THE GLORY OF THE LORD JESUS
Philippians 2: 9-11
Ephesians 1: 9, 10, 20-23; 3:19-21
PAG I was encouraged by the hymn that we sang at the beginning of this meeting,
Glory, Lord, is Thine for ever (Hymn 181).
We began this morning locally with hymn 268, which refers to the Lord as a
Blessed and glorious Man,
- and it tells us that all that God’s love had designed is secured by Christ. These scriptures I have read are intended to help us gain some fresh impression of the outstanding glory of Christ; to ask ourselves what it would be for Him to have “a name, that which is above every name”, and to have all things headed up in Him, to be given “to be head over all things to the assembly”, and then to be, we might say, the Author of what returns to God eternally - “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”. I trust that there is liberty to enquire together, and that everyone carries away a fresh impression of Christ. What would you say to help us about Jesus having “a name, that which is above every name”?
NRC I was just thinking as you were speaking that His Name in itself is glorious, is it not? I was encouraged that you mentioned that He has been given “a name, that which is above every name”. There is a glory attached to that. I was thinking too that every aspect of Christ, whether it be in His manhood here on earth or in His current position on high, has glory attached to it. Recently we spoke about Joseph and the many colours in his vest, each colour representing a different glory, Gen 37: 3. The glories are endless, are they not?
PAG It says prophetically of the Lord Jesus that “he shall bear the glory”, Zech 6: 13. No one else could bear the glory that He bears; they would not be equal to it. What the Lord is morally came out in perfection in His manhood here, and showed that He is greater than every glory He has won, and yet able to bear everything that is laid upon Him officially, “a name, that which is above every name”. In order for us to see that His Name is “above every name” we have to know Him, and the first thing to ask everyone here would be, do they know the Lord Jesus? Do they know His Name?
JTB Does the very word “wherefore” suggest there was a moral consequence to what preceded?
PAG That is very helpful. Please expand on that for us.
JTB Well, He was, as we sang in our hymn, ‘the great “I AM”’, but He emptied Himself and He humbled Himself. What moral qualities, what moral excellence, were displayed there, and just as you go through that verse it says, “granted”, as if He satisfied the qualifications for the Name, do you think?
PAG That is good, and God was fully justified in granting it. It suggests something that has been conferred. God had it ready, one might say, but who was going to receive this glory? There was only One who could.
TWL Is His Name descriptive of the Person? I am just thinking of “the name of Jesus”, ‘Jah the Saviour’. What a glorious Man He is, and it is descriptive not just of what He has done but of what He is.
PAG It is glorious that when God chose to make Himself known in a Man, He came in by the name of Jah the Saviour. If He had come in as judge He would have been righteous in doing so. We know that judgment has been committed into the hands of the Son of man, and that day will come, but, at the moment, this day of grace is characterised by One whose name is Jesus - Jah the Saviour.
TWL It has been said that glory is the outshining of love, JT vol 12 p259. Jah the Saviour is the perfect expression of the love of God in a Man, and that is what Jesus is. Jah the Saviour, the manner of His being Saviour, involves His dying.
PAG So that God would come out in manhood in Christ, the Lord taking His place, “having been found in figure as a man” (v 8), as we are told here, and in that manhood He would die. He came into a position where He could die. He did it for God and He did it for you and me.
KRC We quoted this scripture you have referred to in thanksgiving this morning. We had a sense of the fact that He was given that Name. He was given the name of Jesus before all His service. Before He grew “as a tender sapling” (Isa 53: 2), He was given that Name. You get the sense that heaven was united in that Name being chosen, do you think?
PAG Yes. “Glory to God in the highest”, it was said when He came in, “and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”, Luke 2: 14. Proverbs 8: 31 says , “my delights were with the sons of men”. God’s delight could be in men because Christ was here. Man could not have been fully delightful to God until Christ came in, and there could not be peace on earth until Christ came in. There were things that could not happen until Christ came into manhood. That is how great He is; that is how important He is: God’s name could not be fully made known; the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that revelation, could not come out until the incarnation.
DCB We have not reached the time when every knee does bow but we have the secret of a name which the Lord Jesus has as exalted. It is going to come out publicly, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”. It is going to affect everything in the universe.
PAG Yes, it is a matter of righteousness, would you say, that it should be so? God anointed His Man. He thus appointed His Man, and it is essential that God’s appointment should be recognised. He could not have any being pass by, whether of heavenly or earthly or infernal beings, and not acknowledge that God “granted” Him that Name. It is a matter of righteousness for that to be acknowledged, and it justifies and glorifies God, do you think?
DCB So the thought of “name” brings in the renown that He has. You could say there is reputation. Someone might have a ‘name’ for doing such and such, a ‘name’ for being like something, but He has that renown and reputation as granted by God, and persons are blessedly in the secret of it and can bow the knee to Him now.
PAG God’s purpose is “to head up all things in the Christ”; so that is when that Name will be known publicly. In the millennium, as we speak of it, the day of display which is yet to come, the Name will be known, but the great blessing is in bowing to Jesus now. In the day you are speaking of when “every knee should bow”, beings will do so whether they wish to or not; they will be obliged to do so. But at the present time we can be drawn in love to bow the knee to Jesus, and that is what God is looking for.
JTB We have in Hebrews that “he inherits a name more excellent than they” (chap 1: 4), more excellent than the angels; that is the Name of the Son. But there seems to be something very special and sweet about the name of Jesus. Say something about that.
PAG It is an attractive Name, I think, yet the hymn says,
Jesus! the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast;
but it also says,
The love of Jesus, what it is,
None but His loved ones know.
(Hymn 279)
The name of Jesus is meant to affect our hearts. I think that is why it comes into the epistle to the Hebrews so much because really the writer to the Hebrews was drawing them away from the system of things that they had been familiar with, the system of the law, with the offerings and all that it entailed. Well, how was He going to draw them away? By presenting, you might say, a different tabernacle system that was an improvement on the previous one? No, He was going to draw them away by attracting them to a Person who completely eclipsed what the tabernacle system spoke of. He was embodied in it, but He was so much greater than it that He would draw them away from that system of things that had served its purpose. He Himself, Jesus, had “magnified the law, and made it honourable” (Isa 42: 21), but He far exceeds anything that the tabernacle system could offer.
JTB There is something most attractive in that the name that was given to Mary was Jesus. We know from the Old Testament that His name is, “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9: 6), but the name that was disclosed to Mary as predicating really all that He would bring in, as our brother has alluded to, was Jah the Saviour, the name of Jesus. There is something very sweet about that.
PAG That was what He was to be called: “thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins”, Matt 1: 21. It was not only a message about what He was to be called, but why, and all these other names and titles certainly attach to Him, but He says in John 17, “that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”, v 24. Part of the glory is this Name. We cannot have it; none of us could have that Name; but we can behold the glory that attaches to it. We do so because we love Him, but we find that God loved Him first.
NRC Is this why it is important that the name of Jesus is what is preached in the glad tidings? He has many titles, but I suppose the affectionate term in drawing persons to Him is the name of Jesus. It is “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”, but I was thinking in terms of the affectionate side in drawing us to His love. It is through the glad tidings; it is through “Jesus”, is it not?
PAG It is. When Paul describes the glad tidings in the first chapter of Romans, he says it is, “God’s glad tidings … concerning his Son … Jesus Christ our Lord”, v 1-4. That is who is to be presented. What you say about presenting the Person is important, as is reminding ourselves that it is “God’s glad tidings”; it is what is coming from Him. Of course, we are concerned with meeting man’s need, but first we should be concerned with answering to God’s heart and God’s desires. That is why we say on our notice board that it is the Word of God, and if God is going to speak a word, He is going to speak a word about Christ.
DCB So this passage finishes that it is “to God the Father’s glory”. Do we see that everything we may say with regard to the glory of Christ has the effect that God the Father is glorified?
PAG The Lord emphasises that God would be glorified at the raising of Lazarus, for example, John 11: 4. His power in resurrection glorified God, and there was none but He could exercise that power because life was inherent in Him. We are given our lives; His life was His own. He is the only One of whom it can be said “he delivered up his spirit”, John 19: 30. It was His to deliver up. Our spirits are given to us; His was not given to Him.
I thought in relation to Ephesians that there is a time of display coming. We speak about the millennium. “The mystery of his will” (v 9) relates to that time; “the counsel of his own will” (v 11) relates to the present; and “the good pleasure of his will” (v 5) relates to what is before. “The good pleasure of his will” relates to eternity past and what was purposed there “the mystery of his will” relates to what is yet to come; and “the counsel of his own will” relates to this time in which we are. That shows us that one distinctive feature of God is that not only did His will cover the past and the present, it also covers the future, and what is central to the will of God is the place that Christ has. That is at the centre of God’s will, the place that is given to Christ.
TWL The will of God always involves the heart of God, and it has never been displayed more than now in a Man.
PAG Yes. God’s purpose, of course, is based on the satisfaction of His own heart but His counsels involve the expression of that: it is how it comes into effect and into being. So “he purposed in himself for the administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ”. He needed no other, and that would be seen publicly. We have been speaking of the verse in Philippians where every knee will bow. There will be that requirement, but there will be a public demonstration of things being headed up in the Christ.
TWL I find looking forward to the millennium quite touching because we will see God’s anointed Man glorified in the scene where they rejected Him. And God will be glorified in that. It is wonderful to think about it.
PAG That is why we count ourselves among “all who love his appearing” (2 Tim 4: 8) because it is the time when He will be justified on the earth where He is currently rejected. Again, when the writer refers to “the habitable world which is to come, of which we speak” (Heb 2: 5), this is the world where Christ will be publicly acknowledged and where He will rule. There will be a reign of righteousness such as the world has never seen.
TWL There will be the influence of a Man. He will have His rule, but He will have His influence on a whole scene that has been marked up to that point by sin, by breakdown, by failure, and yet there will come a Man who has the right to rule, who has influence in that scene as well according to the dignity of His glory. What a wonderful reign!
PAG You have in Isaiah 32: 1, “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment”; that is the public, administrative side that will come in, but immediately following that it says, “And a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the storm; as brooks of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land”, v 2. “A man”! The world is seeking a man, and they will keep looking until they appoint someone who is the antichrist, the very opposite of what God is looking for, and then the Lord will come in and He will bring in peace. He will take away that opposition; He will bring in peace; His glory will cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea”, Hab 2: 14.
AB So other families will be raised at the rapture. Will they come into a knowledge of the Lord’s glory or of Jesus’s name beyond what they would have appreciated before?
PAG They will. That, I think, is what enters into what we read at the end of chapter 1 where the assembly is “the fulness of him who fills all in all”. Through the saints of the assembly every family will come into an appreciation of Christ. She will be there mediatorially; that is intended to suggest that she will be there on God’s behalf as the means whereby the administration of blessing flows out, and every family will have an appreciation of Christ through that. Then when it comes to the eternal day and “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, their God” (Rev 21: 3), His tabernacle is the assembly; so she is an intrinsic part of the display, but Christ will be the Head of all of that. We need just to go carefully according to what Scripture says. In the eternal day, the thought of headship will rest in God, “that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15: 28); nevertheless Christ’s link with the assembly is an eternal one, and that link with the rest of the families through that arrangement will continue. Is that right? That is how I understand it.
JTB Yes, very much so. The tabernacle of God will be the assembly and it will diffuse divine affections to embrace all men because “the tabernacle of God is with men”, everything that the work of Christ has secured at this present time and retrospectively too. It is fine to take into account the retrospective effect of the work of the Lord Jesus in past times, “passing by the sins that had taken place before” (Rom 3: 25). How wonderful the work is that this glorious Person will secure all for God’s pleasure; but the assembly, the tabernacle of God, having that very central part in it. Just going back to the millennial scene, He will “be a priest upon his throne” (Zech 6: 13) as if to display the affections of heaven, the sympathies of heaven, on a scene that had been so much disturbed by the intrusion of sin. It will all be replaced by what is conducive to the peaceful existence of man.
PAG Sitting “a priest upon his throne”: do you think that involves it is a rule of righteousness, but it is also a rule of sympathy? God’s sympathies for man are expressed in this rule, and we will be in a better position to understand God’s heart than we have ever been because much of what is opposed will have been subjugated and suppressed. I know there is what remains and will rear its head at the end (Rev 20: 7-10); nevertheless there will be a reign of blessing, and it will involve that God’s thoughts are brought into expression.
DCB The words “all things” come in in the two passages read in Ephesians 1. I was thinking of the importance of that, that God is going “to head up all things”. There is a whole scene which will have no objective apart from Christ Himself.
PAG Yes. There is a note to “all things” in Colossians that says, ‘Looked at as a whole: “the all things”’ (note ‘l’ to chap 1: 16); if that was not too strange an expression - everything having Christ as its object and everything under His hand. That is true anticipatively now. The world is in turmoil at the moment; He will bring in peace so that this can be fully appreciated.
DCB So it is wonderful to appreciate that it is “the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth”. We can understand “the things in the heavens” being mentioned, but what is in heaven then will include the saints of the assembly, and all who are raised at the rapture. For the “things upon the earth”, there will be a perfect administration according to the divine mind but all centring in Christ.
PAG Yes, a fulness of administration that will be perfect and complete! We get some foreshadowing of it in the queen of Sheba’s impression of Solomon “and his ascent by which he went up”, 1 Kings 10: 5. She could say, “Happy are thy men! happy are these thy servants”, v 8. Persons will be restful in serving Christ. It will not be an onerous, burdensome thing; it will be a happy thing.
TWL At the end of verse 10 it says, “to head up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth; in him”. The whole administration for God is “in him”, and the whole administration that we will take account of - and it will be “wondered at in all that have believed” (2 Thess 1: 10) - is “in him”. It is remarkable the glory that is there in that Man.
PAG You know what it says at the end of John 3: “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”, v 35. There is no safer place; there is no better place; but there is no other place: everything is centred in that one Man. How great a Person that is, that every feature of God’s administration can centre in one Man, and it is all perfect.
TWL Yes; it has often struck me that God has placed what is His own inheritance into the safest place He can by putting it into the hands of Christ. The thing that He loved most He puts into the hands of One where it is safe. That is quite a thing to think about. God put His own inheritance into the hands of the Son.
PAG And the difference between God’s arrangement and man’s arrangement is that man may, in good faith, make the best arrangements he can for the safety and security of persons or things, and too often the arrangements are proved to fall short. What is placed in the hands of Christ is unassailable; it is not going to fall short. We can say that, even though the end has yet to come, yet, with absolute certainty, that what has been given to Christ will not fall short.
JTB The scripture in Zechariah to which we have been referring includes, “the counsel of peace shall be between them both” as if what was under the administration of Christ is fully consonant with what God the Father desires: “the counsel of peace shall be between them both”. There is perfect consonance between the two, do you think?
PAG Yes, in one sense the Lord’s statement, “I and the Father are one” (John 10: 30), is an absolute statement, but it comes into expression, and that scripture you quote in Zechariah is one way in which it comes into expression. It is not that they become one: it is always true. “I and the Father are one”. It is one of the glories of the Lord that on the one hand He comes into a position to which subjection attaches and yet, on the other hand, He is one with the Father and with the Holy Spirit in divine purpose and counsel and in deity.
DCB So does the end of chapter 1 show the wonder of the fact of the assembly being with Him? He is magnified; He is glorified; but there is one who is His counterpart as Man.
PAG We have been taught (JT vol 50 p378) that this latter part of Ephesians 1 answers to what is said at the beginning of Genesis as to Adam and Eve: “let them have dominion”, chap 1: 26. Adam was, of course, head to Eve, but they had dominion together, and as to the thought of “the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”, I would understand that to be Christ filling “all in all” administratively. God will be all in all, but “the fulness of him who fills all in all” is the assembly expressing Christ in the fulness of divine administration. It is wonderful to see that one of the glories of Christ is that He has a vessel who can express His glory.
DCB That vessel is in this scene now. Things will be on display in the world to come in relation to the assembly, but the assembly is His counterpart now, administering for Him.
PAG She is. This is the learning time, the time when we go through things; and what is formed, as the result of these exercises, will be available eternally. She is seen in Revelation as “clothed in fine linen, bright and pure; for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints”, chap 19: 8. That is what is formed in present exercise.
We will just look at the verses in chapter 3. One of the glories of Christ is that His love “surpasses knowledge”, and yet we can know it. If somebody presented me with a complex mathematical theorem, I could not tell you whether it was right or not. I would not know; it would be beyond me. But we can know “the love of the Christ”, even although it “surpasses knowledge”. We can enter into it, no doubt because the Spirit is active.
NRC Can you help please as to why it is referred to as “the love of the Christ” here?
PAG Well, the Christ is God’s Anointed, and you might say it is in an official position that is given to Him; the Christ was the Messiah to Israel. He acted on God’s behalf. But these actions are still actions of love, “to know the love of the Christ”, and, of course, the Christ is the Head of the assembly. She is particularly suited to know that love because she is nearest to Him; she is united to Him. And yet whatever we may find of His love, whatever we may be able to say about it, one thing we know is we are never going to exhaust it. It is in view of the fulness of divine love being experienced.
TWL In order to apprehend these four dimensions you have to be in the middle of them, and is “the love of the Christ” the tether to hold us there? It is not a case of just being aimlessly there, but “the love of the Christ” is the tether; so we can see these four dimensions and appreciate all that God did by “the love of the Christ”.
PAG And we can know by the Spirit something of Christ’s love for the Father. This is not a restrictive view of “the love of the Christ” so we know - as we have touched on in John 17 -that there was a fulness of affection, and we know that what the Lord has in mind for His own is love of that same quality and character. The love that was between Him and the Father is the love that He would have His own to share. All that enters into knowing “the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”. We cannot measure it and, as you say, it holds us.
TWL This is an experience, is it not? “To know the love of the Christ” is not knowledge in the sense of what is academic; it is the knowledge of experience that “the love of the Christ” holds me in the scope of God’s things so that I can see them. For all that God did, and all that God purposed, and all God’s movements “the love of the Christ” tethers me in the centre.
PAG It has been likened to the “waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed through” (Ezek 47: 5); so it is beyond our measure, but you are not floundering; you are swimming; you are there and you are consciously under divine control and regulation, and you are enjoying that love.
DJH “God is love”, 1 John 4: 16. That would underlie what we are saying. There is something really rich here where we shall be, you might say, absorbed eternally. “God is love”. He has come into expression in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but “God is love” and that underlies all that we are saying.
PAG It does. It is very helpful to be reminded of that; so Peter speaks about us being “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1: 4), and “the divine nature” is love. We talk about God’s nature, and His attributes, such as righteousness and grace and mercy and wisdom and holiness, and sometimes that might sound difficult to understand, but the point is, “God is love”; that is who He is. He is love; He is the embodiment of it, the expression of it; as when it says of the Lord Jesus that He was “the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance”, Heb 1: 3. Well, what was coming into expression? Love! It is a wonderful thing that love will have an answer eternally, not just in time.
DJH It is a remarkable expression, “his substance”. It is not anything theoretical or anything in the air. It is real and it has come into expression in the way that it has.
PAG Well, that is an ever-important thing. It may sound a very basic thing to say: God is real, and His love is real; it exists and it is expressed in Christ.
DCB I wondered if it is important in this section that this is part of Paul’s prayer; he bows his knees to the Father with the desire that, as Spirit-strengthened, we should enter these things and “to know the love of the Christ”. It is not something the apostle comes and teaches; it is entered into on that ground of prayer.
PAG Why do you think he desired this? He had spoken of other desires in chapter 1, to the end that God “would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him, being enlightened in the eyes of your heart” (v 17, 18) - but why did he desire this?
DCB Is what is suggested here really the height of what is in the divine mind and the height therefore of the apostle’s mind?
PAG It is, and I wonder too if he desired it because it leads up to God having a response; God’s desire is for a response. He said in Psalm 132, “This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it”, v 14. He desired to have a resting place where His love could be displayed. His resting-place involved the place for the ark. Brethren will remember that in Exodus 25 He says of the ark, particularly in relation to the mercy-seat which was above the ark, “And there will I meet with thee, and will speak with thee”, v 22. God had a desire to meet with His people and to speak with them. He is looking for an answer, and Paul’s desire is that we should know something, but that it should prompt a response in us.
TWL That is why the response that goes to God is not just because of what He has done but rather because of how He has expressed Himself. The response is because of the expression of His nature, and that is “the love of the Christ”. Would that be right?
PAG It is; so again there are phrases that I heard when I was young and still hear now, ‘the response is equal to the revelation’. I sometimes wondered what that meant because it was often said as a passing comment. What it means is that God has come out in love, and there is an answer in love, but it is equal to the revelation and not exactly equal to what has been done but equal to how God has revealed Himself in Christ. It is equal because the revelation is in Christ, and the answer is in Christ; so it could not be anything other than equal, but the great thing is we are brought into it.
AB So “the love of the Christ” is enough for us to come into everything then, even “the fulness of God”?
PAG Yes, because when you come into something of that, it moves you and it changes you. Mr Bert Taylor has often reminded us of the scripture that says, “But we all looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory”, 2 Cor 3: 18. Our brother says that is a permanent change. The glory of Christ, “the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”, brings about permanent change in believers, and it is permanent, positive change.
NRC That then helps us to understand the last two verses of Romans 8, “nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”, v 38, 39. That brings permanent change; so nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God and our experiences of it, will it?
PAG That is another important feature, because Romans is written to saints in view of their pathway here on earth, and there are plenty of things to get in the way and they are very real, and it is not just the things we might do that are foolish or unwise, but there are circumstances that arise; nevertheless we cannot be separated from the love of God. It is not possible because it says earlier in that section, “If God be for us, who against us? He who, yea, has not spared his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him grant us all things?”, v 31, 32. Well, look at this, what we are reading about just now: this is part of the “all things”. God is giving us this and He wants a response.
JTB Every component of the assembly will be filled in that way, do you think, as the product of the work of God? It just struck me freshly: “be filled even to all the fulness of God”. The assembly will be “filled” in that sense: “the fulness of him who fills all in all”. The assembly administratively is capacitated to reflect the fulness of Christ, but “filled even to all the fulness of God” really encompasses everything that was in the heart of God, do you think?
PAG It does, and do you think, just to be simple about it, in the eternal day (but we can touch it now, by the Spirit) there is no room for anything else? If the assembly is filled “even to all the fulness of God”, there is nothing else; there is no intrusion, nothing to mar or spoil. What is “the fulness of God”? I do not know that I could even express it. It is everything that God desires to be known of Himself: surely that must displace everything else. And it is known in a Man; it is known in Christ.
DCB So the response is “glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus” particularly. He has secured the vessel of eternal praise, has He not? But it is “in Christ Jesus” and it can never have its existence apart from being “in Christ Jesus”.
PAG Yes, and that is our true place. The true place of believers is “in Christ Jesus”, but then it is the true place of the assembly, “in Christ Jesus”; so the response is “in the assembly in Christ Jesus”. One cannot be separated from the other for the response to proceed. We were asking earlier about “the love of the Christ”; that is God’s Anointed. But then “in Christ Jesus”, refers to One who is now exalted at God’s right hand. That is the place of exaltation. We also have the expression, “by Jesus Christ”, that is the One who did things for God; the title Christ Jesus has in view One who is at the right hand of God. Then “the Christ” is the One who is God’s Anointed. But the point is, we are still talking about one Person, and He is able to fill all of these offices. All of these titles rest upon Him, and He adds dignity to every title that rests on Him, and all responds to God.
TWL In the light of what you have just said, and in the light of our brother’s comment a moment ago in relation to “filled even to all the fulness of God”, it is a direct answer to One who was “the effulgence of his glory”; the two go hand in hand. There was the perfect expression in the effulgence of God’s glory and there is the perfect answer in being “filled even to all the fulness of God”. Would that be right?
PAG Well, it is good to be reminded of that. Everything that Christ does is perfect, and that includes the answer to God. It is not only that He does things perfectly, but the response that comes back is perfect. You might do something very well and still not get the answer you were looking for; that is not the case with God. Christ “does all things well” (Mark 7: 37), and part of the “all things well” is that everything that comes back is perfect too.
Edinburgh
27th March 2022
List of Initials -
(all from Edinburgh unless otherwise shown):-
A Brown, Linlithgow; D C Brown; J T Brown; K R Cumming; N R Cumming; P A Gray, Linlithgow; D J Hutson; T W Lock