Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2689
“I am He that lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevemore, Amen.” Revelation 1:18.
WE long, sometimes, to behold Christ in His Glory. Certainly, it is one of our brightest hopes that we shall see Him as He is. Every true Believer can say, with Job, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” But, Brothers and Sisters, as we are now constituted, we are quite unfit for the vision of our Master’s Glory. It was well that, when He was on earth, He veiled himself in the form of man, for when He did lift up the veil a little, as He did on the Mountain of Transfiguration, the sight, though it was but a glimpse, was too much for Peter, James and John. They were overpowered by it! They fell asleep on the holy mount and even when they were awake, they knew not what to say. And as we now are, if we could be favored with a sight of Christ in His Glory, it would be too much for us, also.
It was too much, even, for John, and we are far inferior to him—our eyes are not as clear and strong as his were— yet he could not endure that wondrous vision! The gray old saint in Patmos had been familiar with his Master more years than most of us have known Him. He had laid his head upon the Savior’s bosom—a privilege accorded to none beside himself. He had stood at the Cross and seen the blood and water flow from that dear heart that loved him so well and yet, though he was “that disciple whom Jesus loved,” when he had a sight of his glorified Master, he fell at His feet as dead! The full Glory of Christ is too much for us to behold while we are here on the earth, so ask not to have it yet, dear Friends. By-and-by, when you are fitted for it and Christ has prepared a place for you, His prayer shall be fulfilled in your happy experience! “Father, I will that they, also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My Glory, which You have given Me.” He might say to each one of you, “Not yet, My child, not yet may you see Me as I Am. Your eyes are not yet fit for such a sight as that.”
Observe, Beloved, how the Savior comforted John when, through the excessive Glory of the vision of his Lord, he swooned away and was as one dead. First, He laid His right hand upon him—and that is where yourcomfort and mine must always come from—from the hand that was crucified for us. There streams from that pierced hand a wondrous power that makes the weakest strong. A touch of it proves how near Christ is to us. We know, when He touches us, that He is Man as well as God, and the familiar touch which brings Him so consciously near our spirit makes us glad and joyous, and we become strong again. And if the fact of His Incarnation—the Truth of God that Christ is flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone—should not suffice to cheer us, then He adds, as He did to John, “Fear not.” The Master is saying that to each one of you who believe in Him, but especially to such of you as are very faint and weak and who feel that you are soon to die. He is drawing near to you, Brothers and Sisters, who are shortly to lay aside the frail tabernacle of this mortal body. The glinting and gleams of the Glory yet to be revealed overcome you, but He whispers in your ear, “Fear not; I am the First and the Last: I am He that lives, and was dead.” All these words are full of good cheer to spirits that faint away with expectation of the coming of the King and to hearts that are ravished with desire for the company of the Best-Beloved.
“Fear not,” He says, and that we may not fear, let us now look into the things here made known which ought to be a cause of strength and comfort to us. They seem to me to be three—though there are many more—there are three that strike me most. The first is, the identity of Christ However glorious He may be, and His very face is as the sun when He shines in His strength, yet He is the same Christ as when He was here on earth. “I am He that lives, and was dead.” Those words prove to us the identity of Christ. The next ground of sweet comfort, whenever we think of Christ in His Glory, is the perfection of His work, which is implied in the expression, “and was dead.” He has nothing to do with death now— as far as He is personally concerned, that is all over. You see that the words are in the past tense—“I am He that lives, and was dead.” And then, thirdly, the great source of heart-cheer to every Believer, as he trembles in the Presence of his glorified Master, is the fact ofChrist’s eternal existence. ’ ‘I am alive forevermore.” He will never again be the dead Christ of Calvary—“I am alive forevermore, Amen.”
I. Let us begin, then, with the first great Truth that I mentioned—and I must necessarily speak somewhat hurriedly on each one—THE IDENTITY OF OUR BLESSED MASTER should greatly comfort us when we think of His Glory.