A.-Sanctify here has, of course, no reference to our blessed Lord becoming personally more holy, or more acceptable to God, but to the position which, for us, Re would occupy in glory. It is not here His work for us on the cross by which, according to Heb. 10:1010By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10), we are already sanctified, but His position in glory, as taken for us, the revelation of which to our souls by the word sanctifies us, and sets us apart from earthly things for God's glory, according to the heavenly place that Christ now occupies.
Many persons rejoice in the work of Christ on the cross for them, and know that by that work they are fitted for God's presence, but not having apprehended the place in glory that Christ occupies for them, they, though having peace with God, are earthly minded, and do not see separation from " this present evil world." Occupation of heart with Christ in glory at God's right hand takes the heart off; the earth, and outside the world, and we thus become "sanctified by the truth." It is this blessed effect of the glory of Christ that we have set before us in 2 Cor. 3:1818But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18), " We all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
A.-The force of the word everlasting is always supplied to the mind by the connection in which it is used. In itself the word signifies continuance and uninterruptedness, but its force is modified according as it is used abstractedly, or in connection with some definite idea by which its particular import is supplied to the mind. Thus in the case of the promise to Abraham in the place referred to, " the everlasting possession " would involve the uninterrupted possession of the land of Canaan by his seed as long as the earth continued in the condition to which such a promise would apply, and thus the force of this word everlasting in this instance would fall within the scope of another promise of God made to Noah in the end of Gen. 8, " While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." Then in the next chapter we read, " And the bow shall be in the cloud: and I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth." As long then as the earth, as it now is, continues " every living creature of all flesh" will be under this " everlasting covenant " of God, and the seed of Abraham will have " the everlasting possession "
of the land promised to them. In the new heavens and new earth it will be no question of " all flesh," or of a special nation enjoying special blessings, but all such conditions and distinctions will have disappeared, and a totally new order of creation have come in, which will be the eternal state abstractedly, a condition of uninterrupted blessedness totally independent of the previous dealings of God with men, and with nothing in the future to bound the thought supplied by the word " everlasting."