Now let it go. And therefore it implieth a more complete knowledge than now we have. "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour." Here, too, how dimly we see Christ! Lastly, from this perfection of knowledge will arise a perfect conformity of our wills and affections.(W. Brother, with snow upon thy head, wilt thou "see Him as He is"? What the end of this social change will be we do not know, but there is no reason to doubt that society will make as great gains as it has made in the past. But then, Christ and we are not strangers; for we have often seen Him in this glass of the Word. But then, seeing everything in God, we shall be affected only as God is affected; we shall love one another for our relation and likeness to Him only, and as we are members of Christ united and informed by the same Spirit, which will be both the bond of our union and the cause of our love. (2) We are like Him in happiness and glory, that is, in a glorious condition (1 Corinthians 15:49). But there is even a better prospect than this. It was the look of another, the face of another, that had passed into hers. He has had no reason to expect such an advancement. Where are my children? was the apostrophe of an ancient confessor. We shall find Him a man, even as much as He was on earth. I bear my Master witness, I never saw Him yet without being profited by Him. Ah! Shall this mysterious law work through our fears and terrors, and conform us to the disease of which we may think and work towards death, and shall it not also operate through hope and admiration and worship, and assimilate us to the ideal of health, and be fruitful for glory and honour and immortality? There is such a sense of disappointment when we, perhaps, have succeeded in obtaining a goal, and then have to discover that the moment the end is touched it has already begun to change, to move, to go further. We shall speak of our Lord's manifestation without doubt. A Syrian shepherd, by putting peeled rods of hazel before his flocks and herds in the breeding season, found that he could almost mark at will the skins and fleeces of the unborn young. There is rapture in devotion. That is the use to be made of such events as they touch us. R. Cocke, D. D.)The blessed vision of ChristQuoted by Dr. )The two transfigurationsT. Here he stands and looks upon Christ veiled in a mist — upon a Jesus who is shrouded; but when he gets up there, on Pisgah's brow, higher still, with his Jesus, then he shall not see Him dimly, but he shall see Him brightly.4. But then, Christ and we are not strangers; for we have often seen Him in this glass of the Word. I begin with the perfection of our knowledge. Let us not think meagrely on such a subject, but under high analogies. To the mind of the former of these two apostles, this sonship assumes the appearance of a position of privilege. Come, let us divide that "we" into "I's." But there is a fond inquiry whether we shall know our relations and acquaintances in the other world. To wean us, therefore, from the place of our pilgrimage, and to set our affections on a better country, we must send out our minds, as Moses did his spies, to search the promised Canaan, and to bring of the fruit of that good land we are travelling to. Spurgeon. We shall not see Him fight; but we shall see Him return from the fight victorious, and shall cry, "Crown Him! Selby. If we had seen our Saviour as He was, it would have been a triumph to see how He conquered, but still there would have been suspense about it. Nor do I think that that desire is wrong. Munger. In the next place, that this difficulty will be removed. See that the law of approximation to Christ is at work in all the occasions of common life. "Oh, blessed vision! Thou hast had many years of fighting, and trying, and trouble: if thou ever dost "see Him as He is," that will pay for all. Now are we the sons of God, now are we the germ of what we shall find ourselves in that fair land. I must tell the rest in her own words. Just as a little child knows nothing of the passions that sweep through the heart of the youth, so there may be lofty spiritual passions and experiences, and even qualities of character, of which we now know nothing. The text says, "We shall"; and can you and I put our hands on our hearts and know our union with Jesus? To believe in future change is very different from believing in past change. It is the unborn babe which is responsive to the image presented to the brain of the mother, rather than the mother herself. Now let it go. Sermon Series. The transcendent beauty of Christ imparts itself only in natures made tender by the Spirit. In this life we feel after God, as it were, in the dark, we trace Him out by the foot steps of infinite power and wisdom, we see Him in His works but not in Himself; but when we commence angel life this veil shall be taken away, then we shall be no longer under the pedagogy of types and shadows but admitted into the immediate possession of original truth.II. Probably the traditions of saints who had set themselves to meditate on the agonies of the pierced hands and feet, and at last received nail marks in their own persons, are not simple myths, but have a basis of scientific fact. R. Cocke, D. D.)The blessed vision of ChristQuoted by Dr. 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. 3. THE MEANING AND EXTENT OF THIS PHRASE, OF SEEING GOD AS HE IS. Here, too, how distantly we see Christ! "We know."2. A new creation; born again; a son of God; transformed — these phrases are too weak to express it. To believe in future change is very different from believing in past change. But what if this life is all of it not an end, but only a beginning; all of it a suggestion of more beyond, none of it a goal attained? I take it for granted that the soul before is not only in the hand of God, which all assert, but admitted into the sight and presence of the Lord, and to see His blessed face.2. What is the explanation of that perfect likeness? God sweeps it out of sight; not in contempt, but because He prepares for us another and yet another picture of that immeasurable glory of the kingdom of heaven.2. To which I answer, that if such knowledge will add to our happiness we shall surely enjoy it. This is high probability; the Christian faith makes it a certainty. We gain cheerfulness in the face of change, and we gain hope just where we most need it. The best believer only gets half a glimpse of Christ. There will be no difficulty in recognising our unfolding of His life in the future. 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. In the same way that life develops: "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." We have pursued the order of presenting first the human side of Christ, and then the Divine; but we trust it has been made clear that the knowledge of Christ comes to us through the soul side in ourselves. Moses himself asked that he might see God. W. Hamilton, LL. (1) There are more to appreciate us, and it would be as though kings showed their royalty at a wake, or wise men discoursed philosophy before fools. (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. But we who believe that this life is at its best but a germ, a start, a discipline, can afford to broaden our hope beyond all our seeing. The righteous burst forth at once into the zenith of their destinies like stars into the swift kindling splendour of the firmament. Hereditary qualities take the lead, and the character moves on in their direction. The ground of this hope. And what is the result of our expectation of these things if we really entertain the expectation? To indulge in sin, or to cease to strive after holiness, would be virtually to renounce their hope. Munger. These facts clearly show that this world was never designed to be the final abode of man.II. There is personal identity. St. John doubtless had in mind the effect of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Love, obedience, fellowship, are sweetest flowers of earth, but they all look heavenward. THE MEANING AND EXTENT OF THIS PHRASE, OF SEEING GOD AS HE IS. 'It was not her own look that was in her face. And it also seeks to produce them. She had seen Christ. The manner of our seeing God in this life is either by a long train of consequences, by climbing up gradually from the effects to the cause, from the things that are made to the invisible things of the Maker, even His eternal power and Godhead; or by way of eminence, by inferring that the perfections we see in the creatures must of necessity centre all more eminently in the Creator; or negatively, by denying everything of God we conceive unbecoming the Divine nature, for at present we rather know what God is not than what He is; or else we see Him by faith, by believing upon the testimony He has given us of Himself by Moses and the prophets, Christ and His apostles. We shall know Him, because He will be so much like the Bible Jesus, that we shall recognise Him at once. That is the use to be made of such events as they touch us. The third is fetched from a parallel place (Psalm 17:15). All men are as one man; one is the whole and the whole are but one. The clay particles, left to follow their own instinct of unity, become a clear, hard substance so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, refusing the rest. 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. New questions come up; life varies its phases; I am myself not quite the same being as yesterday; I see more, feel more; duty is a little broader; time presses upon me a little more heavily; eternity becomes more real. All we can say is that the holy city of the saved world, the new Jerusalem of the perfected humanity, is slowly but steadily coming down from God out of heaven, and will in time appear four-square upon the earth. We walk here by faith. We cannot, must not, see Him as He was; nor do we wish, for we have a larger promise, "We shall see Him as He is."1. Last of all, the water becomes a dewdrop, and a crystalline star of snow. OF THAT SUBLIMER CHANGE THE PRESENT ONE IS A VERY IMPERFECT SPECIMEN AND PRESAGE. The son of her friend had shown her the stairs, and pointed out the door of the room where the body lay, and put a candle in her hands, and left her. God save thee! 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. The mind is the noblest faculty, and must have its satisfaction. You see the application. He is in us the hope of glory, and such a hope maketh not ashamed.(T. Our future self is commonly the simple projection of our present self. (Canon Scott Holland. In that life of unknown blessedness there will be scope for ever-enlarging knowledge, strength, dignity of nature; but men will rise at once into participation with the privileges of Christ's enthronement and conformity to His Divine kingliness.8. These facts clearly show that this world was never designed to be the final abode of man.II. It may help the weak faith of some who stumble at the supernatural, if we recognise that assimilation forces are already at work which change into finer quality, nobler form, more subtle function that which is gross, inert, unshaped. We shall love Him quite as much when we see Him in heaven, and more too, but it will be love without pity; we shall not say "Alas!" Have you never heard of mothers having recognised their children years after they were lost by the marks and wounds upon their bodies? The Old Testament It was the shadow of Christ that had come upon her. In politics, especially, we note how we are suffering from this cheerless disappointment. The earth, in its noiseless flight, gathers to itself cosmic dust, just as a miller in going to and fro amidst the revolving wheels of his mill draws to himself fine grains of flour; and the earth then conforms that dust to its own likeness. It points to an end of strife, to rest and peace; but there is something better than that. The clay particles, left to follow their own instinct of unity, become a clear, hard substance so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, refusing the rest. "WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM." Calthrop, M. Spurgeon. (4)He will appear surely, and so we speak of it as a date for our own manifesting — "when He shall appear."III. 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. That was almost the only revelation to which he gave much heed; the effect of it was the only spiritual effect of which he was conscious. Turn next to the wonders of redeeming love, and see how, from age to age, God has been operating for the salvation of our race.IV. Christ had come into his life; and from a mere child of this world, a simple fisherman, he had been made a veritable son of God. We call it then a diamond. If so, "we shall see Him as He is." "We shall see Him." 1 John Bible Study Sermon on the Mount Hebrews Bible Study Online Teachings. to which all others are penal and despicable! We touch here a most vital fact — the revelations of God and their effect upon us. How many "I's" are there here that will "see Him as He is"? And yet these natural changes in the past ought to teach us that as great changes may await us in the future, and also that there may be spiritual changes and developments corresponding to the physical changes. Oh, let me be unquiet till I shall see Thee as I am seen! First, that there is something difficult to comprehend about the present spiritual position of the believer. This process is not human and ethical only. St. Paul tells us that the spiritual man judgeth all things, whilst the natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God. (4)He will appear surely, and so we speak of it as a date for our own manifesting — "when He shall appear."III. Transfigurations go on in the social realm that are more or less consciously mimetic in their character. What heaven in such a look!(A. -------------------- These four may be separated each from the other. We shall speak of our Lord's manifestation without doubt. It is by the law of assimilation that men are bound together into homogeneous communities and nations.3. "We shall see Him as He is," and pass at once into the distinctions of His sovereignty. Let them come and see. If selfish or lustful or proud, these qualities tend simply to go on and harden into fixed form. Such Divine contemplations will give a new turn of thought and quite another taste and relish of things; they will be of great use to cure a downward disposition of soul, and to raise us above the world.I. R. Cocke, D. D.)The blessed vision of ChristQuoted by Dr. And if this is so there is hope. 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 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. Who knows what is going on in secret behind those very failures in others which most provoke us? An illustration somewhat resembling that with which I started, must serve me to place this part of our subject before you. Let me stop here always. "We shall see Him as He is."I. Ah! God save thee! I take it for granted that the soul before is not only in the hand of God, which all assert, but admitted into the sight and presence of the Lord, and to see His blessed face.2. 1. In this life we feel after God, as it were, in the dark, we trace Him out by the foot steps of infinite power and wisdom, we see Him in His works but not in Himself; but when we commence angel life this veil shall be taken away, then we shall be no longer under the pedagogy of types and shadows but admitted into the immediate possession of original truth.II. We know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is. 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. That is human life in the believer's eye, in its best and wisest form — still the child life, wistful, prophetic, marvellous, suggestive; a child life so full of strange dreams, but with all its achievements yet to come, to come in that great after world for which the whole round of this age long story of man is but a nursery, but a preparation, but a rehearsal, but an education. )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. But when we see Him up there it will be triumph without suspense. Ask Pastor John. 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? Our future self is commonly the simple projection of our present self. 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