"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men [or, good pleasure in men]" (Luke 2:13,14).

Here, in a few words, is stated the whole scope of divine purpose. First of all there is "Glory to God in the highest."

Up to the birth of Jesus all had been disappointment in man. The creature had broken down under the best circumstances, and every attempt by any other means to correct it had brought either destruction to men or rebellion against God, growing worse and worse.

But the birth of the Lord Jesus was at once the signal for the angels to say, "Glory to God in the highest." It would not be merely "Glory to God below," but "in the highest," that is, throughout the whole universe of God, and expressly in its highest places. On earth, where nothing but war had been against God, and with man, confusion, misery, and rebellion_"on earth, peace." Nothing less than this would ensue from the birth of the Messiah, though not all at once. The heavenly host gave voice to the magnificent issues of the birth of Him who is Father of the age to come (see Isa. 9:6). That birth, too, was the expression of the fact that God’s complacency and pleasure is in men. There could not be a greater proof of God’s pleasure than this, for the Son of God did not become an angel but a man. He was God from all eternity, but He became man. This bore witness to what an object of love men were to God.

This Babe was the Lord from heaven, the object of contempt to man, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, perhaps as no other babe was. No wonder it drew out the loudest praises of the angels. They saw God’s glory in it; they saw men thus the object of His infinite love and condescension; they anticipated peace for the earth, in spite of all appearances to the contrary. They looked at this event as the scene for displaying in man_the Son of Man_God’s glory and grace; and they were right.

(From An Exposition of the Gospel of Luke by.)

"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17).

Here we see a vivid contrast_the contrast between affliction and glory. You have known much of affliction as you have gone along the way. You have not failed to know suffering and bereavement and disappointment. There are times when the tears have flowed. But now God puts in contrast to the affliction which you have known down here the glory that is coming by-and-by, and if the affliction has oppressed your heart, how the glory will overwhelm you when you are at home with Christ.

He speaks of the affliction as "light affliction," but of the glory as a "weight" of glory. You have sometimes felt as though your affliction was very heavy, but it has no real weight at all in comparison with the glory that is coming. Therefore, if the affliction seems to have been very heavy when God calls it light, you can get some idea of the glory that awaits us. He says, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment." It does not seem as though it has been just "for a moment." I was talking to a dear saint who for over twenty years had been sitting in a wheelchair, and I said, "It is good to know that the Lord is coming, and then all this trouble will be over."

"Oh, yes," "she said, "but it is so long, it has lasted so long. I wonder when it ever will come to an end."

It seemed a long time, yet he says it is but for a moment. Suppose that one had spent his whole lifetime in this world in affliction and had lived to be seventy, eighty, or ninety years of age; after all, what is that compared with eternity? Our years pass as "a watch in the night" (Psa. 90:4).

But notice what awaits us on the other side. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." How strongly he puts that! It gives some conception of what is coming, what it will be by-and-by, when earth’s trials are past and we are at last in the glory with the Lord Jesus.

(From Addresses on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.)

"We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed [or ‘transfigured’ as in Matt. 17:2] into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:18).

Here is true Christian growth in grace. First, Christ has to be revealed to the soul, and then as you go on day after day, as you are occupied with Christ, you become like Him. You never have to advertise your holiness. This will not be necessary if your heart is taken up with the Lord Jesus. If occupied with Him, other people will soon realize that you are becoming more and more like Him as the days go by.

You may have heard of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story of "The Great Stone Face." He tells of a lad who lived in the village below the mountain, and there upon the mountain was that image of the great stone face, looking down so solemnly, so seriously, upon the people. There was a legend that some day someone was coming to that village who would look just like the great stone face, and he would do some wonderful things for the village and would be the means of great blessing. The story gripped this lad, and he used to slip away and hour after hour would stand looking at that great stone face and thinking of the story about the one that was coming. Years passed, and even through young adulthood and middle age he still went to sit and contemplate the majesty, the beauty of that great stone face. Then old age came, and one day as he walked through the village someone looked at him and exclaimed, "He has come, the one who is like the great stone face!" He became like that which he contemplated. If you want to be Christlike, look at Jesus. If you want to grow in grace, contemplate Jesus. You find Him revealed in the Word, so read your Bible and meditate upon it.

We sing the song, "Take time to be holy, Speak oft with thy Lord." One servant of the Lord always interrupted when this hymn was given out and said, "Please let me change that first line; let us sing it, Take time to behold Him.’ " As we behold Him we will become holy, for we will be transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

(From Addresses on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.)

The glories of the Lord Jesus are threefold_personal, official, and moral. His personal glory He veiled, save where faith discovered it, or an occasion demanded it. His official glory He veiled likewise; He did not walk through the land as either the divine Son from the bosom of the Father, or as the authoritative Son of David. Such glories were commonly hid as He passed through the circumstances of life day by day. But His moral glory could not be hid:He could not be less than perfect in every thing. From its intense excellency it was too bright for the eye of man; and man was under constant exposure and rebuke from it. But there it shone, whether man could bear it or not. It now illuminates every page of the four Gospels, as it once did every path which the Lord Himself trod on this earth of ours.

It is the assemblage or combination of virtues which forms moral glory. For example, the Lord Jesus knew, as the apostle Paul speaks, "how to be abased, and. . . how to abound" (Phil. 4:12)_how to use moments of prosperity, so to call them, and also times of depression. In His passage through life, He was introduced to each of these.

At the time of His transfiguration, the Lord was introduced for a moment in His personal glory, and a very bright moment it was. As the sun, the source of all brightness, He shone there. Such eminent ones as Moses and Elijah were there shining with Him, in His glory. But as He descended the hill, He charged those who had been with Him not to speak of it. And when the people, on His reaching the foot of the hill, ran to salute Him (Mark 9:15), He did not linger among them to receive their homage, but at once addressed Himself to His common service, for He knew "how to abound." He was not exalted by His prosperity. He sought not a place among men, but emptied Himself, made Himself of no reputation, quickly veiled the glory that He might be the Servant.

But He knew "how to be abased" also. Look at Him with the Samaritan villagers in Luke 9. At the outset of that action, in the sense of His personal glory, He anticipated His being "received (or raised] up." And in the common, well-known style of one who would have it known that a person of distinction was coming that way, He sent messengers before Him. But the unbelief of the Samaritans changed the scene. They would not receive Him. They refused to cast up a highway for the feet of this glorious One, but forced Him to find out for Himself the best path He could as the rejected One. But He accepted this place at once, without a murmur in His heart. He immediately became again the Nazarene, seeing He was refused as the Bethlehemite (the heir to David’s throne). Thus He knew "how to be abased"
As well as “how to abound.”

There are other combinations in the Lord’s character that we must look at. Another has said of Him, "He was the most gracious and accessible of men." We observe in His ways a tenderness and a kindness never seen in man, yet we always feel that He was a stranger. How true this is! He was a stranger as far as the rebelliousness of man dominated the scene, but intimately near as far as the misery and need of man made demands upon Him. The distance He took, and the intimacy He expressed, were perfect. He did more than look on the misery that was around Him; He entered into it with a sympathy that was all His own. And He did more than refuse the pollution that was around Him; He kept the very distance of holiness itself from every touch or stain of it.

Notice how He exhibited this combination of distance and intimacy in Mark 6. The disciples returned to Him after a long day’s service. He cared for them. He brought their weariness very near to Him. He took account of it and provided for it at once, saying to them, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." But when the multitude followed Him, He turned with the same readiness to them, acquainting Himself with their condition. And having taken knowledge of them, as sheep that had no shepherd, He began to teach them. In all this we see Him very near to the varied need of the scene around Him, whether that need be the fatigue of the disciples, or the hunger and ignorance of the multitude. But the disciples soon resented His attention to the multitude, and urged Him to send them away. However, this would in no wise do for Him. There was immediate estrangement between Him and them which shortly afterwards expressed itself by His telling them to get into the ship while He sent the multitude away. But this separation from Him only worked fresh trouble for them. Winds and waves were against them on the lake; and then in their distress He was again near at hand to help and secure them!

How consistent in the combination of holiness and grace is all this. He is near in our weariness, our hunger, or our danger. He is apart from our tempers and our selfishness. His holiness made Him an utter stranger in such a polluted world; His grace kept Him ever active in such a needy and afflicted world. And this sets off His life, I may say, in great moral glory:for though forced, by the quality of the scene around Him, to be a lonely One, yet was He drawn forth by the need and sorrow of it to be the active One.

Along with exhibiting these beautiful combinations of virtues, with equal perfectness the Lord Jesus manifests wisdom in distinguishing things. For example, He was not drawn into softness when the occasion demanded faithfulness, and yet He passed by many circumstances which human sensibilities would have resented, and which the human moral sense would have judged it well to resent. He did not attempt to win the hearts of His disciples by means of an amiable nature. Honey was excluded as well as leaven from the meal offering (Lev. 2:11); neither was Jesus, the true meal offering, characterized by that honey of human civility and friendliness any more than He manifested that leaven of sin in His holy life. It was not merely civil, amiable treatment that the disciples got from their Master. He did not gratify, and yet He bound them to Him very closely; and this is power. There is always moral power when the confidence of another is gained without its being sought; for the heart so won has then become conscious of the reality of love. Another has written:"We all know how to distinguish love and attention, and that there may be a great deal of the latter without any of the former. Some might say, attention must win our confidence; but we know ourselves that nothing but love does." This is so true. Attention, if it be mere attention, is honey, and how much of this poor material is found with us! We are disposed to think that it is all well, and perhaps we aim no higher than to purge out leaven and fill the lump with honey. If we are amiable, perform our part well in the civil, courteous, well-ordered social scene, pleasing others, and doing what we can to keep people on good terms with us, then we are satisfied with ourselves and others with us also. But is this service to God? Is this a meal offering? Is this found as part of the moral glory of perfect man? Indeed it is not! It is one of the secrets of the sanctuary that honey was not used to give a sweet savor to the offering.

Further, the Lord did not pass judgments on persons in relation to Himself_a common fault with us all. We naturally judge others according as they treat ourselves, and we make their interest in us the measure of their character and worth. But this was not the Lord. God is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed. He understands every action fully. In all its moral meaning He understands it, and according to that He weighs it.

In this regard let us refer to Luke 11. There was the air of courtesy and good feeling towards Him in the Pharisee who invited Him to dine. But the Lord was "the God of knowledge," and as such He weighed this action in its full moral character. The honey of courtesy, which is the best ingredient in social life in this world, did not pervert His taste or judgment. He approved things that are excellent. The civility which invited Him to dinner was not to determine the judgment of Him who carried the weights and measures of the sanctuary of God. As soon as the Lord entered the house, the host acted the Pharisee, and not the host. He marveled that his guest had not washed before dinner. And the character he thus assumed at the beginning showed itself in full force at the end. And the Lord dealt with the whole scene accordingly, for He weighed it as the God of knowledge. Some may say that the courtesy He had received might have kept Him silent. But He could not look on this man simply as in relation to Himself. He was not to be flattered out of a just judgment. He exposed and rebuked, and the end of the scene justified Him:"And as He said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge Him vehemently, and to provoke Him to speak of many things, laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him."

Very different, however, was His way in the house of another Pharisee who in like manner had asked Him to dine (Luke 7). This man, like the one in Luke 11, displayed pharisaical tendencies. He silently accused the poor sinner of the city, and his guest for allowing her to approach Him. But appearances are not the ground of righteous judgments. Often the very same words, on different lips, have a very different mind in them. And therefore the Lord, the perfect weigh master according to God, though He rebuked Simon and exposed him to himself, knew Simon by name and left his house as a guest should leave it. He distinguished the Pharisee of Luke 7 from the one of Luke 11, though He dined with both of them.

As another aspect of the moral glory of the Lord Jesus, He knew how to answer every man with words which were always to his soul’s profit. He perfectly fulfilled that which the apostle Paul urged upon the Colossian believers:"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man" (4:6) Thus, in answering inquiries, He did not so much purpose to satisfy them as to reach the conscience or the condition of the inquirer.

In His silence, or refusal to answer at all, when He stood before the Jew or the Gentile at the end, before either the priests, or Pilate, or Herod, we can trace the same perfect fitness as we do in His words or answers. He witnessed to God that at least One among the sons of men knew "a time to keep silence, and a time to speak" (Eccl. 3:7).

Great variety in His very tone and manner also presents itself in all this; and all this variety added to the fragrance of His perfect life before God. Sometimes His word was gentle, and sometimes peremptory; sometimes He reasoned, and sometimes He rebuked at once; sometimes He conducted calm reasoning up to the heated point of solemn condemnation. It was the moral aspect of the occasion He always weighed.

Matthew 15 has struck me as a chapter in which this perfection may be seen. In the course of it the Lord was called to answer the Pharisees, the multitude, the poor afflicted stranger from the coasts of Tyre, and His own disciples, again and again, in their manifestation of either stupidity or selfishness. And we may notice His different style of rebuke and of reasoning, of calm, patient teaching, and of faithful, wise, and gracious training of the soul. We cannot help but feel how fitting all this variety was to the place or occasion that called it forth.

In a similar way we marvel at the beauty and the fitness of His neither teaching nor learning in Luke 2:46, but only hearing and asking questions. To have taught then would not have been in season since He was a child in the midst of His elders. To have learned would not have been in full fidelity to the light which He knew He carried in Himself, for we may surely say that He was wiser than the ancients and had more understanding than His teachers (Psa. 119:99,100). He knew in the perfection of grace how to use this fulness of wisdom. Strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God upon Him, is the description of Him then as He grew up in tender years; and when a man conversing in the world, His speech was always with grace, seasoned with salt, as of One who knew how to answer every man. What perfection and beauty suited to the different seasons of childhood and manhood!

Let me close by saying that it is blessed and happy for us, as well as part of our worship, to mark the characteristics of the Lord’s way and ministry here on the earth. All that He did and said, all His service, whether in the substance or the style of it, is the witness of what He was, and He is the witness to us of what God is.. And thus we reach God, the blessed One, through the paths of the Lord Jesus recorded in the pages of the four evangelists. Every step of that way becomes important to us. All that He did and said was a real, truthful expression of Himself, as He Himself was a real, truthful expression of God. If we can understand the character of His ministry, or read the moral glory that attaches to each moment and each particular of His walk and service here on earth, and so learn what He is, and thus learn what God is, we reach God in certain and unclouded knowledge of Him. We reach God through the ordinary paths and activities of the life of this divine Son of Man.

(Condensed from Short Meditation on the Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.)

FRAGMENT "According to my earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body" (Phil. 1:20). Is it our desire to be able to adopt Paul’s language? Do we hold our bodies as vessels for the display of Christ? As we rise in the morning do we look upon the coming day as another opportunity of making Christ great?

"Ye are… the epistle of Christ. . . written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. . . . But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:3,18).

The first principle and basis of all Christian truth is that there is a Mediator between man and God. Because man could not come to God, Another has taken up the cause of man and worked out an acceptance for him. One result of this is that we have been made "the epistle of Christ" (blotted ones no doubt in ourselves), or a transcript of Christ, "written . . . with the Spirit of the living God." The Word says that we "are" this, not merely we ought to be. Though in ourselves most imperfect and failing, the definition given by the Spirit of God of a Christian is that he is a transcript of Christ.

The natural thought of many a soul is this:"Well, if that be true, I do not know what to think of myself; I do not see this transcript in myself." No, and you ought not to see it. Moses did not see his own face shine. Moses saw God’s face shine, and others saw Moses’face shine.

The glory of the Lord as seen in Moses’ face alarmed the people; they could not bear that glory. But we see it now with open unveiled face in Christ (verse 18), and yet are not afraid. We find liberty, comfort, and joy in looking at it; we gaze on it and instead of fearing, rejoice. How does this immense difference come about? It is "the ministration of the Spirit" and "of righteousness" (verses 8,9). It is Christ alive in the glory that I see:not Christ down here_sweet as that was_but Christ at the right hand of God. Yet though that glory is in the heavens, I can steadfastly behold it. All that glory_and He is in the midst of the glory and majesty of the throne of God itself_does not make me afraid, because this wonderful truth comes in that the glory of God is in the face of a Man who has put away my sins and who is there in proof of it (Heb. 1:3). I should at one time have been afraid to hear His voice, and have said with the children of Israel, "Let not God speak with us" (Exod. 20:19), or, like Adam with a guilty conscience, have sought to hide myself away (Gen. 3:8); but I do not say so now. No, let me hear His voice. I cannot see the glory of Christ now without knowing that I am saved. How comes He there? He is a Man who has been down here mixing with publicans and sinners_the friend of such, choosing such as His companions; He is a Man who has borne the wrath of God on account of sin; He is a Man who has borne my sins in His own body on the tree.

I could not see Christ in the glory if there were one spot or stain of sin not put away. The more I see of the glory the more I see the perfectness of the work that Christ has wrought, and of the righteousness wherein I am accepted. Every ray of that glory is seen in the face of One who has confessed my sins as His own, and died for them on the cross; of One who has glorified God on the earth, and finished the work that the Father had given Him to do. The glory that I see is the glory of redemption. Having glorified God about the sin_"I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do" (John 17:4)_God has glorified Him with Himself there.

When I see Him in that glory, instead of seeing my sins I see that they are gone. I have seen my sins laid on the Mediator; I have seen my sins confessed on the head of the scapegoat, and they have been borne away (Lev. 16). Once my sins were found upon the head of that blessed One; but they are gone, never more to be found. Were it a dead Christ that I saw, I might fear that my sins would be found again; but with Christ alive in the glory the search is in vain. He who bore them all has been received up to the throne of God, and no sin can be there.

Further, I am changed into His likeness. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." It is the Holy Spirit taking of the things of Christ and revealing them to the soul that is the power of present practical conformity to Christ. It is Christ Himself that I love; Christ that I admire; Christ that I care for; Christ whose flesh I eat and whose blood I drink. What wonder is it, then, if I am like Christ? The Christian thus becomes the epistle of Christ; he speaks for Christ, owns Christ, acts for Christ. He does not want to be rich, he has riches in Christ_unsearchable riches. He does not want the pleasures of the world; he has pleasures at God’s right hand for evermore.

Does the heart still say, "Oh, but I do not and cannot see this transcript in myself"? That may be so, but you see Christ, and is not that better? It is not my looking at myself, but it is my looking at Christ that is God’s appointed means for my growing in the likeness of Christ. If I would copy the work of some great artist, is it by fixing my eyes on the imitation, and being taken up with regrets about my failing attempt, that I shall be likely to succeed? No, but by looking at my model, by fixing my eyes there, tracing the various points, and getting into the spirit of the thing. The Holy Spirit has revealed to my soul Christ in the glory as the assurance of my acceptance; therefore I can look steadfastly, without fear, at the glory, and rejoice at the measure of its brightness. Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, could look up steadfastly into heaven and see the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God_and his face shone as the face of an angel (Acts 7). And look at his death! Just like his Master, he prayed for his very murderers. Stephen died saying, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge"; Christ died saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." In him there was the expression of Christ’s love for His enemies. By the Holy Spirit he was changed into the same image.

The soul at perfect liberty with God looks peacefully and happily at the glory of God as seen in the face of Jesus Christ. And because it sees that glory, and knows its expression, it walks before God in holy confidence. At ease in the presence of God, the Christian there drinks into the spirit of that which befits the presence of God, and becomes the "epistle of Christ" to the world, showing out to all that he has been there. May we more and more make our boast in Him in whose face all this glory is displayed_the Lamb who has died for us and cleansed away our sins by His own most precious blood.

(From Changed into His Image.)