The glorious church is a corporate man. This means that every part of this corporate man is glorious. Are you a part of this glorious man in a practical way? In other words, are you being filled with glory? Even after reading all these messages, we still may be occupied with the thought of victory and may seek to be victorious over our temper or a difficult situation. We may be very appreciative of those whose teaching can lead us into the way of victory. Oh, may the Lord impress us with His desire to have a glorious, shining people! The goal of His economy is to gain a church that shines with His glory.
The concept of glorification common among believers today is that Christ will suddenly descend from the heavens and sweep us away into a realm of glory. Until then, we are simply to wait until the Lord Jesus comes to glorify us. But as we pointed out in message fifty-seven, Christ will come from within us. I fully realize that certain verses in the New Testament indicate that Christ will come objectively from the heavens. Nevertheless, other verses indicate that He will come forth from within us and will glorify us in a very subjective way.
A number of verses in the New Testament show that the experience of glory is subjective. Second Corinthians 4:4 says, “In whom the god of this age hath blinded the thoughts of them that believe not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (Gk.). In this verse Paul does not speak of the gospel of forgiveness or of justification by faith. He speaks instead of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Our gospel is not simply a gospel of redemption, forgiveness, and regeneration. It is also the gospel of the glory of Christ.
Only this gospel has the ability to shine into us. Firstly it shines into us and then it shines out from within us. The more the glory shines within us, the more it penetrates into our being and saturates it. Eventually, the inner glory will consume, swallow up, our entire inward being. Then the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ will shine out through us. Such a shining cannot come by way of teaching, but only through the experience of Christ who is Himself the glory of God and the manifestation of God. Hallelujah, Christ has shone into the depths of our being and now He is shining within us! The time is coming when He will shine throughout our inward being. Hence, the light of God’s glory will shine not in an outward way, but will shine from within us. The more Christ shines, the more we are filled with glory.
When we are in a difficult situation, we do not need to strive to be victorious. Forget about trying to be victorious and pay attention to the inner shining of Christ as the glory within. Learn to say, “Hallelujah, Christ is shining in me and through me! He is my life and my person. How sweet and pleasant is His inward shining!” As we concentrate on the Lord’s shining within, we shall spontaneously be victorious without any conscious effort on our part.
The goal of God’s economy is that we all shine forth His glory. As we are under such a shining, we enjoy the sweetness of Christ living in us to be our life and our person. This comes not by teaching, but by Christ’s saturating us with Himself according to God’s economy. The saints taking the way of God’s economy are those built up with the glory of God.
In 2 Corinthians 4:6 Paul also speaks of glory: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The word face here refers to the Lord’s countenance, to His presence. How we need to have the presence of the Lord Jesus within us! His presence is the very glory of God, for the glory of God is in the face of Christ. If our Christ is only a Christ objectively in the heavens, we shall not have the shining of His face within us. Neither shall we have the experience of His indwelling glory. We have pointed out that glory is the manifestation of God. Now, according to this verse, we see furthermore that glory is simply the face of Jesus. When we have His face, we have the glory. When we are in the presence of Christ and before His countenance, we are in glory.
In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul says, “But we all, with unveiled face beholding and reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit” (Gk.). Our need today is to behold and reflect the glory of the Lord. As we behold His glory, we are transformed. Notice that Paul does not say that we are corrected, adjusted, or even changed. He points out that we are being transformed into Christ’s image. We are not being transformed from behavior to behavior, from spirituality to spirituality, nor from victory to victory. Hallelujah, we are being transformed from glory to glory! The source of this transformation is not doctrine in letters; it is the Lord Spirit. The more we behold the Lord’s glory and are transformed by the Lord Spirit from glory to glory, the more the Lord will gain the glorious church He desires.