CHAPTER II.
Tho Glory of the Person of Christ, as the only Representative of God unto the
Church.
The glory of Christ is the glory of the person of Christ. So he calls it Triv bd^av rriv sfiriv, John xvii. 24, " That glory which is mine," which belongeth to me, unto my person.
The person of Christ may be considered two ways: — 1. Absolutely in itself 2. In the susception and discharge of his office, with what ensued thereon. His glory on these distinct accounts is distinct and different ; but all equally his own. How in both respects we may behold it by faith, is that which we inquire into.
294 THE GLORY OF CHRIST
The first thing wherein we may behold the glory of the person of Christ, God and man, which was given him of his Father, consists in the representation of the nature of God, and of the divine person of the Father, unto the church in him; for we behold " the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," 2 Cor. iv. 6. Otherwise we know it not, we see it not, we see nothing of it; that is the way of seeing and knowing God, declared in the Scripture as our duty and blessedness. The glory of God comprehends both the holy properties of his nature and the counsels of his will ; and " the light of the knowledge " of these things we have only " in the face " or person " of Jesus Christ." Whatever obscure, imperfect notions we may have of them other ways, we cannot have purigft^hv r^g yvugioog Trig bo^rig rov Qsov, " the light of the" illuminating, iiTadiating " knowledge of the glory of God," which may enlighten our minds and sanctify our hearts, but only ei/ Tpocou'rw, "in the face" or person " of Jesus Christ:" for he is "the image of God/' 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; " the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person," Heb. i. 3 ; " the image of the invisible God," Col. i. 15. I do here only mention these things, because I have handled them at large in my discourse of the " Mystery of Godliness," or the Person of Christ; whereunto I refer the readers for their full declaration and vindication. Herein is he glorious, in that he is the great representative of the nature of God and his will unto us ; which without him would have been eternally hid from us, or been invisible unto us ; — we should never have seen God at any time, here nor here- after, John i. 18.
In his divine person absolutely considered, he is the essential image of God, even the Father. He is in the Father, and the Father in him, in the unity of the same divine essence, John xiv. 10. Now he is with the Father, John i. 1, in the distinction of his person, so is he his essential image. Col. i. 1 5 ; Heb. i. 3. In his incarnation he be- comes the representative image of God unto the church, 2 Cor. iv. 6 ; without whom our understandings can make no such approach unto the divine excellencies but that God continues to be unto us what he is in himself, — the " invisible God." In the face of Jesus Christ we see his glory.
This is the original glory of Christ, given him by his Father, and which by faith we may behold. He, and he alone, declares, repre- sents, and makes known, unto angels and men, the essential glory of the invisible God, his attributes and his will; without which, a per- petual comparative darkness would have been on the whole creation, especially that part of it here below.
This is the foundation of our religion, the Kock whereon the church is built, the ground of all our hopes of salvation, of life and immor- tality : all is resolved into this, — namely, the representation that is
AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF GOD. 295
made of the nature and will of God in the person and office of Christ. If this fail us, we are lost for ever ; if this Rock stand firm, the church is safe here, and shall be triumphant hereafter.
Herein, then, is the Lord Christ exceedingly glorious. Those who cannot behold this glory of his by faith, — namely, as he is the gi-eat divine ordinance to represent God unto us, — they know him not. In their worship of him, they worship but an image of their own devising.
Yea, in the ignorance and neglect hereof consists the formal nature of unbelief, even that which is inevitably ruinous unto the souls of men. He that discerns not the representation of the glory of God in the person of Christ unto the souls of men, is an unbeliever. Such was the state of the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles of old ; they did not, they would not, they could not, behold the glory of God in him, nor how he did represent him. That this was both the cause and the formal nature of their unbelief, the apostle declares at large, 1 Cor. i. 21-25. Not to see the wisdom of God, and the power of God, and consequently all the other holy properties of his nature, in Christ, is to be an unbeliever.