Approximately two millennia ago, in the fullness of time, our Heavenly Father brought forth in His Holy Servant the Lord Jesus Christ a new creation, the church which is His body, conceived in infinite wisdom before time began and predicated on full and complete salvation through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins. Now we, the members of this body, are the recipients of so great a salvation, chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, by His doing made heirs of the righteousness which is by faith, and brought near to Him through a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through His flesh, freely given on our behalf. We gather to honor and glorify this magnificent Savior, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and to exalt Him with the praise and adoration of which His greatness and mercy and utmost sacrificial love are perfectly and unarguably worthy. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot glorify—we cannot honor—we cannot exalt this blessed Son of God in whom dwells all the fullness of Deity bodily. The Eternal and Most High God whose will He perfectly accomplished in the work of our redemption has in fact crowned Him with glory and honor far above our poor power to add or detract. The infinite glory that was His with the Father before there was any creature to behold but a mere glimpse of its splendor is His once again for all eternity. He also received divine honor and glory when such a declaration as this was made to Him from the excellent glory of His Father on the holy mountain: “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased.” Moreover, because of His supreme obedience to the point of death, God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. As firstborn from the dead, in all things He therefore has the absolute preeminence, and He has no need of anything, including the feeble-minded praise of His creatures.
The world—and indeed we ourselves—will little note nor long remember what we say here, but we are forever utterly and profoundly impacted by what He did here. It is then for us His own, rather, to “hear Him,” seeing Him alone, the One who is so exalted and so glorified and so holy. It is rather for us to drink deeply of the riches of His abundant grace that enabled us to have a part in His majestic purpose, humbly acknowledging Him as the source of every good gift, thought, word, action, and deed. It is for us to find our joy and satisfaction and indeed our very life in Him alone, that we might be but a vessel for His use, to say and do only as He chooses, that He might increase even as we must decrease. It is for us to cast our crowns at His feet in His presence, that from His honored station we take increased devotion to Himself in all our desires and endeavors, that these hearts of ours shall have a renewed gratefulness and appreciation for our precious Lord and Savior, and that by His grace the eternal salvation that is to His glory, by His glory, for His glory, shall find its fitting display in us His holy possession.
This page copyright © 2007 Edward A. Morris. Created April 29, 2007. Last updated April 29, 2007.