Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2542
“His rest shall be glorious.” Isaiah 11:10.
THE Lord Jesus Christ, who is “the root of Jesse”—“the shoot from the stock of Jesse,” as the first verse of this chapter might be rendered—is the very center of all Israel! And He is also the rallying-point of the Gentiles, for He has made both Jew and Gentile to be one, having “broken down the middle wall of partition between us.” And now, around the one ensign of His glorious name, all the believing hosts gather with glad accord. He is the King of the Jews, but He is also our King and, with Paul, we cry, “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” Let us, dear Friends, always look upon Christ as the great Standard-Bearer of all the hosts of God and let us pitch our tents as near His ensign as we can, and constantly follow where His banner leads the way.
The text says that “His rest shall be glorious,” and I take it that the glory of His rest is in harmony with the glory of all that He has ever done. Rest is most enjoyable to the man who has toiled the hardest—the very labor which has gone before has prepared him for the sweetness of the rest. And the glory of Christ’s rest lies very much in what He has passed through in order to obtain it. He, Himself, is glorious. His service and His suffering were both glorious. His death was in the truest sense, glorious, and now, all the rest which has followed upon His consummated service is glorious in the very highest degree. Yes, it is, itself, “glory.” If you look in the margin of your Bible, you will see that our text may be read, “His rest shall be glory.”
Without any further preface, let us come to the consideration of these words, “His rest shall be glorious,” or, “His rest shall be glory.” First, I want to apply our text to the rest which Christ Himself has taken. Secondly, to the rest which He has given to His people. And, thirdly—to bring the subject very close home to this evening’s Communion Service— to show the bearing of our text upon the rest which Christ sets forth in this banquet of His love. The rest which He gives us at His Table is truly glorious. Oh, that we may all enjoy that rest very intensely and very specially! If we do, I am sure that you will not need for me to tell you that it is glorious, for you will realize that it is—your heart will be ready to burst out with holy song as you delight in the rest which God gives to every believing heart!
I. First, let us notice the relation of our text to the rest which CHRIST PERSONALLY HAS ENJOYED, IS ENJOYING AND WILL ENJOY.
The first rest that I know of, that ever fell to the lot of our Well-Beloved, was His rest in His Church. We read in Zephaniah 3:17, “He will rest in His love, He will joy over you with singing.” The idea of this passage seems to be that we had all gone astray and were lost and ruined—and God fixed His love upon His people and determined to save them. If such a metaphor can be tolerated for a moment, there was no rest for God until He had ordained and settled a plan by which He could justly save His own. When that great matter was completed, when the sacred agreement was made between the Divine Trinity in Unity, when the Lord Jesus Christ had become the Surety of His people and had entered into Covenant engagements with the Father on their behalf, then, but not till then, was He fully at rest! When the Father was able to look upon men—
“Not as they were in Adam’s fall, When sin and ruin covered all,”
but as they are in Christ, the second Adam, then His Divine complacency went forth towards His elect as He viewed them in the Person of His only-begotten and well-beloved Son—and He rested in His love. All was arranged, the Covenant was signed and sealed, and He felt that the grandest of all His designs would certainly be carried out in due time—and He rested in His love. It never occurred to the heart of God to change His purpose concerning His people. Never once did He think of casting them away! They were to be bought with a great price and, in themselves, they would be little worth buying, but He rested in the fact that He had chosen them, that He had set them apart to be His portion, that He loved them with all His heart and that He intended to do them good. His purpose was worthy of a God and, therefore, He rested in it.
He had devised a plan which would bring even greater glory to His Deity and, therefore, He was at rest concerning the objects of His love. He had set His seal to this Covenant, that they should, every one of them, be redeemed, that they should be saved, perfected and brought Home to behold His face in righteousness as the dear children of His love. And the infinitely Glorious One did, as it were, settle Himself down to rest in that “Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure.” And, Beloved, you and I feel that His rest was glorious—it would occupy us throughout eternity to tell all the glory which lies hidden in that great settlement of eternal love! We talk of it, here, and it is a charming theme. We sing of it and there is no higher and grander strain under Heaven!