Looking unto King Jesus!
There
is one word in the Bible which in itself forms a complete library,
and that word is Christ, the uncreated Word. And when the redeemed
and regenerated child of God, brought from the Adam-darkness of a
state of nature into a state of grace, is savingly acquainted with
this divine Word, he is then made "wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus" [II
TIMOTHY
3:15].
And as the Lord the Spirit leads him on, in daily acts of faith, by
living upon, walking with, and rejoicing in the glorious person and
the finished salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is brought also
to what the apostle calls, "all riches of the full
assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of
God and of the Father and of Christ in Whom are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge" [COLOSSIANS
2:2-3].
And what tends to endear this science to the awakened soul yet more
is that in learning to know Christ, we learn at the same time to know
ourselves.
For
in exact proportion as He is exalted in our view and His glory is
more and more manifested to our spiritual apprehension, we sink in
our own esteem, and get out of love with ourselves. In the
contemplation of His holiness, acting as a mirror, we contrast with
it our deformity. We feel as Job felt, and say as he said, under the
deepest sense of soul humiliation, after the Lord had answered him
out of the whirlwind; "I have heard of Thee by
the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I
abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" [JOB
42:5-6]. And
such will be the self-loathing of every truly regenerated child of
God, under similar circumstances. There cannot but be solemn and
awful apprehensions of our own fallen and sinful nature, when the
spiritual eye is enlightened to see "the King in His
beauty" [ISAIAH
33:17].
–Gospel report by preacher Robert Hawker (1753 – 1827 A.D.)
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