit
grows on the dead branches, nor any music of praise breaks from the dead
lips.
So, then, think of that wonder that God sets His glory in His dealings
with us. Amid all the majesty of His works and all the blaze of His
creation, this is what He presents as the highest specimen of His
power--the Church of Jesus Christ, the company of poor men, wearied and
conscious of many evils, who follow afar off the footsteps of their
Lord. How dusty and toil-worn the little group of Christians that landed
at Puteoli must have looked as they toiled along the Appian Way and
entered Rome! How contemptuously emperor and philosopher and priest and
patrician would have curled their lips, if they had been told that in
that little knot of Jewish prisoners lay a power before which theirs
would cower and finally fade! Even so is it still. Among all the
splendours of this great universe, and the mere obtrusive tawdrinesses
of earth, men look upon us Christians as poor enough; and yet it is to
His redeemed children that God has entrusted His praise, and in their
hands that He has lodged the sacred deposit of His own glory.
Think loftily of that office and honour, lowly of yourselves who have it
laid upon you as a crown. His honour is in our hands. We are the
'secretaries of His praise.' This is the highest function that any
creature can discharge. The Rabbis have a beautiful bit of teaching
buried among their rubbish about angels. They say that there are two
kinds of angels--the angels of service and the angels of praise, of
which two orders the latter is the higher, and that no angel in it
praises God twice, but having once lifted up his voice in the psalm of
heaven, then perishes and ceases to be. He has perfected his being, he
has reached the height of his greatness, he has done what he was made
for, let him fade away. The garb of legend is mean enough, but the
thought it embodies is that ever true and solemn one, without which life
is nought--'Man's chief end is to glorify God.'
And we can only fulfil that high purpose in the measure of our union
with Christ. 'In Him' abiding, we manifest God's glory, for in Him
abiding we receive God's grace. So long as we are joined to Him, we
partake of His life, and our lives become music and praise. The electric
current flows from Him through all souls that are 'in Him' and they glow
with fair colours which they owe to their contact with Jesus. Interrupt
the communication, and all is darkness. So, brethren, let us seek to
abide in Him, severed from whom we are nothing. Then shall we fulfil the
purpose of His love, who 'hath shined in our hearts' that we might give
to others 'the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ' Notice, lastly,