Look on Jesus, in whom all the glories of the Godhead shine forth. In Him the glories, the titles, word, and works of God shine forth, and are displayed. Jesus Christ is the great Days-man between God and us. As one says; “He is the miracle of wonders! the marrow of our love! life of our joys! fountain of all our comforts! and center of our hearts!” In Him we have all our souls can possibly desire. He is our Head, our Brother, our righteousness, our sanctification who has obtained for us eternal redemption. Who is now at His Father’s right hand, as our representative, and glorious fore-runner, and has assured us, “that were He is, we shall be also, to behold His glory,” and to be like Him, by seeing Him as He is. Letters of Samuel Eyles Pierce
When Scripture tells us to behold Christ or look to Christ, we rarely give that much more than a thought. But we are not to just give Him a casual glance and think that we have done what is required, but instead we are to look and behold Him and look deeply and longingly. We are to look to Christ as the very display of the glory of God. God has manifested Himself in and through Christ. It is not just that Jesus came and lived, but His life was to manifest the truth and beauty (the glory) of God. Hebrews 1:3 sets forth Christ as the very shining forth of the glory of God and the exact representation of His nature. This tells us that if we truly long and desire to know God, we must do that through Christ.
The mind can have a philosophical bent or perhaps a theological bent and people with those bents can give themselves to deep speculations on the character of God, but God is revealed in Christ. As Christ is the shining forth (radiance) of the glory of God, so if we want to behold the glories of God we must behold those glories in Christ. We may see certain wonderful things thought intellectual speculation, but it is Christ who shines forth the glory of God in truth. It is in Christ that we behold the perfections and the dazzling beauties of His holiness and love. It is in the face of Christ that we behold the glory of God shining. It is in the Gospel of Christ in particular that we may see the utter majesty and glory of a sovereign grace. However, in the modern professing Church we are too busy with evangelistic programs, youth programs, building programs, and expositional preaching to give our time to meditation and prayer that we may behold Christ and His glory. After all, we are told, those things are about growing the kingdom.
When will preachers wake up and repent of all the busy things they do and humbly seek the glory of God that they may preach God to their people? Instead they preach steps to this and steps to that or some watered-down version of a so-called gospel in order to fill the buildings with the word “church” on the sign. When will preachers repent of their absorption with the growth in numbers and bow in humility before God in order to preach Christ and Him crucified? Our land is full of hirelings and most likely unconverted “ministers” who are religious but don’t know Christ! How can the God of glory be so ignored Sunday after Sunday? How can the Lord Jesus Christ be ignored Sunday after Sunday? Since the Church is His Bride, you would think that the Husband would be lauded. Since Christ has suffered and died for His Bride, you would think there would some interest in speaking of His glory. Since Christ is the perfect righteousness of His people one would think that His righteousness would be spoken of rather than beating the people into doing duties.
Where is the glory of the Gospel proclaimed in our day? It seems that the Gospel has become nothing more than a logical conclusion or a deduction from a text, though at times parts of it may be repeated in a creed. But where is the Gospel of the glory of God in our day? Why isn’t it being proclaimed as the most beautiful and most delightful “thing” in the entire universe? When Christ who is Light is not proclaimed in His beauty and glory in the Gospel, darkness has settled in as surely as darkness comes when the sun goes down at the end of the day. The professing Church is surely in great darkness in our day because it is not “turning on” the Light by proclaiming the Gospel of the glory of God. We hear much of many things, and some of those things are good in a sense, but where is the Gospel of grace alone heard today? Sure enough the words may be repeated, but where is it being taught as if the living Christ was alive and seated at the right hand of the Father? Where is it being taught that this Christ can save sinners to the glory of God and He does so by grace alone? Where is it being taught that if you need faith you need to obtain it from Christ by grace? Where is it being taught that if you need to repent you need Christ to grant you repentance by grace alone? The true Christ and the true Gospel are not being set forth in glory which means they are not being declared. A deep darkness has settled in over this land.
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