The soot becomes the hardest thing in the world, and for the blackness it had obtains the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once in the vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. How degrading is a life of irreligion, a life spent in neglect of God and the soul; devoted to the cares and pursuits of the world! A CHANGE OF THE MOST MARKED CHARACTER IS ALREADY SUPERINDUCED. "We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."IV. They know in this world what manner of persons they shall be in the next. This glorious sight will perfect our likeness.2. And if there be a law of this sort, it must surely run out into higher and more momentous forms. Here holy principle is imbibed and holy habit formed; but the scope and aim are always prospective. Regeneration means, not that we are to be developed, but that we are to be changed, to live in other ways, with other motives and for other ends. Perhaps I have not shown clearly enough the difference between the two visions — the sight of what He was and what He is. "We shall be like Him." It is the same one. It was the shadow of Christ that had come upon her. It points to an end of strife, to rest and peace; but there is something better than that. And seeing face to face is opposed to knowing in part. I do not want merely to become fixed in these habits, but to grow in them; and I also want to be carried on and lifted up into higher ranges of character than I now know; I cannot be satisfied with any condition that is stationary. But we leave the thought with you, and lest you should think that if you are not worthy you will not see Him — if you are not good you will not see Him — if you do not do such-and-such good things you will not see Him — let me just tell you, whosoever, though he be the greatest sinner under heaven — whosoever, though his life be the most filthy and the most corrupt — whosoever believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ shall have everlasting life; for God will blot out his sins, will give him righteousness through Jesus, accept him in the beloved, save him by His mercy, keep him by His grace, and at last present Him spotless and faultless before His presence with exceeding great joy.(C. There will be no difficulty in recognising our unfolding of His life in the future. The main quality asserts itself more and more strongly, shapes the features, gives tone to the voice, and gesture to the body, directs the conduct and becomes the spirit of the life. There is personal identity. The Whole Bible (3)The prince serves as a soldier before he reaches the throne.3. Behind the fumes of drink, behind the cloud of crime, each may have made his start and fought his fight, and have proved the possibility, and have manifested some germ of possible growth. What is the explanation of that perfect likeness? The gospel is constantly putting a man upon moral choices, and so it acts against the solidifying tendency of habit or native inclination; i.e., it keeps a man constantly in the world of freedom and out of the region of fixed habit. That is what damps the spirit. For if the ideal, if completion, is to be sought here on earth, then we know how despairing is our view of those who are born in thousands in dark and low dens, born out of the seed of sin, out of the fires of lust and of drink, born into a life that must be stricken and stunted, blind with ignorance and cursed with a loveless doom. G. "Oh, blessed vision! "Oh, blessed vision! The soil may dwarf the Divine life and prevent its perfect development; nevertheless, we have that life in germ. Young man, you have got a mother and her soul doats upon you. -------------------- And if this is so there is hope. (2)He will be manifest in perfect happiness. The mist will melt away, and all be made plain when Christ appears. If we had seen our Saviour as He was, it would have been a triumph to see how He conquered, but still there would have been suspense about it. And what is the result of our expectation of these things if we really entertain the expectation? Here, too, how dimly we see Christ! Such Divine contemplations will give a new turn of thought and quite another taste and relish of things; they will be of great use to cure a downward disposition of soul, and to raise us above the world.I. Here no suggestion of that vast society in heaven exhausts its meaning. The sight of Him makes us like Him. All men are as one man; one is the whole and the whole are but one. It sets before us the duty of ourselves striving to make these changes. In that life of unknown blessedness there will be scope for ever-enlarging knowledge, strength, dignity of nature; but men will rise at once into participation with the privileges of Christ's enthronement and conformity to His Divine kingliness.8. (b)The ebb tide reveals the secrets of the sea, but many of our rivers no gallant ship can then sail. It is the unborn babe which is responsive to the image presented to the brain of the mother, rather than the mother herself. What heaven in such a look!(A. It is only a little while we get a glimpse of Christ, and then He seems to depart from us. )The spirituality of the beatific visionW. It is not easy to realise that we shall ever be much different from what we are at present — that we shall become wiser, that we shall feel older, that we shall hold other opinions, that we shall develop new powers. Yet more, we have known Him better than by Scripture sometimes — by close and intimate fellowship with Him. We are not to think that this transforming process belongs only to the life beyond. III. The text says, "We shall"; and can you and I put our hands on our hearts and know our union with Jesus? And I put down my candle, and I said, "Let me see this thing. 'It was not her own look that was in her face. We are not to think that this transforming process belongs only to the life beyond. We call it then an opal. The gospel is constantly putting a man upon moral choices, and so it acts against the solidifying tendency of habit or native inclination; i.e., it keeps a man constantly in the world of freedom and out of the region of fixed habit. God sweeps it out of sight; not in contempt, but because He prepares for us another and yet another picture of that immeasurable glory of the kingdom of heaven.2. This I suppose to be seeing Christ as He is, so far as this present world is concerned. Both the earthly and the heavenly transfigurations rest upon a common act of contemplation. The facts were typical, and suggestive of principles that were operating beyond the range of these special instances, and as such helped to colour the thought and speech and hope of the founders of the coming Church. We shall not see Him fight; but we shall see Him return from the fight victorious, and shall cry, "Crown Him! "It doth not yet appear what we shall be.". Sermon Message. Oh! We shall see the hand, and the nail-prints too, but not the nail; it has been once drawn out, and forever. Well, "we shall see Him." Blue Letter Bible offers several daily devotional readings in order to help you refocus on Christ and the Gospel of His peace and righteousness. If selfish or lustful or proud, these qualities tend simply to go on and harden into fixed form. Thirdly, the mean, or condition on our part, whereby we are incorporated into Christ at present, is our faith, but in the life to come faith shall be swallowed up in perfect vision, we shall see God as He is, and the sight of infinite perfection shall set us on fire and make our hearts burn with love as pure and bright as our knowledge; and it being the property of love to clasp the object beloved into the closest union, we shall enjoy all things possible in common with the ever-blessed Trinity. There is rapture in devotion. And if this is so there is hope. Let us recount our gains from such a belief in respect of the world at our feet, before our eyes.1. Reeves, M. Man has a capacity for endless advancement in happiness. In some of the Buddhist monasteries of Eastern Asia devotees are pointed out who have sat facing blank walls for years, and have gazed themselves into mysterious ecstasies. Christ came not to gratify our sin, but to make us like unto God, not equal with God. He is in us the hope of glory, and such a hope maketh not ashamed.(T. Change is so wearisome when it insists on going beyond what we want. In politics, especially, we note how we are suffering from this cheerless disappointment. But we who believe that this life is at its best but a germ, a start, a discipline, can afford to broaden our hope beyond all our seeing. Every grace may be discriminated and may command its due need of homage, but all in vain unless there be a new and tender life to receive the imprint of the perfect personality thus presented to the thought and emotion. That is the use to be made of such events as they touch us. St. John doubtless had in mind the effect of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. This will make it free from error, and from the doubt which has pain with it. H. You have looked down to see the city and the streamlet below; you could just ken yonder steeple and mark that pinnacle; but they were all so swathed in the mist that you could scarcely discern them. She pushed open the door and entered alone, and there, before her, lay the face, fine and clear cut, encompassed about with a mass of white flowers. Let us not think meagrely on such a subject, but under high analogies. It suggests something which we shall find hereafter. Crown Him!" I do not so much pant to see the glorious Saviour you have spoken of; I want to see that very Saviour who did the works of love, the suffering Saviour; for Him I love." Both the earthly and the heavenly transfigurations rest upon a common act of contemplation. Hawes, D. D.)The manifestations of ChristG. Nor do I think that that desire is wrong. I do not so much pant to see the glorious Saviour you have spoken of; I want to see that very Saviour who did the works of love, the suffering Saviour; for Him I love." )The spirituality of the beatific visionW. These four may be separated each from the other. "We shall see Him." Now, if men by projecting themselves into moods of abstraction discover new powers of mind, find unknown fires begin to burn within them, and rise into worlds of spiritual ecstasy, what change, think you, ought to effect itself within us if with the same steadfastness we contemplate the personality of Him who is the Leader and Consummator of our faith? Almost as far off as the farthest star! And oh! Furthermore, if we had seen Christ as He was, we should have had great love for Him; but that love would have been compounded with pity. We are His children even now. For the present our "life is hid with Christ in God," but "when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory"; yes, "with Him in glory," because "like Him." Let me stop here always. What this likeness is. How, then, shall we not turn to this poor life of ours with hope, with zeal, with tenderness, with love; how shall we not clasp it tight and fast, and cling about it, and busy ourselves with its services? Then shall we know, not in part, not by wearisome steps and deductions, but clearly and all at once; we shall know in the same manner as God knows, that is, by His immediate self, for in Himself only can we see Him as He is, and in His infinite mind we shall see the hidden forms of His creatures and the ideas of all perfection. We cannot, must not, see Him as He was; nor do we wish, for we have a larger promise, "We shall see Him as He is."1. "When He shall appear" all will be well; the life will unfold itself in divinest forms under the immediate sunlight of His countenance. Oh, let me be unquiet till I shall see Thee as I am seen! When we go before our God the failures will go to the account, they will be elements in the judgment, they will be as instrumental and effective as any of our successes in determining our eternal lot. And then there is the future to look forward to — the future kingdom — the future glory, upon which we shall have one day to enter with Christ. It enters into its nature and purpose to open before us great changes and developments. Now are we the sons of God, now are we the germ of what we shall find ourselves in that fair land. It is the unborn babe which is responsive to the image presented to the brain of the mother, rather than the mother herself. No matter how they come; they are coming by the Spirit of Gods and they are coming in ways not to be turned aside. "We shall see Him as He is."I. There is such a sense of disappointment when we, perhaps, have succeeded in obtaining a goal, and then have to discover that the moment the end is touched it has already begun to change, to move, to go further. The Son creates them at once to new majesty as He once created worlds, for His power is dealing with an entirely obedient material, a material ruled by regenerated wills promptly and absolutely responsive to His sovereignty. T. Munger. Thus God can and does transform the vilest sinners into pure and shining jewels fit for His home in heaven.Transfiguration by sight of ChristAmong some reminiscences of the sweet singer, Jenny Lind, communicated by Canon Scott Holland to Murray's Magazine, occurs the following: — "She had gone to look on the face of her friend, Mrs. Nassau Senior, after death. The organisation passes through plastic stages of sensibility, in which it is peculiarly susceptible to the imprint of any new object that may be presented to it. "The child is father of the man"; the bud foretells the flower. We call the result habit; it is rather the natural tendency of character, aided by habit, to consolidate; it is the loss of native freedom, for habit is the absence of freedom. The righteous burst forth at once into the zenith of their destinies like stars into the swift kindling splendour of the firmament. These four may be separated each from the other. This glorious sight will perfect our likeness. I do not want merely to become fixed in these habits, but to grow in them; and I also want to be carried on and lifted up into higher ranges of character than I now know; I cannot be satisfied with any condition that is stationary. how transitory is our view of Jesus! )The beatific visionC. The moulding forces of society tend to bring men into conformity with ruling types rather than to make them separatists. Who knows what is going on in secret behind those very failures in others which most provoke us? We affect or usurp Divine honour, and to sit upon even ground with God. Now are we the sons of God, now are we the germ of what we shall find ourselves in that fair land. Almost as far off as the farthest star! Thus much we know of it in general, that IT SHALL CONSIST IN THE BLESSED VISION OF GOD. You may have your misgivings sometimes as to how the battle is going on with you. how transitory is our view of Jesus! Here is a woman who has seen Christ."' A man may try and look at Christ for a lifetime. The righteous burst forth at once into the zenith of their destinies like stars into the swift kindling splendour of the firmament. But, Christians, there will be no hidings of faces in heaven! Come, let us divide that "we" into "I's." G. Ah! Thus God can and does transform the vilest sinners into pure and shining jewels fit for His home in heaven.Transfiguration by sight of ChristAmong some reminiscences of the sweet singer, Jenny Lind, communicated by Canon Scott Holland to Murray's Magazine, occurs the following: — "She had gone to look on the face of her friend, Mrs. Nassau Senior, after death. thou shalt "see Him," but not nigh; thou shalt be driven from His presence. Discover More About Relationships Submission: Training for Exiles, Part 2. This was wont to be appealed to by the ancient heathen philosophers as among the strongest proofs of the soul's immortality. They must remain totally ignorant in this life, how they shall arrive in heaven, and how they shall move from place to place after they arrive there. "It doth not yet appear," etc.(R. So at last in the heavenly city we are made perfectly like Him, and seas of bliss begin to roll through our souls, because "we see Him as He is." Ask Pastor John. Now see how Christian requirement works in with regeneration and helps it on. Good things, from which men thirty years ago hoped so much, have been done only to show how much more remains to be done. He speaketh upon the supposition that we are God's children.(T. Therefore we hope to come upon other duties, and so to enter into other feelings than any we now know. All we can say is that the holy city of the saved world, the new Jerusalem of the perfected humanity, is slowly but steadily coming down from God out of heaven, and will in time appear four-square upon the earth. The manner of our seeing God in this life is either by a long train of consequences, by climbing up gradually from the effects to the cause, from the things that are made to the invisible things of the Maker, even His eternal power and Godhead; or by way of eminence, by inferring that the perfections we see in the creatures must of necessity centre all more eminently in the Creator; or negatively, by denying everything of God we conceive unbecoming the Divine nature, for at present we rather know what God is not than what He is; or else we see Him by faith, by believing upon the testimony He has given us of Himself by Moses and the prophets, Christ and His apostles. The vision here intended must be intellectual — a vision of the mind and not of the eye, a clear perception or sight of God in the souls of just men made perfect. 2. The manner of our seeing God in this life is either by a long train of consequences, by climbing up gradually from the effects to the cause, from the things that are made to the invisible things of the Maker, even His eternal power and Godhead; or by way of eminence, by inferring that the perfections we see in the creatures must of necessity centre all more eminently in the Creator; or negatively, by denying everything of God we conceive unbecoming the Divine nature, for at present we rather know what God is not than what He is; or else we see Him by faith, by believing upon the testimony He has given us of Himself by Moses and the prophets, Christ and His apostles. And plainly there is much force in the argument. Now, if men by projecting themselves into moods of abstraction discover new powers of mind, find unknown fires begin to burn within them, and rise into worlds of spiritual ecstasy, what change, think you, ought to effect itself within us if with the same steadfastness we contemplate the personality of Him who is the Leader and Consummator of our faith? Hanford. H. Yet he has difficulties. Munger. Selby. Thus I am summoned to new exercises of my nature. If we had seen our Saviour as He was, it would have been a triumph to see how He conquered, but still there would have been suspense about it. It may be good or evil fortune, the birth or death of love, a loss or a gain; all such things are revelations of God, for God is in our lives and not outside of them; but when He thus appears it is for purposes of transformation. Love, obedience, fellowship, are sweetest flowers of earth, but they all look heavenward. Hanford.)TransformationsMr. In some of the Buddhist monasteries of Eastern Asia devotees are pointed out who have sat facing blank walls for years, and have gazed themselves into mysterious ecstasies. Looking beyond the question of privilege, He speaks of the disciple as deriving his spiritual existence from the Great Being into whose family he has been introduced. The believer will be as much astonished when he sees Jesus' glories as He sits on His throne as He would have been to have seen Him in His earthly sufferings. Christ had come into his life; and from a mere child of this world, a simple fisherman, he had been made a veritable son of God. There is rapture in devotion. Transfigurations go on in the social realm that are more or less consciously mimetic in their character. Love, obedience, fellowship, are sweetest flowers of earth, but they all look heavenward. Well, "we shall see Him." "(Quoted by Dr. Ruskin, in his "Modern Painters," tells that the black mud or slime from a footpath in the outskirts of a manufacturing town — the absolute type of impurity — is composed of four elements — clay, mixed with soot, a little sand, and water. The sand arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which reflect the blue, green, purple, and red rays in the greatest beauty. "BUT WE KNOW THAT WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR."1. If we had seen our Saviour as He was, it would have been a triumph to see how He conquered, but still there would have been suspense about it. "For we shall see Him as He is." Now by seeing God we are not to conceive a bare intuitive knowledge only of the Divine essence, but a vision most lively and operative, warmed with all the affections of the heart, and an entire conformity of our wills to the will of God. What is the explanation of that perfect likeness? The wondrous changes since infancy, with the development of hidden powers, do not effectually teach us that changes as great await us, or may be achieved. Hereditary qualities take the lead, and the character moves on in their direction. Thirdly, the mean, or condition on our part, whereby we are incorporated into Christ at present, is our faith, but in the life to come faith shall be swallowed up in perfect vision, we shall see God as He is, and the sight of infinite perfection shall set us on fire and make our hearts burn with love as pure and bright as our knowledge; and it being the property of love to clasp the object beloved into the closest union, we shall enjoy all things possible in common with the ever-blessed Trinity. If we had seen Him raising the dead we should have thought Him a most majestic Being. Its first work is to lift us out of the order of nature where character tends simply to solidify and habits become fixed, and to carry us into another sort of world. There is rapture in devotion. Life is the school, the arena, the watch tower. Christ had drawn him out of his old, worldly, natural self up into this high sense and relation, so that he could say, "Now, I am a son of God" — a tremendous change, the greatest a human being can undergo. Those so born can make but a pitiful fight of it here; at their very best they can attain very little, and they are swept so lightly down the dark waters of crime and sorrow. But the more kindly and generous portion of them — and these will probably constitute the majority — will content themselves with expressing surprise, or, it may be amusement, at his devotion to Christ. There we shall see Christ entirely, when "we shall see Him as He is."3. But then, seeing everything in God, we shall be affected only as God is affected; we shall love one another for our relation and likeness to Him only, and as we are members of Christ united and informed by the same Spirit, which will be both the bond of our union and the cause of our love. "Oh, blessed vision! I. The answer is, Pentecost. D.)The transforming power of the revelation of GodT. I am sure you will all confess that this strong desire has arisen in your minds concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Him and to minister to His improvement and happiness and there is even a better than... Them to seek for perfect moral purity nature ; is made for an endless existence needed to redeem has... I will be evidence of our notice is that the different parts our! We now know where they shall gain their knowledge of our wills and affections. ( R bringing other... A holiness like unto God, O Israel. 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