The Cross and the Eternal Glory # 8

It Is An Understanding of What We Have Come Into When We Have Come Into Christ (continued)

Now that outline or diagram covers the whole Bible, indeed, it goes outside of the Bible before and after. But it does cover the whole ground of what is actually in the Bible, and intimated by the Bible. And you will see at once that the Bible is broken up or divided into quite clearly defined sections. I am saying all this for people who are at the beginning of Bible knowledge. Do not be appalled, this is to help you and just put into your hand a key. You will be able to see now that that is not just a book, which is a mass of details, and all sorts of things. I do not know what it all means. There are very clearly defined lines in the whole Bible. It has quite distinct sections, and it moves from one section to another, carrying in every section one message.

[I cannot decipher the outline clearly. It was published on Old English and some of the wording is blurred. But I think that we will all be able to see the "sections" while reading Mr. Austin-Sparks writings during this conference]

So it is to help you to get some general grasp of the Bible, and to put a key into your hand which will open the Bible, if you will use it. And then also really let the Lord speak to your heart. I am more concerned that as you take up your Bible, in any part or as a whole, you listen. You listen to God speaking by His Word, and always asking the question, 'What does that say to me? Not only what does that say, but what does that say to me, what is God's message to me in this part and in that part? Well, that is enough I think by way of introduction.

Now as we said this afternoon, and let me put in a parenthesis here, I am not taking it for granted that we are going to occupy the whole conference with this, I do not think that we are. So far as I am concerned, I do not expect that. But for the time being, and perhaps at times, we shall be moving in this realm. The key phrase which stands over these meditations for this aspect of the conference, however, is in 1 Peter 5:10, 11).

"The God of all grace, Who called you unto His Eternal Glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall Himself perfect, establish, strengthen you. To Him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen"

The Cross and The Eternal Glory

We have already seen today that this word and theme, "Glory," is something which governs the whole of history from God's standpoint. it governs the whole Bible, and is the object which God has from eternity past had in view for His creation, and which He is going to realize ultimately. It is Glory; but it is Glory in Christ Jesus - unto His Eternal Glory in Christ Jesus. So that is the Eternal Glory unto which you and I and all believers are called by His grace, are bound up with, and inseparable from, Christ Jesus. All the Glory is going to be in Him, and there is no hope of Glory apart from Him. It is "Christ in you, the hope of Glory" (Colossians 1:27). And there is no prospect of Glory apart from Christ.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 9)