J. G. Bellett.
Article 24 of 47 Short Meditations
(Cavenagh, 1866.)
There will be a scene of glories when the Kingdom comes. We commonly speak of "glory" as if it stood in that connection only. But this is wrong. Glory then will be displayed, it is true; glory will then be in the circumstances of the scene. But a much more wonderful form of glory is known already — and that is, in the Gospel. There God Himself is displayed; a more wondrous object than all circumstances. The glory of the Gospel is moral, I grant, not material or circumstantial. But it is glory of the profoundest character. There, again I say, God Himself is displayed. The just God and yet the Saviour is seen there. Righteousness and peace shine there in each other's company — a result which none but God Himself, and in the way of the Cross, could ever have reached.
The Gospel calls on sinners to breathe the atmosphere, as I may say, of salvation, to have communion with God in love, and to maintain it in liberty and assurance — and there is a glory in such thoughts and truths as these which indeed excelleth.
Satan interfered or meddled with the work of God, and ruined it in its creature-condition. God at once interfered or meddled with Satan's work, and eternally overthrew it, bringing meat out of the eater, and sweetness out of the strong.
The three earliest receivers of God's Gospel, Adam, Eve, and Abel, strikingly illustrate souls that apprehended the glory of the Gospel in different features of it.
Adam was blessedly, wondrously emboldened by it, so that at the bidding of it, he came forth at once from his guilty covert and entered the presence of God again, naked as he was. And his boldness was warranted, for he was welcomed there. Eve exulted in it. She sang over it. "I have gotten a man from the Lord," said she — in the joy of the promise that had been made her touching her Seed.
Abel offered the "fat" with the victim. He entered with happiest, brightest intelligence into the promise, and saw that the Giver of it would find His own blessed delight in it — that the Gospel, while it saved the sinner, was the joy as well as the glory of God. The fat on the altar expressed this.
And such apprehensions of Christ as these — the faith that gives boldness — the faith that inspires with joy — the faith that penetrates the Cross — is full of power in the soul.