The Transforming Power

Issues – May 2016 – Grace & Truth Magazine

The Transforming Power of Beholding The Lord In The Glory

This is the basis of all Christian truth: There is a Mediator, a third person, between man and God. Because man could not come to God, Another has implicated Himself by taking that place of man’s guilt and his cause and worked out an acceptance before God for him. Two things are brought out in 2 Corinthians 3 as the result of this:

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (v.17 KJV), the liberty of grace, andWe become an “epistle of Christ ... written with the Spirit of the living God” (v.3).

Doubtless, we are imperfect and failing ones in ourselves, but we are not epistles, or letters, of ourselves. We, by the definition given by the Spirit of God, are transcripts, or official copies, of Christ. This we “are,” not merely that we should be.

Now the natural thought of many believers is, “I do not see this transcript in myself.” You should not be occupied with trying to see Christ in yourself. Instead, you ought to be looking unto Christ Jesus. It is as you are occupied with Him that you reflect Him. Moses did not see his own face shine, but he saw God’s face shine, and then others saw Moses’ face shine (See Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:13-16).

The glory of the Lord as seen in Moses’ face alarmed the people for they could not endure that glory. They knew they were guilty before God and that the question of their sins had never been settled. Therefore even the least indication of God’s glory could only produce a fear that He would punish them. But we see God’s glory with “open,” unveiled “face” in Christ (v.18) and are not the least bit afraid. We find liberty, comfort and joy in looking at it. We gaze on it and, instead of fearing, rejoice. Why is there such an immense difference?

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. Although that glory is in the heavens, I can steadfastly look at it. Christ is in the midst of the glory and majesty of the throne of God itself! All that glory does not frighten me because it is in the face of a Man who has put away my sins, and He is there in proof of it. “When He had by Himself purged our sins, [He] sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3).

There was a time when I was afraid to hear His voice and said, like the children of Israel, “Let not God speak with [me]“ (Ex. 20:19); or like Adam with a guilty conscience, I sought to hide from Him (Gen. 3:8). But I no longer think this way. No, let me hear His voice. I cannot see the glory of Christ now without knowing that I am saved!

How did He come to glory? He came down here and, being found in appearance as a man, mixed with tax collectors and sinners as their friend, choosing them as His companions. He is the Man who bore the wrath of God on account of sin – bearing my sins in His own body on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24). He is there in glory as having been down here amid the circumstances and under the charge of sin; and yet it is in His face I see the glory of God now (2 Cor. 4:6). I see Him there as a result of putting away my sin because He has accomplished my redemption.

I could not see Christ in the glory if there was one spot or stain of my sin not put away. The more I see of that glory the more I see the perfection of the work that Christ has done 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, and 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 sin – “I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do” (Jn. 17:4) – God has glorified Him with Himself there.

When I see Him in that glory I see that my sins are gone. My sins were laid on the Mediator: “The LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree” (Isa. 53:6; 1 Pet. 2:24). All of my sins were confessed and put on the head of the scapegoat, and they have been taken away (Lev. 16:21-22).

God has been so glorified by what Christ has done on account of my sins that Christ is entitled to be at His right hand. I am not afraid to look at Christ there, for where are my sins now? Where are they to be found – in heaven or on earth? Once they were found upon the head of that blessed One; but they are gone, nevermore to be found. I only see Christ in the glory.

Were it a dead Christ, so to speak, that I saw, I might fear that my sins would be still found again. But with Christ alive in the glory, that search is in vain. He who bore them all has been received up to the throne of God, and no sin can be there.

As a practical result of looking at Christ in the glory, 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” (2 Cor. 3:18). The power of present, practical conformity to Christ comes as the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Christ and reveals them to the soul. I delight in Christ. I feast on Him. I love Him. It is the very model and forming of my soul according to Christ by the Holy Spirit. It is His revelation of Christ.

I not only get to love the glory, it is Christ Himself that I love, admire and for whom I care. I mediate on Christ, whose body of flesh and shed blood I appropriate for myself. Is it then a wonder if I am like Christ? The Christian thus becomes the epistle of Christ: He speaks for Christ, owns Christ and acts for Christ. He does not desire to be rich for he has unsearchable riches in Christ. The believer does not want the pleasures of the world since he has pleasure at God’s right hand for evermore.

Does your heart still say, “Oh, but I do not see this transcript of Christ in myself?” But you see Christ, and is that not 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 Him. If I would copy the work of some great artist, would I succeed by fixing my eyes on an imitation and being taken up with regrets about a failing attempt? No. The desired result can only come by looking at the model, by fixing my eyes there – tracing the various points and getting into the spirit of the thing. Note the comfort in this: The Holy Spirit having revealed to my soul Christ in the glory as the assurance of my acceptance, I can look without fear and steadfastly at that glory and rejoice at the measure of its brightness!

Stephen (Acts 7), full of the Holy Spirit, looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God; and His face shone as the face of an angel. And look at his death! Just like his Master, he prayed for his murderers. Stephen died, saying, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (v.60). Before this, Christ had died, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34). Stephen expressed Christ’s love for His enemies. By the Holy Spirit he was changed, and that in a very blessed way – 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 that soul walks before God in holy confidence. At ease in the presence of God, he there drinks in the spirit of that which befits the presence of God and becomes the “epistle of Christ” to the world, showing to all that he has been there in the presence of God by faith, gazing upon Christ in the glory. 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.

By John N. Darby (edited)

“They looked unto Him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.” —Psalm 34:5 They looked unto the Lord Jehovah, and were lightened. But no man ever yet looked to Jehovah God as He is in Himself and found any comfort in Him, for “our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29). An absolute God, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, can give no comfort whatever to a troubled heart. If he looks to Him he will be blinded, for the light of Godhead is insufferable. As mortal eye cannot fix its gaze upon the sun, no human intellect could ever look unto God and find light, for the brightness of God would strike the eye of the mind with eternal blindness. The only way we can see God is through the Mediator, Jesus Christ. “Till God in human flesh I see, My thoughts no comfort find” (Isaac Watts, 1674-1748).

God was shrouded and veiled in His manhood – there we can with steady gaze behold Him for He came down to us, and our poor, limited intelligence can understand and lay hold on Him. —C. H. Spurgeon (“Looking Unto Jesus,” May 23, 1858)