Justification and glory

‘Whom he justified, them he also glorified.’ Romans 8:30

Suggested Further Reading: Revelation 21:22–22:5

If I might very hastily divide this glory into its constituent elements, I think I should say it means perfect rest. ‘There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God;’ life in its fullest sense; life with emphasis; eternal life; nearness to God; closeness to the divine heart; a sense of his love shed abroad in all its fulness; likeness to Christ; fulness of communion with him; abundance of the Spirit of God, being filled with all the fulness of God; an excess of joy; a perpetual influx of delight; perfection of holiness; no stain nor thought of sin; perfect submission to the divine will; a delight and acquiescence in, and conformity to that will; absorption as it were into God, the creature still the creature, but filled with the Creator to the brim; serenity caused by a sense of safety; continuance of heavenly service; an intense satisfaction in serving God day and night; bliss in the society of perfect spirits and glorified angels; delight in the retrospect of the past, delight in the enjoyment of the present, and in the prospect of the future; something ever new and evermore the same; a delightful variety of satisfaction, and a heavenly sameness of delight; clear knowledge; absence of all clouds; ripeness of understanding; excellence of judgment; and, above all, an intense vigour of heart, and the whole of the heart set upon him whom our eye shall see to be altogether lovely! I have looked at the crests of a few of the waves as I see them breaking over the sea of immortality. I have tried to give you the names of a few of the peaks of the long alpine range of glory. But where are my words, and where are my thoughts? ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.’

For meditation: We cannot comprehend the glory of our Christian inheritance (1 Corinthians 13:12; 1 John 3:2), which is the opposite of what we deserve as those who ‘have sinned, and come short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). Are you ‘justified by faith’ in the Lord Jesus Christ and able to ‘rejoice in hope of the glory of God’ (Romans 5:1–2)?

Sermon no. 627
30 April (1865)