August 20

In order for those on earth not to fear that Christ's reclaimed royalty might crowd them out of His heart, He proves He is the same in the zenith of His honor as He was in the depth of His humiliation. And He demonstrates this unchangeableness by going back to heaven's glory in the same clothes He had borrowed from their nature. Thus God's Son makes those clothes part of His glorified life and gives a pattern of what the saints' own bodies will be like in the kingdom. None of this identification of Christ with man was present in God's dealings with Adam. Adam did not have this lump of sugar in his cup-- he knew about the love of a giving God, but was a stranger to the mercy of a forgiving God. The reconciled sinner experiences both.

A father's love is a great comfort to an obedient child, but this demonstration of tenderness cannot be compared to the compassion of a father toward his rebellious child. Certainly the prodigal who is received again into his father's arms has more reason to return that father's love than the brother who never left home. Without a doubt, then, God's pardoning mercy and the love of Christ which procured it are the sweetest, most wholesome fruit a saint here on earth can meditate upon.

But who can conceive of the splendid music which glorified saints will make on this note of God's mercy and love? Surely the song their harps are tuned to is "the song of the Lamb" (Revelation 15:3). The saints' fulfilled celebration in heaven's glory is a composite of all the finest ingredients possible-- so arranged by the hand of God that not one of them can be left out; and the taste of one cannot be lost in another. Yet pardoning mercy, and the unsurpassable love of God through Christ, give a sweet topping to the feast and can be tasted above all the rest.

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