God Restrains and Hides

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 23, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 33.

God Restrains and Hides

God’s mercy not only restrains the outworking of sin, but it veils God’s glory, lest sinful man seeing it gaze and perish. Jesus Christ was the glory of God—eternal righteousness—veiled in humanity, that man might see the excellence and beneficence of the glory, and so believe without fear and serve without compulsion. Even the glory of heavenly orbs is dimmed that sinful man may not perish; for we are taught that “the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.” Isa. 30:26.

Yet in the Lord’s glorious metropolitan city, in the glory of His immediate presence, “the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously.” Isa. 24:23; Rev. 21:23; 22:5.

And yet God’s people, in whom the incorruptible seed of His Word has borne the fruit of His righteousness, “shall see His face,” and rejoice forevermore in His presence.