8. I know not yet what 'after the glory' (akhar-kavod, see Psa. 73:2424Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. (Psalm 73:24)) is. But note there are three things by which they shall know Jesus sent, Christ sent, only manifested in Spirit, was the Sent One, as so often urged in John, for it was the Spirit of Christ which was in them did, as here, signify—manifested in person in Jesus, His making the nations `a spoil to their servants'—‘many nations joined to the Lord,' and the Lord dwelling in the midst of the daughter of Zion—and the final finishing of the house among the Jews here; chapters 2: 9, 10, 11; chap. 4: 9; chap. 6: 15.
But there is a further point we must notice. The first (chap. 2: 9) is contrasted as servants of the nations, 'Therefore ye shall know'—the second (v. 11, Hebrew 15), ‘Thou' (feminine) ‘shalt know'—the third (chap. 4: 9) (this one is more remarkable) ‘Thou' (masculine) ‘shalt know.' It seems to me to include the Person of Christ, in which, as a Man, He shall reap the fruit, among the Jews, in the finishing of His Jewish house (as Zerubbabel, not the Temple—it is a symbolical prophecy) of His being sent. Though if it were in Israel the Lord was glorified, He had before to say, Then have I labored in vain, and spent my strength for naught,' but now His hands finished it. He knew, as a Man, in fulfillment, that He was sent as the Christ of God to the Jews. ‘Thou, Jesus, the Seed of David, shalt know,' says the Spirit of Christ in the Prophet, ‘that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.' The Jews also. There is difference. The general deliverance is evidence of the mission—'Ye shall know' (the fact) ‘that the Lord hath sent me.' Zion shall know, by the Lord's dwelling in the midst of her, that the Lord had sent Him unto her. But He shall know that the Lord sent Him to the Jews, rejecting Him as they did, on the finishing of His house. There, I think also, we have evidence, herein, that it was not as Jesus,' simply, He is spoken of as sent, but in His divine Person, as justified in Spirit, and so properly, and not as Man. It was recognizing Him as the sent Son of God, though He was also Jesus, that was the point of faith. This was what the Lord required. They would have taken Him by force and made Him a King, if that had been what He required. They knew, even the rulers, that He was a Teacher come from God, but He was, and as the God of truth required, as being Truth was bound to, as the Son for the Father's glory was faithful to require—yea! as the only truth of and for blessing, the Free-maker—having this as His full title, 'The Heir of the world,' to require to put forth this title 'The Son of God.' This was made practicable for Jesus by the miraculous conception. He was condemned, showing the Jews' rejection of Him and of the truth, for, as they said, making Himself so. He was so, and this was the point in question. He was rejected by the Gentiles (with the knowledge of this, for they were concerned in it) for being King of the Jews, throwing the utter rebuke upon them—the last grand act of treading them down as Gentile wicked ones, even we by nature—in natural wickedness, till the last great act of presumptuous wickedness be enacted, as described in this Prophet. The death of the Man was pardonable, though the uttermost sin—the rejection of the Son testified by the Spirit, made known in the resurrection, there is no way of pardon for. The Lord keep us loving Him always!