By way of refreshing our memories—not by way of insulting them—let us remember that we are companions of Christ if we hold fast the beginning firm unto the end.
We are companions of Christ and of a heavenly calling. We have been seeing that this letter to the Hebrews sets forth the character of the dispensation in which we live: the change from the old, earthly Israel to the new, heavenly Israel.
I am sorry for those friends who have only been able to join us today, but I am more sorry for myself than for you. We are today exactly halfway through this conference, which means that a great deal has already been said. It is quite impossible for me to gather you into what is being said by going over all the ground covered. I trust that the Lord will help you to fall right into the course of these things.
So we go on with a further fragment of this matter: the new Israel as the companions of Christ in a heavenly calling.
This morning, we are going back to the beginning of this history, because we have been seeing that God is following, in a spiritual way, the line that He took with the first Israel.
He took a certain line with Israel in an earthly way; with the new, heavenly Israel, He takes that line in a spiritual way.
It would be a very wonderful thing if we were to spend some time seeing God’s line right from the beginning up to Christ. There were many generations which came to an end.
In one place there is a long summary: so-and-so lived for so long, and then he died. It goes on through a long list of people. They lived, they died, and that was the end.
But right through there is one line that lives and never dies. It is the line moving straight through history right up to Christ. You can clearly follow that line.
At a certain point in that movement of God, we find ourselves in the presence of God’s beginnings with Israel. It has now moved from individuals to the point where the nation comes into view.
So far, it has been individuals: Abel, Enoch, Noah, and all those antediluvians, as they are called. When it comes to Abraham, we come to the point where a nation comes into view in history—that is, the Israel of God.
This morning we are going to note the beginning, and how God began with this Israel, and how the principle at that beginning is transferred to the new, heavenly Israel in Christ.
It is very impressive that you have the beginning of the first Israel in the New Testament. You have it in the Book of Acts, and that is a significant thing, because the Book of Acts is the link between the old and the new. The pivotal point of transition from the one to the other is in the Book of Acts.
Interestingly enough, it is in the discourse of Stephen. The old Israel killed Stephen, and out of the death of Stephen came the new Israel.
Acts 7 begins:
The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia.
The God of glory appeared. That was the first movement toward the old Israel, and that is exactly the first movement toward the new Israel: the appearing of the God of glory.
We see this beginning in the New Testament. Again, in the Gospel of John:
In the beginning was the Word.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.
And we beheld His glory.
Turn again to this letter to the Hebrews:
At the end of these days hath spoken unto us in His Son,
Who is the effulgence of His glory.
The God of glory appeared, and at the end of these days He has spoken unto us in His Son, Who is the effulgence of His glory.
First of all, then, it is God breaking into human history. That is how it was with the first Israel. There, in Ur of the Chaldees, in a pagan country with two thousand other gods, the God of glory broke in and changed the course of history. He took His first step toward securing a people for Himself from all the other races.
The first thing is God in glory breaking into human history in a new way.
Now, of course, this is in the Bible—in the Old Testament and in the New Testament—but take hold of that and bring it right into this room. Bring it into these rows of people and let it come right home to you personally, because this relates to you and to me personally.
It is you, and it is me, called by God to be companions of Christ in a heavenly calling.
The very beginning of our history as God’s heavenly Israel is the intervention of God in our lives. Perhaps, to some of us, it was just as unexpected as it was to Abraham.
We were living our lives in this world. We were mixed up in the course of this world. The god of this world ruled our lives. There we were, just one in a great crowd.
And then God broke into our lives. When God breaks into a life, there is no doubt about it. That is the turning point in history—in our history.
The nature of the change is that we no longer belong to this world. We have become members of a new Israel—in other words, a heavenly people with a spiritual nature.
It may not have been with us just as it was with Abraham, but it is essential for every one of us to know that God has entered into our human history.
It was not something in the first place from our side. It was something from God’s side. He took the initiative.
Perhaps it was in some wonderful way, or in some very simple way. It may belong to a moment in time, or it may belong to days, weeks, and months. But the fact is that God came in where we were.
How did God come in? How has He come in? How should we put it if we wanted to put it into words?
Well, it says here about the old Israel, “The God of glory appeared.” Could you put it like that as to your experience?
These words in the New Testament explain that: God came in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ is the glory of God, and as we have seen Jesus Christ, we have come into touch with the God of glory.
In Hebrews 1, God has spoken unto us in His Son. All those who know that Jesus Christ has come into their lives, and that He lives in them, really do know that the God of glory has come in.
After saying that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, John says:
And we beheld His glory,
Glory as of the only begotten from the Father,
Full of grace and truth.
What is the glory? Full of grace and truth.
You know, in the New Testament, grace and glory always go together. If you want to know what the glory of God is, it is the grace of God. If you want to know what the grace of God is, it is the glory of God.
It is the glory of God to be gracious. God glories in being gracious. When you know the grace of God, then you know the glory of God. The glory of God will always come to us along the line of grace.
And so, because of grace, we shall be able to say, “We beheld His glory.”
Now, perhaps you know that the word glory is one of the great words in John’s Gospel. If you have never done so, I advise you to go through that Gospel and underline the word glory.
Just a little word with the young Christians who have not done a lot of Bible study yet. I do not profess to know a great deal about the Bible. Indeed, I know very little of the Bible. But I will tell you how I started to study the Bible.
I bought a box of coloured pencils, and I bought a new Bible. I came first of all to the Gospel of John, and I gave a certain colour to the same word throughout the Gospel.
I put green wherever the word life is found. That is the colour for life. See it all around you: green speaks of life.
I put blue wherever the word glory occurs. That is the colour of heaven. I put red wherever there was anything to do with the blood, the cross, or the sacrifice.
So I went through the Gospel of John, and I had a wonderful result when I was finished. To this day, if I want to say something about life, why, it is all there in green.
That is only a suggestion, and I think you might find it a very simple help. There are a lot more colours than those three.
Now, I was thinking about glory. Glory is one of John’s great words, and all the references in John to Christ’s glory are related to His supernatural person and His supernatural power.
When John said, “We beheld His glory,” he was writing many, many years after the Lord Jesus had come and gone. John was one of the oldest of the New Testament writers. Probably all the other apostles had gone to be with the Lord when John wrote his Gospel.
John was looking back over all that history, and he was putting into words the impression made upon him as he thought of the Lord Jesus—His life, His teaching, and everything else about Him.
And we beheld His glory.
How did he behold His glory? He beheld His glory on many occasions. He beheld His glory in a whole series of humanly impossible situations.
There is another line of study for you. Go to the Gospel of John and see how many impossible situations you can find. That Gospel is just full of impossible situations.
Think about the marriage at Cana. When the wine failed, it was a humanly impossible situation.
Go into the next chapter with Nicodemus. What is Nicodemus saying?
How can a man be born when he is old?
An impossible situation.
Think of the woman of Samaria. She had tried everything to find satisfaction—an impossible situation. You can go right on like this.
In all these situations, Jesus came in and turned the impossible into actuality.
At the end of the account of the marriage in Cana, it says:
This beginning of signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee,
And manifested His glory.
That was the principle governing everything. It does not always say that in those exact words, but if you went back with that woman of Samaria into the city and heard her shouting to all the people, “Come, see a man. Is not this the Christ?” you would conclude that she had beheld His glory.
So you go right on to Lazarus. Jesus said:
This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God,
That the Son of God may be glorified thereby.
Martha and Mary could not altogether accept that their problem was going to be solved. They said, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said:
Said I not unto thee, that, if thou believedst,
Thou shouldest see the glory of God?
You see, the glory of God in Jesus Christ is related to what God could do that no other could do: the supernatural person and power of the Son of God. That was the glory of God.
Dear friends, sometimes we have such difficulty in getting through to people. You have perhaps been troubled because some soul has been having difficulty in getting through to the Lord. It almost seems as though the Lord does not want to save them.
They go through difficulties, sometimes for days, weeks, or months. They argue, they bring up their problems, and nothing seems to happen. Then, at last, it does happen, and they come through.
Why is that? God is saying emphatically, “This thing is going to be of Me and not of yourself.”
No man or woman can save himself or herself. With all the goodwill of other people to help, they cannot save. The salvation of a soul is an impossible thing where man is concerned. God sees to it that it is put upon a supernatural basis.
Very often, He does not come in until we have come to the point of despair. But He does come in then.
What is true about salvation is so often true about our spiritual history. Again and again, we are brought to the point where situations are quite impossible where man is concerned.
We cannot solve that problem ourselves. We cannot change the situation ourselves. If it were that we were only people of goodwill, we might be able to do it. But somehow or another, because we are the Lord’s people, it just does not work. All our cleverness fails.
Naturally, there is no reason why we should not get on, but the fact is that we just do not. We try everything. We are being brought more and more to despair.
We are being brought to the point where we say, “Well, only the Lord can do this.” That is exactly what the Lord has been working for.
When the God of glory appears, He appears as the God of glory. The word glory in John’s Gospel is connected with the supernatural power of Jesus Christ.
We only learn Who Jesus is by coming up against situations in which only He can help us. The more we are going to learn about the Lord Jesus, the more impossible will situations become.
That is the beginning: the God of glory.
The next thing is this: God’s glory in Abraham reached its climax in sonship. There were many things in the life of Abraham which needed the God of glory to come in. In different situations, the Lord appeared unto Abraham.
But the climax of all God’s appearances to Abraham was in connection with Isaac. That is, it was bound up with this matter of sonship.
The covenant of God with Abraham was going to be realized along the line of sonship. All God’s purposes in Abraham were bound up with Isaac.
Because at the beginning, Isaac was an impossibility. But at the end, he was a still greater impossibility.
Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac,
And offer him there for a burnt offering.
Here is all the promise in the covenant wrapped up in Isaac, to be slain with a knife. This is an impossible situation. If Isaac died, there was no possibility of another Isaac. Indeed, I doubt whether Abraham would have wanted another Isaac. It was a matter of life or death to him.
Do you know what happened? Do you know what the New Testament says about that?
He did receive him back as from the dead.
Has anybody ever raised someone from the dead? Men can do a great deal in prolonging life. They think they are going to reach the time when they will raise the dead, but we have not reached that time yet.
Resurrection is God’s own prerogative: to bring back a departed spirit into a dead body. That is God. That is resurrection, not resuscitation.
I was saying that the glory of God reached its climax in Abraham’s case along the line of sonship. Later on, we shall have to look at this more closely in connection with Lazarus.
We are going to come back to our beginnings. John 1 again:
He came unto His own,
And they that were His own received Him not.
But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God.
He gave the authority to become children of God. That is our history. We are here this morning, and I trust it is true that everybody is able to say, “By God’s own intervention, I am a child of God.”
Then notice how John analyses this:
Who were born, not of blood,
Nor of the will of the flesh,
Nor of the will of man,
But of God.
Children of God: the intervention of God, a direct act of God. Sons—born from above—made children of God.
The glory of God is revealed in Jesus Christ in sonship. Are you glorying in the fact that you are a born-again child of God?
All those years afterwards, John wrote with a very full heart:
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
That we should be called children of God;
And such we are.
It is not yet made manifest what we shall be.
We know that, if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him;
For we shall see Him even as He is.
It is a wonderful thing to be a child of God. John says so, and he knew what he was talking about. The glory, then, is in sonship.
I think I am going to leave it there this morning. If I say much more, you will forget what I have said.
It is just at that point, you see, that Israel comes into view. Abraham’s seed through Isaac—the nation is coming into view now.
That brings us to the link that we have mentioned before. God said to Pharaoh:
Let My son go.
That word son was a comprehensive word. It embodied the whole nation. God saw that nation as one son.
Pharaoh would not surrender one fragment of that people, because sonship is a complete thing. “Well, just let the men go. Leave the women and the children. Leave the flocks and herds.”
But God said that not one single hoof, not one single cow, should stay behind. God had said, “My son,” and that included the whole nation.