His love is an abiding love. He does nothing but love those who
belong to Him, who have trusted Him and are the Beloved of God. Our
sins, our weaknesses, our infirmities and failures can never affect
or diminish His love. Never, oh child of God, doubt His abiding
love. Yea, whatever our circumstances are, in trials, in the hard
places, in troubles, burdened with cares and full of anxiety, in all
our failures we can look up and say, "He loveth me." It is an ever
present and eternal love. Never, oh child of God, measure that love
by your changing feeling or by your experience. And this love He
manifested by dying for us. He has washed us from our sins in His
own blood. To this His title as "The First begotten from the dead"
refers. "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree,
that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by
whose stripes ye are healed" (1 Pet ii:24). The precious blood of
Christ has washed us from our sins. They can never come up again. Oh
blessed knowledge! Cleansed by His own blood, the precious blood of
the Lamb without spot and blemish! And the blessedness of all that
is connected with this!
Oh, the peace forever flowing
From God's thoughts of His own Son!
Oh, the peace of simply knowing
On the cross that all was done!
Peace with God, the blood in heaven
Speaks of pardon now to me:
Peace with God! the Lord is risen!
Righteousness now counts me free.
Peace with God is Christ in glory;
God is just and God is love;
Jesus died to tell the story,
Foes to bring to God above.
But more than that "He hath made us kings and priests unto God and
His Father." This belongs also to His mighty love. His future of
Glory as the Prince of the Kings of the earth, the King of kings and
Lord of lords, His fathomless love leads Him to share with those for
whom He died, whom He purged and fitted by His own blood. He hath
made us kings and priests. It is all His work. A more correct
translation is "He hath made us a Kingdom." This, however, does not
mean that He has linked us with a Kingdom in which we are to be
subjects and governed by Him. We are not subjects of a Kingdom, but
_are_ a Kingdom, partakers of it in rule with Himself. We shall rule
and reign with Him over the earth. And because He will be "a priest
upon _His_ throne" (Zech. vi:13) we, too, will be priests. What it
all includes, what glories await us, what enjoyment with Him, what
riches and blessings, power and honor, no mind can grasp and no
tongue nor pen can describe.
"To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen." All glory and
dominion to Him! Thou art worthy! Thou art worthy! This is the
heart's cry, which really knows Him and is devoted to Him. "Thou art
worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power." Our crowns we
cast before Thy throne. Amen and Amen.
Reader can you add your "Amen"--your, "be it so" to all this? Do
you sing this Glory song? In a day when He, who is worthy, is but
little praised, do you praise Him thus? Do you live in the daily
enjoyment of His love? Do you give Him the pre-eminence to whom God
has given the pre-eminence in all things? Amen! And oh the happy
thought, which helps us so in these evil days, that soon He, who
loveth us, who washed us, who hath made us a Kingdom and priests,
may call us into His own glorious presence.
The Firstborn.
"THE Firstborn" or "The Firstbegotten" is one of the names of our
blessed Lord. It is applied to Him after His resurrection from the
dead. As the Only Begotten He came into this world, the unspeakable
gift of God to a lost and ruined world; after the accomplishment of
His work on the cross He left the earth, He had created, as the
Firstborn. As the Firstbegotten He is now in the highest heaven and
as the Firstbegotten the Man of Glory He will be sent back to this
earth and rule in power and glory. Paul wrote to the Philippians "to
write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous but for
you it is safe" (Phil. iii:1). Peter's preaching in the opening
chapters of the Acts might have been called monotonous, for he knew
but one theme. The Spirit of God filling him gave but one message
and that was, the rejected Jesus of Nazareth risen from the dead. In
the Gospel of the Glory of the blessed God (1 Tim. i:11), as
revealed to the Apostle of the Gentiles we have one theme, one
abiding, ever satisfying, eternal object and that is Christ who died
for our sins, risen from the dead, as Firstborn in Glory and our
blessed union with Him. Paul who knew Him as the Firstborn so well
found it not grievous to write the same thing. Indeed the more He
knew Him the more His heart cried out "that I may know Him" (Phil.
iii:10). There is an attraction in Him which is supernatural. Every
child of God will increasingly enjoy the contemplation of this old
yet ever new and blessed theme, the Firstborn from the dead. Only in
this our hearts can find perfect rest and abiding joy. And if your
heart, dear reader, is not attracted and absorbed by Himself, it is
because there is a broken communion between you and your Lord. Oh,
return unto thy rest, my soul! The drifting masses of Christendom
have no use for such a theme. The words written in 2 Cor. iv:3-4
find a fearful application in our time. "But if our gospel be hid,
it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this age hath
blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the
glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God, should shine unto
them."
How little of the Gospel of the Glory is preached! It is not wanted.
All the present day preaching of ethics, of doing good, self
improvement and self culture is anti-christian. The preaching which leaves
out the cross of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the Glory of
Christ, differs not in the least from the ethical-philosophical
jumble of Buddhistic and other oriental heathen teachers. It
is an awful thing which is done in Christendom today, this
rejection of the Lord, the Firstborn. Some day and that soon,
God will judge those who have rejected that Gospel and deal with
them for the sin of all sins which is unbelief (John xvi:9). But our
hearts, beloved in the Lord, must turn more and more to Him and find
their delight in Him, who is the Firstbegotten. And this we shall do
now by meditating on a few Scriptures which tell us of Him. "He is
the _Firstborn_ from the dead" (Col. i:18). "Jesus Christ, who is
the faithful witness, the _Firstbegotten_ of the dead, and the
Prince of the Kings of the earth" (Rev. i:5). What blessed
declarations these are! In the first chapter of Colossians it is
fully revealed who He is, who was dead and who is alive for
evermore. Not a creature but the Creator, the one who images forth
God, because He is God. By Him were all things created, "that are in
heaven, and that are on earth, visible and invisible, thrones or
dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by
Him and for Him." And such a One made peace through the blood of His
cross. Such a One took our place on the cross of shame, tasted death
in our stead and all the billows of wrath and judgment passed over
His holy head. Because He wrought out our redemption it is complete
and perfect. Raised from the dead, not held by death but bursting
forth, leading captivity captive, He is the Firstborn and to Him
belongs all Glory and Power. "But now is Christ risen from the dead,
and become the _Firstfruits_ of them that slept" (1 Cor. xv:20). By
His glorious resurrection He became the Firstfruits. All who believe
in Him will rise too by virtue of being one with Him, who is the
Resurrection and the Life. The mighty power of God which raised Him
from the dead and seated Him in the highest place, at His own right
hand, that exceeding greatness of His power is towards us, who
believe. That power has quickened us with Christ, raised us up
together and seated us in the heavenly. In some future day that
mighty power, which raised Him so that He became the Firstfruits
will raise all the saints to meet Him in the air.
"And again, when He bringeth in the _Firstbegotten_ into the world,
He saith, and let all the angels of God worship Him" (Heb. i:6).
God will bring the Firstbegotten back to this earth again. This is a
very strong passage revealing the second coming of Christ to this
earth. The same blessed Person, who walked on this earth as man, who
is Emanuel, God with us, who died on the cross for our sins, who
became the Firstbegotten from the dead, the Firstfruits of them that
slept, He who is now as Man in Glory, the same Person, the
Firstbegotten, will be brought back to this world by the power of
God. Then worshipping angels will be His attendants and He will
bring His Saints with Him.
"For whom He foreknew, He also did predestinate, to be conformed to
the image of His Son, that He might be the _Firstborn_ among many
brethren" (Romans viii:29). Conformed to the glorious image of God's
ever blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the destiny of all, who
have cast themselves as lost sinners upon Christ and have been saved
by Grace through faith. It is true even now by beholding as in a
glass the glory of the Lord we are changed into the same image from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. iii:18).
It is true if we abide in Him, we shall walk even as He walked (1
John ii:6). The exhortation in our great salvation Epistle is, not
to be conformed to this age, but to be transformed, or as it might
be translated, transfigured (Rom. xii:2). _But_ to be fully
conformed to the image of His Son is never to be expected in this
world, where sin is ever present; When the Firstbegotten calls us
into His own presence, when the Heir of God summons His beloved
co-heirs to meet Him and to enter with Him into the blood-bought
inheritance, then each saved sinner will be conformed to the image
of Himself. Each will shine forth the excellencies of the
Firstbegotten. _We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is._
Hallelujah! This is why God gave up His Son, that He might be able
to lift those who are His enemies by wicked works into the Sonplace
and make them like His Son in Glory.
"Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare
the degree; the Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art my _Son_; this day
have I begotten Thee" (Ps. ii:6-7). In this prophecy He is likewise
seen as the Firstbegotten. It does not mean the eternal Son of God,
for as such He had no beginning, but the day in which He was
begotten is the third day when He was raised from the dead. Paul
gives us this truth when He spoke to the Jews in Antioch and said:
"God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He hath
raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second Psalm,
Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee" (Acts xiii:33). Up
to this time He is not yet enthroned upon the holy hill of Zion.
When He returns as the Firstbegotten and finds the nations of the
earth not converted, but in opposition to Him (Ps. ii:1-3), He will
become the King and take His throne.
"Also I will make Him my _Firstborn_, higher than the Kings of the
earth" (Ps. lxxxix:27). This reveals the exalted station, which He
will assume, when His blessed feet touch this earth again. He will
be the King of kings, and the Lord of lords.
This is the Glory of the Firstborn, the loving Sinbearer who endured
the cross and despised the shame. He is the Heir of God, the Heir of
all things, the Head of all principality and power, the Head of His
redeemed people, the church. He that filleth all in all, the
Firstborn, will share His glorious title and possessions with His
redeemed. The church to which God's marvelous Grace has brought us
is the church of the _Firstborn_. (Heb. xii:23), because the
Firstborn is the Head and beginning and those who are begotten again
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead have their portion
with the Firstborn. Oh! glorious future we have as His redeemed
people! God our Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by Thy Holy Spirit, keep the Glory of Thy Son, the Firstborn, before
our hearts, that we may be changed into the same image and overcome
in these dark and evil days. Amen.
Soon shall our eyes behold Thee
With rapture, face to face;
And, resting there in glory,
We'll sing Thy pow'r and grace:
Thy beauty, Lord, and glory,
The wonders of Thy love,
Shall be the endless story
Of all Thy saints above.
The Waiting Christ.
WAITING for the coming of the Lord is one of the blessed
characteristics of true Christianity. In the parable of the ten
virgins the three great marks of a true believer are stated by our
Lord. These are: _Separation_, indicated by the virgins having gone
forth. _Manifestation_, they had lamps, which are for the giving of
light, and _Expectation_, they went forth to meet the Bridegroom.
With five of them it was only an outward profession. The foolish
virgins are the type of such who are Christians in name only and do
not know the reality of these characteristics. The Lord knew them
not. These three characteristics are seen in Paul's first epistle to
the Thessalonians. That model assembly was composed of such members
who possessed these three things. They had turned to God from
idols (separation); they served the true and the living God
(manifestation); they waited for His Son from heaven (expectation),
1 Thess. i:9, 10. The same is revealed in the epistle to Titus. "For
the Grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men."
That Grace accepted separates unto God.
"Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should
live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world." This is
manifestation. The Grace of God enables us to live thus. "Looking
for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God
and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Here we have expectation. Other
similar passages could be quoted. If we divide the New Testament
Scriptures into three parts we have the same order. In the Gospels
the Grace of God in the Son of God appeared. In the Epistles we are
taught how to manifest Him by walking in the Spirit. The great New
Testament prophetic book, the Revelation, looks on towards His
Coming. And how His Coming is forgotten! How few of His people truly
wait for Him! How few pray that important and almost forgotten
prayer, Even so, Come Lord Jesus! But we must also remember that our
Lord is likewise waiting. Innumerable multitudes of disembodied
spirits who are saved by Grace are waiting in His own presence for
the moment when they will receive their resurrection bodies, which
will be when He descends from Heaven and comes into the air. The
faithful remnant of His people on earth wait for His Coming. Israel
and all creation wait for Him as well as the unseen beings in the
Heavenly. _But He Himself is waiting._ This is the testimony of the
Word of God. First it is the subject of prophecy. In the brief but
great 110th Psalm that waiting is predicted. The Christ, who is so
often seen in the Psalms and in the Prophets as King, ruling in His
earthly kingdom, whose glories in that rule are so blessedly
described, is seen in the beginning of that Psalm seated at the
right hand of God; this heavenly place will be occupied by Him till
His enemies are made His footstool. How the Holy Spirit witnessed to
this fact at once after His descent on the day of Pentecost is more
fully revealed in the second chapter of Acts. In Hebrews x:13 we
read of His waiting attitude in heaven. "But _this man_, after He
had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right
hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His
footstool." The better word for expecting is "waiting." We may well
emphasize the word "Man." Our blessed Lord is not in the presence of
God as a Spirit Being, but He is there in the form of Man. The
blessed body He had on earth, which He gave on the cross and which
laid in the tomb could not see corruption. He was raised on the
third day. He ascended in that glorified body into heaven and He is
on the right hand of God as Man, in Him dwells the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. Just one Man is there in Glory. But oh! what it
means! He is the Head of His body, the church and in the future all
His redeemed people will possess glorified bodies, like unto His
glorious body. No wonder the enemy ever aims at the denial of the
Lord's bodily presence. From many pulpits it is declared to be "too
material." The denial of this great truth, the _Man_ in glory, is a
denial of the entire Gospel. It is at this the enemy strikes.
As the glorified Man on the Father's throne He is waiting till His
enemies are made His footstool. This does not mean, as so many
believe and teach, that the Lord Jesus Christ is waiting till His
enemies are gradually overcome, till the church on earth succeeds in
converting the whole world. It does not mean that. His enemies will
be made His footstool in a far different way. It will be a sudden
event. All His enemies will be humbled, all things will be subjected
under His feet at the time of His second Coming. As there was an
appointed time by the Father for His first Coming, so is there an
appointed time for His second Coming, when the power of God and His
own power will triumph over all His enemies. As He is in His
redemptive work subject to the Father, therefore is He waiting for
that hour. Then the Father will bring in the firstbegotten into the
world (Heb. i:6) and He will receive the nations for His inheritance
(Psalm ii).
He is waiting for this great event. But He is also waiting for His
co-heirs, which constitute the church. The church, His body, must be
first completed as to numbers before the hour can come in which His
enemies are made His footstool.
He is patiently waiting for that moment. John speaks of that when he
calls himself "a companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and
_patience_ of Jesus Christ" (Rev. i:9). Centuries have come and gone
since He took that place upon the Father's throne, unseen by human
eyes, and during all this time, while the calling out of the church
proceeded, He has waited patiently. Some day His waiting will come
to an end. His church will be completed and then He Himself arises
from His seat and descends to that place in the air, where He will
meet His own, for whom His loving heart yearns so much. What a
moment that will be at last! Then His waiting as well as His
patience will be ended and He will receive His kingdom and be
crowned Lord of lords and King of kings. No longer will He then be
unseen, but His Glory will flash out of heaven and He Himself will
be manifested in Glory. Then the world can reject Him no longer but
must accept His righteous rule in which His redeemed people will
share. What child of God does not wish this to be soon, very soon.
Oh that we might cry more earnestly, more in the Spirit, yes,
incessantly, "Come Lord Jesus."
But while He waits and the hour has not yet come we must wait as He
waits on the throne. To the Thessalonians who had listened to
teachers who judaized the blessed hope, fearing they were facing the
day of the Lord with its tribulation and wrath, the Apostle wrote:
"And the Lord direct your hearts in the love of God, and into the
patient waiting for Christ" (2 Thess. iii:5). But we must not only
wait patiently _for_ Him but also wait _with_ Him. He is the
rejected One. The world cast Him out. As the rejected One He waits
in patience for the hour of His triumph and His Glory. This place of
rejection is our greatest privilege to share. And where is He more
rejected than in that which calls itself by His Name! To bear His
reproach in these closing days of this present age is our blessed
opportunity. To suffer with Him, if not for Him, should be that for
which our hearts should long, yea, pray. And we will be glad to be
rejected with Him, to be nothing at this present time, to have
fellowship with His sufferings, if He as the patient waiting Lord is
ever before our hearts.
At the close of the one hundred and tenth psalm stands a word, which
we should also remember.
"He shall drink of the brook in the way,
Therefore shall He lift up the head."
It has puzzled many readers what this saying might mean. It speaks
to our hearts of His humiliation and exaltation. One thinks at once
of the three hundred of Gideon and how they stooped down to drink.
The brook is the type of death. He drank of the brook in the way.
His way was from Glory to Glory, and between were His sufferings.
And, therefore, He shall lift up the head. Wherefore, God has highly
exalted Him. May we all, dear readers, follow in His path and suffer
with Him; ere long in His triumph and glory we shall triumph and
glory.
"And if children then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with
Christ; if so be we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified
together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are
not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in
us" (Rom. viii:17-18).
A Vision of the King.
ONE of the most blessed occupations for the believer is the
prayerful searching of God's holy Word to discover there new glories
and fresh beauties of Him, who is altogether lovely. Shall we ever
find out all which the written Word reveals of Himself and His
worthiness? This wonderful theme can never be exhausted. The heart
which is devoted to Him and longs through the presence and
indwelling of the Holy Spirit to be closer to the Lord, to hear and
know more of Himself, will always find something new and precious.
The Holy Spirit can do this and reveals to our hearts from the
inexhaustible Word of God the Glory of Him, whom to exalt the Spirit
has come. Much depends on how we desire just Himself. And Christ
alone and the heart knowledge of Himself can satisfy the believer,
who has His life and is one Spirit with the Lord
"O Christ Thou art enough
The heart to satisfy."
Soon we shall see Him, whom we contemplate now in faith. Soon we
shall be in His own glorious presence and look upon that face, which
was once marred and smitten, but which now shines out Heaven's and
the Father's Glory.
The kingly Glory of our blessed Lord is one of the great themes of
the Bible. The Man of humiliation, who here on earth walked in
dependence on God, who did His will, suffered and died is now in the
Father's presence and on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
There He sat down with His Father in His throne, waiting for the
moment when His work as the Priest and Advocate of His beloved
people on earth is accomplished, and when the Father will establish
Him as King, when He will receive the kingdom. Alas! that all this
glory, which belongs to Him and which is still future, His Kingship,
His kingly glory and rule, as it must be some day, is so unknown and
even disowned in Christendom. It is but the uncovering of the
condition of the heart of the great majority of professing
Christians. They may talk of religion, of great reform movements, of
service to mankind, world progress, but the Christ of God in all His
Glory, past, present and future, has little attraction. Far
different it is with the heart which knows Him and has given Him the
place He is worthy of, the first place. That heart delights to
meditate on all His Glory and longs for the time when He will
appear, and when at last, crowned with many crowns, He will assume
His righteous rule. Great is our joy and delight when we follow
through the Scriptures His earthly life so full of His moral Glory.
Or when we think of Him as He died for us and bore in His own body
on the tree our sins; we praise Him for His mighty Love. But what
joy to think of Him as coming at last into that which belongs to Him
the Lord of Glory, by right of redemption, when He will take
possession of this earth and claim its Satan ruled kingdoms for His
own. Then it will be true, "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness
thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." Then the Seraph's
song will be realized, "The whole earth is full of His Glory."
How much the Word has to say about the King and His Glory; and we
have never yet taken hold of it with our dull hearts! Take the Book
of Psalms, for instance, that book which has been so belittled by
the destructive criticism. While we read so much in those precious
productions of the Holy Spirit of Christ's sufferings, His
humiliation, His prayers, His death, we may find there much more
about Him as King and His coming manifestation.