ONCE the evil voice in Eden’s garden whispered: “Thou, O man, can yourself be as God,” and in listening to that temptation originated the spring of all abomination and woe. But how then will you maintain, that they who have fallen asleep in Jesus have entered upon the rest of eternal being, which indeed is God’s, without, boldly and proudly, applying to man above an idea, which on earth has disturbed all his peace?
To be lifted up above time and transitoriness, above fluctuation and change, no more to know becoming or decaying, and in the “I am that I am” to express the secret of his eternal being, is not this what distinguishes the Creator from the creature, God in His majesty, from us, children of dust, in our frailty? And is this so, how will, how can you then transfer this trait of divine being upon the insignificant creature, even though that creature is one of the elect, one endowed with grace, a child of God, adopted in Zion which is above and introduced into the Father-house?
Is not this confounding the Divine with the human, the human with the Divine? Yea, is it not seeking highest blessedness in what Satan falsely told us, and in what was cursed of God?
We here leave the middle state alone. We center our attention upon the consummation. When God shall be glorious in His saints, and the last enemy shall have been brought to nought.
We now take those who have fallen asleep in Christ, in the new Jerusalem, upon the new earth, under the new heaven, after that Christ shall have given up the kingdom to the Father, and God shall be all in all.
Then only shall the full blessedness be there. And in that full blessedness, as we stated, there is no more time, but alone eternity. No fluctuation, but an eternally remaining equal to oneself. No changing, but in eternal rest maintaining ground. No more striving to reach a goal, but a being sunken away in one’s ultimate aim. No more chasing after an ideal, but possessing the Highest Good. Never more a becoming of what one not yet was, but what one is, eternally remaining. For not one more of God’s children a sanctifying of one’s self or a making advances in holiness, but eternal rejoicing in the holiness received.
But does not all this transcend the boundary, which separates our human life from the life of our God?
Is it not attributing to man, what belongs to God alone, and to Christ, because He Himself is God?
ALSO here let what is revealed unto us from the side of God, serve exclusively as our guide in all our meditations.
To us is not yet revealed, what we shall be, but this we know, that we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him, as He is (1 John 3, 2).
“We are of God’s generation.”
For His saints whom He left behind on earth, the Mediator prayed: “Father, I will that where I am, there they shall be also, whom Thou hast given me.”
“We shall know, as we are known, and we shall see God face to face.”
Our name shall be: “The just made perfect.”
There shall be no more chasing, no more driving, no more striving, but an eternal rest, a never ending Sabbath for the people of God.
“God shall be all and in all.”
There shall be no more night, and thus no time nor transition of moment, but an eternal morning.
Spot nor wrinkle shall more disfigure the Bride of Christ.
Spotlessly clean shall be the raiment of our holiness.
As fruit of His eternal offering Christ shall present all perfect before God.
Our life, that now is hid with Christ in God, shall then be revealed with Him in undisturbable blessedness.
Confess, where then is there still place for fluctuation or change, for renewing or for higher development, for transition from lower into higher conditions, for an as yet becoming of what was not already included in our perfectness?
And where in His Word God Himself so presents eternal life to us, who will yet dare say, that looking forward to such a state of glory were grasping after something which not God promised, but Satan held out to us?
You do not comprehend it, and understand it not.
It is the mystery of eternity,
And this can not be otherwise, for here you have died, and that eternal life, that you already received in germ, is hid with Christ in God.
But for this very fact it is, far more real than if you yourself already held it in your hand.
And therefore it is also said to you, that you must wait yet for a little time, “for only, when Christ, Who is your life, shall be revealed, will you also with Him be revealed in glory.”
OF “being equal with God,” there is therefore no mention.
For here lies the boundary, that God has this eternal life from Himself and in Himself, while he who fell asleep in Christ, only received it as a gift of grace from his God.
The Son, not you, nor your dead in Christ, is it given, to have life in Himself.
This is the very mark of all true piety, that we do not seek our life in ourselves, but outside of ourselves, in Christ.
Surely, he who shall have drunk of the water that the Mediator gives, it shall become in him as a fountain, springing up unto eternal life. But always derived, always flowing toward us from without. Always a treasure received. Never for us the boast. To God alone the glory, and ours the never ending thanksgiving, the praise and the worship.
The God of the fathers also our Father, and we never anything else than His children.
He, our God, i.e., the original majesty, and we never ought else than the bearers of His reflection, adorned with His holy Image.
He from eternity to eternity never anything else than the eternal being, we the originated who did not exist; from nothing having become, to reach forward unto eternal life; introduced into a glory, which never finds its prop and point of support in us, but solely in God.
Hence it is not true, that the boundary is obliterated. The boundary remains, the boundary is more sharply drawn. For not now, but only then will we understand, how altogether different the cup is from the spring, because only so no single drop shall glisten in that cup other than welled up from that spring.
Only the false boundary goes away. The boundary, which separates not God from His child, but the earthly from the heavenly, and which for this very reason you must never will to transfer into heaven.
But thereby indeed, the true, the never to be obliterated boundary shall stand out in full clearness.
We nothing than worshipers of His majesty, He, by all and in all the Only Worshiped One.
SO it would also have been outside of sin, when the first man, by keeping of the commandment, from Paradise would have passed over into the eternal life.
But so is, and so it remains, in still far clearer and far sharper sense, now that it is from sin and misery, that Divine compassion draws us up to holiness and glory.
For now the Mediator steps in between.
Now for us, miserables, there is no eternal life, except as we have become one planting with Christ.
Now we do not have each for himself, nor all together eternal life, but only part in His life, provided we are incorporated in Him, as members of His holy Body.
Now it is always in Christ, through Christ, with Christ.
Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
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