Since September 11, 2001, I have seen more clearly than ever how
essential it is to exult explicitly in the excellence of Christ
crucified for sinners and risen from the dead. Christ must be
explicit in all our God-talk. It will not do, in this day of
pluralism, to talk about the glory of God in vague ways. God
without Christ is no God. And a no-God cannot save or satisfy the
soul. Following a no-God--whatever his name or whatever his
religion--will be a wasted life. God-in-Christ is the only true God
and the only path to joy. To bring us to this highest and most
durable of all pleasures, God made his Son, Jesus Christ, a bloody
spectacle of blameless suffering and death. This is what it cost to
rescue us from a wasted life. The eternal Son of God "did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing."
He took "the form of a servant" and was born "in the likeness of
men . . . . He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:6-8). All Things Were
Made for Him This Jesus was and is a real historical man in whom
"the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9). Since
he is "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God," as the
old Nicene Creed says, and since his death and resurrection are the
central act of God in history, it is not surprising to hear the
Bible say, "All things were created through him and for him"
(Colossians 1:16). For him! That means for his glory. Ever since
the incarnate, redeeming work of Jesus, God is gladly glorified by
sinners only through the glorification of the risen God-Man, Jesus
Christ. His bloody death is the blazing center of the glory of God.
There is no way to the glory of the Father but through the Son. All
the promises of joy in God's presence, and pleasures at his right
hand, come to us only through faith in Jesus Christ. If We Reject
Him, We Reject God Jesus is the litmus test of reality for all
persons and all religions. He said it clearly: "The one who rejects
me rejects him who sent me" (Luke 10:16). People and religions who
reject Christ reject God. Do other religions know the true God?
Here is the test: Do they reject Jesus as the only Savior for
sinners who was crucified and raised by God from the dead? If they
do, they do not know God in a saving way. That is what Jesus meant
when he said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Or when he
said, "Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who
sent him" (John 5:23). Or when he said to the Pharisees, "If God
were your Father, you would love me" (John 8:42). If we would see
and savor the glory of God, we must see and savor Christ. For
Christ is "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15). To
put it another way, if we would embrace the glory of God, we must
embrace the Gospel of Christ. The reason for this is not only
because we are sinners and need a Savior to die for us, but also
because this Savior is himself the fullest and most beautiful
manifestation of the glory of God. He purchases our undeserved and
everlasting pleasure, and he becomes for us our all-deserving,
everlasting Treasure. The Gospel is the Good News of the Glory of
Christ This is how the Gospel is defined. When we are converted
through faith in Christ, what we see with the eyes of our hearts is
"the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image
of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4). The Gospel is the good news of
all-conquering beauty. Or to say it the way Paul does, it is the
good news of "the glory of Christ." When we embrace Christ, we
embrace God. We see and savor God's glory. There is no savoring of
God's glory if we do not see it in Christ. This is the only window
through which a sinner may see the face of God and not be
incinerated. The Bible says that when God illuminates our hearts at
conversion, he gives "the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). Either we see
the glory of God "in the face of Jesus Christ," or we don't see it
at all. And "the face of Jesus Christ" is the beauty of Christ
reaching its climax in the cross. The bloody face of Christ
crucified (and triumphant!) is the countenance of the glory of God.
What was once foolishness to us becomes our wisdom and our power
and our boast (1 Corinthians 1:18, 24). Life is wasted if we do not
grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it
is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the
deepest comfort in every pain.
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