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
As the applications of this quote settle into the soul, differing things begin to be seen. It shows how it is Christ who has put God on display in so many ways. It is Christ who is all that the human soul needs. It is Christ who alone can be the God-man and stand for both God and man. It is Christ that we are to wonder at and see how it is in Him that we behold and taste the glory of God and of His love because He prayed that the very love with which the Father loved Him would be in them (His people). It is Christ who is the very life of our joy because He prayed (as Mediator) for His people and asked that they would have His joy in them. It is in Christ that we find all real comfort, though there are many comforts that one can find that is not from Christ the real comfort.
Christ should be the center of our hearts because it is Christ who is worthy and it is Christ who is the life of all His people. It is Christ Himself that can give the soul all it desires as well as give the desires to the soul. It is not that Christ makes life a little better, but He is life itself. It is not that Christ is one part of life, but He is life itself. It is not that Christ should be our greatest desire, but He should be the One that all that we desire we desire for His sake. Many seem to forget the centrality of Christ to Christianity in all of its parts, but it seems that few realize that Christ is central to every aspect of the believer’s life. It is not that all things relate to Christ in some distant way, but all things hold together for His sake.
As the Head of the Church Christ Himself is the source of all things for the Church and the defender of His Bride. As the Head of the Church all the members are to follow Christ the Head and nothing else. Christ is also Brother in the sense that He is the Son of the living God and yet He took human flesh to Himself and so there is a sense where all the sons of God are brothers to Christ. While it is so hard for self-sufficient sinners to think of the wonder of having the perfect and imputed righteousness of Christ, it is hard for all to rest in His righteousness alone and seek none for themselves. It is Christ alone who is the righteousness of His people and they are not to seek righteousness for themselves in any way, but instead look to Him. It is one thing to say we believe that Christ is our righteousness, but it is quite another to live on His righteousness alone and be emptied of self-righteousness.
It is hard for legal minds to think of Christ as the sanctification of His people, yet Hebrews 12:10 says quite clearly that believers share in His holiness. We can never obtain holiness by following the law or by doing anything of ourselves, but instead we must share in His holiness as He works it in us and then through us. Sinners are never holy in what they do, but instead they are holy in a positional sense in what Christ has done by cleansing them by His blood and presenting them perfect and holy to the Father. But it is also true that in daily life we have no more holiness than what we die to self and have the life of Christ in us.
True Christianity is centered upon Christ because God is centered upon Christ and the Church is to be for Him and His glory. There is no redemption but what Christ has earned. There is no Gospel but the Gospel of the glory of Christ. There is no eternal life but the life that Christ Himself is. There is no love but the love that comes through Christ by His Spirit. There is no reconciliation with God but through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no justification but by the blood and imputed righteousness of Christ. There is no glory of God on display in nature or in Christianity but through Christ. The soul should for eternity dwell and delight in Christ. When it does not in this life, it should look to Him alone regardless.
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