Our Joy Now and Forever

[Netchaplain]

Let us continue to be encouraged by using our permanent union with God and His “work” (Phl 2:13) in us to be our primary sources of supplies for enduring patiently (Heb 6:15; 1Pe 2:20). Since He, for us, “works everything together for good,” it’s always just a matter of waiting out our trials! The growing level of one’s maturity in Christ (Eph 4:15) will be commensurate with the level of “patience” applied in our lifestyle (Luk 21:19; Rom 2:7).
NC




Our Joy Now and Forever



“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Pe 1:16).

We have the warrant of Peter, an eyewitness, for saying that the scene on the Mount of Transfiguration represents to us the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; and this is what we wait for. Our souls are not really in a healthy state unless we are waiting for God’s Son from heaven. The Church is not well regulated in its hopes by the Word and Spirit of God, unless it is looking for His return from heaven (1Co 1:7; 1Th 1:10; 2Ti 4:8; Phl 3:20; Tit 2:13; Heb 9:28).

Our purpose is to consider what light the Transfiguration scene affords us on the nature of that joy we shall inherit at and from the coming our Lord at the Rapture (e.g. translation - Heb 11:5—NC). Other Scriptures, such as the promises to those who overcome in Revelation 2 and 3, and the description of the heavenly city in Revelation 21 and 22, give us instruction on the same subject; but let us now particularly look at the scene on the holy mount.

“And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering” (Luk 9:28, 29). It was when the Lord Jesus was in the acknowledgement of dependence—“as He prayed”—that this change took place. This, then, is the first thing we have here—a change such as will pass upon the living saints when the Lord Jesus comes (1Co 15:52; Phl 3:21).

“And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias” (Luk 9:30). They were with Him, and this will be our joy; we shall ever be with the Lord Jesus. In 1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17, after stating the order in which the resurrection of the sleeping, and the change of the living saints will take place, and that we shall both be “caught up together . . . to meet the Lord in the air,” all that the Apostle says as to what shall ensue is, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” “There talked with Him two men.”

It is not that He talked with them, though that was no doubt true, but that might have been, and they be at a distance. But when we read that they talked with Him, we get the idea of the most free and personal communion. Peter and the others knew what it was to have such fellowship with the Lord Jesus in His humiliation; and what joy must it have been to have this proof that such conversation with Him would be enjoyed in glory! They share in the same glory as that in which He was manifested.

So as to us, “When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory” (Col 3:4). “The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (Jhn 17:22, 23).

But there is another thing still. We are not only told that they were with Him, that they talked with Him, and appeared in glory with Him, but we are also privileged to know the subject of their conversation. They “spoke of His decease which He should accomplish on the Cross at Jerusalem” (Luk 9:31). It was the Cross which was the theme of their conversation in the glory—the sufferings of Christ which He had to accomplish at Jerusalem. And surely this will be our joy throughout eternity, when in glory with the Lord Jesus—to dwell upon this subject, His decease accomplished on the Cross at Jerusalem.

“While He thus spoke, there came a cloud and overshadowed them; and they feared as they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud saying, This is My beloved Son; hear Him” (Luk 9:34). Peter tells us that this voice came from the excellent glory. “For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (2Pe 1:17).

Now Peter and the others had entered into the cloud; and thus we get this wonderful fact that in the glory, from which the voice comes, saints are privileged to stand, and there in that glory, share the delight of the Father in His beloved Son. Not only are we called to the fellowship of the Father’s Son, Jesus Christ, but we are called to have fellowship with the Father. We are admitted of God the Father to partake of His satisfaction in His beloved Son.

“And when the voice was passed, Jesus was found alone” (Luk 9:36). The vision is gone—the cloud, the voice, the glory, Moses and Elias—but the Lord Jesus was left, and they were left to go on their way with Him, knowing Him now in the light of those scenes of glory which they beheld (2Co 5:16—NC); and this is the use to us of those vivid apprehensions of spiritual things which we may sometimes realize.

It is not that we can be always enjoying them and nothing else. But when for the season they have passed away, like this vision on the Mount, they leave us alone with the Lord Jesus, to pursue the path of our pilgrimage with Him in spirit now (Christ presently in union with our spirit via the Holy Spirit—NC), and with Him the light and power of the deepening acquaintance with Him, and fellowship of the Father’s joy in Him, that we have got on the Mount; and thus to wait for the moment of His return for us, when all this, and more than our hearts can think of, shall be fulfilled to us forever.



—J N Darby (1800-1882)





MJS daily devotional for March 17


“Romans Seven describes the experience of the believer who has been shown by the law principle the terrible consequences of his position in Adam. Romans Eight describes the experience of the believer who knows what it is to be “in Christ,” and who is being made free experientially from “the law of sin and death” by “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”” –Miles J Stanford

“It is of immense importance for every Christian to know that ‘our old man’ has been fully judged and ended before God. Not changed or forgiven but utterly condemned in the death of the Lord Jesus. ‘God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh’ (Rom. 8:3). Where sin brought us, love brought the Lord Jesus—even to death; and His death is the end before God of all that we were as children of Adam—men in the flesh.” –C A Coats (1862-1945)
http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/day/2022/03/17/