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Tuesday, April 24, 2018

RACIAL REVELATION OF GOD


RACIAL REVELATION OF GOD

“Till we ALL attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." (Eph. 4:13)


Thus the redemption that is in Christ Jesus will finally make every individual a REVELATION OF GOD, in the measure that is possible to each individual capacity. Here, however, again there breaks upon the consciousness that larger vision of the Divine purpose which consists in a race made up of individuals each one contributing something to the FINAL PERFECTION through which race all the glorious fullness of the Deity is to have its perfect outshining. This also is according to God’s original intention. The creation of the first man was the creation of a race, and while he was in the image of God, it was in the larger creation of the whole family that the ultimate manifestation of the glory of God was to be made. This is the true doctrine of the solidarity of humanity, and the inter-relationship of individuals. Towards this, man is forever attempting to grope his way, and forever absolutely failing. Perfect human society has never been realized outside the economy of grace, be­cause perfect human individuality does not exist. In the redemption of the individual, Christ prepares for, and makes possible the final realization of the race, through which the Divine glory will be manifested. The best inspiring argu­ments concerning this are to be found in the writings of the apostle Paul, whose vision of the Church in its consummation was forever that of a society dominated by the One Life, walking in the One Light, obeying the One Love. The ultimate victory of redemption therefore will consist in the realization of the first Divine purpose in a race which, being composed of individuals, each of whom perfectly answers the Divine ideal, will in its entirety re­veal God, and thus be His utmost medium of manifesta­tion throughout the coming ages. Christ will only be completed in that whole race which united to Him, is to form His body.
Twice at least the apostle Paul uses the word Christ with reference to that whole race, including the Head and all the members. In writing to the Corinthians he said “for as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ." (1 Cor. 12:12) Here evidently the reference is to Christ and the Church, the complete fulfillment of the Divine thought and purpose.
And again, in writing to the Ephesians, he speaks of the building up of the body of Christ, “till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." (Eph. 4:13) "Christ in this passage (so full of the idea of the oneness in, and with the Lord of His mystical body) is, in effect, Christ and His Church. The Lord the Son becomes in accomplished fact all that He wills, and is willed, to be, only when He is the Head, of a perfected mystical Body, which lives by His sacred life, and is His incorporate 'limbs, His immortal vehicle of action, if we may so speak. So He and they are guardedly and reverently spoken of here and there as One Christ with full reservation, from other Scriptures, of the truth of the undying personality of each individual limb of the glorious Head, and of His Divine Personality." (Bishop Handley Moule) The specific purpose of this unity is declared by the apostle in the glorious doxology with which the first part of his Ephesian letter closes. “Unto Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations forever and ever. Amen." (Eph. 3:21)
It is not, however, sufficient to declare that redemption's final victory is that of the realization of this original Divine intention. While that is true, it must not be lost sight of that the peculiar and marvelous plan of the victory lies in the future, that this result is produced by Christ through victory gained over the original failure. The glory of the first ideal was great, but the glory of the realization of that ideal, out of all the awful results of human sin, is infinitely greater. Perhaps the note that now wakes the profoundest wonder in the mind of unfallen intelligences concerning the issue of redemption is that suggested when in speaking of the glories of Christ in his Colossian epistle, the apostle refers to Him as “the First-born from the dead." (Col. 1:18) As to all creation Christ is the First-born, but the added wonder with regard to the new creation is that it has been created by the emergence of the last Adam from the death which resulted from the failure of the first Adam, and His having brought out of that death, members of the new race. Thus redemp­tion's greatest victory lies, not merely in the fact that through the new race the glory of God is to be manifest, but that the profounder truth will be revealed that His greatest glory lies in the mighty working of His wondrous grace. The most inspirational and profoundest song of all will be that ascription of praise, which occurring in the first chapter of the Apocalypse, prepares for, and includes within itself all the subsequent numbers of that majestic oratorio, the subject of which is the movement to finality of the dispen­sations of God. "Unto Him that loves us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood; and He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen." (Rev. 1:5-6)

Crown Him with many crowns, 
The Lamb upon His throne;
Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
All music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing
Of Him Who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy chosen King Through all eternity.

“Crown Him, the Lord of Love!
Behold His Hands and Side
Rich Wounds, yet visible above
In beauty glorified:
No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye
At mysteries so bright.

Crown Him, the Lord of Peace:
Whose power a scepter sways
From pole to pole—that wars may cease
Absorbed in prayer and praise:
His reign shall know no end,
And round His pierced Feet
Fair flowers of paradise extend
Their fragrance ever sweet.

“Crown Him, the Lord of Years,
The Potentate of time;
Creator of all rolling spheres,
Ineffably sublime:
All hail! Redeemer, hail!
For Thou hast died for me:
Thy praise shall never, never fail
Throughout eternity."
—M. BRIDGES

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