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Welcome to the City of God, November 3
His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou
hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many
things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
Matthew 25:23
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With unutterable love, Jesus welcomes His faithful ones to the joy of
their Lord. The Saviour’s joy is in seeing, in the kingdom of glory, the souls
that have been saved by His agony and humiliation. And the redeemed
will be sharers in His joy, as they behold, among the blessed, those who
have been won to Christ through their prayers, their labors, and their loving
sacrifice. As they gather about the great white throne, gladness unspeakable
will fill their hearts, when they behold those whom they have won for Christ,
and see that one has gained others, and these still others, all brought into
the haven of rest, there to lay their crowns at Jesus’ feet and praise Him
through the endless cycles of eternity.
As the ransomed ones are welcomed to the City of God, there rings out
upon the air an exultant cry of adoration. The two Adams are about to meet.
The Son of God is standing with outstretched arms to receive the father
of our race—the being whom He created, who sinned against his Maker,
and for whose sin the marks of the crucifixion are borne upon the Saviour’s
form. As Adam discerns the prints of the cruel nails, he does not fall upon
the bosom of his Lord, but in humiliation casts himself at His feet, crying:
“Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain!” Tenderly the Saviour lifts him
up and bids him look once more upon the Eden home from which he has so
long been exiled.
After his expulsion from Eden, Adam’s life on earth was filled with
sorrow. Every dying leaf, every victim of sacrifice, every blight upon the
fair face of nature, every stain upon man’s purity, was a fresh reminder of
his sin.... With patient humility he bore, for nearly a thousand years, the
penalty of transgression. Faithfully did he repent of his sin and trust in the
merits of the promised Saviour, and he died in the hope of a resurrection.
The Son of God redeemed man’s failure and fall; and now, through the work
of the atonement, Adam is reinstated in his first dominion.
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