THE GLORIOUS HOPE by Editor

Publishing Committee · Rochester, N. Y. · Apr 18, 1854

"THE GLORIOUS HOPE."

By Editor

The New York Baptist Association held their fifty-third anniversary in the meeting house of the Berean Baptist Church, N. Y., on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 30 and 31, 1843. Their Circular Letter, written according to appointment by A. Wheelock, pastor of the church worshiping in sixteenth-street, is specially appropriate to the present time. It is truly refreshing. We copy it entire.

BELOVED BRETHREN :—For mutual encouragement and comfort amid the sorrows and afflictions of our pilgrimage, permit us to address you, in this annual epistle, on the subject of our Second Adoption.

The sufferings of God's people led Paul, in the eighth chapter of Romans, to contrast the state of a Christian while a mortal subjected to the frailties and sufferings of this life and the corruptions of the grave, and the same Christian after he shall have become immortal, liberated from these evils, and resplendent with the glory of the Sons of God. "For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God. We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies."

God, in the work of redemption, begins it upon the soul and ends it upon the body. He first changes our minds into the image of Him who created us. By this there is imparted to us a moral character like that of our Creator and Redeemer. We love holiness and hate sin, loath the corruptions of our nature, and long after perfection in righteousness. It is in connection with this we receive our first adoption; but while we wonder at and admire the change wrought on the mind, we are left still to sigh about the flesh on account of its enervating and contaminating influences against the spirit. Its carnal desires, its evil working, and its frail and dying state remain, so that "we groan within ourselves and wait for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies." This is the second adoption. When received, then shall we be like Christ, not only in spirit but in body.

That God designs to confer upon believers this second adoption—in other words, that he designs to change greatly and wonderfully their bodies, is clearly a matter of divine revelation. "Behold," said the inspired Apostle, "I show a you mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. Then, as "we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." It was this which, by the vision of the Almighty, animated Job when he said, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall stand in the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin worms devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another, though my reins be consumed within me." From these and many other like passages, we have presented to the eye of faith a vision of the work of grace completed, of redemption perfected. It is a vision truly glorious, though we see it yet but in part; for in its fulness it is so incomprehensible that "it doth not yet appear what we shall be." The vision we conceive of its glory is like a bright moon-light view the traveler catches of a splendid mansion, through the thick foliage of the trees that surround it. Now his eye lights upon a pillar, a cornice, a window, a corner; and from these, his imagination endeavors to give form and beauty to the entire structure. So it is with that glorious body after which the saints are longing, and an indefinite view of which is presented in such passages as we have quoted.

But it is not by the paintings of the imagination merely that God has left us to ascertain what will be the appearance of our glorious bodies. He has given us a pattern in the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was submitted to the inspection of the eye-witnesses on the holy mount of transfiguration. The Scriptures teach us that that wonderful scene was designed as a kind of miniature representation of the second advent of our blessed Saviour. Certain of the apostles were promised by our Lord that before they died they should see this representation. "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here who shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." All these disciples are long since dead, and there has not been yet any coming of Christ with his angels, when he rewarded every man according to his works.

Jesus presented this promise to those disciples in a metaphor. Metaphors are often employed thus by the sacred writers. Take the following as specimens: "The three branches are three days," i. e., represent three days. "The seven empty ears, blasted by the east wind, shall be seven years of famine." Ephraim is a cake unturned. All flesh is grass—surely the people are grass. Take, eat, this is my body—this cup is my blood. I am the vine, and my Father is the husbandman. The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer. The seven stars are the seven angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches. So the text, "Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here who shall not taste of death till they see (a representation of) the Son of man coming in his kingdom." After six days, that representation was given them in the transfiguration of their Lord.

Peter was one of the favored three who was permitted to be an eye-witness of his majesty on that memorable occasion, and he has taught us in his second epistle, that it was a representation of that glorious advent of Christ, which is joyfully anticipated by all truly evangelical Christians. He assured his brethren that the account, which it appears he had often given them, of the splendid and awful exhibition of Christ's transfiguration, was entirely unlike the incredible, fabulous stories the heathen had invented and published concerning their gods—stories, the accuracy of which no one could avouch—but said he, we were eye-witnesses. "We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father glory and honor, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice, which came from heaven, we heard when we were with him in the holy mount." Peter is particular in defining the time and the place of this marvelous exhibition; and applies to it the same metaphorical name that was given it by the Saviour, "the coming of our Lord :" that is, a representation of his coming. By the transfiguration, then, Jesus meant to show us the splendor of the retinue that will accompany him when he comes to judge the world.

As to the glorious body he exhibited to Peter, James and John, on the holy mount, the Evangelists say, "The fashion of his countenance was altered, his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them: his raiment was white and glistening, white as the light." John was one who saw the transfiguration, and speaks of it in his gospel. "And we beheld his glory, (said he,) the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." In the book of Revelations, an account is given of Christ again appearing in his glorious body to this beloved disciple on the island of Patmos, and he has described him as looking very much as he did in the transfiguration. "He was clothed with a garment down to his feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hair was like wool as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength." What surpassing glory! When the sun shineth in his strength, no man can look upon it for a moment. And his raiment was white as the light! From the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, nought appears but the most effulgent glory. The liveliest imagination fails in attempting to delineate this splendor. The brightest objects in nature are employed to paint its glory; but even these are regarded by an eye-witness as altogether inadequate. Soaring above the sun, he says, the glory of Christ, when he saw it, was "as the glory of the only begotten of the Father;" and in another passage he says, when Christ appears, "we shall be like him;" but notwithstanding he had been exhibited as clothed with the sun, and glistening in white, still he declares, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be," so far are these illustrations from exhibiting the splendor of his future glory.

And yet, amazing thought! Beloved, this is the glory with which our bodies will be invested when the work of our redemption shall be consummated in the day of our next adoption! "For when he who is our life shall appear, then shall we appear with him in glory. We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. He shall change our vile body, and fashion it like unto his glorious body. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." O wondrous prospect! Matchless grace! Blessed hope! Yes, we are "looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ! when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, in that day. We groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."

The apostles in their oral, as well as their written communications, often referred to this edifying subject, for the support and comfort of their brethren. Peter says, "I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them; yea, I think it meet as long as I am in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance." Said Paul, "Remember ye not that when I was with you, I told you these things?" The apostles had both seen our Lord in his glory, and as they had learned by revelations that he purposed to invest the bodies of all his faithful disciples, with the same glory, how could they refrain from speaking of it to their afflicted brethren, to cheer and support them amidst their cruel persecutions. By it, they themselves were greatly animated, and they often spake of it to support and animate their suffering brethren. Whenever they refer to "this blessed hope," with what expressions of delight and rapture do they speak of it. Paul compares it to sowing seed, and says, "Thou sowest not that body that shall be"—its future verdure, and blossoms, and fragrance is not yet seen, but "as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." When Daniel in vision saw the redeemed

arrayed in their glory, he exclaimed, "They shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." The Saviour's description of it was still more clear and splendid. "Then," said he, "shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father." John, the beloved disciple, despairs of giving a full and adequate idea of the glory in which the saints will be at last invested, and breaks forth in the following exclamation: "Beloved, it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him." The Psalmist exulted when he saw it afar off, and said, "I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness." The apostles were so overcome when they saw Christ's glorious body on the holy mount, that they fell on their faces! O what a scene will be presented to our astonished vision, when we shall not only see him as he is, but see all the blood-washed throng arrayed in the same glory!

"Arrayed in glorious grace Shall these vile bodies shine, And every shape, and every face, Look heavenly and divine."

Cleansed from all sin, their souls adorned with grace, and their bodies bearing the image of the heavenly, they are all loveliness and holiness within, all beauteous and comely, and glorious without! If at the Saviour's first advent, when he changed his glory for ignominy, the angels shouted glory to God in the highest, what will they say when they escort him down the skies in his second advent, "to be glorified in his saints?" If there was joy among the angels in heaven over one sinner that repented, how will they feel when they see the whole company of the redeemed, cleansed from sin, clothed in white, and dazzling in glory like their Lord! What a coronation day will that be, when the Captain of their salvation shall walk with them in white through the streets of the New Jerusalem, paved with gold, transparent as glass! What music will be made when the General Assembly and the Church of the First Born shall be arranged on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, harping with their harps, and singing it as were, a new song before the throne! while they outshine the angels in the kingdom of their Father.

And, beloved, if we be Christ's, such are our prospects, such the blessedness of our hopes!

"There we shall see his face, And never, never sin; There from the rivers of his grace, Drink endless pleasures in. Yes, and before we rise To that immortal state, The thoughts of such amazing bliss, Should constant joys create."

In view of such a prospect, how the disciple, wasting away with disease, and sinking into the grave; or the poor saint pining in want, and clothed in rags, or groaning under persecution, should exult in joyful triumph! What consolation should the bereaved derive from this subject, when they resign to dust the remains of beloved friends! What solemn admonition does it give the unconverted, whose bodies in that dread day, will "come forth with shame and everlasting contempt," when they will see the righteous shining forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father!—Mid. Cry—1843.