A Goodly Heritage

God sees the end from the beginning. All things in nature and grace are working out one grand scheme, which God before the creation of heaven and earth designed. The gospel was but a further and fuller development of God's plans in Old Testament times. The stem is no afterthought; the leaves and buds are no afterthought; the flower is no afterthought; the fruit is no afterthought; for they were all wrapped up from the first in the seed, or cutting, or bulb. Or, to take another illustration, it is of no unfrequent occurrence that the architect designs a Gothic church which is not to be built all at once, but as sufficient funds are forthcoming, or as the congregation increases. At first the nave is constructed, then one aisle after another is added; and afterwards the chancel is built, and last of all is erected the spire — whose "silent finger points to heaven." The pulling down of temporary walls and hoardings, and the additions from time to time made, are no aftertho...

The Lord Jesus is here praying in His mediatorial character. He is praying not as God alone, nor as man alone, but as God-man. And praying thus as God-man, He seeks that the Father may glorify Him. In the fifth verse we are told distinctly what the glory was which He sought. It was the very same glory which He had with the Father, when He dwelt in His bosom before the forthgoings of all time. As God He needed not to seek this glory. As God it was His of eternal and natural right. But as God-man, as the Covenant-head and Surety of His people, it was the promised reward of His work, sufferings and death. It was not all the reward, but it was part of it. He shall see His seed. He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied. These were parts of it, but this glory was part of it also. As the one only Covenant head of His people--as the one Daysman between God and man--as uniting in his own person the Divine nature and the human, and in that person doing a work, He was to be...

“Father, the hour is come.” The hour; the hour of all hours the most important. What hour like that in interest, what hour so big with momentous issues on all the past, and on all the future! That was the central hour of all time’s hours. The confluence of the two eternities was at that time-point. That hour was the keystone of time’s huge arch, that arch which rests on the one side, and the other on eternity. Many hours in the world’s history are marked and memorable. The hour of the birth or death, the crisis-hour of one of the world’s great ones, a thinker, worker, statesman, or warrior; the hour which gave birth to and introduced some mighty revolution, which proved to be the birth or death hour of a nation, altering the destiny of millions of our race for weal or for woe, is important and to be marked; but what hour like this! an hour which had its bearing on the whole universe, and whose transactions were to effect eternally God and man, angels and devils. It was for this hour t...