 |  |
prayer--the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. In verses 21 and 22 of
chapter 2: we read:--
"In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth into an holy temple in the
Lord. In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit".
The saints are His inheritance, the saints are His holy temple. Some have not felt
happy at the suggestion that the words tõn hagiõn may have a wider meaning than,
"of the saints", and may include the meaning, "of the holiest of all". We do not wish to
import O.T. types into the mystery, but Eph. 2: speaks of the saints being builded
together and growing into a holy temple, and consequently there is the thought that in the
highest of the heavenlies the Lord's inheritance will be in His chosen ones who will
themselves constitute the living stones of that holy temple. Temples of themselves
indicate the presence of sin and the need for a mediator. The glory of the new Jerusalem
is not in a temple whose stones outshine the glistening city walls, or whose gleaming
pavements eclipse the streets of gold. The glory of the new Jerusalem is that it has
NO TEMPLE, for the Lord God and the Lamb are the temple of it. We believe the same
can be said of the heavenly places. The riches of the glory is in no resplendent temple
other than the temple formed of the Lord and His body the church. It is the hope of His
calling that we pray to know. It is the riches of the glory of His inheritance that we must
seek to comprehend. As we do so we shall find that the knowledge of His inheritance
will give us greater joy, and open larger vistas than by merely contemplating what our
inheritance may be. It is too often overlooked in the wonder of our own future
blessedness, that God Himself awaits that day too. Now He is comparatively unknown,
misrepresented, misunderstood. Only a very few feebly realize His love and His truth;
He will yet joy over a returning Israel with singing, He will yet rejoice to say, "the
tabernacle of God is with men"; He will yet receive from the hands of His beloved Son a
perfect kingdom, and when the varied ranks of the redeemed shall enter into their allotted
inheritances, when Abraham shall become the heir of the world, and the Lord Jesus
Christ shall be acclaimed as "the heir of all things", "the riches of the glory of His
inheritance", the inheritance of God Himself, in that day of universal rejoicing, will be
closely related to the high and holy calling of those, once dead in sins, but then presented
holy and without blemish before Him. If such our destiny, what manner of persons ought
we to be? In the darkness and the temptations of the present world let us encourage
ourselves by a constant remembrance that we shall form His inheritance, and continually
pray that we may get to know more fully what constitutes the riches of its glory.