This glorious sight will perfect our likeness.2. In the vision reserved for the heavenly Jerusalem there will be nothing dark or enigmatical, nothing of cloud, or representation, of faith or reasoning, or intermediate ideas to inform the understanding, nothing between God and the glorified soul, the knowledge intuitive, the vision naked, full, and perfect according to the quality of the recipient, and the mind directly irradiated from the fountain of light, from the Divine essence itself.III. It points to an end of strife, to rest and peace; but there is something better than that. But in these transfigurations there are contrasts as well as analogies. What heaven in such a look!(A. Selby. The life dawning in that birth mediated through the Spirit is alone susceptible of these sublime modifications and perfectings; and in the heavenly transfiguration there is the same parallel or analogy. But in the other world all we can want or wish for shall be supplied directly from the Fountain of Happiness, and God Himself shall be to us all in all without any second causes. Yet more, we have known Him better than by Scripture sometimes — by close and intimate fellowship with Him. G. (c)To everything there is a season, and this not the time of glory.II. )What we shall beCanon Scott Holland.Surely a wholly new interest creeps over this poor human world of ours if we once see in it the germ of possibility, the suggestion of all we shall be hereafter. B. Jesus, Himself sought to press home this truth. I do not refer to the everyday manifestations of God — the sunlight, the blessed order of nature, the daily food and daily joy of home, but to those occasions when life becomes momentous, when it gathers itself up in a crisis and all is changed for us. We are His children even now. Angels? The sand arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which reflect the blue, green, purple, and red rays in the greatest beauty. THE SEASON WHEN WE SHALL ENJOY THIS — "when He shall appear."1. The time of our open presentation at court will have come.1. But there may be large modifications, through the extension and elevation of our thoughts. How it is the fruit of vision? Suddenly the wind has blown away the mist from under you, and you have seen the fair, fair valley. In some of the Buddhist monasteries of Eastern Asia devotees are pointed out who have sat facing blank walls for years, and have gazed themselves into mysterious ecstasies. We shall know Him, because He will be so much like the Bible Jesus, that we shall recognise Him at once. Cheerfulness in the face of change. How, then, shall we not turn to this poor life of ours with hope, with zeal, with tenderness, with love; how shall we not clasp it tight and fast, and cling about it, and busy ourselves with its services? W. Hamilton, LL. Nor do I think that that desire is wrong. Thirdly, the mean, or condition on our part, whereby we are incorporated into Christ at present, is our faith, but in the life to come faith shall be swallowed up in perfect vision, we shall see God as He is, and the sight of infinite perfection shall set us on fire and make our hearts burn with love as pure and bright as our knowledge; and it being the property of love to clasp the object beloved into the closest union, we shall enjoy all things possible in common with the ever-blessed Trinity. On it was peace, and a smile, with her lips parted; but that was not all. He is in us the hope of glory, and such a hope maketh not ashamed.(T. We shall never see Him thus; Bethlehem's glories are gone forever; Calvary's glooms are swept away; Gethsemane's scene is dissolved; and even Tabor's splendours are quenched in the past. See how Christ has transformed the world; how His spirit has stolen into the hearts of nations; how civilisation has taken on His name and is doing His work. Young man, the text says, "We shall see Him as He is." The one would have been astonishment, and horror would have succeeded it; but when we see Jesus as He is it will be astonishment without horror. Furthermore, if we had seen Christ as He was, we should have had great love for Him; but that love would have been compounded with pity. And they who are thus accustomed to see Christ are ready to gaze upon Him with unspeakable joy when He shall come again to earth.III. It is because of this fact that the different parts of our common life at least match themselves into a congruous and harmonious whole. We notice —I. He is qualified to be perfectly conformed to the will of God, to be holy even as He is holy.4. And there is an assimilation to Christ's pattern that is more or less conscious, corresponding to these processes in the social realm around us. Now, if men by projecting themselves into moods of abstraction discover new powers of mind, find unknown fires begin to burn within them, and rise into worlds of spiritual ecstasy, what change, think you, ought to effect itself within us if with the same steadfastness we contemplate the personality of Him who is the Leader and Consummator of our faith? We may be sure that God has not put all the wonders of His creation into our early physical life, and left the moral life bare and fixed. For then, then alone, are just men completely blessed, when their spirits are made so perfect that they clearly contemplate all truth and fully enjoy all good; that is, when the whole orb of the soul is filled with perfect light and perfect love. The wondrous changes since infancy, with the development of hidden powers, do not effectually teach us that changes as great await us, or may be achieved. It gives a hint, a shadow, of that heavenly citizenship which shall complete all that is well begun here: we shall find it all there. First, the Holy Spirit is now given but in part, in proportion to the exigencies of a state of trial, and consequently our communion must be in part also; but in heaven, the place of reward, we shall all, to the utmost extent of our capacity, so be filled with all the fulness of God, and most perfectly joined to the ever-blessed Trinity in a most intimate, immediate, and ineffable union. The vision here intended must be intellectual — a vision of the mind and not of the eye, a clear perception or sight of God in the souls of just men made perfect. Ocular; for our senses have their happiness as well as our souls, and there is a glorified eye as well as a glorified mind (Job 19:26, 27). We shall not bow before Him with trembling, but it will be with joy; we shall not shake at His presence, but rejoice with joy unspeakable. Thank you for registering. Now all that we can learn of what we shall be here after is to be sought here and now, in our human lot, amid our fellows, in our common brotherhood. Thus these great hopes that enfold the world are yours and mine; we can take them into the secrecy of our sorrowing hearts, into our disappointed lives, into the vanishing away of our strength and years, and through them claim and find a place in the world of joy and peace.(T. Every grace may be discriminated and may command its due need of homage, but all in vain unless there be a new and tender life to receive the imprint of the perfect personality thus presented to the thought and emotion. Good things, from which men thirty years ago hoped so much, have been done only to show how much more remains to be done. One thing is sure, the gospel of Jesus Christ does not leave us alone with a law of heredity, and the bare hope that we may become confirmed in goodness; it opens before us a vista of endless growth and change. He has, in truth, become a son of God, but it is not manifest what he will become; he is only sure that as all the transformations in his character have been in the direction of likeness to God, they will go on in the same direction. So we shall feel awe when we see Christ on His throne; but it will be awe without fear. If selfish or lustful or proud, these qualities tend simply to go on and harden into fixed form. Behold this world in all its magnificence and beauty, appointed to be his habitation, and to minister to his improvement and happiness. Princely beauty hides itself away in the sons of God everywhere, and if we only suffer the Spirit of God to come to us and assimilate our characters to the Christlike ideal, that beauty will adorn even the bodies of our humiliation, and will at last clothe our quickened and recreated flesh forever. "We shall see Him as He is." From the nature of our communion with God in heaven thus explained, I proceed more particularly to the blessed effects of it. Perhaps while I have been speaking some have said, "Ah! It is because of this fact that the different parts of our common life at least match themselves into a congruous and harmonious whole. I begin with the perfection of our knowledge. Young man, you have got a mother and her soul doats upon you. Perhaps while I have been speaking some have said, "Ah! (Matthew 26:64). They labour with meaning and soar with aspiration. The angels, which have not bodies, are said to behold the face of our heavenly Father (Matthew 18:10); and when we are said to see God, it is not meant of the bodily eye, for a spirit cannot be seen with bodily eyes; so He is still the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). Let me stop here always. We shall know Him, because He will be so much like the Bible Jesus, that we shall recognise Him at once. Christ not only so acts upon us as to conform us to His holy and exalted pattern now; when He comes again it shall be to reflect His glory into the persons of His believing followers.1. (2) Our characteristic principles.III. OUR SONSHIP FLINGS AN ALL-PENETRATING BEAM OF LIGHT ON THAT FUTURE, in the knowledge of our perfect vision and perfect likeness. "We know."2. I can never forget the dramatic intensity of her manner as she told me all this, and how she at last had to drag herself away, as from a vision, and to stumble down the stairs again. You shall see Him. And it also seeks to produce them. H. It is the same one. II. We shall never see our Saviour under His Father's displeasure; but we shall see Him honoured by His Father's smile. 1. But, Christians, there will be no hidings of faces in heaven! Sometimes you have been driven to a great extremity, and whether you would succeed or not seemed to hang upon a thread. In ways unknown to us these assimilative forces work deep down amidst the elemental mysteries of life. thou shalt "see Him," but not nigh; thou shalt be driven from His presence. Look at the Book. if we ever should be sundered from those we love so dearly when the last day of account shall come! Come, let us divide that "we" into "I's." The vision here intended must be intellectual — a vision of the mind and not of the eye, a clear perception or sight of God in the souls of just men made perfect. It disposes the children of God to love Him with an ardent and supreme affection. For if the ideal, if completion, is to be sought here on earth, then we know how despairing is our view of those who are born in thousands in dark and low dens, born out of the seed of sin, out of the fires of lust and of drink, born into a life that must be stricken and stunted, blind with ignorance and cursed with a loveless doom. Thus I am summoned to new exercises of my nature. We are not to think that this transforming process belongs only to the life beyond. THIS CHANGE IS PREPARATORY TO ANOTHER IN A FUTURE STATE OF EXISTENCE. General Epistles For, secondly, God communicates Himself in this world not immediately, but by inferior instruments and secondary causes: He feeds the soul with the graces of His Spirit, by the ministry of His Word and sacraments, and preserves the body by the help of His creatures. I have made you children of God. H. Spurgeon.It is one of the most natural desires in all the world, that when we hear of a great and a good man we should wish to see his person. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, but it doth not appear what we shall be." He is in us the hope of glory, and such a hope maketh not ashamed.(T. To some persons He is a mere man. See that the law of approximation to Christ is at work in all the occasions of common life. To believe in future change is very different from believing in past change. (2) Our characteristic principles. (2) In the first transfiguration the Spirit is the agent of the change; in the second the ministry of the Spirit is superseded, or at least falls into the background. Come, let us divide that "we" into "I's." and doth lust tarry in thy old cold blood? Know in this glass of the believer does PRINCIPALLY CONSIST succeed or not seemed to hang upon a act! Affects not the time of our common life at least match themselves into trance conditions gazing. 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