The Lamb is All the Glory

This morning I had the privilege of preaching a sermon based upon the following texts:

Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

Here is the simplified outline I used to preach these texts.

1. THE OBJECT OF THE SAINTS' EVERLASTING GAZE (Rev. 7:9-10, 14b)

   ⁹After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!"
   
   14b They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

2. THE RADIANCE OF THOSE WHO LOOK TO THE SAVIOR (Ps. 34:5)

   ⁵Those who look to him are radiant,
   and their faces shall never be ashamed.

3. THE HOPE OF THOSE WHO ARE LOOKING FOR THE APPEARING OF THE SAVIOR (1 Jn. 3:2-3)

   ²Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. ³And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

4. THE GOOD FORTUNE/HAPPINESS OF THOSE WHO SEE GOD (Matt. 5:8)

   ⁸"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

I began this message by reading from the Richard Baxter's opening paragraph in chapter one of The Saints' Everlasting Rest. Considering Hebrews 4:9, "There remaineth therefore a rest unto the people of God," Baxter argues that

the end of all ceremonies and shadows is to direct them [i.e. the people of God] to Jesus Christ, the substance; and that the rest of Sabbaths, and Canaan should teach them to look for a further rest, which indeed is their happiness.

From here we began our consideration of each of these texts showing that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is the object of the saints' everlasting gaze. The psalmist learned from experience that those who look to the Lord (our Deliverer) are radiant. This radiance is not only one of joy, but also one of transformation. Moses' face had become radiant during his extended time of communion with God upon the mount. Moses' face reflected the glory of the One on whom he had been gazing. Paul argues that the glory Moses experienced was but a fading glory, and that the glory we experience through the ministry of the Holy Spirit is exceedingly glorious because it is transformational (see 2 Cor. 3:7-18). 1 John 3:1-3 builds upon this truth by stating that "we shall be like him, because we shall see him as his is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." The point is not that we are to purify ourselves so that we might see God, but that, in looking to Jesus and gazing upon his glory in prolonged and consistent communion, he purifies us.

So, the common thread is seeing God. The more we look to Christ in holy communion, the more we are sanctified, purified, cleansed, transformed into his image. And if we have this hope in us and are purified as he is pure, we shall indeed see God along with all the innumerable multitude standing before the Lamb. For as Jesus taught his disciples on the mount, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8).

Along with reading some of Baxter's The Saints' Everlasting Rest, I also picked up Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Banner of Truth, reprint ed., 2006). If anyone was radiant for having seen Jesus it was Samuel Rutherford. Here are a few excerpts that I shared:

Oh how are we misted and mired with the love of things that are on this side of time, and on this side of death's water! Where can we find a match to Christ, or an equal, or a better than He, among created things!

(Letter 284, To the church in Ireland)

Your timeous [timely] word, "not to delight in the cross, but in Him who sweeteneth it," came to me in due time. I find the consolations and off-fallings that follow the cross of Christ so sweet, that I almost forgot myself.

(Letter 285, To Robert Gordon)

If heaven and earth, and ten thousand heavens even (round about these heavens that now are), were all in one garden of paradise, decked with all the fairest roses, flowers, and trees that can come forth from the art of the Almighty Himself; yet set but our one Flower that groweth out of the root of Jesse beside that orchard of pleasure, one look of Him, one view, one taste, one smell of His sweet Godhead would infinitely exceed and go beyond the smell, colour, beauty, and loveliness of that paradise.

If our Beloved were not mistaken by us, and unknown to us, He would have no scarcity of wooers and suitors.

He, He Himself is more excellent than heaven; for heaven, as it cometh into the souls and spirits of the glorified, is but a creature; and He is something (and a great something) more than a creature.

(Letter 289, To the church in Ireland)

If heaven is our aim, that is not high enough. As the visions of John in the Revelation show us, and as Rutherford so often reminded his readers in so many words, the Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel's land.

"Oh, how little of him do we see! Oh, how shallow are our thoughts of him!"

~ Samuel Rutherford

The Lamb is All the Glory

Samuel Rutherford Answers the Divine Summons (March 29, 1661)

When the English monarchy was restored in 1660, King Charles II betrayed the Scottish Presbyterians who had supported him and had crowned him as their king in 1651. All those years Charles had hated Reformation principles, and at the Restoration he began his efforts to turn England and Scotland back to pre-Reformation times. A tidal wave of suffering was about to break over the land for those who didn’t conform to the king’s religious and governmental principles. One of the first nonconformists to receive the king’s attention was Samuel Rutherford, who in early 1661 lay dying at the college at St. Andrews, where he was professor of divinity.

Rutherford (1600–1661) had worked for decades to ensure the continuance of the Reformation in England and Scotland. He was well-known in his own time as a faithful pastor, author, professor, and member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. The letters he wrote to friends throughout his public ministry and, especially, during his exile in Aberdeen form the legacy by which he is mainly known today. Such a leader Charles II summoned to appear before him for high treason.

Rutherford’s response and Parliament’s reaction are reported by John Howie in his book The Scots Worthies:

It is commonly said that, when the summons came, he spoke out of his bed and said, “Tell them I have got a summons already before a superior Judge and judicatory, and I behove to answer my first summons, and ere your day come I will be where few kings and great folks come.” When they returned and told he was a-dying, the parliament was put to a vote, whether or not to let him die in the college. It was carried, “put him out,” only a few dissenting. My Lord Burleigh said, “Ye have voted that honest man out of the college, but ye cannot vote him out of heaven.” Some said, He would never win there, hell was too good for him. Burleigh said, “I wish I were as sure of heaven as he is, I would think myself happy to get a grip of his sleeve to haul me in.”

(John Howie, The Scots Worthies. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2001. p. 236)

The Lord spared Rutherford from seeing all the horror that was about to descend upon England and Scotland. But he “lived to see all he had striven for over thirty years crumbling before his eyes…. [T]he Drunken Parliament of 1661, as it was called, gleefully rescinded each act on the statute book that safeguarded Reformation principles” (Faith Cook, Samuel Rutherford and His Friends. Banner of Truth, 1992. p. 28).

With so much seemingly going against him, Rutherford was not gloomy, but rather joyful, in answering his “first summons.” Those gathered around his deathbed heard him say many things about Christ, as though he were already in Heaven with his Lord. He was not glorying in work accomplished or grieving over work undone by the government; He was glorying in Jesus Christ and in Him alone. His friends and daughter Agnes heard him utter memorable statements of a long-held faith. When asked by one, “What think ye now of Christ?” he replied,

“I shall live and adore Him. Glory! Glory to my Creator and my Redeemer for ever!” …. Oh! That all my brethren in the land may know what a Master I have served, and what peace I have this day. I shall sleep in Christ, and when I awake I shall be satisfied with His likeness. This night shall close the door, and put my anchor within the vail; and I shall go away in a sleep by five of the clock in the morning…. Oh! For arms to embrace Him! Oh! For a well-tuned harp!” (Howie, The Scots Worthies, p. 239)

By 5:00 on the morning of March 29, 1661 Samuel Rutherford had answered the divine summons, “Come up hither.” His last words were, “Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.”

About 200 years later many of Rutherford’s sayings were memorialized in a lengthy poem by Anne Ross Cousin, “The Sands of Time Are Sinking.” Mrs. Cousin was the wife of a Scottish Presbyterian minister. She was inspired by Rutherford’s biography and wrote 19 stanzas, only a few of which appear in most hymnals. Reading the entire poem is like glimpsing into the heart of Samuel Rutherford and seeing his devotion to the Lord and his outlook on life. The last stanza relates Rutherford’s reply to those sent to summon him.

They’ve summoned me before them, but there I may not come,

My Lord says “Come up hither,” My Lord says “Welcome home!”

My King, at His white throne, my presence doth command

Where glory—glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

———————————————

For further reading:

Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Bonar edition. Banner of Truth, 2006). 365 letters prefaced by Andrew Bonar's biographical sketch of Rutherford.

Alexander Smellie, Men of the Covenant (Banner of Truth, 1962 reprint). An account of the Scottish Covenanters of the 17^th Century.

Faith Cook, Samuel Rutherford and His Friends (Banner of Truth, 1992). Biographical vignettes that show the man and his ministry to people through his letters.

Faith Cook, Grace in Winter: Rutherford in Verse (Banner of Truth, 1989). Poetic forms of some of Rutherford’s best letters.

John Howie, The Scots Worthies (Banner of Truth, 2001). Biographical vignettes of the Scottish Covenanters.

Samuel Rutherford Answers the Divine Summons (March 29, 1661)

Westminster Assembly Convenes

On July 1, 1643 the Westminster Assembly convened for the first time in the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey in London. According to Wikipedia the Assembly “was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England.” It consisted of 10 Lords, 20 Commoners, and 121 “Divines” of the Anglican Church. Some of these men were from the Puritan wing of the Church, who wanted to carry on the work of the Reformation in the Church and purify it from the remnants of Catholicism. The Assembly also called on the Scottish Presbyterians, who sent 6 representatives including George Gillespie, Robert Baillie, and Samuel Rutherford.

Though never able to agree on a form of church government, the Assembly produced some important and influential documents: the Longer and Shorter catechisms and the Westminster Confession of Faith. These documents have been accepted by many and adapted by others as standards for faith and practice. The Anglicans adopted these documents only after revisions, but “they formed the cornerstone of the Presbyterian Church and other reformed churches as they established themselves throughout Europe and America” (Wikipedia).

The work of the Westminster Divines represents men of different persuasions trying to hammer out a scriptural position during times of trouble. England was locked in civil war during the 1640s between Parliament and those loyal to King Charles I. War ended with the king being executed, his son Charles II exiled, and the monarchy abolished. The few years of relative peace and religious tolerance following saw many Puritan books produced, many of which are reprinted today. When Charles II and his supporters restored the monarchy in 1660, religious persecution was the order of the day; and men like Rutherford, Thomas Watson, and others were marked men. Their ministries were limited and difficult. Yet the work they did in the 1640s remained, and still does.

The catechisms and the Confession are in print today, along with expositions based on them. A good exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is Thomas Watson’s A Body of Divinity published by Banner of Truth. Whether or not you read these documents, it’s likely that your statement of faith was at least influenced by them. Today is a good opportunity to be thankful to the Lord for using men in all ages to meticulously study and clearly express the great doctrines of the faith.

Westminster Assembly Convenes