7. Consummated Union
"And it came to
pass about eight days after these sayings, that he took
with him Peter and John and James, and went up into the
mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the fashion of
his countenance was altered, and his raiment became white
and dazzling. And behold, there talked with him two men,
who were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory, and
spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish at
Jerusalem. Now Peter and they that were with him were
heavy with sleep: but when they were fully awake, they
saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him. And
it came to pass, as they were parting from him, Peter
said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here:
and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one
for Moses, and one for Elijah: not knowing what he said.
And while he said these things, there came a cloud, and
overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into
the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying,
This is my Son, my chosen: hear ye him. And when the
voice came, Jesus was found alone" (Luke 4:28-36).
"And if
children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be
also glorified with him... For the earnest expectation of
the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of
God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its
own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the
bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of
the children of God" (Romans 8:17,19-21).
"...When he
shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be
marvelled at in all them that believed... in that
day" (2 Thess. 1:10).
"Behold, I tell
you a mystery: We all shall not sleep, but we shall all
be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at
the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible
shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall
have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy
sting?" (1 Cor. 15:51-55).
"The Lord Jesus
Christ... shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation,
that it may be conformed to the body of his glory"
(Phil. 3:20-21).
"For it became
him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all
things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the
author of their salvation perfect through
sufferings" (Heb. 2:10).
"And he carried
me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and
showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of
heaven from God, having the glory of God" (Rev.
21:10-11).
We have, first of all,
to take a far backward look to remind ourselves that,
when God made man, He constituted him with a view to
transfiguration: that is, with a view to Divine glory.
That was His intention. But man revolted against God and
committed spiritual suicide and, in his rebellion and
failure, forfeited that wonderful destiny and, as we have
read, God instantly pronounced "Vanity" upon
the whole creation, or, as we expressed it earlier in
this series, wrote at the heart of this creation and of
man: "Disappointment." But God made His
appointment with another man, the Man after His own
heart, His own Son, who became Son of Man; and in that
other Man, the Man Christ Jesus, eternal union was
secured between those whom God foreknew as believers in
Christ and His Son. He secured in His Son a new creation
which could be transfigured or glorified. When we see the
Lord Jesus in transfiguration on that mountain, we see in
Him personally what the first Adam ought to have come to
- man glorified, man transfigured; and when we read all
these things later about being glorified together with
Him, His bringing many sons to glory, our bodies being
made like unto the body of His glory and the heavenly
Jerusalem having the glory of God, and all those
wonderful things, we just see the realization of the
original intention. This is what God meant to be from the
beginning, and which might, without any trouble or
tragedy, have taken place so much earlier, through man's
triumph in the time of his probation and testing.
But it is
all now consummated in Christ Jesus, the Man in the
glory. Glory, as we are never tired of saying, is the
gratification of God the Creator and of His whole
creation. Glory is simply being able to say, in the full
wonderful enjoyment and realization: "This is how it
ought to be!" That is glory. You know that even in
little ways. You perhaps do not call it glory, but you
feel it. If anything is just as you feel it ought to be,
then inside you have a touch, a tinge, of glory. But
conceive of mankind as a whole, and the whole creation,
being just as they were meant to be, and everybody,
without reservation or question, being able to say,
"Well, this is as it ought to be!" - and that
is glory. And when God can say - and His standard is very
high, it is absolute - when God from His standpoint can
say, "This is exactly as it ought to be, as I
intended it to be": well, that indeed will be the
day of glory.
That,
then, is the consummation of this union with Christ, the
union which we have been considering from its various
aspects. The eternal union of being chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world; the creational and
racial union of our being a new creation in Christ Jesus
as the last Adam, the second Man; the marital union when
the bride shall have made herself ready, when all those
affectional relationships between Him and her and her and
Him have been brought to fullness, when no longer any
question or doubt, hesitation or reservation of
confidence exists: a perfect merging of two lives, His
and His Church's - the marriage supper of the Lamb: this
is the consummation of that. Further, the vocational
union where the house of God has been established and
God's heavenly order has been set up and manifested; the
functional union of the Body of Christ, where that Body
has served for the manifestation of Himself as its
indwelling personality; and vital union, organic union,
where His life, His Divine heavenly life, has brought the
organism to its perfect expression and fulfillment. These
are the aspects of union, all of which are taken up in
this ultimate consummation - the consummation of all His
glory.
Now you
see that, in the passages we have read, all of which
deserve much fuller consideration than we are giving
them, this consummation is viewed in various ways and
connections.
First we
note the individual consummation, spiritual and physical.
There are the individual sons being brought to glory, and
in being brought to glory the individual physical body is
transformed. It is a wonderful statement: "the body
of our humiliation (shall) be conformed to the body of
his glory" - all doctors and nurses out of a job,
and all undoubtedly very glad to be so! All that realm of
things finished, wound up; bodies of glory, glorified
bodies "like unto the body of his glory." It is
called the change from corruptible to incorruptible. How
marvelous - incapable of being corrupted!
Oh, we
would like to stop for a little while on the resurrection
body of the Lord Jesus. It was a most wonderful thing,
that raising of the Lord Jesus from the dead. Joseph
begged the body of Jesus, and then, being given it, he
and Nicodemus bought a hundred pounds' weight of
embalming spices. It is a fairly good weight, a hundred
pounds! You can picture those two old fellows carrying
that tremendous load. And then they wrapped Him in the
linen garment, and inside the garment all that weight of
spices was wrapped up. And when they came into the tomb;
after His resurrection they found it all there in order -
no scattering of the spices all over the tomb; it is all
there in order, the shape is unaltered. He has come
through it all. Just as He passed through the closed
doors later on, He has come out and left the shell. That
is some indication of what a glorified body can do.
To be "conformed
to the body of his glory": that is an individual
consummation of union with Christ. The spirit is already
joined with Him. "He that is joined unto the Lord is
one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17), and that union of spirit
is going to be consummated in a glorification of body, a
new body of glory. That is the end of it. We have seen
the corporate aspect of it. There are sons, but there is
a seed. It is the same thing under another title or
designation. It is the corporate Body of Christ: the
Church glorified, "having the glory of God."
The Church, having been His Body, having been in this
manifold union with Him, is going to be a "glorious
Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such
thing"; the Church of glory having the glory of God.
And then - wonderful
passage! - Christ is going to be vindicated in His
saints, Christ vindicated in those in whom He has been
dwelling. "He shall come to be glorified in his
saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that
believed": Christ vindicated in His saints - a
glorious thing. We who, here and now in this world, have
been despised, who have been thought little or nothing
of, we who have been set aside, who have been maligned,
have been persecuted, who have suffered simply because
Christ is in us, simply because of our union with Christ
- oh, what it has meant, what it has sometimes cost! -
that Christ in us is going to be glorified in us and
marveled at in us. The scene is going to change: the
indwelling of Christ is not always going to be a thing
which means suffering, adversity, persecution, sorrow and
trial. The indwelling of Christ ultimately in the
consummation is going to be a most glorious thing -
glorified in His saints and marveled at. We can
understand that, if we view Him objectively, we shall
marvel at Him when we see Him. But here the statement is
that He is going to be marveled at in all them that have
believed. It is the vindication of Christ and the
vindication of the saints.
Now let us note that
this is not only a future prospect. We could get excited
about our visions and our dreams, our illusions - as they
might be. We could have these wonderful ideas and
conceptions, simply because they constitute the Christian
faith. Christians believe such things as these. These are
the things which go to make up what is called the
religion of Christianity. But it is not just that. Oh,
no: Christianity is, being different from all other
religions, subject to experiment. It allows of being put
to the test, and it stands up to the test and bears
present evidence of its full reality. The hopes and
expectations and anticipations of Christians are not just
and only lying in the future. In the day in which you and
I become, or in which any man or woman becomes, joined to
the Lord, in a definite act, there is instantly an
evidence of the ultimate glory.
Your experience and
history may bear that out - so much so, that you find
yourself looking back to those days, to the beginning,
almost with longing eyes, with a wistful heart. There are
people who sing, and who sing quite in accordance with
their spirit:
"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?"
"Return, O holy Dove, return
Sweet messenger of rest!"
They go on,
"The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from Thy throne,
And worship only Thee."
Yes, many have come to have to sing like that; but
whether you sing like that or not, whether that is true
or not - and it ought not to be true of Christians -
there is always a looking back to those first days. For
many of us it is like that. I remember so clearly my own
first days and months, when the Lord got a full, clear,
free way in my heart and life; they were wonderful. Not
that they have not been wonderful since! But what
happened? Why, we just had a taste of the glory! The
evidence was born there and then that we were made for
glory: our coming into the new creation in Christ Jesus
is at once sealed and stamped with the destiny of the new
creation - glory. God's new beginnings are always with
glory.
But this
is not only at the beginning - it happens repeatedly in
the course of the Christian life. Sadly enough, we do not
just go straight on without some tumbles, falls,
blunders, sinning, slipping up, making grievous and sad
mistakes in our Christian life, and when we do it the
enemy is not slow to rush in and seek to put us right out
altogether. We begin to feel very sad and very sorry for
ourselves, and down we go; our spirits droop, and we get
locked up with this thing. The glory has gone, and we
think it is never going to come back again. But then
somehow the Lord says something to us, He speaks to us
again His word of reassurance, and the thing is put
right; we lay hold in faith again, and the glory comes
back. The Lord has not forsaken us, the destiny is not
lost - it comes back again.
We go away
from the Lord and we are miserable. There is no glory in
being away from the Lord. You can see the difference
between people when they were going on with the Lord and
what they are now. But come back and you find glory is
waiting. It is the experience again and again in our
lives. The glory is waiting: we were made for it: our
union with Christ is the assurance of it. Our drifting
from Christ suspends the glory: we come back and it is
there again. Get a controversy with the Lord, or let the
Lord have a controversy with you - something about which
the Lord has spoken, something that He has indicated as
not according to His mind, or perhaps some experience,
trial, difficulty, through which He allows us to pass -
and we become bitter, sour, grieved; we allow ourselves
to be gripped in the cold hand of that grievance with the
Lord, and the glory all goes. But when we come back and
put right the thing that the Lord has required, or return
to the Lord and hand over the grievance, and say,
"Well, this is only ruining the whole of my life,
spoiling everything; it must not remain I am going on
with the Lord whatever it costs" - the glory comes
back.
This
glorification at the end is no fiction and it is no mere
future expectation. It is a thing to which the Holy
Spirit is witnessing all the way along. And may that not
be one of the reasons why He brings about these crises in
our lives - so that we shall not take too much for
granted, that there shall be something continuously or
repeatedly wonderful in our union with Christ? But what
is the real purpose of these crises? Why does the Lord
bring these crises in our lives? When we come up against
things or are taken through difficult experiences and the
necessity arises for some fresh adjustment, some fresh
letting go, what is it all about? Well, you see, it all
amounts to just this - making more room for the Lord
Jesus because it is Christ who is the ground of glory:
God's appointment is with His Son. Away from His Son it
is disappointment: but when the Son gets a fuller place,
a larger place, in us - perhaps through a crisis, through
a battle, a re-adjustment - when He gets a fuller place
there is still more ground for the glory of God. It is
Christ in us who is the hope of glory; it is Christ in us
who is the ground of glory. It is, in other words, our
union with Christ that is to issue in glory, and as that
union becomes deeper, stronger, fuller, more settled, so
the ground for glory increases. We seem, as we go on in
the Christian life, to have deeper crises all the way
along. Somehow or other we come to the place where we
think we have touched bottom, we can never go deeper;
then we do get taken into something deeper, and the
situation seems more hopeless than ever; but the Lord
brings us through, and there is more life than ever, more
of the Lord than ever, more glory than ever. Well, the
word in the New Testament is: "the Spirit of glory
resteth upon you" (1 Pet. 4:14). The way to glory is
the suffering: as it was with the Head, so it must be
with the members; as it was with the Master, so it must
be with the servant; as with Him, so with us. It is the
suffering and the glory - that is the way.
I will
close there. It is the glorious end that is in view, and
the end, let me repeat, can be put to the test now. You
will perhaps remember my saying on former occasions that
with me the matter of the Lord's coming does not rest and
remain just as a matter of prophecy. I do not find a very
great deal of exhilaration and inspiration in studying
prophecy about the coming of the Lord. That is all right
- do not misunderstand me! If you like to study prophecy,
study it; but it does not always result in glory. But I
do find this, that when we sing about the Lord's coming,
it is not just the effervescence and enthusiasm of a few
people singing. Something extra seems to come in, and
that something extra is the Spirit of glory: because the
Holy Spirit is not past, present and future - the Holy
Spirit is timeless. The Holy Spirit is eternally - now -
eternity in any one minute. With the Holy Spirit, the
coming of the Lord Jesus is as though it were now. Speak
of the coming, and the Holy Spirit says, "Yes, here
is the evidence of it!" He gives it in the midst of
the saints, and something of the glory is there when you
sing about the coming of the Lord. It is not just a
reminder that things are going to be better in the
future. It is a touch and a taste of that future coming
into the "now." That is a good note on which to
close: a note of the present reality of these things, all
put to the test and experienced now, because the
glory is not only future. We have the Spirit of glory
resting upon us now, to attest the end all along
the way. May the Lord keep us Christians like that,
living in the spiritual good of our faith; not upon
doctrine alone, not upon truths, but in the reality of
those things in the Holy Spirit now.