The Riches of His Glory: The Pathway of the Glory (continued)
When David received the pattern for the Temple, and it is distinctly said that he did, then he said, 'everything I have received from the Lord,' when the Temple was done, glory so filled the house of the Lord that the priests themselves had to go out. All this about the Tabernacle, the Temple, the Priesthood and everything else that stood approved before God was leading up to the New Testament, to the One Who was the fulfillment of all this n His Person. Everything in the Son was so fully satisfying to God that He could be transfigured and clothed with glory. His raiment was white and glistening, glorified on the Mount of Transfiguration, because at that point He had satisfied the Father God on every detail (Matthew 17:1-2). If from that moment He must come down from the mount, go to the Cross and suffer all its agony and humiliation and sorrow, that was not because He had disappointed the Father, but it was in order to bring us to glory, to bring us to God's satisfaction.
This is the basis of glory, which is God's satisfaction. And you can see, from the afore-mentioned things, that you get to the point that the glory came in and filled everything. For that to happen, man had to go out. And that is basic to glory, the absolute exclusion of man by nature. Man is the trouble; he is the one that spoils and limits the glory; it is the natural man who keeps back the glory. Whenever he takes a place in Divine things, then the glory is either removed or limited. However, there is nothing about the Lord Jesus that corresponds to the natural man. In Christ, that first Adam, that whole race, has gone-out, and has been put out of the way; and Christ is a new order that answers to God's thought about man. And only in the Person of Christ can man stand in the Eternal Light of God and be in His Perfect work and, therefore be glorified.
The glory is spontaneous when God is satisfied; it just happens. It does not have to be invoked nor implored. It just happens when God is satisfied. If God is satisfied, there is in part a spontaneous witness by the indwelling Spirit of Glory to God's satisfaction in the sense of wonderful rest, quietness of heart, and a sense of joy. This is quite inexplicable in a way and, yet, it is because the Lord is well pleased. This state of satisfaction to God and the full pleasure of God and the answer to the very nature of God is what the Spirit of Glory is working toward in the Church and its members. Does not this explain all the activities of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the people of God, collectively? The Lord is working, dear friends, or trying to work, according to how much we will let Him work. It is according to how we answer to Him, and obey the dictates of the Spirit of Glory. The Lord is working with us and in us as members of His Church, so that in the end the Church may be presented to Him "a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing" (Ephesians 5:27). It is a glorious Church. "Now unto Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations of the age of the ages." Yes God' object is glory in His dealings with us!
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 31)
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