"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know
that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man
that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure" (1 John 3:2,3).

"Now are we the sons of God." We have our place as sons on earth. We know the perfect
relationship, but we do not know the glory yet_"what we shall be." "We through the Spirit wait
for the hope of righteousness" (Gal. 5:5). I do not wait to be a child_I am one; neither do I wait
for righteousness which I have already in Christ; but I wait for the glory which is the hope of
righteousness.

How am I to understand this? I must get back to Christ as the pattern of revelation, the model
Man:"We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." He is the firstborn among
many brethren. "We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." All the glory is His who
became a man, that He might take us back into all the joy of the Father’s presence. It is this that
makes Christ’s coming again the one object, the one hope of our heart. While death would be gain
to me, I do not hope for death. Rather, I hope for Christ to come; not that I "would be unclothed,
but clothed upon"; not to put off this tabernacle, but "that mortality may be swallowed up of Me"
(2 Cor. 5:4).

Paul had eternal life, having got hold of it in Christ; and he has such a sense of the power of life
that he longs to be in the enjoyment of all its consequences. He is always confident:"Absent from
the body, . . . present with the Lord." If I drop the body, I have life, eternal life, in my soul, and
I am looking for the glory if I die. Blessed as it is to see a saint die (and it is the most lovely sight
in the world), that is not the hope of the saint. Our only hope is, when Christ shall appear "we
shall be like Him." We shall not all die, but we shall all be conformed to the likeness of God’s
Son.

It is God’s intention to conform us to the likeness of His Son in glory. I do not look to be
conformed to Him in the grave, but as He is; for we shall be witnesses of His victory over death.
The thief on the cross said, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into Thy kingdom." Christ
said, You shall not wait till then; you shall be happy today with Me in paradise. Thus He brought
in the separate state of blessedness of a soul; and it surely is a blessed thing. God’s intention is
to conform us to Christ in glory, and Christ’s coming is the only hope of the Church. "It doth not
yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him."
What is more, "We shall see Him as He is"; not see Him as He was, but as He is. In one sense,
I am not nearer to His likeness at the day of my death than at the day of my conversion; but
morally I am, and they are never separated. The revelation of the glory of my soul shuts out
everything inconsistent with it.

Paul says to the Philippians, "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the
dead"_nothing can ever satisfy my soul but that. There is present fellowship with His sufferings,
looking forward to the prize of His high calling; but he says, I have not got it yet, "I press toward
the mark." And he does this "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those

things which are before." He would not have or allow one atom of his life to be inconsistent with
the resurrection. We ought all to be able to say, "This one thing I do; forgetting the things which
are behind, I am reaching forward to be like Christ." "He that hath this hope in Him purifieth
himself, even as He is pure."

Take Christ’s love in Ephesians:"Christ … loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He
might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to
Himself a glorious Church." The application of the Word did not make the glory brighter, but was
preparing for it.

The revelation of Christ as He is forms the soul to think, "If I am to be like Him by-and-by, I will
be as like Him as I can now." "He that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is
pure"; so that he may be like Him now, having the blessed privilege to get this as the measure,
"even as He is pure." The Lord Jesus said, "I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified
through the truth" (John 17:19). That is, He was set apart as the One according to God’s mind,
as the model, that we may look at Him and be like Him. And the Holy Spirit helps us in this by
taking of the things of Christ and showing them unto us.

"We … beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory
to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18). The real practical power of the hope of the coming of the Lord sanctifies
and forms the affections of the heart; and the revelation of the glory of Christ is the means of my
purifying myself as He is pure, the Word revealing Christ, and drawing forth the affections of the
heart to Him, that I may grow up to Him in all things.

In Colossians it is that he might present every man perfect in Christ Jesus; that is, having the heart
fully set on everything that belongs to Christ, "who is the image of the invisible God," in whom
all the fulness was pleased to dwell. After developing all these things of Christ’s glory, he says,
"I want to get every man perfect according to these glories of Christ"; and that which makes it so
blessed is that it is the joy of being like Christ. It is not as giving us a law to walk by, or precepts
to guide us. There are precepts; but that which purifies is the affections being set on Christ, to be
like Christ now, as it is the purpose of God that we should be conformed to the image of His Son.

(From Nine Lectures on the First Epistle of John.)

FRAGMENT
Saviour! I long to walk closer with Thee;
Led by Thy guiding hand, ever to be;
Constantly near Thy side,
Constantly purified,
Living for Him who died freely for me!

FRAGMENT. Our thoughts of Christ will largely depend on our thoughts of ourselves. If we
think highly of ourselves we will have low thoughts of Christ; but if we have Him in high

estimation, we will have no exaggerated opinion of ourselves. The more we think of His holiness,
the more we realize our sinfulness. The more we think of His power, the more will we understand
our own weakness. The more we learn of His worthiness, the more unworthy we feel in ourselves.