"An inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and
that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you..."
(1 Peter 1:4)
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 afterwards to
the praise and glory of God? That word 'incorruptible',
then, is the word which governs all, is the standard of
all.
GLORY THE CROWN OF THE
INCORRUPTIBLE
The crown of the incorruptible is glory.
That is the verdict upon the life of the Lord Jesus. 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 very much alive to it
while the Lord was with them; nevertheless He was gaining
on them all the time, He was overtaking them. 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
eye-witnesses 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: "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" (Hebrews 2:9). Whether that was Paul or not,
it was someone who passed the same verdict; but Paul did
join in with the words: "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 them.
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, but in real, living
organic oneness and fellowship; by being born of God.
That union is the basis of glory. It is something
incorruptible.
MAN MADE FOR GLORY
'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.'
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 that God's intention for man was that he was
to be glorified, to be "crowned with glory"
(Hebrews 2:7). He was made for glory. That is the
definite statement of Scripture.
But that glory was conditioned upon life, a peculiar
life, the particular life of God. 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: 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. 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.
But man strangely did not accept that divine verdict.
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 - as it now is - are seeing how the glory
of man is bringing his own undoing, the most universal
corruption. That is the glory of man. Is that glory? He
cannot help himself, he is energised 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 before, 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? That is our present condition - corruption with
false glory.
CHRISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF GLORY
But another Adam 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'
and through that life offers us incorruptibility and
glory. From one point of view Christianity may be
described as a system of glory. God is called "the
God of glory" (Acts 7:2). Christianity is a family
and its Father called: "The Father of glory".
Paul spoke of: "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory" (Ephesians 1:17). Christ, who
brought Christianity into being, is called: "the
Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 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 is gathered into
it - 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 energised 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 situation. The Lord of glory was seeing to
that.
The Spirit of glory, so called by Peter in a context when
believers are 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, in adversity believers 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 a glory in the heart. That is the story
of many a martyr, of many a murdered servant 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 in us, as the hope of glory. It is the
very nature of what we have received through faith in
Jesus Christ. 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.
CHRIST THE PATTERN
So we have to look again at the One who
has set for us the pattern, 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. 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 Corinthians 5:21), that He was
"separated from sinners" (Hebrews 7:26). That
is, that 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, can be made true in
us. Paul has a way of putting it. He calls it: "the
circumcision of Christ" (Colossians 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, but it is very
practical. We know it very well. We who are Christians
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
cauterised, it is not annihilated; 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
that 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 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
Man 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"
(Colossians 1:27).
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 mean 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, detached from the world, but right in it - and
yet while rubbing shoulder to shoulder with the world,
having all the contacts of this world in every form,
there was a distinctiveness about Him. 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 people most involved in this world, He
was yet by no means a part of their system, their order,
their way of life, but outwardly separate from the world.
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, you must find what is
called 'a worldly Christian', one in whom a constant
civil war goes on between two kingdoms. Yes, a Christian
in this world, trying to get something out of this world
is a miserable creature. I used to illustrate it by the
old Border battles between Scotland and England. 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. It is like that. You try to
live on 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 with the world; in it,
having to do our work here, having to meet people here,
having to be friendly in a way, yet not one with their
nature, their realm, their way. It is a difficult thing -
not as easy to do as to say - it works out in many
practical ways. The point is that Christ was wholly for
God, and because of that, 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
Christ's humanity was a glorifiable
humanity. Not all humanity, indeed no other humanity, is
glorifiable. 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"
(Philippians 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 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 all - that we shall be
transfigured, glorified, made like Him. 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" (Romans 8:29). This is what He was to be,
as many other Scriptures confirm.
I believe that was the secret of the apostle Paul's life,
from the very first 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 on-high calling!' This is so
much in keeping with what we have read in the letter to
the Hebrews. We read: "We behold... Jesus... crowned
with glory and honour" and then we read on:
"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly
calling..." (Hebrews 3:1). What is this heavenly
calling? It is Jesus crowned with glory, as the Man
according to God's eternal intention for man. Christ in a
glorified humanity is the model, the pattern, 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 through faith, this is
our destiny. 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 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 to be 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 simple,
picture that Bunyan has given us of the man with the muck
rake who has a crown of glory over his head, who is so
occupied with his rake and so obsessed with what is down
in the mud, that he does not see the glory but 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 in that realm. We
should finish all these investigations and lift up our
eyes to the Lord of glory. This is how we will find the
way of glory. Let us keep on the glory line.
This is an extract from "The Gold of the Sanctuary", Chapter 5 published by Witness and Testimony Publishers in 1953.