THE FUTURE GLORY OF THIS SONSHIP IS THE GREATEST. We are not to think that this transforming process belongs only to the life beyond. If this earth of ours be all, how can we close our eyes to that nightmare? Let us give ourselves to this thought for awhile. Check out these helpful resources Biblical Commentary Childern’s Sermons Hymn Lists. We shall never see our Saviour under His Father's displeasure; but we shall see Him honoured by His Father's smile. Now all that we can learn of what we shall be here after is to be sought here and now, in our human lot, amid our fellows, in our common brotherhood. Not yet, but the root of what we shall be hereafter is here embodied in the soul. A young prince, stolen away in childhood from his father's palace, and brought up amidst unworthy surroundings, has been recovered and brought back again. There will be no difficulty in recognising our unfolding of His life in the future. Holiness now is clothed with beauty. We must begin by knowing Him spiritually as the source of pardon and purity — commencing a new life within, which goes forward, strengthening and rising — a life of which heaven is not the reward, but the natural and necessary continuation. To look on one we love brings a measure of similitude, and looking on Christ, even here, however dimly we may see Him, produces a degree of likeness. We cannot, must not, see Him as He was; nor do we wish, for we have a larger promise, "We shall see Him as He is."1. This is high probability; the Christian faith makes it a certainty. This natural history should open our minds to the possibility of a like spiritual history. In this life we feel after God, as it were, in the dark, we trace Him out by the foot steps of infinite power and wisdom, we see Him in His works but not in Himself; but when we commence angel life this veil shall be taken away, then we shall be no longer under the pedagogy of types and shadows but admitted into the immediate possession of original truth.II. Moses himself asked that he might see God. It was the look of another, the face of another, that had passed into hers. I have made you children of God. Who knows what is going on in secret behind those very failures in others which most provoke us? And if this is so there is hope. But in these transfigurations there are contrasts as well as analogies. )The spirituality of the beatific visionW. Here, too, how dimly we see Christ! But we leave the thought with you, and lest you should think that if you are not worthy you will not see Him — if you are not good you will not see Him — if you do not do such-and-such good things you will not see Him — let me just tell you, whosoever, though he be the greatest sinner under heaven — whosoever, though his life be the most filthy and the most corrupt — whosoever believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ shall have everlasting life; for God will blot out his sins, will give him righteousness through Jesus, accept him in the beloved, save him by His mercy, keep him by His grace, and at last present Him spotless and faultless before His presence with exceeding great joy.(C. Our political fabric is to us precious and sacred. We shall not bow before Him with trembling, but it will be with joy; we shall not shake at His presence, but rejoice with joy unspeakable. Our likeness to God in the purity of our souls is necessary to make us capable of the blessed sight and enjoyment of Him in the next life. Scripture: John 3:31–36. Having such dignities and glories as He wears: kings, priests, conquerors, judges, sons of God.IV. III. What is the explanation of that perfect likeness? Having a body like His body: sinless, incorruptible, painless, spiritual, clothed with beauty and power, and yet most real and true.2. (Jeremiah 1:4-5; Luke 1:13-17) And what a d Shall God give to the frail, mute, unreasoning weaklings of the animal creation around us the power of assimilating themselves to the hues of their environments, so as the better to equip them for a life which is but a short spasm of sensations, and shall He deny the benefit of that catholic law to us who have come to the assembly and church of the firstborn, and to an innumerable company of angels, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, so that we may be transformed and fitted for the high distinction that is before us? I see no reason to doubt this — that great changes are still to go on in us under the transforming power of Christ. We cannot look with sympathy upon His moral loveliness here, or with worship upon His glorious majesty hereafter, without realising some amazing approximation to His likeness.6. We may be sure that God has not put all the wonders of His creation into our early physical life, and left the moral life bare and fixed. "Oh, blessed vision! Having a body like His body: sinless, incorruptible, painless, spiritual, clothed with beauty and power, and yet most real and true.2. Here no suggestion of that vast society in heaven exhausts its meaning. The manner of our seeing God in this life is either by a long train of consequences, by climbing up gradually from the effects to the cause, from the things that are made to the invisible things of the Maker, even His eternal power and Godhead; or by way of eminence, by inferring that the perfections we see in the creatures must of necessity centre all more eminently in the Creator; or negatively, by denying everything of God we conceive unbecoming the Divine nature, for at present we rather know what God is not than what He is; or else we see Him by faith, by believing upon the testimony He has given us of Himself by Moses and the prophets, Christ and His apostles. Hereditary qualities take the lead, and the character moves on in their direction. Place man in any earthly situation; give him wealth, give him power, give him honour, pleasure, all that the world can afford; still there will be a void within, still he will travail in pain, and look and sigh after enjoyments which the fleeting objects of time and sense can never afford him. "We shall see Him as He is," and pass at once into the distinctions of His sovereignty. Sometimes they will question his motives, and set him down as hypocritical, or fanatical, or as seeking his own advantage under pretence of regard for the glory of God. To some persons He is a mere man. Christ had drawn him out of his old, worldly, natural self up into this high sense and relation, so that he could say, "Now, I am a son of God" — a tremendous change, the greatest a human being can undergo. But then, seeing everything in God, we shall be affected only as God is affected; we shall love one another for our relation and likeness to Him only, and as we are members of Christ united and informed by the same Spirit, which will be both the bond of our union and the cause of our love. But we who believe that this life is at its best but a germ, a start, a discipline, can afford to broaden our hope beyond all our seeing. (2)He will be manifest in perfect happiness. The nervous system seems curiously responsive to the environment, and accommodates itself to the forms and hues that predominate in it, In a stream near Ivybridge, into which white clay was poured, the fish soon became perceptibly lighter in colour. THE APPREHENSION THAT WE SHOULD HAVE OF IT FOR THE PRESENT — "we know."1. Quick as the kindling of light His exalted humanity will implant itself in us. First, the Holy Spirit is now given but in part, in proportion to the exigencies of a state of trial, and consequently our communion must be in part also; but in heaven, the place of reward, we shall all, to the utmost extent of our capacity, so be filled with all the fulness of God, and most perfectly joined to the ever-blessed Trinity in a most intimate, immediate, and ineffable union. The disciple himself — to put the opinion of the world aside — the disciple himself can only very dimly and imperfectly apprehend the future which lies before him. How degrading is a life of irreligion, a life spent in neglect of God and the soul; devoted to the cares and pursuits of the world! Now let it go. Christ not only so acts upon us as to conform us to His holy and exalted pattern now; when He comes again it shall be to reflect His glory into the persons of His believing followers.1. The Son creates them at once to new majesty as He once created worlds, for His power is dealing with an entirely obedient material, a material ruled by regenerated wills promptly and absolutely responsive to His sovereignty. We are His children even now. And it also seeks to produce them. Now by seeing God we are not to conceive a bare intuitive knowledge only of the Divine essence, but a vision most lively and operative, warmed with all the affections of the heart, and an entire conformity of our wills to the will of God. Our minds often revert to Christ as He was, and as such we have desired to see Him. He is now, most plainly, but in the infancy of his being. The body soon decays. One thing is sure, the gospel of Jesus Christ does not leave us alone with a law of heredity, and the bare hope that we may become confirmed in goodness; it opens before us a vista of endless growth and change. "Amidst all the mistakes on the part of the world we are nevertheless really now the children of God," however unworthy we may appear and however little we may be appreciated. The lily life is subject to hostile climate, and hence is imperfect. (Canon Scott Holland. The deep mental impressions of the mother often infix themselves legibly upon the young life she brings into the world. Brother, with snow upon thy head, wilt thou "see Him as He is"? But are thy grey hairs full of sin? This process is not human and ethical only. If selfish or lustful or proud, these qualities tend simply to go on and harden into fixed form. Let me stop here always. Thus it is that Christ is to all men either their Saviour or their Judge. Spurgeon. Oh! This will be the result of our being like Him.3. What is the explanation of that perfect likeness? And plainly there is much force in the argument. G. There is personal identity. The organisation passes through plastic stages of sensibility, in which it is peculiarly susceptible to the imprint of any new object that may be presented to it. We are His children even now. I answer — there is between light and likeness a circular generation, as there is in most moral things; and on the one side it may be said we shall be like Him, therefore we shall see Him as He is, and also on the other side, as in the text, "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." In the same way that life develops: "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory." 3. If selfish or lustful or proud, these qualities tend simply to go on and harden into fixed form. We shall be sure it is He; for when we enter heaven we shall know Him by His manhood and Godhead. I can never forget the dramatic intensity of her manner as she told me all this, and how she at last had to drag herself away, as from a vision, and to stumble down the stairs again. Here, too, how distantly we see Christ! The limit of physical development may be reached, but the mental and moral development may go on long after, and, for aught we know, forever, and the fact that we draw our life from God makes it probable that it will be so. Shall this mysterious law work through our fears and terrors, and conform us to the disease of which we may think and work towards death, and shall it not also operate through hope and admiration and worship, and assimilate us to the ideal of health, and be fruitful for glory and honour and immortality? Hereditary qualities take the lead, and the character moves on in their direction. We cannot look with sympathy upon His moral loveliness here, or with worship upon His glorious majesty hereafter, without realising some amazing approximation to His likeness.6. I do not refer to the everyday manifestations of God — the sunlight, the blessed order of nature, the daily food and daily joy of home, but to those occasions when life becomes momentous, when it gathers itself up in a crisis and all is changed for us. To believe in future change is very different from believing in past change. Interactive Bible study with John Piper . bitter, bitter thought that just now crossed my soul! Our minds often revert to Christ as He was, and as such we have desired to see Him. Hawes, D. D.)The manifestations of ChristG. R. Cocke, D. D.)The blessed vision of ChristQuoted by Dr. Oh, let me be unquiet till I shall see Thee as I am seen! There is such a sense of disappointment when we, perhaps, have succeeded in obtaining a goal, and then have to discover that the moment the end is touched it has already begun to change, to move, to go further. PERSONAL IDENTITY. In ways unknown to us these assimilative forces work deep down amidst the elemental mysteries of life. Sheathe the sword; the battle's won.II. We are even now in conditions in which we are being attracted more or less swiftly into the image of Christ's spiritual loveliness, but ere long we shall be attracted into conformity to the unknown splendour which invests the humanity enshrined and enthroned in the highest heaven.5. The premonitions of our future are afforded by the nature of —(1) Our present states. Yet more. We shall be sure it is He; for when we enter heaven we shall know Him by His manhood and Godhead. "We shall see Him as He is."3. But if society is capable of such transformations, much more must the individual be capable of them. St. John doubtless had in mind the effect of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Let us not think meagrely on such a subject, but under high analogies. Sometimes, too, the true Christian is misunderstood. How far this may affect our views we cannot say. 2. The deep mental impressions of the mother often infix themselves legibly upon the young life she brings into the world. and doth lust tarry in thy old cold blood? It may be good or evil fortune, the birth or death of love, a loss or a gain; all such things are revelations of God, for God is in our lives and not outside of them; but when He thus appears it is for purposes of transformation. Questions and answers with John Piper. Ah! (2) In the first transfiguration the Spirit is the agent of the change; in the second the ministry of the Spirit is superseded, or at least falls into the background. When we see Christ here, we see Him to our profit; when we see Him there, we shall see Him to our perfection. Holiness now is clothed with beauty. Things are placed in a course of progression even now.II. "Amidst all the mistakes on the part of the world we are nevertheless really now the children of God," however unworthy we may appear and however little we may be appreciated. The monks of Mount Athos hypnotise themselves into trance conditions by gazing at their own bodies. I begin with the perfection of our knowledge. It is the same one. )Life and character in GodA. Have you never stood upon the hilltops when the mist has played on the valley? How, then, shall we not turn to this poor life of ours with hope, with zeal, with tenderness, with love; how shall we not clasp it tight and fast, and cling about it, and busy ourselves with its services? Under natural conditions character does not show a tendency to change its type or direction; it simply grows after its type, and sets steadily in its native direction and toward some permanent form. Then shall we know, not in part, not by wearisome steps and deductions, but clearly and all at once; we shall know in the same manner as God knows, that is, by His immediate self, for in Himself only can we see Him as He is, and in His infinite mind we shall see the hidden forms of His creatures and the ideas of all perfection. Now let it go. Christ had come into his life; and from a mere child of this world, a simple fisherman, he had been made a veritable son of God. The natural comes first, then the spiritual, but it is no less full of germinant seeds and possibilities than the natural. For here we see Him by reflection. But, Christians, there will be no hidings of faces in heaven! But if society is capable of such transformations, much more must the individual be capable of them. We shall never see Him thus; Bethlehem's glories are gone forever; Calvary's glooms are swept away; Gethsemane's scene is dissolved; and even Tabor's splendours are quenched in the past. All we can say is that the holy city of the saved world, the new Jerusalem of the perfected humanity, is slowly but steadily coming down from God out of heaven, and will in time appear four-square upon the earth. The life dawning in that birth mediated through the Spirit is alone susceptible of these sublime modifications and perfectings; and in the heavenly transfiguration there is the same parallel or analogy. (3) The present transfiguration is gradual, whilst the future is instantaneous. From the nature of our communion with God in heaven thus explained, I proceed more particularly to the blessed effects of it. We shall not bow before Him with trembling, but it will be with joy; we shall not shake at His presence, but rejoice with joy unspeakable. And therefore it begins with a call to regeneration. Man has a capacity for endless improvement in moral excellence or holiness. We’re on a mission to change that. There is rapture in devotion. God save thee! The Father Has Given All Things into Jesus’s Hands. The fruit is not here, but fruit may come hereafter in abundance out of those very failures which prune and curtail and sharply discipline us here. It is by the law of assimilation that men are bound together into homogeneous communities and nations.3. For if the ideal, if completion, is to be sought here on earth, then we know how despairing is our view of those who are born in thousands in dark and low dens, born out of the seed of sin, out of the fires of lust and of drink, born into a life that must be stricken and stunted, blind with ignorance and cursed with a loveless doom. We shall never see Him thus; Bethlehem's glories are gone forever; Calvary's glooms are swept away; Gethsemane's scene is dissolved; and even Tabor's splendours are quenched in the past. And therefore it implieth a more complete knowledge than now we have. We gain cheerfulness in the face of change and hope in face of base and bad tuition, and then we gain what is near akin to the last joy in the face of failure. 1. How it is the fruit of vision? but I want to see the Saviour, the Saviour of Calvary, the Saviour of Judea, the very one that died for me. We shall speak of our Lord's manifestation without doubt. "WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM." The common complaint that sinners must wait for the Spirit of God before they can feel the importance of religion is unfounded and impious. Lastly, from this perfection of knowledge will arise a perfect conformity of our wills and affections.(W. For here we see Him by reflection. "BUT WE KNOW THAT WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR."1. THE MODE OR MANNER OF THIS BEATIFIC VISION. As soon as we have understood one, and seen our way to its realisation, we see our way to another; each is but a fragment of the great kingdom to be. How, then, shall we not turn to this poor life of ours with hope, with zeal, with tenderness, with love; how shall we not clasp it tight and fast, and cling about it, and busy ourselves with its services? The one would have been astonishment, and horror would have succeeded it; but when we see Jesus as He is it will be astonishment without horror. H. That will guarantee the rest. Taking the order hitherto observed, we may think first of our material frame. if we ever see our Saviour, we shall know Him by His wounds. This natural history should open our minds to the possibility of a like spiritual history. (1)He will be manifest upon this earth in person. Here holy principle is imbibed and holy habit formed; but the scope and aim are always prospective. Thus I am summoned to new exercises of my nature. It is because of this fact that the different parts of our common life at least match themselves into a congruous and harmonious whole. We owe to none so much; we talk of none so much, we hope, and we think of none so much: at any rate, no one so constantly thinks of us. (1)He will be manifest upon this earth in person. (1) The first transformation is brought to pass by contemplating the reflected image of Christ; the second, by contemplating the direct glory of His essential nature. (4)He will appear surely, and so we speak of it as a date for our own manifesting — "when He shall appear."III. You may trust the believer for knowing his Master when he finds Him.III. Its first work is to lift us out of the order of nature where character tends simply to solidify and habits become fixed, and to carry us into another sort of world. The believer will be as much astonished when he sees Jesus' glories as He sits on His throne as He would have been to have seen Him in His earthly sufferings. Moses himself asked that he might see God. This will be a full, perpetual, and never failing delight to us. If we had seen Jesus Christ as He was here below, there would have been joy to think that He came to save us; but we should have had sorrow mingled with it to think that we needed saving. A man may try and look at Christ for a lifetime. Calthrop, M. Not yet, but the root of what we shall be hereafter is here embodied in the soul. What this likeness is. We find, as a matter of experience, that we can absorb and assimilate that on which we succeed in detaining the attention of our concentrated powers. "WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM." Ruskin, in his "Modern Painters," tells that the black mud or slime from a footpath in the outskirts of a manufacturing town — the absolute type of impurity — is composed of four elements — clay, mixed with soot, a little sand, and water. Christ not only so acts upon us as to conform us to His holy and exalted pattern now; when He comes again it shall be to reflect His glory into the persons of His believing followers.1. "IT DOTH NOT YET APPEAR WHAT WE SHALL BE." The natural comes first, then the spiritual, but it is no less full of germinant seeds and possibilities than the natural. Who knows what is going on in secret behind those very failures in others which most provoke us? O heavens! On it was peace, and a smile, with her lips parted; but that was not all. Just as a little child knows nothing of the passions that sweep through the heart of the youth, so there may be lofty spiritual passions and experiences, and even qualities of character, of which we now know nothing. Have you never heard of mothers having recognised their children years after they were lost by the marks and wounds upon their bodies? And thou, who hast come to middle age, struggling with the toils of life, mixed up with all its battles, enduring its ills, thou art asking, it may be, shalt thou see Him? The best believer only gets half a glimpse of Christ. We shall then be as manifested and as clearly seen as He will be. The earth, in its noiseless flight, gathers to itself cosmic dust, just as a miller in going to and fro amidst the revolving wheels of his mill draws to himself fine grains of flour; and the earth then conforms that dust to its own likeness. It is the unborn babe which is responsive to the image presented to the brain of the mother, rather than the mother herself. Guard unhurt the germ. And therefore it begins with a call to regeneration. This process is not human and ethical only. God may yet do great things with them, so long as He can secure in them some seed of future life. See how the tide of progress sets steadily Christward — more peace and less war, more justice, more equality, more mercy and kindness and goodwill. 1. The main quality asserts itself more and more strongly, shapes the features, gives tone to the voice, and gesture to the body, directs the conduct and becomes the spirit of the life. H. Again: how partially we see Christ here! We shall find Him a man, even as much as He was on earth. how transitory is our view of Jesus! It is, indeed, a pleasant thought that if I cultivate a spirit of patience, or sympathy, or self-control, it will become a fixed habit in me. if we ever see our Saviour, we shall know Him by His wounds. Its first work is to lift us out of the order of nature where character tends simply to solidify and habits become fixed, and to carry us into another sort of world. "We shall see Him." "When He shall appear" all will be well; the life will unfold itself in divinest forms under the immediate sunlight of His countenance. This was man's first ruin, this aspiring to be like God (Genesis 3:5); not in a blessed conformity, but in a cursed self-sufficiency. When we go before our God the failures will go to the account, they will be elements in the judgment, they will be as instrumental and effective as any of our successes in determining our eternal lot. Till the Holy Ghost comes to brood within us, the material of which we consist does not lead itself to these high spiritual transformations. W. Hamilton, LL. H. O heavens! Now note how certain it is that religion must be a present thing if we are saved by faith, because faith anal hope cannot live in another world. He is in us the hope of glory, and such a hope maketh not ashamed.(T. St. John's Lutheran Church: Alexandria, VA > Sermons. THE GLORIOUS POSITION. Now let it go. It enters into its nature and purpose to open before us great changes and developments. Here holy principle is imbibed and holy habit formed; but the scope and aim are always prospective. Now all that we can learn of what we shall be here after is to be sought here and now, in our human lot, amid our fellows, in our common brotherhood. The apostle, is to us these assimilative forces work deep down amidst the elemental of. 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