This world saw our Lord Jesus for a very little time, but now it seeth him no more. It only saw him with the outward eye and after a carnal sort, so that when the clouds received him and concealed him from bodily vision, this spiritually blind world lost sight of him altogether. Here and there, however, among the crowds of the sightless there were a few chosen men who had received spiritual sight; Christ had been light to them, he had opened their blind eyes, and they had seen him as the world had not seen him. In a high and full sense they could say, “We have seen the Lord,” for they had in some degree perceived his Godhead, discerned his mission, and learned his spiritual character. Since spiritual sight does not depend upon the bodily presence of its object, those persons who had seen Jesus spiritually, saw him after he had gone out of the world unto the Father. We who have the same sight still see him. Read carefully the words of the verse before us: “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me.”
It is a distinguishing mark of a true follower of Jesus that he sees his Lord and Master when he is not to be seen by the bodily eye; he sees him intelligently and spiritually; he knows his Lord, discerns his character, apprehends him by faith, gazes upon him with admiration, and looks to him for all he needs. Now, my brethren, remember that as our first sight of Christ brought us into spiritual life, for we looked unto him and were saved, so it is by the continuance of this spiritual sight of Christ that our spiritual life is consciously maintained. We lived by looking, we live still by looking. Faith is still the medium by which life comes to us from the lifegiving Lord. It is not only upon the first day of the Christian’s life that he must needs look to Jesus only, but every day of that life, even until the last, his motto must be, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” The world sees him no more, for it never saw him aright; but ye have seen him and lived, and now, through continuing still to see him, you remain in life.
From a sermon entitled "Life In Christ," delivered January 1, 1871.
Photo by Bob Jagendorf; some rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment