There is something very touching about the word of Gideon to Zebah and Zalmunna the kings of Midian, “What manner of men were they who ye slew at Tabor?” Their answer was, “As thou art, so were they; each one resembled the children of a king” (Judges 8:18). And is not Gideon’s reply full of pathos? “They were my brethren, even the sons of my mother.” Do we not have a lovely picture in this of Christ owning as His brethren those who have been persecuted and slain by the great men of this world? The kings were compelled to own the likeness that Gideon’s brethren bore to him, and the royal dignity that marked them. And have not the brethren of Christ His own features traits of moral dignity and beauty that mark them as associated with Him?
Like Him Before the Father
The words of Zebah and Zalmunna, “As thou art, so were they,” remind us of what is said of the children of God, “As He is, so are we, in this world” (1 John 4:17). We have been brought before the Father to share the place of His own Son. Like the brethren of Gideon, we have a relationship of closest intimacy and affection with Him who is ours, we are “accepted in the Beloved,” loved as He is loved, sharing His place of favour and relationship.
Already we are “blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ,” so that we might be “holy and without blame before Him in love” (Eph. 1:3-4). Nothing less than the Son’s place is ours, and in this place we have the moral suitability in consonance with it. These are not the traits inherited from Adam, but the features of Christ, and it is as in Christ that these traits are ours before the face of the Father. Soon all that is of the old creation will have passed away, and we shall be with Christ in the presence of the Father, without a trace of anything but what is of Christ.
Like Him Before the World
Before the Son of God left this world He spoke to His disciples of the new place into which He would bring them. They were to share His place of relationship and affection before the Father, but also His place of testimony before the world. They were to bear fruit for the Father’s pleasure and glory, and were to be His witnesses. In speaking to the Father concerning His own, the Son said, “Holy Father, keep through Thine own Name those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are” (John 17:11). Having given the disciples His place of testimony before the world, the Son committed them to the Father’s care, desiring that they might be kept in the true knowledge of His holy Name, so as to be marked in their witness by the unity that belonged to the Father and the Son.
The Son of God did not belong to this world though He was found in it, and like Him, His own were not of this world, and because of this they could expect to receive the same treatment from the world that He received. He had come with the word of the Father, and Jesus said, “I have given them Thy word” (John 17:14). It was as having His testimony, the Father’s word, and in being apart from this world that the disciples would be hated of the world, but it was the hatred that their Master had before them (John 15:18, 24).
In our place of testimony for Christ we are to bear His features, to be like Him morally before the world, and Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:18 shows how this is to be brought about, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even by the Lord the Spirit.” Occupation with Christ where He now is in God’s presence will bring us out like Him in the place where He once was. God uses the trials through which He passes His servants to bring out the features of Christ in them, even as it is written, “For we which live, are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:8-11).
Like Him for His Pleasure
When God created man there was not found among the other creatures of God’s hand “an helpmate, his like” (Gen. 2:20), one that could enter into the thoughts and feelings of man, or could respond to his love. From Ephesians 5 we learn that Christ has entered into death, as Adam into his deep sleep, so that one could be produced that would be “His like.” The present ministry of Christ for the church is to make her suitable to Himself, like Him, a meet companion for Him in the day of His glory, and for all eternity in the Father’s House.
Christ is glorious, therefore the church must also be glorious. There is no spot or wrinkle or any such thing about Christ so the church to be suitable for Him must have none of these things. Christ is holy and without blame, and when the work of Christ with His church is completed, she too will be found in every way companionable to Christ on the day when He presents her to Himself, clothed in “fine linen, clean and white” (Rev. 19:8); and when for the eternal day she comes down from God out of heaven, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2).
Like Him in the Day of Display
In speaking to the Father the Son said of His disciples, “And the glory which Thou gavest me I have given them…that the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved me” (John 17:22-23). Very clearly this has in view the day of the display of Christ’s glory, when the One who was rejected by the world will be seen with the fruit of His work for the Father. In that day the saints of God will be seen sharing the glory of the Son; they will be like Him as having the glory He received from the Father, sharing the same glory in which He Himself is displayed.
The glory that Christ has received is the fruit of His work for the Father, for He was able to say to the Father, “I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.” But the saints who will appear with the Son of God will also be seen as the fruit of His work, the evidence that He was the Sent One of the Father, and that His work for the Father was not in vain. If the world refused Him, there were those who accepted Him, and in the day of his glory He gladly owns them as His by sharing with them His glory. As having this glory, the saints will also be seen as sharing His place of affection before the Father, being loved as He is loved.
Writing of the Father’s love, the Apostle John speaks of our present relationship with the Father as His children, but also of the place we shall share with the Son at His appearing. This place of glory is not now in evidence, for the children of God are passing through this world unknown in their relationship with God to the men of this world. Christ was not known to them as Son of God, but they will know Him as Son of God when He appears in His glory. In that day “we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:1-2). How blessed is the prospect for the saints that they shall be like God’s own Son in the day of His appearing.
On the same line, the Apostle Paul writes to the saints at Thessalonica, speaking of when the Lord “shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe” (2 Thess. 1:10). To come out in the glory with Christ, we must have bodies of glory like His, and Paul tells us how the Lord will give us these glorified bodies. Among the Scriptures that bring this great truth before us is Philippians 3:20-21, where we learn that on His coming from heaven to call His saints to be with Him, He “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.”
Predestinated to be Like Him
What rest of heart there is for the saints of God in the realisation that God knew all about us before He took us up, and that having foreknown us “He also did predestinate (us) to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). God had His purpose in eternity, and according to that purpose we have been called by His grace through the Gospel to have part with His own Son, in His own House, for eternity. For Christ to be the Firstborn among many brethren, His brethren must needs be like Him, and this we shall be when we are conformed to His image. We see in Christ now what we shall be when He comes to make us like Him.
All this was in God’s heart and mind before the worlds were made, and the time scene has come in to give effect to the purpose of God. This world, though so small in comparison with the massive worlds that we see shining in the sky, is of immense importance because it is the platform on which God has been working to give effect to what He counselled in eternity. It was here that His Son came to make Him known, and to lay the basis in redemption for the introduction of the new heavens and the new earth, where God’s eternal thoughts would be displayed before the universe, and where He would rest in all that He has accomplished.
It was in this world that the sons of men were to be found in whom the Son of God found His delight, and for whom He died, so that as conformed to His image they might be with Him for ever as His brethren. When the work of the cross had been complete, God sent forth His Gospel to call those He had predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son. As born of Adam, they were sinners, but this did not hinder the fulfilment of the thoughts of God, for by the work of Christ He was able to justify them, to clear them from every charge of guilt.
Having justified those whom He has called, there is but one step needed to bring them to conformity to the image of His Son, and that is by glorifying them. Here it is viewed as if already accomplished, for we read, “and whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). Whatever God predestinates He can view as already done; and it is also our privilege to take account of what God is going to do as certain of accomplishment.
As conformed to the image of God’s Son, Christ will find His eternal joy in having with Him and like Him those for whom He gave Himself upon the cross. He did not give Himself for us to leave us in this world, or under the power of death, but to give us His life now while waiting to take us to His Father’s House with bodies of glory like His own. There we shall not only be the brethren of Christ for His pleasure, but as sons before the Father, conformed to the image of His own Son, we shall also be for His pleasure.
At home with the Father as His sons, and at home with the Son as His brethren, we shall also be in the heavenly scene as servants of God and the Lamb (Rev. 22), there to “serve Him,” and we shall see His face, and His Name shall be on our foreheads. The divine impress of His own name will mark us like Him in that heavenly rest, having the light of God, and reigning “for ever and ever” (verses 3–5).
R. 11.11.67