This fulfilment of every desire of goodness and work of faith is in
order 'that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you
and ye in Him.'
Here, again, as in the first clause of our text, I take, in accordance
with the prevailing tone of this letter, the reference to be mainly,
though perhaps not exclusively, to a future transcendent glorifying of
the name of Christ in perfected saints, and glorifying of perfected
saints in Jesus Christ.
We have, then, set forth, first, as the result of the fulfilling of
Christian men's desires after goodness, and the work of their faith, the
glory that accrues to Christ from perfected saints. They are His
workmanship. You remember the old story of the artist who went into a
fellow-artist's studio and left upon the easel one complete circle,
swept with one master-whirl of the brush. Jesus Christ presents
perfected men to an admiring universe as specimens of what He can do.
His highest work is the redeeming of poor creatures like you and me, and
the making of us perfect in goodness and worthy of our calling. We are
His _chefs-d'oeuvre_, the master work of the great divine artist.
Think, then, brethren, how, here and now, Christ's reputation is in our
hands. Men judge of Him by us. The name of the Lord Jesus is glorified
in you if you live 'worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,' and
people will think better of the Master if His disciples are faithful.
Depend upon it, if we of this church, for instance, and the Christian
people within these walls now, lived the lives that they ought to do,
and manifested the power of the Gospel as they might, there would be
many who would say, 'They have been with Jesus, and the Jesus that has
made them what they are must be mighty and great.' The best evidence of
the power of the Gospel is your consistent lives.
Think, too, of that strange dignity that in the future, in manners and
in regions all undiscernible by us, Christians, who have been made out
of stones into children of God, will make known 'unto principalities and
powers in heavenly places' the wisdom and the love and the energy of the
redeeming God. Who knows to what regions the commission of the perfected
saints to make Christ known may carry them? Light travels far, and we
cannot tell into what remote corners of the universe this may penetrate.
This only we know, that they who shall be counted worthy to attain that
life and the Resurrection from the dead shall bear the image of the
heavenly, and perhaps to creations yet uncreated, and still to be
evolved through the ages of eternity, it may be their part to carry the
lustre of the light of the glory of God who redeemed and purified them.
On the other hand, there is glory accruing to perfected saints in
Christ. 'And ye in Him.' There will be a union so close as that nothing
closer is possible, personality being preserved, between Christ and the
saints above, who trust Him and love Him and serve Him there. And that
union will lead to a participation in His glory which shall exalt their
limited, stained, and fragmentary humanity into 'the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ.' Astronomers tell us that dead, cold
matter falls from all corners of the system into the sun, drawn by its
magic magnetism from farthest space, and, plunging into that great
reservoir of fire, the deadest and coldest matter glows with fervid heat
and dazzling light. So you and I, dead, cold, dull, opaque, heavy
fragments, drawn into mysterious oneness with Christ, the Sun of our
souls, shall be transformed into His own image, and like Him be light
and heat which shall radiate through the universe.
Brethren, meditate on your calling, the fact, its method, its aim, its
obligations, and its powers. Cherish hopes and desires after goodness,
the only hopes and desires that are certain to be fulfilled. Cultivate
the life of faith working by love, and let us all live in the light of
that solemn expectation that the Lord will judge His people. Then we may
hope that the voice which summoned us will welcome us, and proclaim even
of us, stained and undeserving as we rightly feel ourselves to be:
'They have not defiled their garments, therefore they shall walk with Me
in white, for they are worthy.'