Crooked Finger (crookedfingers) wrote,
Crooked Finger
crookedfingers
  • Mood: contemplative

conversion is the commencement of an endless revenue of glory to Christ

"In the conversion of His people- their translation from nature to grace, the Redeemer is glorified. This is the first step to a manifest glorifying of Christ in His called saints. Conversion is the commencement of an endless revenue of glory to Christ. To behold a poor sinner living a life of practical enmity to God, hatred to Jesus, rebellion against the Divine government, and wilful and determined hostiliy to the one glorious plan of salvation; perhaps a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious; now changed, now conquered, now sitting at the feet of Jesus, "clothed and in his right mind," oh, is there no glory thus brought to the grace of Christ Jesus? To see him translated out of darkness into God's marvellous light; emancipated from the power of sin and Satan, and made the Lord's free man; the rebellious will conquered, the hard heart subdued, the proud spirit humbled, the hatred turned into love, and the long roving mind now finding its center of rest and fountain of happiness in the reconciled God, oh! is there no crown of glory placed on the head of Jesus in all this? Say, you angelic spirits, bending over the mercy-seat in deep contemplation of its awful mysteries of incarnate grace and dying love- whose eyes glisten and whose bosoms expand with new effulgence and joy over one sinner that repents, do you see no glory deepening around the Son of God, as each vessel of mercy is called in, emptied of self, and filled with Jesus? Yet not to angels, but to saints themselves, we appeal. Hear the testimony of one- "Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ: but they had heard only, that he who persecuted us in times past, now preached the faith which one he destroyed. And they glorified God in me." Oh, how are the power, the wisdom, the grace, the love of the Redeemer glorified, and God through Him, by every new accession thus made to the number of the redeemed! Aim to be instrumental in bringing one soul to receive the Lord Jesus as all its salvation, and you bring more glory to His name than were a thousand worlds like this to start into being at your fiat. "Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever."

But how is He glorified in God's acceptance of His people through Him! Who can entertain a doubt of this, that has any experimental knowledge of the great work of the Lord Jesus? Look at this for one moment. God's justification of the believing sinner through the righteousness of His Son, is His seal to the perfection, and efficacy, and worth of Christ's obedience and death. What glory, suppose you, would encircle the form of Gabriel, were it possible for Jehovah to accept a poor sinner in his righteousness! How high would this act advance him in dignity, and honor, and praise above all celestial intelligences! But oh! we stand, beloved, in a better and a diviner righteousness than that of angel or archangel; we stand in the righteousness of the incarnate God! and that God, the holy Lord God, should accept a poor sinner in the righteousness of His Son, places that Son in the ascendant of all creatures, "dwelling in light," the full effulgence of which "no man has seen, nor can see." This truth, unfolded to his soul by the Holy Spirit, constrained an eminent saint of God to exclaim, "Had I all the faith of the patriarchs, all the zeal of the prophets, all the good works of the apostles, all the holy suffering of the martyrs, and all the glowing devotion of the seraphs; I would disclaim the whole, in point of dependence, and count all but dross and dung when compared with the infinitely precious death and the infinitely meritorious righteousness of Jesus Christ my Lord." But one yet more eminent for his deep experience of this truth, has thus recorded his testimony: "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yes, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Who can compute the glory brought to Jesus by God's full justification of the poor believing sinner through the righteousness of His beloved Son?" quoted from 'The Glory of the Redeemer' by Octavius Winslow 1844
http://gracegems.org/W/glory8.htm
http://gracegems.org/W/glory.htm
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