In such measure, then, shall glory be to God “in the Church and in Christ Jesus.” We see how the Church takes up the foreground of Paul’s horizon. This epistle has taught us that God desires far more than our individual salvation, however complete that might be. Christ came not to save men only, but mankind. It is “in the Church” that God’s consummate glory will be seen. No man in his fragmentary self-hood, no number of men in their separate capacity can conceivably attain “unto the fulness of God.” It will need all humanity for that,--to reflect the full-orbed splendour of Divine revelation. Isolated and divided from each other, we render to God a dimmed and partial glory. “With one accord, with one mouth” we are called to “glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Wherefore the apostle bids us “receive one another, as Christ also received us, to the glory of God” (Rom. xv. 6, 7). The Church, being the creation of God’s love in Christ and the receptacle of His communicative fulness, is the vessel formed for His praise. Her worship is a daily tribute to the Divine majesty and bounty. The life of her people in the world, her witness for Christ and warfare against sin, her ceaseless ministries to human sorrow and need proclaim the Divine goodness, righteousness and truth. From the heavenly places where she dwells with Christ, she reflects the light of God’s glory and makes it shine into the depths of evil at her feet. It was the Church’s voice that St John heard in heaven as “the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying, Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the Almighty reigneth!” Each soul new-born into the fellowship of faith adds another note to make up the multitudinous harmony of the Church’s praise to God. Nor does the Church by herself alone render this praise and honour unto God. The display of God’s manifold wisdom in His dealings with mankind is drawing admiration, as St Paul believed, from the celestial spheres (ver. 10). The story of earth’s redemption is the theme of endless songs in heaven. All creation joins in concert with the redeemed from the earth, and swells the chorus of their triumph. “I heard,” says John in another place, “a voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living creatures, and the elders, saying with a great voice, Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain! And every created thing which is in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all things that are in them, heard I saying: Unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, Be blessing and honour and glory and dominion-- For ever and ever.” But the Church is the centre of this tribute of the universe to God and to His Christ.