God’s Love for the Church
143
The church is to be fed with manna from heaven, and to be kept under
the sole guardianship of His grace. Clad in complete armor of light
and righteousness, she enters upon her final conflict. The dross, the
worthless material, will be consumed, and the influence of the truth
testifies to the world of its sanctifying, ennobling character....
The Lord Jesus is making experiments on human hearts through
the exhibition of His mercy and abundant grace. He is effecting trans-
formations so amazing that Satan, with all his triumphant boasting,
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with all his confederacy of evil united against God and the laws of
His government, stands viewing them as a fortress impregnable to
his sophistries and delusions. They are to him an incomprehensible
mystery. The angels of God, seraphim and cherubim, the powers
commissioned to co-operate with human agencies, look on with aston-
ishment and joy, that fallen men, once children of wrath, are through
the training of Christ developing characters after the divine simili-
tude, to be sons and daughters of God, to act an important part in the
occupations and pleasures of heaven.
To His church, Christ has given ample facilities, that He may
receive a large revenue of glory from His redeemed, purchased posses-
sion. The church, being endowed with the righteousness of Christ, is
His depository, in which the wealth of His mercy, His love, His grace,
is to appear in full and final display. The declaration in His intercessory
prayer, that the Father’s love is as great toward us as toward Himself,
the only-begotten Son, and that we shall be with Him where He is,
forever one with Christ and the Father, is a marvel to the heavenly
host, and it is their great joy. The gift of His Holy Spirit, rich, full,
and abundant, is to be to His church as an encompassing wall of fire,
which the powers of hell shall not prevail against. In their untainted
purity and spotless perfection, Christ looks upon His people as the
reward of all His suffering, His humiliation, and His love, and the
supplement of His glory,—Christ, the great center from which radiates
all glory. “Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of
the Lamb.”
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