By J.G. Bellet

      The thought of the nearness of the glory should be deeply cherished by the heart. And we need be at no effort to persuade ourselves of it. It is taught us richly in the Word. The place of the glory is near us, and the path by which it can either come to us or we go to it is short and simple, and the moment for the taking of the journey may be present in the twinkling of an eye.

      "Whom He justifies, them He also glorifies," is a sentence which tells us of the path or title to the glory. We need nothing but the justifying faith of Jesus. When by faith we stand washed and sanctified through the blood, we are at once made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Our persons need no further adorning. We are clean every whit, presentable without fault before the presence of the glory, whether that glory be still hid within its veil, or to be manifested tomorrow.

      Nor can we say when it may please the Lord of the glory to appear. But this we know that He is ever near and can show Himself in His high and bright estate in a moment.

      The congregation was set at the door of the tabernacle to acquaint themselves with their High Priest. They did so. They took knowledge of the consecration and services of Aaron, and on the accomplishing of these services, the glory appeared. It was waiting at the door, within its proper veil, to do this, and show itself. All it needed was title to take its little journey, in finding an object worthy of its visitation. And as soon as the congregation stand in the value of the blood of Christ, or appear in the character which the priestly services and sacrifices of Jesus impart to it, then the glory, reading its title to appear in finding an object worthy of its visitation makes it short journey, and shines around the camp. And it shines around to gladden them; not to alarm but to gladden. They were entitled and prepared to be gladdened by it, for they stood in the value and cleansing of Jesus. Its place was theirs; and the atmosphere it brought with it their native air.

      But there are other witnesses to the nearness of the glory. A light surprised the persecutor as he journeyed from Jerusalem to Damascus. It was above the brightness of the sun at noonday. And well it might have been, for it was a beam from the land of the glory, and it bore the Lord of glory upon it (see Isa. 24: 23).

      Happy to know from such a witness, how near that place of glory is to us. For as in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye that glory was here! Jesus' power present, and it came. He commanded and it was here.

      But it did not come to display itself. It came for other business, on another errand altogether. It came to make the persecutor of the unoffending flock of Christ a native of that very land where this glory of Christ dwelt.

      It begins therefore, by laying the persecutor himself in ruins. It shines around him, and he falls to the earth. It is the light of Gideon's pitchers confounding the armies of the uncircumcised. Saul takes the sentence of death into himself. With a vengeance he knows that he has been kicking against the pricks; madly destroying himself in all his enmity against Jesus, for that Jesus was the Lord of the glory. But the One that wounded can heal, the One that kills can make alive. "Rise and stand upon thy feet," says the Lord of this glory. Life comes from Him who could wield the power of death--life infallible, and indestructible--life with inheritance of this very glory. And he is made the witness of the same life and inheritance to all kinds of sinners, kings, Gentiles, and people of Israel.

      What a business is this! The glory, and the Lord of the glory come to do it. Never had such points in the furthest distance met before. The persecutor of the flock and the Saviour of the flock are beside each other. The Lord of the glory and the sinner whom the glory was consuming are here.

      Can we trust all this and be glad in it? Is it pleasant to us to think that the glory is thus near us; that at the bidding of its Lord, or to carry, like a chariot, its Lord, it could be here in a moment? Stephen saw it thus, as by an upward glance of his closing eye. And when the voice of the Archangel heralds it, and the trump of God summons it, it will be here again to enfold us and bear us up to its native land (1 Thess. 4, 1 Cor. 15).

      It visited Saul, but left him as its heir and expectant, to travel and to toil down here for his appointed day. But when it visits us, it will not leave us here any longer as its expectants, for awhile strangers and foreigners in the earth, but takes us home with itself ever to be with the Lord--the Lord of the glory (1 Cor. 2: 8; James 2: 1).

      Till then like Paul, we may "obtain help of the Lord," and testify of what we are, and of what we shall be. But it is all service in a foreign land, with this cherishing gladdening thought, that the native land is near us, and our translation asks but for a moment, for the twinkling of an eye. The title is simple, the path is short, and the journey soon taken. "Whom He justifies, them He also glorifies."

      Bethany.

      God is the living God and as such He is acting in this scene of death. He came into the midst of it as the living God. He could not have come otherwise. We may say He has not been here, if He has not been here as the living God. And His victory is in resurrection. If resurrection be denied, then, that the living God has been here, that God has interfered with the condition of this ruined death-stricken world is denied also.

      It is blessed to see this, very sure and simple as a truth, and the secret or principle of the divine way in this fallen creation from the beginning. Into Himself as the living God, into Himself or the resources which His own glory or nature provided, God has retreated, apart from the world that has involved itself in death. Again I say, this truth, this mystery, is sure and simple, full of blessedness, and that which, of necessity, has marked His way in this world. If His creature has been untrue, His creature of highest dignity, set by Him over the works of His hand, if Adam had disappointed Him, revolted and brought in death, surely God has to look to Himself, to draw from Himself, and there in His own resources, in the provision which He Himself supplies, He finds the remedy. And this is, in His victory as the living God, which victory is resurrection, His own resource of life in despite of the conquest of sin and death, let those conquests take what form they may.

      I am looking only at one, but as I judge, a very vivid sample of this. Bethany in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, a village on the other side of Mount Olivet, in the Scriptures of the Evangelists, shows itself to us as a happy, sacred, and mystic spot. It was happy, for there the Lord Jesus found, if anywhere, a home on the earth. It was sacred, for there He had some of the most intimate communion with His elect, which His spirit ever enjoyed. It was mystic, for there He exhibited this truth or mystery which I am speaking of, His victory as the living God.

      Lazarus, His friend in Judea, Lazarus of Bethany, had died. They had buried him--all they could do--the service of a fallen creature. The dead can bury the dead--right it is in them to do so--but that is all they can do.

      The Lord was then absent. But He comes, in due season, to awaken His friend out of sleep, to raise Him whom His friends buried. He reveals Himself in full suited character, the character suited to that moment, and in which He had come into this world. "I am the resurrection and the life," He says. Bethany at that moment afforded Him His proper material to work upon. Sin had there reigned unto death. Man had there just reaped the wages of sin. Lazarus had died. The sentence, "in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," had not been cancelled. That could not be. And now it had been afresh executed in this elect one of God in the land of Judea. But the Son of God, the living God Himself, comes to do His work, as sin and death had just done theirs.

      Bethany thus became a mystic spot. It was now not only a happy place, and a sacred place, it was also a mystic place. It had now exhibited God's great principle, the victory of the living God in this death-stricken world. This is the character it acquires, under John's Gospel: and in this character the Lord enjoys it in the same Gospel--I mean, in the next chapter. There the Lord sits as in the midst of the risen family. He is at Bethany after it has acquired its mystic character. It has been constituted the expression of God's way in this world where sin is reigning; and now the Lord enjoys it. He is there as with the risen family. In spirit He is in the millennial world, and as the King sitting at the table, the spikenard of His worshippers sendeth forth its goodly smell.

      This was the first use to be made of Bethany, or of God's own great and ruling principle, His victory over death, or His glory as the living God. He enjoys it in the bosom of His elect (see John 11: 12).

      He has, however, more to do with Bethany than this. If He first enjoys it in the midst of His own, He must also resort to it as His relief from the disappointments which He was suffering from all that He had been trusting, so that He may get an answer as from Himself, and find satisfaction there, let all beside disappoint Him as they may.

      This is seen in Matthew 21. Jerusalem had, at that moment disappointed Him. He had sought her as His chosen seat of royalty in the earth, and had offered Himself in all solemnity to her as her King; but Israel would not, and He retires to Bethany. An action simple in itself, but full of significance, telling us that He has in Himself, in His doings and victories as the living God, resources that will never fail Him and never disappoint Him.

      This is very full of meaning and of interest. But this is what He has been doing in this world from the beginning. Let death appear, let the judgment of sin be ready to be executed, whether in the garden of Eden, in the earth before the Flood, in the land of Egypt or of Canaan, in the midst of Israel, or wider still, in the whole world itself. We ever see Him acting as the living God, providing atonement for sin, the principle of death, and bringing forth a living people from the midst of the scene of righteous doom and judgment of death. Bethany had already been constituted this to Him, the witness of this; and now when need arises, when fresh disappointment from the creature whom He had trusted, comes, He uses Bethany in this character. And I may say, when He retired to Bethany, He retreated to Himself and His own resources.