March, 1938
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
93
for Conquest Tomorrow
Memphis, Tennessee
keenly sensitized to hear His voice. Still we can, following His beckoning, yielding to His leadership, which is both leadership and comradeship, find high mountains apart in our homes and the closets thereof. God said to Elijah: “ Hide thyself.” And then, after the hiding, He said: “ Show thy self.” God would have us go into the silence — to fill up, to receive and store power be fore we try to impart power, to suspend life for a while, to sit and wait the disclosure of God’s plans and purposes. This means, too, that we ought to see the face of God before we see the face of man. W e ought to enter into the closet with God before we enter the conflict for God. W e should go into the private place with God before we enter the public place for God. How true it is that “ If chosen men had never been alone, In deep mid silence, open-doored to God, No greatness ever had been dreamed or done.” II. The Transfiguration “And he was transfigured before them" (Mk. 9:2). Matthew says: “ His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” (Matt. 17:2). Mark says:-“ And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them” (Mk. 9:3). Nothing less than the sun, the most glori ous and the brightest of all objects within * Pastor, Bellevue Baptist Church. Illus trations by Ransom D. Marvin.
human knowledge, could express-the radiant glories of Jesus’ face, when His heavenly nature shone through the veil o f His flesh — lightening forth from the inward radiance. And that transfiguration radiance was not the reflection of a great light shining upon Him, but the manifestation of such a condition of purity and deity and glory within as to be seen breaking through the very flesh and form of His body. The suf fusing splendor of that inner light had always been in Jesus incarnate, even as the potentialities of transfiguring glory were ever present to Christ’s spirit. Jesus, during the days of His flesh on earth, was “ God’s great lamp shining in this dark world, but with the wick of His essential deity turned low, even though the flame of Godhood, though suppressed, flowed there all the while within the white crystal of His enveloping humanity, steadily mani festing a glory”— a “glory as of the only be gotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). “ But in that epochal and transcendent hour His person, suddenly charged with the intensified effulgence of deity, burst forth in full flame”— flashing forth in radiancy unrestrained, the temple of His body blazing with the dazzling and awe-inspiring splendors of spiritual incan descence. All the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, which glory the veil of the flesh completely hid, burst forth in its shining fullness. Here, in this glorious transfiguring hour, the disciples saw Him revealed as perfect manhood and holy Godhood in one glorious Personality. John D. Freeman says that if there had been the slightest flaw in the life of Jesus,
He could not have endured the sudden volt age which surcharged Him there on the mountain peak. And he goes on to show, as we all need to be told, that though a cracked crystal might stand the lighter test of a low-burning wick, the cracked crystal cannot bear the shock of sudden and as saulting heat, for the full-forced flame would find the flaw and shatter the glass. And then he climaxes with these words: “ Had Christ been less than God’s perfect man, He would have died upon the mount. The shock of the sudden glory would have slain Him. It would have. been to Him a consuming fire. The transfiguration means that that deity blazing up in Jesus, in instan taneous and full effulgence, found His manhood a flawless crystal. So per fectly had His human life been molded to the Father’s will that He was able to receive, without strain, the full flame of Godhood. So purely had He lived, so completely had He been the truth, that even the flashing through Him of that light ineffable before which the Seraphim veil their faces, disclosed in Him no speck or stain. The experience on the mount marked the consummation of His per sonal human perfection. There and then His perfect manhood burst into brilliant flower. Had He not been in the world for redemptive purposes, God would have plucked the flower then and laid it in His bosom.” That transfiguration night of solitude and companionship, in which, as never before, they saw Him as perfect man and holy God
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