4.) Behold in the Word the glory of God in
Christ.

            a.) Behold the glory of Jesus Christ
as the eternal Son of God.  He has
existed from eternity with His Father, rejoicing always before Him,
participating in the ineffable communion of love and delight of the three
Persons in the undivided Trinity.  Before
the beginning, now, and to all eternity, He possesses in full the undivided
Divine essence.  He is God from God,
Light from Light, true God from true God, eternally begotten of the
Father.  His throne, as God, is for ever
and ever, and the scepter of His kingdom is a righteous sceptre.  He is the I AM, who was, and is, and is to
come, the Almighty.  He is self-existent,
immeasurable, and eternal. He is the Creator and Sovereign of the Universe—all
things were made by Him, all things consist by Him, and all things are of Him,
through Him, and unto Him.  He fully
possesses the infinite Divine glory, and will receive, with His Father and the
Holy Spirit, the worship and adoration of the entire redeemed creation, for
ever and ever.

            b.) Behold the glory of Jesus Christ
in His Mediatorial office.  Behold, in
the eternal counsel of peace, the Father giving the elect to the Son, the Son
agreeing to redeem them, and the Spirit determining to regenerate them.  Behold, and wonder at the mystery of
godliness: God manifest in the flesh. 
See the condescension of the Father’s express Image tabernacling among
men, He who was always consubstantial with the Father as to His Godhead becoming
consubstantial with humanity as to His manhood, uniting in His one Person the
Divine nature and a true human nature. 
Behold the eternal Word conceived in the womb of Mary, being born in a
manger.  See the fulness of the Godhead
embodied in a true Child who grew in wisdom and stature, and favor with God and
man.  Behold Him in His human
identification with the sinful and extremely needy race He came to
redeem.  See Him growing weary with a
journey, and sitting on Jacob’s well to rest. 
See Him weeping at the grave of Lazarus—and raising his beloved friend
from the dead.  See His tender friendship
with the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.  See Him sorrowful and very heavy in light of
His coming cross, agonizing in prayer to the Father, betrayed by a familiar
friend and deserted and denied by the rest. 
See Him unjustly condemned, mocked, spat upon, whipped, and
crucified.  See Him saving the soul and
bringing to Paradise the repentant thief crucified next to Him.  See Him bearing the sins of the world in His
body, perfectly satisfying the demands of Divine justice through His one
offering.  See Him rising from the dead
and so destroying the power of death, and ascending to the right hand of His
Father, being crowned with glory and honor, and having all power in heaven and
earth given into His hand.  See Him
interceding for His people as their Priest and Advocate, and by His omnipotent
power preserving every one of them to everlasting glory.  See Him, with the Father, sending the Holy
Spirit, reflecting the Spirit’s eternal procession from the Father and the Son
in His temporal mission to indwell the church. 
See the union His elect have with Him in His death, burial,
resurrection, and ascension.  See Him
completing the work of His humiliation, and uniting to His immutable Divine perfections
the human perfections that make Him the perfect and all-sufficient Savior of
all who will come to Him.  See Him ruling
over the church in the world, preparing mansions for His beloved people, and
coming again to bring them to Himself. 
See Him sitting on the throne of David and manifesting the righteous
rule of God over the earth in the Millenial kingdom.  See Him as the Light of the New Jerusalem,
and His people singing the praises of redeeming love and serving Him before the
throne of God and the Lamb for ever and ever. 
See Christ’s glory in John’s Gospel as the bread of life, the light of
the world, the door to eternal life, the good shepherd who gives His life for
the sheep, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth, and the life, and
the true vine, the source of all grace, the font of spiritual and eternal life
for all those brought into union with Him. 
See the glory of the Lord Jesus in all Scripture, in type and in
antitype, in promise and in fulfillment, and embrace Him, cleave to Him ever
the more in all that He is and in all that He does.  The glory of God in Christ is an
inexhaustible theme, the delight and glory of the saints to all eternity.  A few lines of application certainly cannot
even begin to compass it in its beauty and glory.[1]  Oh Christian, set in motion the work of
eternity now—through the Scripture, behold the glory of God in Christ!  In so doing, He will reveal Himself to you,
you will partake in ever greater levels of spiritual life, and you will be
transformed into the moral likeness of your incarnate Head.

5.) Consider
also that the more true intellectual and
experiential knowledge of God in Christ the Christian has, the more he longs
for more such knowledge, and the more he hates his fleshly feebleness in seeking
after it.  Does your heart and flesh,
all the faculties of your who renewed person, cry out for God, the living God,
as your own God?  What an awful evil is
this faintness, this feebleness, is seeking after God your Father, His Son, and
His Spirit?  How does believing
meditation on Gethsemane, and on the cross, affect the heart!  For seeing the Lord Jesus in His glory
enflames the believer’s soul with love for Him, with true sanctification as a
result.  And yet the disciples failed to
watch and pray, but slept while the Lord wept His infinitely precious tears of
blood, and forsook the Lord when He went to the cross.  How often do I follow their faithless and
criminal example, and fail to draw nigh to the Lord when He has come nigh to
me?  My God, oh for grace to love and
know Thee more!

6.) Consider the great privilege believers, and in
particular ministers have, in proclaiming the mystery of God in Christ.  Oh Christian, you have the privilege and the
duty to give the gospel to the unconverted, and to set forth the Lord Jesus
before believers in all His glory and grace to stir up their holy affections
for Him.  How much time do you spend
proclaiming the gospel?  How many doors have
you knocked on this week?  Is not Jesus
Christ worthy of being known by all men? 
Furthermore, Hebrews 10:24-25 commands you to provoke others in the
church to love and to good works.  How
better to do this than to set God in Christ before them?  Do you talk of your Father, and of His Son
your Redeemer, on the Lord’s Day?  “Then
they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened,
and heard it, and a book of
remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that
thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that
day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own
son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous
and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not”  (Malachi 3:16-18).

Furthermore,
pastor, evangelist, and Christian preacher, you have the privilege and duty of
setting forth the most stupendous of all truths in the proclamation of the
Triune God and the incarnate, crucified, and risen Christ.  Am I
to proclaim the “mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh”?  Who is sufficient for these things?  Employ the great privileges that God has
given you and set forth the truth, and all the truth, with nothing added or
taken away, with holy boldness and passion, and with holy fear and trembling
over the fact that the Lord has chosen and commanded you so to do.  Earnestly contend for the faith, that nothing
whatever of the glory of God revealed in Christ through the Scriptures, and
committed to you for bold and public proclamation everywhere to all men, be
lost.

7.) Do not turn aside from the full proclamation
of God in Christ, as set forth from Genesis to Revelation, to any other and
lesser message.  Do not turn from
Christ to a merely “practical” message or mere moralism.  Doubtless the people of God must, and will,
adorn their knowledge of God with good works. 
Indeed, the greater their true spiritual fellowship with Christ, the
greater will be their outward manifestations of practical holiness.  However, to take knowledge of the Lord Jesus
away to focus exclusively upon what is “practical” is to rip out the soul from
true religion and leave a lifeless corpse. 
Any “piety” that does not lead men to behold, believe on, receive, and
know Jesus Christ is false, fleshly, and devilish.

            What is more, as you strive against
specific sins, do not let the Lord Jesus be removed from your view.  It is certainly proper to set yourself
mightily against particular lusts and products of the old man and to strive to
utterly put to death specific manifestations of indwelling sin (Romans 8:13;
Colossians 3:5).  But do not remove the
glory of God in Christ from its central place in your heart and mind.  Sweet fellowship with Him causes the vain
allurements of sin to quickly fade.  Yes,
your specific sins are awful, and a terrible problem—fight them with all your
might.  But make sure that in your
warfare you have the Captain of the hosts of the Lord with you—without Him you
can do nothing.  Closer communion with
Christ will end many a seemingly intractable battle with besetting sins.

            Also, you should expect God’s
blessing to the conversion of sinners and the spiritual strengthening of saints
when Christ is preached and plainly set forth. 
Proper preaching of the Lord Jesus will have supernatural efficacy to
produce spiritual results, while the employment of humanly devised marketing or
salesmanship techniques will only detract from a real focus on the revealed
glory of God in the incarnate Redeemer. 
What is the chaff to the wheat?

            Indeed, in the instituted services
of the church the worship of the Triune God through Christ must not be removed
from its proper central place.  Since
God’s own instituted worship is the best means of His own revelation, the
Regulative Principle of worship must be consistently practiced.  What is more, in whatever music is employed,
not only must all fleshly sounds be rejected, but even proper melody and
harmony must not be allowed to overshadow the spiritual worship of God.  He
must always remain the focus—let not the elements of worship, and especially
the circumstances, attract attention to themselves and become ends to
themselves.

This is the last part of the study on “the just shall live
by faith.”  The entire study is available
and can be downloaded as a single file here.

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