^ I recall some years ago reading a sermon on this text by Dr. Lyman Abbott. All I can remember of that sermon now is a single thought in connexion with this passage. " Of all Scripture promises," said Dr. Abbott, " the one that stretches my faith most is this : to think that poor, sinful, fallen man can become like Christ — that we who are unholy, impure, selfish, can become, like Him, holy, pure, unselfish, is beyond human comprehension. The how of it I cannot fathom, the fact of it I accept as one of the blessed promises connected with Christ's coming." ^
3. Now this likeness to Christ is graven upon the soul, not suddenly, but slowly through the years. This is not a photograph, taken in a moment by a flash of the sun. By the regeneration of the Holy Ghost the nature is renewed, and the man is started fairly upon his new and noble work; but the precision and detail of the likeness, like the finished picture of the artist, are the labour of thoughtful and toiling years. Through many failures, through hurricane blasts of passion, and frequent rain of tears, through baptisms fierce as of fire, and exhausting as of blood, through toil up new Calvaries, and the passing through strange agonies, which, in their measure and in far-off and reverent distance, may be called the soul's Gethsemanes — through all these must the believer press into that "mind which was in Christ Jesus " ; and even at the close of an existence during which he has never lost sight of the purpose which came to him at the time of his conversion, he may feel that he has exhibited but an imperfect copy of his glorious Pattern.
^ Of Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, Professor Henry B. Smith said : " His personal power was also enhanced, year by year, with the increase of his spiritual life ; he became more and more a living
^ Nathaniel Hawtliorue, True Stories from History and Biography, 281. * A. Le\vis, Sermons Preached in England, 176.
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epistle, a gospel of God's grace, known and read of all men. Vexed and perplexing questions were merged in a higher life. Eevealed facts took the place of disputed propositions. The living Christ took the place of the doctors of the schools and with advantage. Thus he lived and grew day by day, in his serene and hallowed old age, toward the measure of the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. He was called to be a saint and he was always fulfilling his calling, not counting himself to have attained, but ever pressing onward." ^
III.
The Transfoeming Vision.
1. The vision of Christ is to result in resemblance to Christ. — There are peculiar elements and conditions in this vision which account for its marvellous energy. The visible objects of a spiritual world must owe their existence to the spiritual things of which they are the expression. Light in heaven will be caused by the action of the spiritual enlightenment of God's presence. The great white throne will be the effect of the manifestation to the inward sense of the commanding excellence of Divine righteous- ness. And so the vision of the glorious body of Christ will be the effect of the action upon the understanding and the spirit of His essential self-hood. Because He will exert His spiritual power upon us, and present Himself to the mind, therefore He will be visible in glorious form. If we may so express it. He will be outwardly seen, because He will be inwardly felt in the fulness of His glory.
^ Material forces, as we call them, are all spiritual in origin. The causes of things are spiritual. Hidden behind all the wonderful mechanism of the world, and giving it being and activity, is the power of spirit. If we once grasp this doctrine, that spirit — itself necessarily and always invisible — creates and regulates outward things and forces, we shall be able to understand how the Coming of Jesus Christ, which will be pre-eminently a putting forth of spiritual power, will also exercise an influence on the bodily condition of those who are the ready subjects of His influence. St. Paul refers our bodily glorification to the Advent, when, writing to the Philippians, he says, " We wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall fashion anew the body of our
1 S. H. Virgin, Spiritual San!fy, 273.
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humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able to subject all things unto himself." There is one working which is able to subject all things ; and the term St. Paul uses for it, possibly with reference to its spirituality, means literally " in-working." ^
2. Clear vision will ensure close likeness. — We know that truth already in its early manifestations. We grow like that which we habitually contemplate, and especially so when we contemplate lovingly and enthusiastically. The affectionate child takes on the characteristics of the parent whom he loves. And the man who contemplates God, who sets Him always before his face, who looks upon Him as the supreme object of love, grows into the likeness of God; and such is the testimony of Jesus Himself, as He addresses the Father in that wonderful prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John : " This is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ."