- Righteousness
by Faith
- 1895 General Conference
Sermons
- by A. T. Jones
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- Sermon 20
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- In John 17:4 the first clause of the verse
is the words of Christ in that prayer for us all: "I have
glorified thee on the earth." In the previous lesson we
were brought to consider the purpose of God concerning man, even
His eternal purpose and that that purpose is fulfilled before
the whole universe in Jesus Christ in human flesh. The purpose
of man's existence is to glorify God, and this has been shown
before the universe in Jesus Christ, for God's eternal purpose
concerning man was purposed in Christ and carried out in Christ
for every man, since man sinned, and He says, "I have glorified
thee on the earth." This shows that the purpose of God in
man's creation is that man shall glorify Him. And what we shall
study this evening is how we should glorify God, how God is glorified
in man, and what it is to glorify God.
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- When we study Christ and see what He did
and what God did in Him, we shall know what it is to glorify
God. And in Him we find what is the purpose of our creation,
what is the purpose of our existence, and in fact, what is the
purpose of the creation and the existence of every intelligent
creature in the universe.
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- We have seen in preceding lessons that
God alone was manifested in Christ in the world. Christ Himself
was not manifested; He was kept back. He was emptied and became
ourselves on the human side and then God, and God alone, was
manifested in Him. Then what is it to glorify God? It is to be
in the place where God and God alone shall be manifested in the
individual. And that is the purpose of the creation and the existence
of every angel and of every man.
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- To glorify God it is necessary for each
one to be in the condition and in the position in which none
but God shall be manifested, because that was the position of
Jesus Christ. Therefore He said, "The words that I speak
unto you I speak not of myself" (John 14:10). "I came....not
to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me" (John
6:38). "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works"
(John 14:10). "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John
5:30). "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath
sent me draw him" (John 6:44). "He that hath seen me
hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father"
(John 14:9)? "He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own
glory, but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same
is true and no unrighteousness is in him" (John 7:18).
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- Therefore He said, "The words that
I speak....I speak not of myself," because as in the other
verse, he that speaks of himself, that is, from himself, seeks
his own glory. But Christ was not seeking His own glory. He was
seeking the glory of Him that sent Him; therefore He said, "The
words that I speak....I speak not of myself." In so doing,
He sought the glory of Him that sent Him, and there stands the
record that "he is true, and there is no unrighteousness
in him." He was so entirely emptied of Himself, so entirely
was He from being manifested in any way, that no influence went
forth from Him except the influence of the Father. This was so
to such an extent that no man could come to Him except the Father
drew that man to Him. That shows how completely He Himself was
kept in the background, how completely He was emptied. It was
done so thoroughly that no man could come to Him--that no man
could feel any influence from Him or be drawn to Him, except
from the Father Himself. The manifestation of the Father--that
could draw any man to Christ.
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- That simply illustrates the one grand
fact that we are studying just now--what it is to glorify God.
It is to be so entirely emptied of self that nothing but God
shall be manifested and no influence go forth from the individual
but the influence of God--so emptied that everything, every word--all
that is manifested--will be only of God and will tell only of
the Father.
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- "I have glorified thee on the earth."
When He was upon the earth, He was in our human, sinful flesh,
and when He emptied Himself and kept Himself back, the Father
so dwelt in Him and manifested Himself there, that all the works
of the flesh were quenched, and the overshadowing glory of God,
the character of God, the goodness of God, were manifested instead
of anything of the human.
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- This is the same as we had in a previous
lesson, that God manifest in the flesh, God manifest in sinful
flesh, is the mystery of God--not God manifested in sinless flesh.
That is to say, God will so dwell in our sinful flesh today that
although that flesh be sinful, its sinfulness will not be felt
or realized, nor cast any influence upon others, that God will
so dwell yet in sinful flesh that in spite of all the sinfulness
of sinful flesh, his influence, his glory, his righteousness,
his character, shall be manifested wherever that person goes.
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- This was precisely the case with Jesus
in the flesh. And so God has demonstrated to us all how we should
glorify God. He has demonstrated to the universe how the universe
is to glorify God--that is, that God and God alone shall be manifested
in every intelligence in the universe. That was the intent of
God from the beginning. That was His purpose, His eternal purpose,
which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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- We might read it now. We shall have occasion
to refer to it afterward. We will read the text that tells it
all in a word. Eph. 1:9, 10, "Having made known unto us
the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which
he hath purposed in himself." What is that will which He
hath purposed in Himself? He, being the eternal God, purposing
this purpose in Himself, it being His own purpose--it is the
same that is spoken of in another place as His "eternal
purpose." What is God's eternal purpose which he purposed
in Christ Jesus the Lord? Here it is: "That in the dispensation
of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all
things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth."
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- Look that over now, and think that God
"might gather together in one all things in Christ."
Who is the "one" into whom God gathers all things in
Christ? That "one" is God. Who was in Christ? "God
was in Christ." Nobody was manifested there but God. God
dwelt in Christ. Now in Christ He is gathering "together
in one all things," "both which are in heaven and which
are on earth." Therefore His purpose in the dispensation
of the fullness of times is to gather together in Himself all
things in Christ. Through Christ, by Christ, and in Christ, all
things in heaven and earth are gathered together in the one God,
so that God alone will be manifested throughout the whole universe,
that when the dispensation of times is completed and God's eternal
purpose stands before the universe completed, wherever you look,
upon whomsoever you look, you will see God reflected. You will
see the image of God reflected. And God will be "all in
all." That is what we see in Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. 4:6:
- For God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
- We look into the face of Jesus Christ.
What do we see? We see God. We see the Father. We do not see
Christ reflected in the face of Jesus Christ. He emptied Himself,
that God might be reflected, that God might shine forth to man,
who could not bear His presence in His human flesh. Jesus Christ
took man's flesh, which as a veil so modified the bright beams
of the glory of God that we might look and live. We cannot look
upon the unveiled face of God, not as much as the children of
Israel might look upon the face of Moses. Therefore Jesus gathers
in Himself man's flesh and veils the bright, consuming glory
of the Father, so that we, looking into His face, can see God
reflected and can see and love Him as He is and thus have the
life that is in Him.
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- This thought is noticed in 2 Cor. 3:18.
I will merely touch the verse for the present. We will have occasion
to refer to it again before we are through with the lesson. "We
all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord"--where do we behold the glory of the Lord? "In
the face of Jesus Christ." But He says we behold it as in
a mirror. What is a mirror for? A mirror gives no light of its
own. A mirror reflects the light that shines upon it. We all,
with open face, behold in the face of Jesus Christ, as in a glass,
the glory of the Lord; therefore, Christ is the one through whom
the Father is reflected to the whole universe.
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- He alone could reflect the Father in His
fullness, because His goings forth have been from the days of
eternity, and as it says in the eighth of Proverbs, "I was
with him, as one brought up with him." He was one of God,
equal with God and His nature is the nature of God. Therefore
one grand necessity that He alone should come to the world and
save man was because the Father wanted to manifest Himself fully
to the sons of men, and none in the universe could manifest the
Father in His fullness except the only begotten Son, who is in
the image of the Father. No creature could do it, because He
is not great enough. Only He whose goings forth have been from
the days of eternity could do it; consequently, He came and God
dwelt in Him. How much? "All the fullness of the Godhead
bodily" is reflected in Him. And this is not only to men
on the earth, but it is that in the dispensation of the fullness
of times He might gather together in one --in Christ--all things
which are in heaven and which are on earth. In Christ God is
manifested to the angels and reflected to men in the world in
a way in which they cannot see God otherwise.
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- So, then, we have so much as to what it
means to glorify God and as to how it is done. It is to be so
emptied of self that God alone shall be manifested in His righteousness,
His character, which is His glory. In Christ is shown the Father's
purpose concerning us. All that was done in Christ was to show
what will be done in us, for He was ourselves. Therefore it is
for us constantly to have before our minds the one great thought
that we are to glorify God upon the earth.
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- In Him and by Him we find that divine
mind which in Christ emptied His righteous self. By this divine
mind, our unrighteousness is emptied, in order that God may be
glorified in us and it may be true of us, "I have glorified
thee on the earth."
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- Let us read those two verses in Corinthians
now for our own sakes. A while ago we read them as from His side,
"God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Cor.
4:6. Look at ourselves now. What, first, has God done? Shined
into our hearts. What for? "To give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Don't
you see, then, that God in Jesus Christ is manifesting, showing
forth from the face of Christ His glory which, reflected in us,
shines also to others? Therefore, "ye are the light of the
world." We are the light of the world because the light
of the glory of God, shining forth from Jesus Christ into our
hearts, is reflected, shines forth, to others, that people seeing
us, seeing our good works, may glorify God in the "day of
visitation." "May glorify the Father, which is in heaven."
- Study the process. There is the Father,
dwelling in light which no man can approach unto, whom no man
hath seen, nor can see, of such transcendent glory, of such all-consuming
brightness of holiness, that no man could look upon Him and live.
But the Father wants us to look upon Him and live. Therefore
the only begotten of the Father yielded Himself freely as the
gift and became ourselves in human flesh that the Father in Him
might so veil His consuming glory and the rays of His brightness,
that we might look and live. And when we look there and live,
that bright, shining glory from the face of Jesus Christ shines
into our hearts and is reflected to the world. Now the last verse of the third chapter again, "We
all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image." The image of whom?
The image of Jesus Christ. We are "changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
Jesus Christ reflected the image of God; we, changed into the
same image, shall reflect the image of God.
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- The German gives another reading, more
emphatic, even, than ours here. I will read it in English. "But
now is reflected in us all the glory of the Lord." Do you
see it? "But now in us all is reflected the glory of the
Lord." The idea in our English version and this idea in
the German are both correct. We see in the face of Christ the
glory and are changed into the same image from glory to glory
and then there is also reflected in us the glory of the Lord.
Now I will read the rest of the verse of the
German. "But now is reflected in us all the glory of the
Lord with uncovered face and we are glorified in the same image
from one glory to another as from the Lord, who the Spirit is."
The Lord who is the Spirit; the previous verse said the Lord
is that Spirit.
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- So you see that the whole sense is that
God shall be glorified in us, that we shall be glorified by that
glory, and that this may be reflected to all men everywhere in
order that they may believe and glorify God.
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- Look now again at the seventeenth of John.
He tells the same story there, in John 17:22. I will read again
the fourth and fifth verses:
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- I have glorified thee on the earth; I
have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O
Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which
I had with thee before the world was.
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- Now the twenty-second verse: "And
the glory which thou gavest me I have given them." He has
given it to us. Therefore it belongs to us. This glory belongs
to the believer in Jesus. And when we yield ourselves to Him,
He gives us that divine mind that empties ourselves and then
God in Jesus Christ shines into our hearts from which is reflected
His own glory, His own divine image. And this will be so perfectly
accomplished that when He comes in every believer upon whom He
looks He will see Himself. "He shall sit as a refiner and
purifier of silver." He sees Himself reflected in His people,
so that all reflect the image and glory of God.
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- Let us use natural things that we may,
if possible, see this a little clearer. There is the sun shining
in the heavens. You and I would like to look upon the sun and
see Him as He is. But even a glance so dazzles our eyes that
it takes a moment for them to recover their natural strength.
Thus we cannot look upon the sun to behold the glories that are
there. The sun has glories and beauties as He shines forth in
the heavens. Now if you take a prism--a three-sided, three edged
piece of glass--and hold it to the sun that the rays of the sun
may shine through it, you see reflected on the wall, upon the
ground, or wherever it may be that the reflection falls--in such
reflection you see the sun as he is in himself. But what do you
see? What is it called? A rainbow. And what is more beautiful
than a rainbow? You cannot have a more wonderful blending of
colors than are in the rainbow. but that rainbow is simply the
sun, with his glory so distributed that we can look upon it and
see how beautiful he is. We look yonder. All this glory is there,
but we cannot see it there. We cannot see it in the face of the
sun. The sun is too bright. Our eyes are not accustomed to the
light. We cannot take it in. Therefore the prism takes that glory
and causes it to shine forth in such rays that we can look upon
it. And this enables us to see the sun as we could not otherwise.
Yet when we look upon the rainbow, we are only looking at the
sun. Looking at the rainbow, we see simply the glory that there
is in the sun as he shines in the heavens. Looking though into
the open face of the sun we cannot see him as he is. But looking
at the reflection we see the glory of the sun in a way that it
delights us to look upon it.
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- Now God is ever so much brighter than
the sun. If the sun dazzles our eyes by a mere glance, what would
the transcendent glory of the Lord do upon our mortal, sinful
eyes? It would consume us. Therefore we cannot look upon Him
as He is in His unveiled, unmodified glory. Our nature is not
such as to bear it. But He wants us to see His glory. He wants
the whole universe to see His glory. Therefore Jesus Christ puts
Himself here between the Father and us and the Father causes
all His glory to be manifest in Him, and as it shines forth from
His face, the glory is so distributed, so modified, that we can
look upon it, and it is made so beautiful that we delight in
it. Thus we are enabled to see God as He is. In Jesus Christ
we see nothing that is not of God in the full brightness of His
unveiled glory.
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- Now the sun shines in the natural heavens
day by day and all these glories He makes known to the sons of
men and places before the children of men. All that the sun needs
in order to keep his glories ever before us in that beautiful
way is a prism--a medium through which to shine for the refraction
of His glory and something for these rays to fall upon for reflection,
after they have passed through the prism. You could have a rainbow
every day in the year, if you had a prism and something for the
refracted rays to fall upon.
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- So also you can have the glory of God
manifest every day of the year, if you will only hold Jesus Christ
before your eyes as a blessed prism for refracting the bright
beams of God's glory and your own self presented to God just
as God would have you, for these refracted rays to fall upon
for reflection. Then not only you but other people will constantly
see the glory of God. All that God wants, all that He needs,
in order that man shall see and know His glory is a prism through
which to shine. In Jesus Christ that is furnished in completeness.
Next He wants something upon which these refracted rays may fall
and be reflected, that people can see it. Will you let yourself
stand there, open to the refracted rays of the glory of God,
as they shine through that blessed prism which is Christ Jesus?
Let those rays of the glory of God fall upon you, that men looking
there may see reflected the glory of God. That is what is wanted.
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- Another thought: Take your prism and hold
it up to the sun. The refracted rays of light fall on the wall
of the house and behold in the reflection the beautiful rainbow!
But that plastered wall is only mud. Can that mud manifest the
glory of the sun? Can the sun be glorified by that mud? Yes.
Certainly. Can that mud reflect the bright rays of the sun so
that it will be beautiful? How can mud do that? O, it is not
in the mud. It is in the glory. You can hold the prism up to
the sun and let the refracted rays fall upon the earth. You can
hold it there and that earth can manifest the glory of the sun,
not because the earth has any glory in itself, but because of
the glory of the sun.
- Is it too much, then, for us to think
that sinful flesh, such as we, worthless dust and ashes, as are
we--is it too much for us to think that such as we can manifest
the glory of the Lord, which is refracted through Jesus Christ--the
glory of the Lord shining from the face of Jesus Christ? It may
be that you are clay; it may be that you are the lowest of the
earth; it may be that you are sinful as any man is, but simply
put yourself there and let that glory shine upon you as God would
have it and then you will glorify God. O, how often the discouraged
question is asked, "How can such a person as I am glorify
God?" Why, dear brother or sister, it is not in you. It
is in the glory. The virtue is not in you to make it shine any
more than it is in the mud to make the rainbow shine. It is our
art to furnish a place for the glory to fall, that it may shine
in the beautiful reflected rays of the glory of God. The virtue
is not in us, it is in the glory. That is what it is to glorify
God.
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- It requires the emptying of self that
God in Christ may be glorified. The mind of Christ does that,
and then God is glorified. Though we have been sinful all our
lives and our flesh is sinful flesh, God is glorified, not by
merit that is in us but by the merit that is in the glory. And
that is the purpose for which God has created every being in
the universe. It is that every being shall be a means of reflecting
and making known the brightness of the glory of the character
of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
- Away back yonder there was one who was
so bright and glorious by the glory of the Lord that he began
to give himself credit for that and he proposed to shine of himself.
He proposed to glorify himself. He proposed to reflect light
from himself. But he has not shined any since with any real light.
All has been darkness since. That is the origin of darkness in
the universe. And the results that have come from that, from
the beginning until the last result that shall ever come from
it, are simply the results of that one effort to manifest self,
to let self shine, to glorify self. And the end of that is that
it all perishes and comes to naught.
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- To glorify self is to come to naught,
is to cease to be. To glorify God is to continue eternally. What
He makes people for is to glorify Him. The one who glorifies
Him cannot help but exist to all eternity. God wants such beings
as that in the universe. The question for every man is indeed,
"To be, or not to be; that is the question." Shall
we choose to be and to be a means of glorifying God to all eternity?
or shall we choose to glorify self for a little season and that
only in darkness and then go out in everlasting darkness? O,
in view of what God has done, it is not hard to decide which
way to chose, is it? It is not hard to decide. Then shall it
not be our choice now and forever to choose only God's way? to
choose to glorify Him and Him alone?
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- Now another word as to what that takes.
Here is a passage in John 12:23:
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- Jesus answered them, saying, The hour
is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
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- Then, again, twenty-seventh verse:
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- Now is my soul troubled; and what shall
I say? Father, save me from this hour? but for this cause came
I unto this hour.
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- What then did He say? "Father, glorify
thy name." There He was, standing in the shadow of Gethsemane.
He knew the hour was coming and He knew what it meant. Here was
this trouble pressing upon His divine soul and drawing from Him,
"What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? but for
this cause came I unto this hour." The only thing, then,
there was to say, as He came to that hour for that purpose, the
only thing He could say was, "Father, glorify thy name."
After that came Gethsemane and the cross and death. But in this
surrender, "Father, glorify thy name," there was taken
the step that gave Him victory in Gethsemane and on the cross
and over death.
- There was His victory and you and I shall
come to that place many a time. We have been in that place already--where
there comes a time when upon me there may be this demand made.
That experience has to be passed through and looking at it as
it stands and as we see it, we shall be tempted to say, "Oh,
is it necessary that that shall be borne? Is it not more than
even God requires of man to bear?" "Now is my soul
troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour?"
Who brought you to that hour? Who brought you face to face with
that difficulty? How did you get there? The Father is dealing
with us; He brought us there. Then when under His hand, we are
brought to the point at which it seems as though it would take
the very soul out of a man to bear it, what shall we say? Father
save me from this hour? Why, for this cause I am come to this
hour. He brought me there for a purpose. I may not know what
the experience is that He has for me beyond that; I may not know
what is the divine purpose in that trial, but one thing I know.
I have chosen to glorify God. I have chosen that God, instead
of myself, shall be glorified in me, that His way shall be found
in me instead of my way. Therefore we cannot say, Father, save
me from this hour. The only thing to do is to bow in submission;
the only word to say is Father, glorify thy name. Gethsemane
may follow immediately. The cross will certainly follow, but
it is victory in that Gethsemane. It is victory upon that cross
and over all that may come.
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- This is certainly true, for God does not
leave us without the word. Read right on now.
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- What shall I say? Father, save me from
this hour? but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father,
glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying,
I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.
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- That word is for you and for me in every
trial, because "the glory which thou gavest me, I have given
them." It belongs to us. He will see that it is reflected
upon us and through us that men shall know that God is still
manifest in the flesh. What, then, shall be our choice? Let it
be settled once and forever. It is, To be, or not to be? Which
shall we choose? To be? But to be, means to glorify God. The
sole purpose of existence in the universe is to glorify God.
Therefore, the choice to be is the choice to glorify God and
the choice to glorify God is the choice that self shall be emptied
and lost and God alone shall appear and be seen.
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- Then when all is done the fifteenth chapter
of 1
- Corinthians gives the grand consummation.
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- Twenty-fourth to the twenty-eighth verses:
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- Then cometh the end, when he shall have
delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall
have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must
reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy
that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things
under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him,
it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under
him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall
the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things
under him, that God may be all in all.
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- All in how many? He will be all in me;
He will be all in you; He will be all in everybody through Jesus
Christ. There we see the plan completed. It is that the whole
universe and everything in it shall reflect God.
- That is the privilege that God has set
before every human being. It is the privilege which He has set
before every creature in the universe. Lucifer and multitudes
of them who went with him, refused it. Men refused it. What shall
you and I do? Shall we accept the privilege?
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- Let us see if we can get some idea of
the measure of that privilege. What did it cost to bring that
privilege to you and me? What did it cost? It cost the infinite
price of the Son of God.
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- Now a question: Was this gift a gift of
only thirty-three years? In other words, having consisted in
eternity until He came to this world, did Jesus then come to
this world as He did for only thirty-three years and then go
back as He was before, to consist in all respects as He was before
throughout eternity to come? And thus His sacrifice be practically
for only thirty-three years? Was this sacrifice a sacrifice of
only thirty-three years? or was it an eternal sacrifice? When
Jesus Christ left heaven, He emptied Himself and sank Himself
in us--for how long a time was it? That is the question. And
the answer is that it was for all eternity. The Father gave up
His Son to us, and Christ gave up Himself to us for all eternity.
Never again will He be in all respects as He was before. He gave
His life to us.
- Now I do not undertake to define this.
I shall simply read a word on this from the Spirit of Prophecy,
that you may know that it is a fact, and that you will know that
we are on safe ground, and then take it as the blessed truth
and leave the explanation of it to God and eternity. Here is
the word:
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- God so loved the world that he gave his
only begotten Son." He gave him not only to live among men,
to bear their sins and die their sacrifice; he gave him to the
fallen race. Christ was to identify himself with the interests
and needs of humanity. He who is one with God has linked himself
with the children of men by ties that are never to be broken.
Wherein did He link Himself with us? In our
flesh, in our nature. To what extent did He link Himself with
us? "By ties that are never to be broken." Thank the
Lord! Then He sank the nature of God, which He had with God before
the world was, and took our nature, and He bears our nature forevermore.
That is the sacrifice that wins the hearts of men. Were it looked
upon, as many do look upon it, that the sacrifice of Christ was
for only thirty-three years and then He died the death on the
cross and went back into eternity in all respects as He was before,
men might argue that in view of eternity before and eternity
after, thirty-three years is not such an infinite sacrifice after
all. But when we consider that He sank His nature in our human
nature to all eternity, that is a sacrifice. That is the love
of God. And no heart can reason against it. There is no heart
in this world that can reason against that fact. Whether the
heart accepts it or not, whether the man believes it or not,
there is a subduing power in it, and the heart must stand in
silence in the presence of that awful fact.
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- That is the sacrifice which He made. And
I read on:
- He who is one with God has linked himself
with the children of men by ties that are never to be broken.
Jesus is "not ashamed to call them brethren"; our Sacrifice,
our Advocate, our Brother, bearing our human form before the
Father's throne and through eternal ages; one with the race he
has redeemed--the Son of man.
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- That is what it cost: The eternal sacrifice
of one who was one with God. This is what it cost to bring to
men the privilege to glorify God.
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- Now another question: Was the privilege
there worth the sacrifice? or was the price paid to create the
privilege? Please think carefully. What is the privilege? We
have found that the privilege brought to every soul is to glorify
God. What did it cost to bring that privilege to us? It cost
the infinite sacrifice of the Son of God. Now did He make the
sacrifice to create the privilege, or was the privilege there
and worth the sacrifice.
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- I see that this is a new thought to many
of you, but do not be afraid of it. It is all right. Please look
at it carefully and think. That is all that is needed. I will
say it over, even two or three times if necessary, for it is
fully worth it. Ever since that blessed fact came to me that
the sacrifice of the Son of God is an eternal sacrifice and all
for me, the word has been upon my mind almost hourly, "I
will go softly before the Lord all my days."
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- The question is, Did He create the privilege
by making the sacrifice? or was the privilege there already and
we had lost it and it was worth the sacrifice that He made to
bring it to us again?
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- Then who can estimate the privilege that
God gives us in the blessed privilege of glorifying him? No mind
can comprehend it. To be worth the sacrifice that was paid for
it--an eternal sacrifice--O, did not David do well when he said,
looking at these things, "O Lord...such knowledge is too
wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it"?
and, "In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts
delight my soul"?
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- "Great is the mystery of godliness;
for God was manifest in the flesh." The Son of man received
up into glory, that means ourselves. And in that He brought to
us the infinite privilege of glorifying God. That was worth the
price that He paid. We never could have dreamed that the privilege
was so great. But God looked upon the privilege, Jesus Christ
looked upon the privilege, of what it is to glorify God. And
looking upon that and seeing where we had gone, it was said,
It is worth the price. Christ said, "I will give the price."
And "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son," and thus brought to us the privilege of glorifying
God.
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- [1895 GC Sermons Contents]