Much is said nowadays of the progress of the world, and the glory of man, and of his achievements; but at best it is the progress and glory and achievements of man away from God, and of a world doomed to meet in the end the judgment of God. The day of the Lord will sweep it all aside.

Morally, for the Christian, it has come to an end in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Man's glory and wisdom came to an end there, when he dared to lay hands on "the Lord of glory," and, because He resisted not, nail Him to a cross of shame. The first man, for God and His people, wound up his history, morally, by that act; for what can be expected from a being that could and would do that ? Sovereign grace may come in (and has, blessed be God), and save, through that very cross, all that repent and bow the knee to Christ. It makes them a new creation in Him risen from the dead (2 Cor. 5:17). But man after the flesh, man of the old creation order, is past remedy. There must be a new creation in Christ. We must be linked with a new Head, the last Adam, the second Man. That is, Christ risen out of death, and glorified at God's right hand. A new creation in Him is every believer. They have eternal life in Him. " Ye have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3:3, 4).

This being the case, it is not the glory of man, nor his wisdom or religion, that we are concerned about, but the glory of God. We have been brought to the glory of God. We have been brought to know Him, and now it is His glory that concerns us. There is an infinity in God for us to learn, and we may well turn away from little, self-important man, and his vain glory, and contemplate the glory of the infinite and eternal God, who needs but to reveal Himself to manifest His glory.

And how has. God been pleased to reveal Himself ? The searchings of man are vain here. God Himself must reveal Himself if He is to be known. He has revealed Himself, and it is our wisdom to ask how He has done it.

It must be, of course, by revelation-revelation which He alone can inspire. If He uses men as His instruments, then He must in an infallible way give them those revelations. This we have, blessed be God, in the sacred Scriptures. Faith goes to them as to the revelation of God, given to us by God Himself, whoever may be His instrument.

God's glory is seen and known in various ways. First, in creation; second, in government; third, in redemption.

As to creation, '' the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork" (Ps. 19). Creation is all alive with its testimony of God and His glory, for '' His eternal power and divinity" are displayed therein (Rom. 1:20). "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line (the extent of their testimony) is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, . . . and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof" (Ps. 19:2-6).

God has spread out before man a constant testimony of Himself as Creator. Man has only to look up, and around, and he sees the glory of a Creator-God in the works of His own hands. Blind indeed must man be not to see it. But so has sin made him, till he, like

" The owlet Atheism, sailing on obscure wings athwart the noon,
And dropping his blue-fringed lids, holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,
Cries out, ' "Where is it ?' "

To understand creation and be brought into touch with the Creator, faith must come into exercise; for where was man when, '' in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth?" Was he there? Did he take part in the mighty transaction when God "spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast" ? (Ps. 33:9.) Was it by his breath, or by the Creator's, that the "heavens were made, and all the host of them " ? (ver. 6.)

If man was not there, and if he had no part in the mighty work, and if it was the work of the Creator alone, then are we surely dependent upon the Creator for an account of how He did it. Thus, " Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Heb. ii:3). That is, it was not evolution, but an absolute creation, calling into being what did not exist before; and calling them into being, not in a proto plastic condition, to follow the law of endless evolution, but what was created was brought into being in a state of perfection, fresh from the Creator's hand, reflecting and displaying His glory. '' He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." "Things that are seen were not made of things which do appear." It was absolute, essential creation. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth " (Gen. i:i).

God's glory then strikes man in the face in the creation by which he is surrounded, "so that they are without excuse " (Rom. i:20).

God's glory is also seen in His government of the creation. He ruleth in the armies of heaven, and also in the kingdom of men. He is "Lord of heaven and earth " (Matt. 11:25). " God is judge Himself " (Ps. 50:6), and He will not surrender His claim as such to another. As such He says, " I have sworn by Myself, the word is gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear " (Isa. 45 :23). "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God " (Rom. 14:12).

And this is right. Every right-minded person owns it to be right. If it were not so, moral chaos would fill the universe. But God is God, and all must be subject, or else subjected, to Him. All must have to do with Him, and come under His authority. God is light; there is no moral obliquity in Him; " a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He" (Deut. 32:4).

And " God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil " (Eccl. 12:14).

" God is judge Himself." Omniscience is His; the secret counsels of the heart are manifest to Him; all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do; and withal, He is omnipotent to put into effect His righteous judgment. "There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known " (Luke 12:2).
His glory as the Judge of all, must and will be maintained, however man, blinded by sin and by Satan, may rebel at it. His glory He will not give to another. No man liveth or dieth to himself, he has to say to God. He must own God's righteous sway.

As Christians we have come to "God, the Judge of all" (Heb. 12:23). In a day of increasing lawlessness, there is no more wholesome truth for the people of God to remember than that while we will not come into judgment eternal for our sins, yet the fire of His judgment will try our works as His people ; and in the light of His righteous judgment it will be seen how we have conducted ourselves while here-whether we have lived to ourselves, or to Him who died for us and rose again (2 Cor. 5:15; i Cor. 3:13-15).

His glory as " Judge of all," and " Lord of heaven and earth," has been seen on various occasions.

Satan, and the hosts that were involved in his rebellion and wicked aspirations, illustrate that glory. Conceiving sin in his own heart, refusing God as the proper and true center of the universe, he made himself a center. Enamored with his creature-beauty, his God-given wisdom, his brightness, his lofty principality, he fell into pride and covetousness, and dragged down multitudes with him (Ezek. 28:12-19). Therefore the warning of i Tim. 3:6:" Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation (fault) of the devil." Alas, how many in the Church of God have fallen into that fault!

Satan's awful course will eventually end up as it is stated in Rev. 20:10 :"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."

God's government will take its course, and His glory as the Judge of all shall be displayed.

It was seen in the flood in the days of Noah; again, in the destruction of the cities of the plain; again, in the tower of Babel, and the overthrow of Nineveh, Babylon, and Jerusalem; nation after nation being made to feel that God is indeed "Judge of all "; and at last, when the end is reached, in the judgment of the wicked at the great white throne, when all who have had part in Satan's rebellion, and have not repented, will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15; 21:8).

But it is in Redemption that the glory of God shines out in brightest luster. It was a new way indeed; a way which God only could have devised; which the universe of redeemed ones will delight in for eternity; of which the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is the basis.

There was a glory of God "manifested forth" at the marriage in Cana of Galilee (John 2); later on, in the raising of Lazarus. "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." Again, '' Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou should-est see the glory of God ?" (John 11:4, 40.) Again, when He, creation's Lord, arose from the pillow where He as weary man had lain asleep, and He stilled the tempest and there was a great calm, there was a glory manifested, and a testimony given as to who He was-'' God manifest in flesh,'' who '' is over all, God blessed for ever" (i Tim. 3:16; Rom. 9:5).

But in Redemption, in "the death of the cross," it was not a display of divine power, for our Lord "was crucified through weakness"; it was a moral question, in which the nature and character of God, the judgment of sin, the overthrow of "him that had the power of death," the salvation of His people, and the bringing to pass the great and glorious purposes of God in " the new heaven and the new earth," were involved. This was no mere question of power, but one infinitely deeper, and which involved, for the Son of God, all that the cross meant for Him.

The Son of God who said, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God," undertook to do a work by which God could righteously put that "will" into effect. He who did the work was glorified in the doing of it (John 13:31) and in its accomplishment glorified God in His holy nature and righteous character. So much so that He could say, "I have glorified Thee upon the earth:I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do " (John 17 :4).

Sin was in question, and the putting of it away. That which had dishonored God and defiled His creation necessitated the "death of the cross." In no other way could sin be expiated. In no other way could God's glory be maintained and the need of man met, and God be just and the justifier of the believing sinner (Rom. 3:25, 26).

Only One could accomplish this, and that was the Son of God.

It was a scene of darkness indeed. Satan's power was there; man's hatred was there; God's holiness
and righteousness were there; God's judgment and wrath were there; the Divine forsaking was there, and the love of God told out in providing such a wondrous victim to endure and accomplish it all. It was a deep that none but He, the spotless One, could pass through and survive. And in it all the '' Son of Man was glorified," and the universe will ascribe to Him universal praise.

God was manifested in Christ; His nature, His heart, His disposition toward man-all were told out in Him who came to reveal God, to break Satan's power, to accomplish eternal redemption, and save poor man who could not save himself.

It was a glory peculiarly its own. Creation told of God's divinity and power. Government, of His rights as "Judge of all"; but in Redemption God Himself, in all that He is in Himself, in His hatred of sin and His love for man, in His tender mercy, but also in His inflexible justice-all is fully revealed.

"God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory" (i Tim. 3:16).

What an eternity of glory is connected with this !

And see the result:a universe of bliss; "a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness"; God all in all; the tabernacle of God with men, He dwelling among them, they His people, He their God, and tears, sorrow, pain and death, forever gone; "the former things have passed away " (2 Pet. 3:13; i Cor. 15:28; Rev. 21:1-5).

God's glory shines out in all this, and with worshiping hearts the redeemed will witness and enjoy that glory forever. E. A.