"Our
Saviour Christ Jesus... abolished death, and brought life
and incorruption to light" (2 Timothy 1:10).
"Now
unto the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, the
only God, be honour and glory unto the ages of the
ages" (1 Timothy 1:17; R.V. margin).
"But
one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that
Thou art mindful of him? or the Son of Man, that Thou
visitest Him? Thou madest Him a little lower than the
angels; Thou crownedst Him with glory and honour" (Hebrews
2:6,7).
"Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who
according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and
that fadeth not away" (1 Peter 1:3,4).
"Who
annulled death and brought life and incorruption to
light".
'O loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
A final Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.
O wisest love! that flesh and blood,
Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe,
Should strive and should prevail'.
The
verdict of the 'Long Run' - I think we could gather all
that has been said so far into that - the verdict of the
long run, that is, what abides as incorruptible when all
else has passed, is the verdict upon life and work: How
much will be found afterward to the praise and glory of
God? That word 'incorruptible', then, is the word which
governs all, tests all, is the standard of all.
Glory The Crown Of The Incorruptible
We are
going to think for a little while about the crown of the
incorruptible. The crown of the incorruptible is glory.
That is implicit and explicit in the passages which we
have just read. The verdict upon the life of the Lord
Jesus is just that verdict. John says, many years
afterwards, "We beheld His glory" (John
1:14). That was the issue. Neither John nor any of his
fellow-apostles was alive to it, or very much alive to
it, while the Lord was with them; nevertheless He was
gaining on them all the time, He was overtaking them, He
was registering. Eventually they were left with one deep
and indelible impression, which stood the test of many
years, many experiences, many trials, much suffering; and
at last, at the end of that particular phase, the
apostolic age, John, the one lonely remaining apostle of
the whole group, wrote the verdict: "We beheld His
glory" - the glory of the incorruptible.
Peter
also, at the end of his life, when he was saying that he
was about to be offered up, recorded the same verdict.
Referring to that wonderful experience on the Mount of
Transfiguration, he wrote, "we were eyewitnesses
of His majesty. For He received from God the Father
honour and glory" (2 Peter 1:16,17) - the
verdict of the incorruptible.
The
writer of the Letter to the Hebrews, whom I always
suspect as being Paul, said what we have just read: "We
behold Him Who hath been made a little lower than the
angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death
crowned with glory and honour" (Heb. 2:9).
Whether that was Paul or not, it was someone who passed
the same verdict; but Paul did join in as in the words we
read from his first letter to Timothy: 'Now unto the
King eternal, incorruptible... be honour and glory'. The
verdict of the incorruptible is glory.
We have
been seeing that the glory of Christ was due to certain
incorruptible characteristics. First, His union with His
Father, something so deep, so real, so unshakeable, as to
abide all tests and go right through, in spite of all the
efforts of man and demons and the very devil himself to
part the Two, to come between. That union with the Father
was uninterrupted; it went through. And we said that the
Lord Jesus made it perfectly clear that such a union as
existed between Him and His Father could exist between us
and Himself, and with the Father; not in Deity, Godhead,
but in real, living organic oneness and fellowship; by
being born of God; and that union is the basis of glory.
It is something incorruptible.
Man Made For Glory
Let us come to this matter of the crown of
the incorruptible - glory. I have prefixed two
hymn-verses to this chapter. Paul it is who calls Jesus
"the second man", "the last Adam."
Our hymn-writer made a little slip, and so we correct:
not a second Adam, but a LAST Adam; a second MAN,
a last Adam. Paul indicates that God takes another step
in a second man, and a final and inclusive step in a last
Adam. Christ is God's next move, and Christ is God's
final move, but Christ comes into the place which the
first Adam held as representing the intention of God
concerning man. As we are thrown back, by this way in
which Paul speaks of Him, to the first man Adam, we are
shown by the Scriptures, in particular that passage read
from the Letter to the Hebrews, that God's intention for
man was that he was to be glorified, to be "crowned
with glory". He was made for glory. That is the
definite statement of Scripture.
Glory Conditioned Upon Life
But that glory was conditioned upon life,
a peculiar life, the particular life of God, Divine life.
The glory was contingent upon man having that life,
because the glory was the very essence of that life; that
particular Divine life held all the nature and
potentiality of glory. So the glory depended upon his
having that life, and that life was dependent upon faith
and obedience upon whether man would believe God to be
true, to be honest, to be faithful, that God meant what
He said, that He was to be trusted; and, so believing,
would act accordingly, that is, be obedient to God. The
life was contingent or dependent upon that.
Man's Falling Short Of God's Glory
But we know that man did not believe God,
did not trust God, did not take the attitude that God was
to be trusted, believed. He disbelieved, and acted
accordingly: he disobeyed. The result was that he brought
into his own being, and into all his seed, first
corruption and then death. A state of corruption entered
into his moral being, and that corruption led to death.
Thus, for that man, the prospect of glory ended, the
intention of his being came to a full-stop. No glory for
that man. Heaven is closed, the glory departs; man is
excluded, shut out, with no prospect.
But man strangely did not accept that
Divine verdict, so rebellious had he become. This thing
had become such a positive factor in his being, this
corruption was so active, that he refused to accept the
verdict, and set out upon a course of making his own
glory, getting glory for himself. The history of man is
the history of an effort to get glory without getting it
from God. That covers a very great deal. It started very
early in the Bible story, and we see it going all the way
through; but the glory of man, as we have said earlier,
always ends in corruption. However much glory he draws to
himself, however much he achieves of that which is called
the 'glory of man', it ends in corruption. We who are at
the end of the history of this world - and that is no
exaggeration, that is no false statement; it is the end
of the history of this present world, as it now is - are
seeing how the glory of man is bringing his own undoing:
the most universal corruption, the threat, as we have put
it, of the blotting out of the human race. That is the
glory of man. Is that glory? He cannot help himself, he
is energized by another power, he is not his own master.
He calls it glory, and the thing which is so strange is
the blindness of man all the time. He wages a war and
calls it a 'war to end war', and he wages a worse war and
thinks and believes that this surely is the end of war,
and on he goes and still it gets worse and worse; and now
it is true that we are in sight of the disintegration of
humanity, and the possibility of the wiping out of the
human race. We understand today, more than ever it could
possibly have been understood in this world's history,
the meaning of our Lord's words: "except those days
had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved"
(Matthew 24:22). Is that not true? There has already been
a foretaste, in certain parts of the world, of how easy
that would be, were it to spread.
Well, that is our present condition -
corruption with false glory.
A Final Adam
But another Adam came.
'A final Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.'
There are three statements made regarding
Him. "The Word was made flesh." That is the
incarnation. "In Him was life." That is the
incorruption. "We beheld His glory." That is
the effect of the life. Glory works out from the life,
and this final Adam, this last Adam, retrieves the loss
of the first: He secures a life that was missed, secures
the incorruptibility that was never known, and secures
the glory. That is the story of Christ in three words -
life, incorruptibility, glory. In those three words He
comes to us and says: 'Have faith in Me, believe in Me,
and life, that life, is for you' - hence also that
incorruptibility, and further, that glory. The crown of
incorruptibility is glory.
Christianity A System Of Glory
Christianity may be described, from
one point of view, as a system of glory. God is called
"the God of glory" (Acts 7:2). Christianity is
a family; its Father is called "the Father of
glory". Paul spoke of "the God of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of glory" (Eph. 1:17).
Christ, Who brought this 'Christianity' into being, is
called "the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2:8). The
Holy Spirit, the energy of this whole heavenly system, is
called "the Spirit of glory" (1 Peter 4:14). So
the three Persons of the Divine Trinity are all related
to glory, all interested in glory.
The Father produces the whole system of
glory: it emanates from Him as Father.
The Son, as the Lord of glory, is
governing everything in relation to glory. What a
glorious statement that is; how much there is gathered
into that - 'governing everything in relation to glory';
"the Lord of glory". So we have in our Bible a
whole book containing the record of the activities of the
Lord of glory. Situations and positions seem at first
sight all the work of the devil, all the work of
devil-inspired and energized people - situations so
difficult that they look hopeless. And that book contains
the verdict of the long run, that every one of those
situations was turned to glory, something glorious came
out of every hopeless and impossible position. The Lord
of glory was seeing to that. Yes, there is much comfort
in that title "the Lord of glory".
The Spirit of glory, so called by Peter,
if you will look to see the context, is this. Here are
believers passing through fiery trial; they are
persecuted, they are misunderstood, they are slandered,
they are misrepresented. And Peter says, 'It is all
right, if you take this humbly, if you take this without
bitterness; the Spirit of glory will rest upon you': that
is, believers in adversity find that, right in the midst
of persecution and opposition, something of inexplicable
joy rises up, a deep and wonderful peace. The persecutors
hurl their stones, or whatever else they may do, and
somehow there is glory in the heart. That is the story of
many a martyr, of many a murdered servant and child of
God - "the Spirit of glory". Glory is not some
place to which we are going presently, although glory may
be a sphere in which everything is glorious. Glory is for
now. It is a part of the very life that we have now
received. It is the essence of Christ as 'in us, the hope
of glory'. It is the very nature of what we have received
through faith in Jesus Christ. I say again, Christianity
is a system of glory, and the Lord wants us to have a
life, and to live according to that life, which will
produce more and more glory in us. It will again be only
as we live according to that incorruptible life that the
glory will be manifested.
So we have to look again at the One Who
has set for us the pattern, shown the way, indicated the
principles of the incorruptible which result in glory; to
look at what was true of Him, as this incorruptible One,
that resulted in God giving Him glory. One or two things
I will indicate because they are very important.
Inward Separation From Sin
Firstly, it was His inward separation from
sin. There was a great gap between Him and sin. It is
said of Him that He "knew no sin" (2 Cor.
5:21), that He was "separated from sinners"
(Heb. 7:26). That is, in His nature He was separate from
the rest of men; there was an inward separation. Now, we
are not constituted as He was, as sinless, but we are
told and made to understand, in the New Testament, that
that inward separation which was so true of Him, which
was so real in His case, can be made true in us. Paul has
a way of putting it. He calls it the "circumcision
of Christ" (Col. 2:11), and he says that it is a
thing of the heart, an inward separating between what we
are in ourselves and what we are in Christ, the putting
of a gap between the two. And then the New Testament says
that by the Holy Spirit's enablement, by the Holy
Spirit's power, you need not live on the ground of what
you are in yourself, you can live on the ground of
Christ, and living on the ground of Christ you need not
be the slave of yourself and your sinfulness, you are
delivered. There is something that has separated inside,
and if you live on the ground of what Christ is and not
on the ground of what you are in yourself, you are on the
ground of the incorruptible and you are on the ground of
the glory.
That sounds very technical, I know,
doctrinal or theological, whatever you may call it, but
it is very practical. We know it very well. You and I who
are Christians, who are the Lord's born-again children,
know that a cleavage has been made in us, and that we are
now two people. There is that side which is our new life,
our new relationship, which is our Christ-connection.
There is that other side which is still our old
relationship with the old Adam. It is there; it is not
cauterized, it is not annihilated. It is there; and we
know now that it is for us to take continually the power
of the Holy Spirit, in virtue of that separating Cross,
to keep on the Christ side, on the new side; and if we
do, we KNOW IT IS GLORY. Very often we know more
of the meaning of the glory by a touch of the
other. Step over on to the other side and give way to the
old Adam, and you know quite well there is no glory
there.
Now that very thing existed perfectly,
fully and finally, in the case of the Lord Jesus; but the
Holy Spirit as the Spirit of that glory has come into us
to make the divide, and the Christian who has the most
glory is the Christian who is walking most on the Christ
side of the line. There was the Divine in Him, of course;
there were no two natures, there was no need for dividing
between a sinful nature and a Divine nature in Him; but
there was a constant gap between Him and sinful man. The
enemy, the great enemy of the glory, was ever seeking to
contaminate Him, involve Him, pollute Him, corrupt Him.
Do not let us think that He never had to resist anything,
that He never had to say No to another. That matter of
how a sinless one could be tempted is of course an old
theological problem, but there is no doubt about it that
He fought our battle, in all reality.
So that is the first thing - an inward
separation, a divide, and on the one side the new life,
the ground of the incorruptible, which is the ground of
glory. "This mystery", says Paul, "which
is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27).
Outward Separation From The World
Then next, an outward separation from the
world. The inward separation had its outward effect or
outworking in separation from the world, and no one will
think for a moment that I am speaking about physical
separation from the world. No, He was here right in it,
in its throng and press, in its affairs, with everything
pressing upon Him; never seeking to live the life of a
hermit, a monk, detached from the world, but right in it
- and yet, while in it, rubbing shoulder to shoulder with
the world, having all the contacts of this world in every
form, there was that distinctiveness about Him that He
was not a part of it, but apart from it, a wonderful
outward separation. While being able to talk with the
grossest and the most defiled and the most involved
people in this world, He was yet by no means a part of
them, their system, their order, their life, their
nature, but outwardly separate from the world. I think
you will agree with me when I say the most unhappy people
in this world are Christians who try to have both worlds.
It is my experience that if you want to find a miserable
Christian, find what is called a worldly 'Christian', in
whom a constant civil war goes on between two worlds, two
kingdoms. Yes, a CHRISTIAN involved in this world,
a CHRISTIAN trying to get something out of this
world - of course a contradiction in name - is a
miserable creature. I used to illustrate it by the old
Border battles between Scotland and England, the Picts
and the Scots. The people who lived in the Border country
never had a day's rest all their lives. One day it would
be the overrunning from one side, the next day from the
other side, and these poor people on the Border line had
the most miserable existence possible, and it is like
that. You try to live a border-line or border-land
Christian life, and you will be a miserable person,
without rest or peace or joy or anything else. You will
never know exactly where you are, who is your master,
which way you are going, to whom you belong. It is a
miserable existence.
The Lord Jesus was not like that. He was
on one side, and absolutely on one side. The border line
was a very wide one for Him. Indeed, there was no border
line. He was attached to heaven, and He maintained that
attachment. You and I, if we are going to know glory now
and glory afterward, will have to be on the same ground
as He was in this matter - no compromise or trucking with
this world; in it, having to do our work here, having to
meet people, having to be friendly in a way, yet not one
with their nature, their realm, their way. It is a
difficult thing - it is not as easy to do as it is to say
- it is truly a difficult thing to be in it and not to be
of it, and you know quite well what I mean. You know that
in practical ways it works out like that, that you must
not allow yourself to be involved or you involve the
glory of your Christian life. Christ was wholly for God,
that is the point; and because He was wholly for God, His
Father was the Father of glory, and the Spirit of glory,
rested upon Him, and the Father could give Him glory.
Christ's Humanity Was Glorifiable
Now one brief word on a matter that
needs very much more time, and is perhaps the most
difficult matter in all the realm of Christian things to
make clear - this whole matter of Christ's humanity as
becoming glorified. His humanity was a
glorifiable humanity. Of course, that is a statement
that requires explanation; but it is a statement worth
making because not all humanity, indeed no other
humanity, is glorifiable, as we have seen. His was a
unique humanity, capable of being glorified, and it was
glorified. Paul speaks of His body as a glorified body.
He said that we are to be "conformed to the body of
His glory" or "His glorious" or
"glorified body" (Phil. 3:21). He was capable
of being glorified, and that actually took place on the
Mount of Transfiguration. He had fought through all those
tests and trials, all those efforts to compromise Him, to
make Him let go and become involved. He had fought them
right through to the pinnacle of that mount. There was
nothing more for Him to do, so far as He Himself was
concerned; anything more was for us. At that point He had
proved Himself worthy of being glorified, and, as Peter
says, on that mount God gave Him glory. In the
transfiguration of the Lord Jesus, God is showing in a
representative Man what He intends for you and for me and
for all - that we shall be transfigured, glorified,
"made like unto His glorious body". His was a
glorifiable humanity. His humanity as glorified is the
standard in heaven to which God is working for every
believer in Jesus Christ. It is a Man in glory glorified,
and He is there as the last Adam, the second Man. Those
very titles have no significance apart from other men of
the same kind. What does 'Adam' mean? What does 'man'
mean, if it is not an inclusive and comprehensive and
representative designation? The Scripture states that
quite clearly. "The firstborn among many
brethren" (Rom. 8:29) He was to be. Many Scriptures
could be quoted to prove that.
I
believe that was the secret of the Apostle Paul's life,
from the very day of his conversion, right up to the end,
when, after so many years, and after seeing and knowing
so much, he was still found aspiring, still stretched
out. He had seen Jesus of Nazareth glorified, and he
said, 'That is the !' And that is so much
in keeping with what we have read in the Letter to the
Hebrews: "We behold... Jesus... crowned with glory
and honour". And then the writer goes on:
"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly
calling..." (Heb. 3:1). What is it? It is Jesus
crowned with glory, as the Man according to God's eternal
intention for man. God is calling "unto His eternal
glory in Christ Jesus" (1 Peter 5:10). Christ in a
glorified humanity is the model, the pattern, the
stature, the representation of God's intention for all
who believe in the Lord Jesus.
So then, if we have received that eternal
life, if Christ is in us, 'dwelling in our hearts', as
the Apostle puts it, 'through faith', our destiny is
that. We have the basis of an incorruptible life, which
will eventually emerge in the fullness of that glory
which He as our representative now knows. Faith not only
believes for the forgiveness of sins, not only for
pardon, not only for remission, not only for atonement,
not only for justification and redemption. Faith in Jesus
Christ apprehends Him as the very humanity to which we
are to be conformed. Faith takes hold of Him as He is
now, and says, 'He is as He is because God wants me like
that'; and, if we did but know, the Spirit of glory is
operating for us on that basis every day, to make us like
Him, to transform us that we may be transfigured, to
conform us to His image. All the meaning of the
activities and methods of the Spirit of God in our lives
is to lay a foundation for glory.
And it
is on these principles of the incorruptible. May the Lord
teach us how to keep clear of this corrupted world, how
to keep clear of that wretched, corrupt old man. You
remember that magnificent, though so very simple, picture
that Bunyan has given us - the man with the muck rake,
with the crown of glory over his head, but so occupied
with his rake and obsessed with what is down there in the
mud, that he sees not the glory, he misses it all. That
muck is our old man, and we are always turning him over
to see if we can find something good in him, some glory.
We are seemingly incapable of learning this one lesson,
that there is no glory there and we had better finish all
the investigations in that realm. Do write that old man
off altogether, and do not get turning him over again,
looking into him, or having anything to do with him. Lift
up your eyes from him to the Lord of glory - and you will
find the way of glory.
We are "called... unto His eternal
glory" (1 Peter 5:10), we are begotten again
"by the resurrection of Jesus Christ... to an
inheritance incorruptible... that fadeth not away,
reserved in heaven" (1 Peter 1:3,4). How great is
the wonder of this calling, of this life, of what we have
through faith in Jesus Christ, and of how it is all going
to work out! But be sure, as a dear old servant of God
now gone to be with Him always used to say, to 'keep on
the glory line'; do not touch that other. Get in the way
of the glory, and keep in the way of the glory, for you
are called unto glory.