THERE are glories belonging to the Person of the Lord, which were His from everlasting―glories essential to Himself; and there are glories of His, which He has gained by passing through shame and suffering―glories acquired by Himself. The dignity and majesty of His eternal being have ever existed, but His becoming the Head of the body, the church, dates back from the time when He, the glorified Man, sent the promise of the Father from heaven to earth.
He was when the beginning had its commencement. Let the mind of man stretch back and conceive myriads of bygone ages. Yet, before those ages began, He was, and in that eternity, into which human mind cannot reach back, still He was. His divinity had no beginning. It is of this that the apostle John speaks in his gospel, when he says, “In the beginning was the Word.” But His humanity had a beginning. Nearly nineteen hundred years ago the praise of angels welcomed the Babe to this earth. It is of Him, as the Incarnate One, that the same apostle thus writes in his epistle, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life; for the Life was manifested.” And, as the humbled Man upon the earth, the Lord acquired glories; He, as a Man, made peace through His outpoured blood upon the cross. What a glory—nay, what innumerable glories flow out from this work of Jesus! Had He not stooped to humanity and suffered for sin, had He not accomplished the work His Father gave Him to do, the glories which His cross has gained would never have shown upon this earth, nor have filled the heavens with brightness.