The Calling And Glory Of The
Church
As The Bride And Co-Heir With Christ
From "Eight Lectures on Prophecy"
Glory may be said to be the manifestation of excellence.
Gold is precious, even in the ore. But the glory of it is not discerned till it
has passed through the crucible and been separated from all the baser elements
which were mingled with it. The sun is the fountain of light and heat to this
whole system, even when clouds interpose and obscure its brightness; but when
the clouds have passed away, and it shines forth in all its majesty and
strength, then we see its glory.
Whatever may constitute, in
millennial times, the manifested glories of Christ, they will all be found to
be but the display of what He is now and of what faith now knows Him to be. It
is only by faith that we can discern these glories now, but it will surely be
found that each glory to be manifested then is but the display of some
excellence residing in this blessed person, or in one or other of the offices
He sustains.
Alas! How the heart stops short of entering by faith into
the contemplation of these wondrous and varied glories of Christ! Would that we
knew them better by the teaching of the Comforter, whose office it is to
glorify Christ, by taking of His and showing it unto us!
The Glories Of Christ
We have been seeing how
Christ will "reign in Mount Zion and before His ancients gloriously." In what
character does He possess this glory which will then be displayed? It is as the
Son of David. Faith knows Him to be the Son of David now - the One of whom it
was said by the angel to his virgin mother, "He shall be great and shall be
called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne
of His father David; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of
His kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:32-33).
What do we
understand by this? A person once told me seriously that his idea of those who
held pre-millennial views was that we believed the identical chair of state in
which David sat - his literal throne - to be still somewhere in existence, and
that in the millennium it would be occupied by Christ! I should not have
ventured even to seem to trifle with the subject, and with your feelings, by
repeating such a statement as this had it not been made to me by an intelligent
person, a minister of Christ. One need not, of course, disclaim such a thought.
But, if they be such ideas of pre-millennial doctrines as these that
lead our brethren to reject them; if this be what they understand by the
personal reign, denouncing it, as they do, as a carnal expectation - why, then,
on the one hand, we cannot be surprised at their opposition. On the other hand,
it is to be regretted that they take no better pains to inform themselves what
pre-millennial doctrines are.
And what is meant in Scripture (for it
is Scripture language, not ours) by Christ sitting on the throne of David?
Surely it means that He is to exercise the authority once entrusted to David;
that He is to rule over the nations of which David was king and lord. He is "of
the seed of David according to the flesh." He was born "King of the Jews." And
where Peter, speaking of the resurrection of Christ, quotes from David’s
words in Psalm 16, he thus explains them: "Therefore being a prophet, and
knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins,
according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he,
seeing this before, spoke of the resurrection of Christ" (Acts 2:30-31). So far
from the death and resurrection of Christ setting aside His title and His
claims as the Son of David, it was in resurrection that this title was to be
verified, these claims fulfilled.
But Christ has higher glories than
that of being David’s royal Son and Heir. He is the seed of Abraham; and
there were promises to Abraham of wider scope than those made to David. It was
promised to Abraham "that he should be the heir of the world" (Romans 4:13).
"In your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 22:18).
We surely know who the seed of Abraham is. "He says not, And to seeds, as of
many; but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ" (Galatians 3:16). As
the seed of David, He is to inherit David’s royal dominion; but, as the
seed of Abraham, all nations, yes, all the families of the earth, are to be
blessed in Him.
But Christ has higher glories yet. He is the Son of
man, the second Adam; and, as such, He inherits all the dominion entrusted to
the first Adam but forfeited by his sin. "And God said, `Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and
over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth’" (Genesis 1:26).
Such was the dominion over this whole lower creation that was confided to the
first Adam.
By his sin, as we all know, this was forfeited. But was it
lost, never to be regained? No; to man it was entrusted, and by man shall it
yet be exercised in full blessedness and glory. One of the Psalms takes up this
point, as you will remember, bringing in the fact that there is a "Son of man"
to whom this place of universal power and authority pertains. "What is man,
that you are mindful of him and the son of man, that you visit him? For you
have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory
and honour. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You
have put all things under his feet - all sheep and oxen, yes, and the beasts of
the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatever passes
through the paths of the sea." And then, as marking the period in which this
prophecy will have its fulfilment, the Psalm ends as it begins, with "O Lord,
our Lord, how excellent is your name in ALL THE EARTH!" (8:4-9).
In
Hebrews 2, we have this very passage quoted by the apostle and applied to our
blessed Lord. "For unto the angels has he not put in subjection the world to
come, whereof we speak" (v. 5). By the expression "world to come," most people
understand the state of disembodied spirits after death. But there is no such
thought as this in the passage. It is literally, as all scholars agree, "the
habitable earth to come." In the coming age, or dispensation, the earth is not
put in subjection to angels, but to man. "But one in a certain place testified,
saying, 'What is man,'" - the passage just quoted from the eighth Psalm.
"But now," says the apostle, "we see not yet all things put under him"
(v. 8). It is the purpose of God that all things shall be, but we see not yet
the accomplishment thereof. But what do we see? "But we see Jesus, who was made
a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory
and honour that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man" (v.
9). Part of the divine purpose is fulfilled. Jesus is personally crowned with
glory and honour; but He awaits, at the right hand of God, the arrival of the
time when all things shall be subjected to His sway. He is yet to inherit, as
the second Adam, all the glory of the dominion entrusted to the first but
forfeited by his fall.
But while it is as Son of man that He inherits
all this glory it is as the rejected Son of man as having died and risen again,
that He actually takes it. This accounts for the passage just quoted going so
far beyond Ps. 8. We do indeed read there, "Who has set your glory above the
heavens;" but here we find the Son of man himself in heaven crowned with glory
and honour.
There are deeper wonders, too, of His blessed person
disclosed in connection with all this. Christ has a higher glory than any we
have been contemplating. He is more than the Son of David, more than the Son of
Abraham, more than the Son of man. He is the Son of God - the brightness of His
Father’s glory and the express image of His person. We shall see directly
that the very first mention of "the Church" in Scripture is connected with the
confession of this highest, divine, essential glory residing in the person of
Christ as Son of God.
But surely we need to remember here that we
tread on holy ground. Turn to Philippians 2:6-11 where we read of Christ Jesus,
"who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God."
What follows? The announcement that He "made himself of no reputation, and took
upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and, being
found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross."
First, as God, He humbled himself to
become man. Then, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself still
lower, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. What ensues?
"Wherefore" - because of His having thus humbled himself - "God also has highly
exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and
things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Now, here is a glory
conferred on Christ that surpasses all that we have been glancing at. And it is
to Him, in this highest place of given glory, that the Church is united. You
will not mistake me. I am not affirming that we are associated with His
essential Godhead glory. To affirm that would be blasphemy. Such glory He can
share with no one. "He gives not," in this sense, "His glory to another." Nor
am I affirming that we shall participate in receiving the adoration to be
rendered by every knee to that blessed name - "the name of JESUS."
No;
yet it is to Him as in this His highest place of given glory - the glory
conferred on Him, not as the Son of David, not as the Son of Abraham, nor
simply as the Son of man, but as the One who, being God, the Son of the Father,
humbled himself to become the Son of man; and not only so, but to become
obedient unto death, the death of the cross - it is to Him, in the place of
glory conferred upon Him as the reward of this His wondrous, infinite
condescension, that the Church is united. She is associated with Him thus as
head, sovereign, ruler over all things.
The
Church’s Union With Christ
Turn to Ephesians 1, where the
apostle prays for the Ephesian believers to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory. "That you may know what is the hope of His calling, and
what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the
exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of
His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead
and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all
principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And He has put all
things under His feet and made Him to be the Head over all things TO THE
CHURCH, WHICH IS HIS BODY, the fulness of Him that fills all in all."
The Church is the body, the fulness of Him whom God has thus raised
from the dead and set at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above
all powers, all things being put under His feet. And, as His body, the Church
is associated with Him in this place of wondrous, highest glory. God "gave Him
to be Head over all things to the Church, which is His body."
The One
who went down into the dust of death, having first stooped from the throne of
the Eternal to become man that He might go down into death, is the One whom God
has raised from the dead to put all things under His feet - all things in
heaven, and in earth, and under the earth. God has thus given Him to be Head
over all things "to the Church." It is not here that He is Head of the Church.
That is true likewise, blessed be God! But here He is presented as "head over
all things to the Church, which is His body." His body, the Church, is thus
associated with His glory in this headship over all things.
Let us now
turn to John 17. You will observe that, in this chapter, our Lord is praying to
the Father as the One who had come forth from the Father and could speak of the
glory that He had with the Father before the world was. But He had veiled that
glory in flesh and blood. In the human nature that He had thus assumed, He had
glorified the Father on the earth. He is here in spirit beyond the cross; for
He speaks of having finished the work that His Father had given Him to do.
He prays for His disciples, and not for them only but for all who
should believe on Him through their word. So that prayer of Jesus embraces us,
my brethren, as much as the disciples of that day. It is surely through their
word we have believed on Jesus. Well, for all such Jesus prays, "that they all
may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one
in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me." Now mark the next
words: "And the glory that you gave me, I have given them, that they may be
one, even as we are one - I in them and you in me, that they may be made
perfect in one. And that the world may know that you have sent me and have
loved them, as you have loved me."
There is a glory that the Father
has given to Jesus, and which Jesus has given to the Church. By this glory,
which the Church thus shares with Jesus, the world is to know in millennial
times that the Father has loved the Church even as He loves His own Son. When
the world shall see the Church in the same glory with Christ, they will know
that she has been loved with the same love. And when is it that the world shall
see us in the same glory with Jesus? "When Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory" (Colossians 3:4).
It is the Church alone that is privileged to know and confess the
humiliation of God’s only-begotten Son, while His glory is yet hidden from
the view of the world. Saints before the incarnation of Christ could not own
Him thus, for He had not then taken flesh. Saints after the return of Christ
cannot own Him thus, for then His glory will be manifested. It will neither be
veiled as when He was here on earth, nor hidden as now while He is at the right
hand of God. But those who, during the period of His humiliation and rejection,
have been led to know and to confess Him as the Son of God, form the body, the
Church. This is a body that is associated with Him in that highest place in
heaven as well as on earth - which is His reward for having humbled himself
from such infinite glory to such depths of sorrow and of shame.
Christ - The Foundation Of The Church
I have said that the first mention of the Church in Scripture is connected with
the confession of Christ as the Son of God. It is in Matthew 16. Our Lord asks,
"Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" And they said, "Some say that you
are John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the
prophets." No one knew Him. Even in His lesser glories, as the Son of David and
the seed of Abraham, no one by nature knew Him or acknowledged Him. "But whom
do you say that I am?," our Lord enquires. This draws from Peter the
confession, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
He does
not merely say, You are the Christ. Blessed confession this, as a Jew, of the
One who was the Messiah promised to Israel. But he goes on. "You are the
Christ, the Son of the living God" - the living God. His faith embraces the
whole compass and blessed fulness of the truth as to the person of Jesus. He
evidently lays emphasis on the word "living" - the Son of the living God!
What is our Lord’s reply? "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jona; for
flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you, but my Father which is in heaven.
And I say also unto you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
Romanists
say that Peter is the rock on which Christ declared He would build His Church.
But the heart that has been taught of God to join in Peter’s confession
needs no arguments to prove that "this rock" means not Peter but the blessed
One himself, whom Peter had just declared to be "the Christ, the Son of the
living God." He himself, known and confessed, not as the Son of David merely,
or the Son of Abraham, or the Son of man, but as the Son of the living God, was
the rock on which the Church was to be built. And the gates of hell (or hades)
were not to prevail against it.
The word here rendered "hell" is not
gehenna, the place of torment for the wicked, but hades, the place or state of
separate souls. It is evidently used here as expressive of the power of death
in contrast with Peter’s confession of Christ as the Son of the living
God. The Church is founded on that which is beyond the reach or the power of
death - even on the Son of the living God. With such a foundation, how could
the gates of hades prevail against it?
Observe, too, it is "upon this
rock I will build my Church." It is not "upon this rock I have built," or "upon
this rock I am building," but "upon this rock I will build my church." The work
was still a future one when our Lord spake. He was presented to Israel as their
Messiah, but they knew Him not. There were those, indeed, whose hearts, like
Peter’s, grace had touched, but they discerned Him in a better glory, "the
glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." In this
character, and as known in this character, He was to be the foundation of the
Church.
But, before He could build it, He must pass through death. Of
this He immediately goes on to speak in the passage we are considering. "From
that time forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples how that He must go unto
Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes
and be killed, and be raised again the third day."
Peter having
confessed Him as the Son of the living God, He declares that upon this rock He
will build His Church. When is the question which here seems to be supposed;
and the answer is, "I must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things, and be
killed, and be raised again the third day" All this must be accomplished before
the building of the Church can commence.
There is a passage of deepest
interest as to this in John 11. Caiaphas had said, "It is expedient for us that
one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not."
"This," we are told, "spoke he not of himself; but, being high priest that
year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that
nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the children of God
that were scattered abroad."
It was for the nation of Israel He died;
and so all the blessing of the earth, when the nation is the centre of rule and
of blessing in the millennial kingdom, will flow from the efficacy of His
death. But it was not for that nation only; it was also to gather together in
one the children of God that were scattered abroad. There were children of God,
but they were scattered abroad. To gather them together was the immediate
object of the death of Christ. And what was this gathering together of the
children of God? It was the formation of the Church. It was the joining
together of the, till then, separate, isolated stones by building them upon the
foundation - the Son of the living God.
But in order to do this, He
must die. Sin must be put away by His one sacrifice before saved sinners can be
built together for a habitation of God. The foundation, indeed, is the Son of
the living God, but it was not as incarnate merely, but as having died and
risen again, that He was actually to become the foundation of the Church.
He must be declared to be the Son of God, and that was by resurrection.
He "was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be
the Son of God, with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the
resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:3-4). It is not only on Christ as the Son
of the living God that the Church is built as a foundation; but, before He
actually became the foundation of the Church, He had passed through death
atoningly.
In His resurrection, He had set it aside, "abolished" it
(see 2 Timothy 1:10); and having ascended into heaven, the Holy Ghost having
come down by virtue of His work and in answer to His prayer (see John 14:16),
the Church was formed by His uniting into one body, with Christ in glory, all
who believed in His name. "For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body,
whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all
made to drink into one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13).
If, then, we are
thus one with Him who is the Son of the living God, and who has passed through
death and set it aside, how can the gates of hades prevail against the Church?
The Church’s Heavenly Calling
Let us now, for a moment, return to the Epistle to the
Ephesians. We have seen Israel’s calling is to temporal blessings in
earthly places, even in the land promised to their fathers. But what are our
blessings, as set forth in this epistle? "Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ."
In heavenly places, not a heavenly frame of mind, as
many understand this passage. That would surely be included in spiritual
blessings. But we are taught what the region is in which we are thus blessed
with all spiritual blessings; it is in heavenly places.
Let me ask
you, my brethren, where is the Lord Jesus Christ? Where is the risen and
glorified Son of man? Is He not in heaven, literally and actually in heaven?
And is it not in this very chapter that we are told of "the exceeding greatness
of God’s power to us who believe, according to the working of His mighty
power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and set Him
at His own right hand in the heavenly places"? This is exactly the same
expression as in verse 3: "Blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places."
Our place is where He is, at the right hand of God. Our
portion, treasure, inheritance - our life, our peace, our joy - in a word, our
blessings, are all there. "Blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ." We are the body of Him who actually sits there; and, vitally
united with Him by the Holy Ghost, faith reckons - even as God accounts - His
place to be our place in Him.
In the beginning of Ephesians 2 we have
a glance at what our natural condition is - "dead in trespasses and sins." Then
in verse 4: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He
loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with
Christ" - given us one life with Him whom He raised from the dead "(by grace
are you saved) and has raised us up together and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
For what end is this? That all the
nations of the earth may see how happy a thing it is to be under the government
of the Prince of peace? No; that is the object of Israel’s calling. But
why are we thus raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places
in Christ? It is "that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches
of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."
Then in
chapter 3, we find that there is even a present display to those in heaven.
"God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the
principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known BY THE CHURCH the
manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in
Christ Jesus our Lord" (3:9-10). It is God’s eternal purpose that even now
unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places - and in the ages to come
to all - shall be exhibited, by means of the Church, His manifold wisdom, and
the exceeding riches of His grace. May our hearts enter more fully through
grace into this stupendous design!
The apostle proceeds, in Ephesians
2, to show that, instead of the distinction between Jew and Gentile being
maintained in the Church, it is entirely obliterated. It is not that the
Gentiles are brought into blessing, as they will be in the millennium, in a
place subordinate to that of the Jews, but that both Jews and Gentiles are
brought out of their natural state and position altogether into vital union
with Christ in glory.
"Wherefore, remember, that formerly you who are
Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called
the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time you were without
Christ." Christ was of Israel according to the flesh, but the Gentiles
sustained no such relationship to Him - "being aliens from the commonwealth of
Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and
without God in the world." Such was our condition as Gentiles. God was the God
of Israel, and they had the hope of their Messiah’s coming to fulfil all
the promises made to their fathers. "But now, in Christ Jesus, you who
sometimes were far off are made near by the blood of Christ."
How
near? So near as to be servants of Israel - their ploughmen and gardeners, as
the Gentiles will be in millennial times? Is that our place? Are we the
favoured ploughmen and gardeners of the more favoured nation of God’s
choice, Israel on the earth? Hear what the apostle says. "For He (Christ) is
our peace, who has made both (Jews and Gentiles who believe) one, and has
broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His
flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances. His
purpose was to make in himself one new man out of two, so making peace, and in
this one body that He might reconcile both unto God by the cross, having slain
their enmity."
Can any thing be plainer than what we are here taught?
We are not brought into that place of subjection to Israel that will belong to
the spared nations of the earth in millennial times. We are not brought into
the position that Israel itself will then occupy. No, but we are brought into
one immeasurably higher and more blessed than either.
The Jew, with all
his privileges is by nature dead in sins. The outcast far-off Gentile is but in
the same condition before God. What has God in His grace done for us both? Rich
in mercy, He has quickened us, whether Jews or Gentiles, together with Christ.
He has brought the Jew out of his natural position as a Jew, and the Gentile
out of his natural position as a Gentile, and brought both into the entirely
new and wondrous position of being the body of the heavenly glorified man - of
Him who, being in the form of God, and thinking it not robbery to be equal with
God, humbled himself to the death of the cross.
He has now, as His
reward for this, a name which is above every name - the name of JESUS - at
which name, indeed, the Church herself bows the adoring knee; but He is also
"Head over all things," and we are His body. He died, as we have seen, to make
in himself one new man out of two. There is a new, mystic man; of which Christ
in glory is the Head, and of which all who believe during the period of its
formation are members. And this is the sense in which we are said to be "the
fulness of Him that fills all in all."
All my members are the fulness,
or complement, which constitute my body. If a joint of my little finger were
wanting, I should not be a complete man. Thus is the Church the fulness, the
complement, of this new, heavenly man. Christ in glory is the Head, and in all
things He has the pre-eminence. But the feeblest saint is essential to the
completeness of the body. The head (and we know who that is) cannot say to the
feet, I have no need of you. (See 1 Corinthians 12:21.) Hence, in Ephesians 4,
the gifts are said to be bestowed "for the perfecting of the saints, for the
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come
in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a
perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (4:13)"
It is not "till we all come to be perfect men;" no, but till we all
come unto "a perfect man;" that is, until the body, the bride of Christ, be
completed. It was for this that Jesus died.
"Husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that He
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He
might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or
any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians
5:25-27). Wondrous truth! "He that loves his wife loves himself. For no man
ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord
the Church; for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones."
"This is a great mystery," says the apostle, "but I speak concerning Christ and
the Church."
There is that in the relationship between Christ and the
Church which is deeper and more blessed than the highest glory. Glory, as we
have seen with regard with regard to Christ himself, is displayed excellence.
But are there not beauties and delights in Jesus, for the heart taught and
enabled of the Holy Ghost to enjoy Him which cannot be displayed? Oh yes!
And if the Church be indeed the bride, the Lamb’s wife, can it be
her highest pleasure and delight that she shares all the given glory that
displays the excellence of her Bridegroom and Lord? Surely there are reciprocal
affections pertaining to that relationship which cannot be exhibited - a
fellowship of spirit, a union of heart, a mutual joy in the other, perfectly
ineffable.
Into this we are called by faith, through the power of the
Holy Ghost, to enter even now. But, if we do speak of glory, what is her glory?
All the given glory of her Head. Specially associated with Him in that which is
His highest given glory, what is there of His that can be communicated or
shared in which she will not partake? Ask you, what is the bride’s
portion?
Her title declares her participation in all that constitutes
the inheritance of the Bridegroom. Here it is we see the surpassing glory of
the Church. There is nothing like it in heaven or in earth, save the glory of
Him by union with whom it is she inherits it, and who in all things has the
pre-eminence. It is by union with Him that we receive this portion. This
explains what would not otherwise be understood.
Suppose a certain
king, the monarch of wide domains, should pass by all the several ranks of
nobility in his empire and choose for his bride and the partner of his throne
one who, by birth and parentage and condition, was immeasurably beneath them
all. Inferior to them as in herself she is, the moment she becomes, by his
sovereign choice, the monarch’s bride, she takes her place by his side,
and all others rank beneath her.
Well, what are we, beloved brethren,
in ourselves? Poor, wretched sinners, dead in trespasses and sins. Where has
sovereign grace placed us? In living union, as His body, His bride, with the
One whom God has raised from the dead, and set at His own right hand in
heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion,
and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is
to come!
Yes, God has put all things under His feet and given Him to
be Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him
that fills all in all! And to think that most of those who form this body are
poor sinners of the Gentiles! Surely the crumbs which have fallen to us, poor
Gentile dogs, prove to be a far richer portion than the children’s bread!
Would that our hearts were more conversant with these blessed
realities! How dull and unattractive does all earthly glory seem in the light
of this glory that excels! And how may we reckon, with the apostle, that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory
that shall be revealed in us! God grant us thus to know, and thus to estimate,
the place of blessing and of joy in which He has set us, in union with Christ,
at His right hand!