Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

November 6, 2022

Weekly Schedule of Services

 Proverbs 19:13: A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping.

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Christ is God and Man.  As God Christ is one with God and as Man one with his people who are men.  It is only in the GodMan—in One—that God and his elect are united and we are made perfect.  As Christ said, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us…I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one” (Jn 17:21, 23).  

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John 17:22: And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

An union with Christ makes a child of God one with Christ. It forms a personal union: for the whole Person of Christ, GodMan, is one with his Church, in every individual member of it: body, soul, and spirit. He that is joined to the Lord is One Spirit (1Cor 6:17). Hence Christ is precious, not only for his gifts or for his graces or for his benefits but for himself. He is not only the source of happiness but is himself our happiness. Not only gives his people life but is himself their life and their portion forever. So sweet and precious therefore is this conscious union with Christ.                       

–Robert Hawker

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Col 1:27: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

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John 17:24: Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

There is the glory of Christ as God, the glory of Christ as man, and the glory of Christ as GodMan. And this threefold glory of Christ corresponds in a measure with what he was before he came into the world, with what he was whilst in the world, and with what he now is as having gone to the Father, according to his own words (John 16:28). Before he came into the world his chief glory was that belonging to him as the Son of God; whilst in the world his chief glory was in being the Son of man; and now that he is gone back to heaven his chief glory is that of his being God and man in one glorious Person.  This latter glory of Christ, which is, in an especial sense, his mediatorial glory, is seen by faith here, and will be seen in the open vision of bliss hereafter.         

–JC Philpot

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John 17:24: Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

This is not the petition of a suppliant but the claim of a conqueror!...In unmurmuring submission the bitter cup was drained, all the dread penalties of the law were borne, the atonement completed, an all-perfect righteousness wrought out; and now, as the stipulated reward of His obedience and sufferings, the Victor claims His trophies. 

     What are they? Those who were given Him by the Father.  The countless multitudes redeemed by His blood. These He “wills” to be with Him “where He is”—the spectators of His glory and partakers of His crown! Wondrous word and will of a dying testator! His last prayer on earth is an importunate pleading for their glorification…as if these earthly jewels were needed to make His crown complete, their happiness the complement of His own!

     Reader! learn from this, the grand element in the bliss of your future condition: it is the presence of Christ! “With ME…where I am.”…It is His own stipulation in His testamentary prayer that Eternity is to be spent in union and communion with Himself, gazing on the unfathomed mysteries of His love, becoming more assimilated to His glorious image, and drinking deeper from the bottomless ocean of His own joy!

    If anything can enhance the magnitude of this promised bliss, it is the concluding words of the verse, in which He grounds His plea for its bestowment: “I will…that they behold My glory;”—why? “For You loved (not them—but) ME before the foundation of the world!” It is equivalent to saying, “If You would give Me a continued proof of Your everlasting love and favor to Me, it is by loving and exalting My redeemed people! In loving them and glorifying them, you are loving and glorifying Me—so endearingly are their interests and My own bound up together!”

    Believer, think of that all-prevailing Voice, at this moment, pleading for you within the veil!  That omnipotent “Father, I will” securing every needed blessing! There is given, so to speak, a blank check by which He and His people may draw unlimited supplies out of the exhaustless treasury of the Father’s grace and love! God Himself endorses it with the words, “Son, You are ever with Me—and all that I have is Yours.”

    How it would reconcile us to earth’s bitterest sorrows and hallow earth’s holiest joys if we saw them thus hanging on the “will” of an all-wise Intercessor who ever pleads in love and never pleads in vain! “Be it unto me according to YOUR WORD.”                                

–John MacDuff

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In John 17 our High Priest declared the name of God.  He declared God’s name as the eternal Father who loved his Son before the world and gave his own to Christ that he might give eternal life to as many as the Father gave him (vv1-10).  He declared God’s name as the Holy Father who makes us one by sanctifying and keeping us in Christ (vv11-23).  He declared God’s name as the Righteous Father who by Christ our Righteousness is just and merciful to raise us to behold Christ’s glory (vv24-25).  May we never grow weary of hearing the gospel because it is Christ declaring God’s name and the only way we receive the love of the truth. “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (v26).