The Call to Eternal Glory
“The God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.” — i Peter v. io.
vv HAT a contrast is presented between the attacks ‘(AVAV/v referred to in the previous verses, and the all-sufficient grace, which lies as a great depth
“K^fff * beneath this!
(^’^ Why should we fear the attacks of the great
Tj adversary of souls, so long as the God of all
grace is ours? There is no kind of grace we can need, which does not reside in Him; yea, grace on grace, so that when one supply is exhausted there is always more to follow. And the attacks of Satan are, perhaps, permitted that we may be constrained to realize and avail ourselves of the stores of grace which are treasured up in Jesus Christ our Lord. “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and in Him ye are made full” (Col. ii. 9, 10, R.V.).
Edinburgh Castle, perched on its grey crags, is said to have been captured only once; and then through a shepherd leading a siTiall storming party up the precipitous western cliffs, which had been left undefended because deemed to be inaccessible. And yet there was benefit even in that apparent disaster, because it indicated a weak spot in the defences for all after-time, and led to a more perfect line of fortification. So we may be thankful when temptation assails us, indicating some point of our character which needs immediate attention, and summoning us to look into the Divine storehouse for some special and unrealized form of grace, which from that moment is claimed and appropriated by the exercise of faith.
It is an exceedingly beautiful title: “The God of «// grace!”
Illuminating grace for the seeker; justifying grace for the believer; comforting grace for the bereaved and sorrowful; strengthening grace for the weak and downtrodden; sanctifying grace for the unholy; living grace, and dying grace. Bring hither the pitchers of your need. The grace of God, which is his unmerited love, will conform itself to their special shape, and will seem to be just fitted to your exigencies and requirements. The ocean is known by several names, according to the shores it washes, and its very tints vary with the shades of the rocks that line the margin of its bed; but it is the same ocean, and its waters are identical in every place. So is it ever the same love of God, though each needy one discovers and admires its special adaptation to his need. “The God of all grace.”
(i) Our Destiny. — It is almost too marvellous to credit, and yet it must be so, that He has called us imto his eternal glory. He is the giver of all grace; and He calls us to all his glory. We therefore stand in his grace, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Rom. v. 2).
We shall ere long behold that glory which is just the shining. forth, in all their loveliness, of the manifested attributes of the ever-blessed God. This was our Saviour’s request, which carried with it the certainty of realization. “Father,” He said, “I will that they whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold my glory.” Not on his back parts only shall we look, as Moses did, as the procession swept down the mountain pass; nor for so transient a moment as the disciples beheld his glory when they were with Him on the Holy Mount; but face to face, in prolonged and steadfast fellowship. The Queen of Sheba, contrasting her brief visit to Solomon’s court with the lot of his servants who lived there, broke into exclamations of envy at their lot. “Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee.” Conceive, then, what our lot is to be through endless ages!
Nor shall we behold it only: we shall share it. — “The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them.” Co-heirs with “(Bilorg in tbc iuir.” 215
Jesus in all that He has won through his humihation and death. Sharers in his unsearchable riches; participators in his unspeakable and triumphant joy; one with him in a unity, which in its mystic circle weaves the Deity itself into oneness with redeemed men. “That they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and Thou in Me; that they may be made perfect in one.”
And this glory is eternal, not as to the length, but as to the quality of it. For it is difficult to speak of the successions of time, when considering that state of being from which time is expressly eliminated. The word certainly means more than never-ending being. It involves conceptions of the imperishable, the untainted, the altogether satisfying, the Divine. Bread, of which if a man eats, the vast appetite of his spirit is sufficed. Joy, of which he can never tire. Knowledge, which is beclouded by no limiting mystery. Life, which reaches to all the lengths and breadths and depths and heights of that spirit which God has made in the image of his own. Glory, which will meet and far surpass the loftiest desires and anticipations which have ever extorted from any of the elect spirits of our race the cry, “I beseech Thee, show me thy glory.”
Tell us not, then, of jasper walls, or golden streets, or flashing jewels. These will no more suffice us than jewels will compensate the bride for the absence of her lord. We are set on attaining the glory to which God has called us in Jesus. And by his dear grace we shall attain it, too; for we have already received his grace, which is glory in the bud. Nor would our God mock us with the foretaste and earnest unless he were prepared to consummate all his grace with all his glory.
Oh, who will heed this call, which is yet sounding through the world, but which may soon cease? Surely the sons of men cannot realize what obedience to it involves. They think more of what they must give up than of what they are to receive. But if they would reverse this process, and think more of what they are certain to receive in Jesus Christ, methinks they would leave all else, without one anxious thought, in order to follow whither such delights entice.
2i6 %ljt (Kail to (BUvml (Slor.
II. Our Pathway Thither. — “After that ye have sufifered a little while.” Sufferi7ig is inevitable. Through much tribulation we must pass to our reward on high. No cross, no crown; no Gethsemane, no emptied grave; no cup of sorrow, no chalice of joy; no cry of forsakenness, no portion with the great, or spoil with the strong. All who suffer are not necessarily glorified; but none are glorified who have not somehow suffered. We must drink of his cup, and be baptized with his baptism, if we would sit right and left of the King. The comet that stands longest nearest to the sun must have plunged furthest into the abyss.
Let sufferers take heart! If only their sufferings are not self-inflicted; if tey do not result from their own mistakes and sins; if they arise from that necessary antagonism to sin and the present world into which close following of the Crucified must necessarily bring any one of us; if they are borne, not only submissively, but with the heart’s choice, as of those that delight to do the will of God — then each pang is a milestone marking their way onwards to the goal of light and glory.
Suffering is necessary to our characters. — The Apostle does not for a moment wish his converts spared from the ordeal. Nothing short of necessity would ever lead God to expose us to the fire. But in no other way can our truest bliss be achieved. In no other school-house are the lessons of obedience so acquired as in that kept by Sorrow. The Lord Himself was once a scholar there, and carved his name on the hard and comfortless boards. In no other ordeal can we lose so much dross; drop so much chaff, learn so much of our own nothingness; be drawn so close to his companionship; or be taught such true estimates of the comparative values of things, weighing the present against the future, till we feel that it is not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed.
Suffering is limited. — At the most, it is for but a little while. Remember how often the Lord Jesus repeated the words, it is only “a little while” (John xvi. 16-19). It was a note on which his fingers lingered, as if loth to leave it. Compared with all the future, the longest life of suffering is only for a moment; and, contrasted with the weight of glory, the heaviest trials are light. Let us not look at the things which are seen, but at those which are not seen. The hills which would daunt the traveller seem diminutive when they are seen lying about the feet of some soaring Alp. Weeping can only stay for the brief summer night, and in the early twilight must hasten veiled away; because joy cometh in the morning, bringing the heraldbeam of the long, happy summer day, on which night can never fall or draw her dusky veil.
When once that glory breaks upon us, the separations and misunderstandings and agonies of time will be no more remembered than a pin’s prick is recalled by the soldier on the day of his public welcome and decoration.
“And when we gain the shore at last,
We shall not count the billows past.”
III. Our Nurture in the Divine Life. — All our hope must be in God. We are not to concern ourselves to cope with the difficulties of our growth in grace, or to fret about what seems to be our slow progress. If only we are willing, trustful, and obedient, God will make Himself responsible for all the rest. “God shall Hi7melf perfect, stablish, strengthen you”
(R.V.).
He shall perfect — z>.. He shall put you in joint, so that his will may work through you, without let or hindrance; as the will of each human being operates consciously through any part of our marvellous nature.
He shall stablish — i.e., He shall found you so massively on the Rock of the person and work of the Lord Jesus, that when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and beat upon you, you may not fall, because rooted and grounded in Him.
He shall stretjgthen — i.e., He may not take away the suffering or the temptation, but He will give more grace, communicating his own strength; so that the soul may even glorify God for infirmity and trial, and say gladly: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
2i8 ^lft Call to (Bhvmi dlax.
How safe and strong then may we be, if only we will go again and again to the God of all grace, claiming, with holy boldness, grace to help us in time of need; and believing that it is to us not according to our feeling but our faith! It is not probable that Elisha felt any different as he turned back from the chariot of fire, which had swept in between him and Elijah. He looked and felt as in the morning of that day; but a vast change had passed over him, which only awaited the River Jordan to call it forth into marvellous manifestation. So we may not be always conscious of the vast changes which are being gradually effected within us in answer to our faith; but when we approach the bank of some foaming river of difficulty or temptation, our behaviour and victory will open the lips of onlookers to exclaim, “Lo, God is here.”
Let us give Him glory! Do not hesitate to tell Him what you think of Him. Amid all the hatred, and blasphemy, and misunderstanding of his foes, let us blend voice and heart in ascribing to Him glory and dominion for ever and ever! Let the notes rise higher and higher as life climbs up towards its goal; until they are merged in the ocean of praise, the billows of which smite against his throne, breaking into the spray of a thousand songs! Thus may it be “for ever and ever.” Amen.