“The Case for Christ - His Return As King” (Part three)

In Mt 25, Jesus prophesied all nations as being gathered before Him, the returned King, and He dividing those there into two groups.

The first group, designated as ‘sheep’, was commended for the deeds done in life as deeds actually having been done unto Him. That group was given entrance into His kingdom of glory. 

The second group, even though it addressed Him as ‘Lord’ also, as the first group did, was rejected.

By making this distinction between the actual Lordship of Christ and the simulated ‘Lordship of Christ’, Jesus was making very, very clear that His transcendant Lordship represents what really is important in the spiritual realm.

The ‘sheep’ were absorbed in the faithfulness to Christ. Their infusion in Him and His Lordship confirmed a likeness of character and purpose, a sense of oneness with Him in what was done in life.

So, when they called Him ‘Lord’, He actually was ‘Lord’ to them. They were so blended into Him with depth of spiritual character that Jesus could commend them well.  

In other words, these humanitarian acts were not considered the prerequisite for God’s favor - whether they were done or not done. But - how each group looked upon Christ as ‘Lord’ in what was done through life was the issue.

I hope you were able to see that clearly.

But how did this transformation come about in them during their lifetimes? To answer this, let us look at our text in 1 John 3:2-3, which is the point of our concentration tonight.           

1 John 3:2-3: ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He[Christ] is pure.’

When we read this passage, it makes us realize that our level of the ‘exact likeness of Christ’ has not yet been reached in us. It is a sense of not having come yet to the final goal in that regard.

John obviously saw that. But - you notice - he also saw that there was hope in attaining that completion through the ‘process of purification’. And that process could reach the exact likeness of Christ.

So that, when Christ returns, His people are ultimately conformed to Him, in His likeness. 

Now that ought to be a bright hope for many a Christian!   A person can get very discouraged and can become very shallow and depthless if he is not moving along in this truth.

The remedy to that is this hope this Scripture in 1 John spells out for the Christian - of having the hope of being like Christ at His appearing. 

Paul saw the same thing John did. This is why he kept repeating, in different ways, the importance of forgetting all other things, of shunning profane and vain babblings, of putting everything else behind, except for the goal of godliness.

He was always acknowledging the truth which is after godliness in Christ. 

Now - that is an important fact to know - not just in our heads, but deep in our hearts, too, for it forms the direction we must go in our Christian lives to finish the course well - to finish the course well!

This was the direction of the lives of the ‘sheep’ in Jesus’ prophecy of the end time. This group was beholding Christ in such a way that a transformation took place.

That was the basis upon which they were commended and received into His kingdom.

So - we come back to the question: how did this group get to this place of assimilation into Christ, as John represented it?

And here, now, we must go over to 2 Cor 3:18.

2 Cor 3:18: ‘...we all with an open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.’

‘...we all - with an open face - with an open face’: here is the first essential.

What does ‘an open face’ mean?

It means we, who have embraced and welcomed Christ as Lord and Savior - we can, with boldness and confidence, always come to Him. 

We can look at Jesus Christ and not be afraid to face Him - nor be afraid of being turned away from His presence.

There are many who recoil, even at the very mention of His Name, unless it is used in profanity.

But - when the life-giving Spirit of the living God has given us the path to perfect spiritual perception, He lifts the spiritual veil of ignorance about Christ - the veil has been set aside and we come boldly to Him. 

Christ’s presence brings about that liberation! He sets us free from the hold sin and death had on us. 

You see, what has happened is that in accepting, embracing, and welcoming Christ as Lord and Savior, our spiritual perception about Him has been rightly adjusted. 

And the first essential to see Him with an ‘open face’ has been met. This is very basic for we cannot be a Christian without starting there.

Paul went on to the second aspect of being like Christ when He shall appear: he went on to the ‘beholding of Him’ - to the fixing the gaze upon Him that brings about change.

This is the part that sets us free to take on His righteousness - to looking, as it were, into a mirror and seeing Christ’s righteousness looking back at us.

Now - do not take that as a small thing - this is big - very, very big!

This is part of the ‘glory of the Lord’ - His righteousness is His glory that we must steadily and faithfully ‘behold’. It is what changes us into the same image of Christ, into the reality of complete and full assimilation, or blending, or oneness, with Him.

And, if we do not see this, we keep on doing the same foolish things, over and over again, ‘spinning our spiritual wheels’, so to speak, and never reaching the goal fixed by God for us in Christ.

But - it is important to know that an amazing action takes place when we do steadily behold Christ.

An almost veiled transformation happens in the gazing upon Him in the just simple trust in Him during the process of all of our ordinary life’s problems. 

It is like a child about ready to walk. For a very long time, he slowly becomes aware that those about him are walking, until, one day, he starts the process of walking himself.

So, we, too, begin to take into account the ways of Christ in our spiritual walk until, ‘as the night follows the day’, almost without realizing it, as we keep fixing our gaze upon Him, we walk as He walks.

This is why the ‘sheep’ in Mt 25 were so unaware of the depth and scope of their deeds. They had taken on the righteousness of Christ and finished the course, unmindful of all they had done in Him.

This is why Jesus prophesied of this having happened in the end time to this group standing on His right side.

This is why John said that everyone who has this hope of being like Christ at His appearing will purify himself. 

Do you know that many, many of those who have a ‘zeal for God’ miss this, and therefore, cannot see how one is to ‘purify himself’ without ‘self-righteousness’ being the guiding force of life?

This was the problem Paul saw with the Israelites in Rom 10. Read through that sometime. You will see they had a ‘zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they - being ignorant of God’s righteousness’ - I repeat - ‘ignorant of God’s righteousness - and going about to establish their own righteousness...’, they had not ‘submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousnesss to every one that believeth’, Paul told them (verses 2-3). 

Is that not strange? Their zeal for God kept them from knowing Him because it kept them from knowing about His working righteousness He had made available to them through Christ. 

They looked into the mirror, but, rather than seeing Christ’s righteousness looking back at them, they saw the reflection of their own righteousness and lived according to it, thinking - all the while - they were pleasing God.  

Is this the pattern we see being repeated in our day? I think it is precisely what is going on today.

You see - Paul was realizing what the problem was: they ignored the righteousness that came from God - they refused to submit to God’s provision for righteousness that comes only through Christ now and depends on faith and reliance upon Him now. 

In their zeal, they were trying to establish righteousness by human effort rather than by just accepting the divine gift of Christ and His righteousness and living out from that one glorious, powerful fact.

They missed it - that one, glorious, powerful fact is the vehicle to change the impure to the pure, to make the change into the full, complete assimilation of oneness with Him in reality.   

Listen carefully - what we behold, we become. Yes - spiritually, what we behold, we become. When we behold Christ as ‘Lord’, we become that character and nature that represents Him as ‘Lord’. The ‘sheep’ made it because of this fact.

The impure nature of the ‘goats’ is what got in the way of that representation of His Lordship and righteousness. And - when He appeared - to be like Him was impossible for them anymore!

But, this is where the Holy Spirit must exert His influence in us, which takes us to the last part of our text: ‘...he who has this hope [of Christ’s return and of the hope of becoming like Him in His righteousness] purifies himself, as He is pure.’

God has arranged the Christian’s spiritual history to begin and to take place at the Cross of Christ. That is a fact we cannot change, try as we might!

For - the Holy Spirit never deviates from His work of ministering Christ to us from the point of the Cross of Christ. Why? because He is committed to the work Christ did there.

How does He go about doing His work of showing Christ to us?

He makes the meaning of what happened there at the Cross very significant and serious to the Christian. And He does that by bringing all self-righteousness, all self-justification, to that very place. 

It is there that He cuts across all that is not Christ in us, that is not the likeness of Christ in us!

When Jesus died, all the eternal agony of sin of all human beings for all time was concentrated upon Him during those bitter hours on the Cross. 

No one could, nor ever can, go through what He endured and yet live again in victory and power as He does now.

But, yet, there is a part that has to do with our ‘being united with Him in the likeness of His death’ in which the ‘beholding’, or the ‘partaking of Christ’ is grounded in this union. 

It is the work of the Cross Jesus spoke about when He said: ‘I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.’

He had direct reference to the death He was facing shortly, of course.

But, He also went on and connected all believers in Christ to this ‘law’ of His Cross that He set up for them. 

And this is where the one who has this hope in himself to be like Him, submits to the last portion of our text tonight: ‘he purifies himself, even as He[Christ] is pure.’ 

The word ‘purify’ speaks of having something within that is impure. Until He returns, there is much that is yet to be changed. And do not think that does not include you and me - right where we are this moment! 

Let me remind you: ‘the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked: who can know it?’

That is important to know about ourselves for it is what constitutes the demand to change - a change that reaches, not only to the time when Christ returns, but to what we are now.

And - it is the ‘being united with Him in the likeness of His death’ that promises that sure change.

‘United with’ means ‘grown together; virtually, with the force of being ‘fused into one.’

It requires the ‘partaking’ of Him, the ‘beholding’ of Him.

Now this is deep work - work so deep that many refuse to accept it. It is that ‘recoiling’ at the mention of His Name I spoke of earlier.

Remember when Jesus spoke of the need of the ‘partaking’ of Him, in John 6?

It was ‘from that time on, many...went back and walked no more with Him.’   

We have become a new creation order, of an ‘open face’ that, first of all, makes us able to ‘behold the glory of Christ’. That gift alone ought to make us shout ‘hallelujahs!’

But, then, God graciously uses that ‘beholding of the glory of Christ’ for good to ‘fuse into one’.

He takes all our daily upsets, our upheavals, our difficulties, our disappointments, our griefs, and makes them work together for this very ‘good’ of beholding Christ in the midst of all those experiences.

Of simply trusting Him in those hard places - of fixing our thoughts on Him - of resisting the power of evil influences - of letting the impure in us fade and die away - of looking to Christ to cleanse out all the ‘old stuff’ that is not in His likeness - that is the ‘being united with Him in the likeness of His death’.  

In fact, if you really think about it, that ‘good’ worked by God becomes the ‘glory’ that changes and conforms into His image. If we really understand this, we will be saying ‘Amen’ in our hearts to it - is that not so?

You see - that ‘glory’ is submitting to the righteousness of Christ that brings the change: it casts out what is within to make room for becoming like Him.

Through the Spirit’s power, He graciously takes us through the change from impure to pure. 

It is not all at once: it comes little by little - a series of experiences that shifts from, first, death to the ‘old man’ who insists on his own way to life - the life of Christ gaining more and more ground within. 

Paul knew the cycle so well, he could say: ‘I die daily - I die daily’! And he followed that with ‘awake to righteousness’!

Sometime ago, some one asked the question: ‘What makes the difference between the age-related process toward mellowing out and this law of spiritual growth?’

And this is what makes the difference: every one of these alternating experiences sent our way is for the purpose of spiritual increase, so long as the hope within us to be like Christ and we beholding Him is there. 

It is this glorious hope (and it is nothing short of ‘glorious’)- this hope of ‘being as Christ is when He appears again and seeing Him as He is’ that sustains our confidence in Him, so that, at His coming, we are not going to stand before Him in shame (1 John 2:28).   

And, believe me, when I say this, that after all the different experiences He sends our way to conform us to His image,
there is nothing superficial or shallow about God’s finished product! Take another look at Mt 25:37-39 to verify that.  

So, let me say, as Paul did to the Corinthians, ‘Dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord.’

So, that, ‘When He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’

Amen! Let us pray.