The World's Great Sermons, Volume 05: Guthrie to Mozley
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 05: Guthrie to Mozley
Sermons
But if Christ desired that His Father's name should be glorified,
how was this to be accomplished? By what medium, or means? Now I
would here observe that God's method of revealing Himself to man has
ever been to do so by living men; and the Bible is a true record of
such revelations in the past. Christianity is not the philosophy of
life, but life itself; and is a revelation, not of abstract truth,
but of the living personal God to living persons as His children,
whom He hath created to glorify and enjoy Him for ever. The first
grand medium of this revelation is the eternal Son of God. The very
essence of God's character being love, He did not exist from all
eternity with a mere capacity of loving, but without an object to
love; like an eye capable of seeing light, but with no light to
see. The object of His love was His Son, who from all eternity
responded to that love and rejoiced in His Father. This eternal
Son, when manifested in the flesh, revealed His Father directly,
so that He could say, in all He was, and in all He did, and, in a
true sense, in all He suffered, "He that hath seen me, hath seen the
Father;" and men could say of Him, "We beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth;"
"The glory of God" was "in the face of Jesus Christ." Again, He had
also, as the Son of Man, glorified His Father; and, by His reverence
for, confidence in, and obedience to, Him, and by His joy in Him,
had indirectly revealed what he knew God to be to Him and to all
as a Father. "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished
the work which Thou gavest me to do." Such was His finished work.
But something more was yet to be accomplished. Ere He descends to
Gethsemane, He desires anew to have the joy of revealing a Father's
heart by revealing to the world His own heart of love as a Son to
that Father. Hence His prayer, "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also
may glorify thee." He does not prescribe the new circumstances in
which His long-tried and perfect filial confidence and love as a
Son were to be manifested. With the absolute consecration of true
sonship He leaves these circumstances to be determined by His
Father. Now, as on the cross, He commits His spirit, as a little
child, into His Father's hands. He desires only that in any way, by
any means, He may have the joy of showing forth the reality, the
endurance, and the triumph of His Sonship. His Father may fill His
cup according to His own will, the Son will drink it. The Father
may permit a crown of thorns to be placed on His brow, and every
conceivable horror of great darkness from the hate of men and devils
to be cast over Him like a funeral-pall; He may be rejected by all
His brethren and by the Church and by the State--"Amen!" He cries.
Let His body be broken and His blood shed, He will give thanks! One
thing only He prays for, "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may
glorify thee!" As a further end to be accomplished, He prays that
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