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(The outcome of the Eons)
REALIZATION
OF GOD
is a present major matter for His saints. It comes by means of
His revelation, and is promoted inwardly, wisdom arising as a
quality of the spirit (Eph. 1:17), which is given with belief of
the evangel (Eph. 1:13). Then growth in the realization of the
will of GOD becomes
an essential (Col. 1:10), as well as what the son of God must be
(Eph. 4:13).
In the foregoing there is
indicated to us the fresh glory which accompanies faith in God's
evangel concerning His Son. These details intimate to us a
little of the spiritual blessings which will not only fit the
saints to enter into our lot with God's Son (Eph. 1:11), but
there stands out that realization describes the added
potency to our present faculties. Its value is not alone for the
present.
AT THE CONSUMMATION
The intrinsic feature at the
consummation will be that of realization. The Subjector will
really have achieved the revelation of Himself, as the FATHER.
This requires that His revelation is complete and adequate,
leaving no element of the idea that there is need for any
progression, much less that the need will continue endlessly,
ever bringing greater bliss. Such notions deny that God's Christ
has brought maturity to the race and to the universe.
DELUSIVE THOUGHTS
Deception lies around the
thought of endless progression. Any teaching which entertains
such an idea should be at once dismissed from the mind as wholly
improper. We must beware of notions which are destructive of the
glory which God and His Son have wrought: God, by His counsels,
first purposed this glory, and then His Son executed those
counsels by His unswerving obedience to His Father's
righteousness.
The contents of God's evangel
are such as will bring His creation up to the high mark of His
glory, a glory which is fully stated by the word Father.
This designation cannot now be fully estimated by us. When the
relationship expressed by Father becomes fully subjective
to us, then will we understand that we need nothing more than
the evangel has graced to us. We will truly find the Father
to be our "All". Anything less would suggest that the word
Father does not wholly reveal, or that His revelation was
incomplete, to the extent that His Son had been inadequate to
achieve the height of glory necessary for creation, in order
that it might realise the Father as the Sufficient One,
in love and righteousness.
The repletion of spirit which
will come to be possessed, due to vivifying, will really mature
each human, and the Father's righteousness will so inhere and
dominate each creature that realization will mount up to the
height of GOD'S GLORY,
as signified by the word FATHER.
A righteous father would ever
be the joy of a son, provided the son was also righteous. Such a
father would always act in his righteousness: it would be
realized that his love is but the other side of his
righteousness, and so neither feature is formal in character or
activity.
LIFE ILLUMINATED.
Through Christ Jesus, and the
evangel concerning Him, we ought to see the true character of
life. Life given by and guided by the Father, describes life
when the Father is All in all. Surrounding realization, nay
sustaining realization, will be the fact that order has replaced
the chaos of our present mind, which is so prone to be darkened.
This will have full correspondence with the glory to which God
has brought creation by His Son, and realization will perceive
the glory as reality.
Realization will be the inward
acknowledgment of the Father, due to the increased awareness
resulting from vivification, and giving an ever present reality
as to the will of Him Who has directed the ways of the eons.
Every element as to the notion of a creature's will is then
dispelled. Knowledge will have replaced the anesthetic, that is,
ignorance. Meaning and purpose will be perceived to inhere life,
for it will give glory to the Father. His presence will be a
realized matter. Life will have strength, poise and tranquility
of tenor, for the spirit of sonship will be within.
The contrast to what we now
know as life is very marked, for the interests of the present
sentient life are such that they seem to have little or no
reality of relation to God. They are foreign in respect of
leading us to a sense of God's presence: their trend seems
rather to cause us to lose what grasp we may have of His
presence. Always must we seek to rise above any reliance upon
the features of the present life, or we will seem to lose the
presence of God and His Son.
UNDERSTANDING RETARDED.
To propose questions
formulated on the basis of our present sentient powers is an
implying that God's revelation of Himself is incomplete or
inadequate, and that His assumption will need to be continued
beyond the eons, and even enlarged. This cannot be the case: nor
will there need to be any addition to the assumption, for His
Son, Who was obedient to His Father's righteousness, He will
effectively reach the glory which is correspondent to His
Father's assumption, of which He is the Emblem. For God to
continue His assumption would mean that His Son never steps down
to become subject to His God and Father, but would continue His
equality with Him. It is in His Own personal glory that the Son
continues, and this requires Him to be Head, the token of a
universe subject to His Father.
At present, by means of faith,
together with the details of His word, we reach a realization of
God, but this will be much increased at our actual vivification.
In the future, with the eons consummated, every human will come
to this glory. Then will God have been revealed and the
revelation will have come to the point where the glory of the
Father is acknowledged, and by the whole creation. The eons are
the background and they utterly stress that they do not contain
the glory of the Father, except as it has been shown by His SON.
DEFINITE AWARENESS.
From the consummation there
will be no deficiencies or lack in God's creatures in respect of
knowing GOD. Past means of awareness and
understanding that is, the senses, will have receded from their
major roll, being swallowed up by the glory and power of spirit,
and this will come about through vivification.
The body will have the
characteristics of spirit, at least to a large degree, so that
we should not judge the future status by the present. The body
will be replete with spirit, and so will have a plenitude of
life: reactions cannot be compared with the present, howsoever
we may seek to draw illustrations from the present. The
spiritual body will have a capacity for adjustment to suit
various circumstances, especially the fresh conditions among the
celestials.
With God's consummation
attained, then vivification will have become so glorious that
awareness is truly carried to that of Father. From the
consummation, the matter of sight will give way to realization,
for God's revealing of Himself will be so effective that sight
will not be in question, not, at least, in the sense in which we
are prone to think.
Our future vivified character
will be such that God will not require His assumption, nor shall
we, on our part, require it to be continued. Sight will have
given way to definite realization, and this will fill a function
comparable to what is said of Moses, that is - "seeing the
invisible". We may well conclude that the invisibility of God
will have become so much absorbed in and by His revelation that
it will no longer rest in the faculty of sight.
To all humans, and to the
universe, the consummation will bring maturity, that is,
perfection. Creation will be finished, in the sense that it has
reached the glory which truly displays God's glory beyond the
invisible attributes, and, also, creation will actually realize
His glory. The result will have attained this completeness. It
will take creation beyond what has ever been.
If for the moment, we limit
our consideration to humanity, then humanity will come to the
high capacity of glory which was purposed for it.
INCREASED POWERS.
Reality will be in spirit: the
faculties will have been raised immensely as to their capacity.
They will be able to discern the reality of those matters which
are beyond the senses now, yet of which the senses have given us
some knowledge, and a measure of awareness due to GOD'S
WORD.
The powers of the spiritual
body will be such that, for humans, the senses will not be the
mode of awareness, but, rather, the fresh powers, due to
increased spirit, will illuminate our present realization into
values much beyond those of our senses at present. Such values
will at least reach to what we term 'vision', the sight of
inward vision, comparable to when thinking intensely, yet words
fail us to express. Thus will realization replace the
sentient faculties in the new humanity.
KNOWLEDGE ON KNOWLEDGE.
The eons, in their unfoldings,
have been giving knowledge of GOD: this
has had the form or pattern of adding knowledge to prior
knowledge of Him. Thus do the eons move to the position when the
constant additions to God's revelation mounts up to realization.
This is the completeness of understanding which the eons will
bring to the universe.
With the conclusion of the
eons, all will have seen the Son and will thus have seen the
Father (John 14:9). So that with the consummation, the sight of
God will have become a fact, and with this sight will come the
increased realization of the Father. God's revelation will be so
effective, that sight will not remain in the question, for the
potency for realization has been amplified by vivification, and
this will ever be giving full values to God's revelation
achieved in the eons.
AN ILLUSTRATION OF
REALIZATION.
Around Saul, when on the
Damascus road, we have a good illustration, for, though blinded
as to physical sight, yet in his spirit, Saul was able to
recognise the Lord (Acts 9:3). With the eons completed, God will
have become so revealed that truly He will have come to be
recognized as FATHER. The
features or limitations or conditions of the eons are not at all
in the picture. Vivification will be so glorious that it truly
carries awareness of the FATHER
to its full measure. This is the great factor which makes
possible the reality of "All in all", for, then, can all rule
and authority be nullified. The glory of vivification is a
dominant matter: it should be regarded as extending to the glory
of the NEW CREATION, for it is the glory
made resident in GOD'S SON
consequent upon His obedience to the death of the cross, and His
rousing out from the dead.
THE EVANGEL TERMS.
The finish of God's ways will
be a really perfect attainment, in full correspondence with the
terms of that which He purposed by His counsels with Himself ere
He commenced His creation.
To speak of God's consummation
requires that we think of His evangel concerning His Son,
for in Him is the complement which the DEITY
requires in order to reach His purpose of reconciliation. This
is fully assured by the glorious obedience of HIS
SON.
The climax of God's revelation
will leave nothing to be further developed. Perfection will mark
the whole creation, for it will have responded to the leading of
His Son's obedience, as well as His capacity to subject all to
His Father. Such will be the zenith reached that there will be
no room for progress on the part of the creature. This indicates
how glorious are God's ways. The idea of continued progression
by the creature would nullify both God's revelation and that of
His Son. This cannot be, and this impossibility has been taught
ample during the eons, for the Adversary has wholly failed to
ruin the Father.
The effects from the Adversary
have been to aid the unfolding of the GLORY OF
GOD. By the glory of GOD'S
SON, the Adversary, as such, will remain
no more, but rather will he have become one who finds his all in
the Father. To the erstwhile adversary, God will become All, for
he, like the remainder of creation will have become subject to GOD'S
SON, acknowledging the Son's glory, which
glory he sought to circumscribe during three eons. Realization
of his failure, enforced by the two eons of restraint, will
adjust him, and he will surely come within the circle of the
"all", truly reconciled to the FATHER.
The GLORY OF
THE FIRSTBORN OF CREATION
has, by the blood of His Cross, been maintained throughout the
eons, and they have shown Him to be HEAD.
Thus is the FATHER "ALL in
all".
E.
H. Clayton
Contents Page
Grace
and Truth"
granted permission
to Martin Lee (GoodNewsGospel.info)
to copy and distribute this document.
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