How do you get the comfort of God? By believing in Him; not by seeing Him It is: "Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe" also in me." And then He puts before our hearts that where the children are is home-the Father's house-the many abodes, and He comes again to bring us there, because His redeemed Ones are everything to Him. But He tells us, too, all that we have as realizing this while He is away, so that our souls may live in these things, though we are, not yet in them. For the Father and the world are now in direct emnity because of the rejection of the Son; the accepted of the Father is the rejected of the world, and it is all over with the world now.
We know what the Father's house is. The Lord says to us: You know where I am going, for I am going to the Father; and you have seen Him, for you have seen me. So I know where I am going, for the Father to whose home we are going is revealed in the Son, and the Son is the way, and I have got Him. He is the way, for I have found the Father in coming to Him. A poor vessel He is in, but it is one that is cleansed and made fit for God: and God comes and dwells in it, by His Spirit, which is the second comfort in His absence, as it is said: "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God."
And not this only, but I have got Christ back again. He says: " I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Ye see me; because I live, ye shall live also." He must die before- I can die spiritually; and, if He lives as triumphing over all, I shall live too. We hear it from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ, anxious to make us happy. Thus as to my standing before God, I have the consciousness that I am in Christ where God's delight is. As to my standing before the world, it is Christ in me. (J. N. D.)