There will be a scene of glories when the Kingdom comes. We commonly speak of "glory" as if it stood in that connection only. But this is wrong. Glory then will be displayed, it is true; glory will then be in the circumstances of the scene. But a much more wonderful form of glory is known already--and that is, in the Gospel. There God Himself is displayed; a more wondrous object than all circumstances. The glory of the Gospel is moral, I grant, not material or circumstantial. But it is glory of the profoundest character. There, again I say, God Himself is displayed. The just God and yet the Saviour is seen there. Righteousness and peace shine there in each other's company--a result which none but God Himself, and in the way of the Cross, could ever have reached.
The Gospel calls on sinners to breathe the atmosphere, as I may say, of salvation, to have communion with God in love, and to maintain it in liberty and assurance--and there is a glory in such thoughts and truths as these which indeed excelleth.
Satan interfered or meddled with the work of God, and ruined it in its creature-condition. God at once interfered or meddled with Satan's work, and eternally overthrow it, bringing meat out of the eater, and sweetness out of the strong.
The three earliest receivers of God's Gospel, Adam, Eve, and Abel, strikingly illustrate souls that apprehended the glory of the Gospel in different features of it.
Adam was blessedly, wondrously emboldened by it, so that at the bidding of it, he came forth at once from his guilty covert and entered the presence of God again, naked as he was. And his boldness was warranted, for he was welcomed there. Eve exulted in it. She sang over it. "I have gotten a man from the Lord," said she--in the joy of the promise that had been made her touching her Seed.
Abel offered the "fat" with the victim. He entered with happiest, brightest intelligence into the promise, and saw that the Giver of it would find His own blessed delight in it--that the Gospel, while it saved the sinner, was the joy as well as the glory of God. The fat on the altar expressed this.
And such apprehensions of Christ as these--the faith that gives boldness--the faith that inspires with joy--the faith that penetrates the Cross--is full of power in the soul.
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John Gifford Bellett was an Irish Christian writer and theologian, and was influential in the beginning of the Plymouth Brethren movement. Bellett was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was educated first at the Grammar School in Exeter, England, then at Trinity College Dublin, where he excelled in Classics, and afterwards in London. It was in Dublin that, as a layman, he first became acquainted with John Nelson Darby, then a minister in the established Church of Ireland, and in 1829 the pair began meeting with others such as Edward Cronin and Francis Hutchinson for communion and prayer.
Bellett had become a Christian as a student and by 1827 was a layman serving the Church. In a letter to James McAllister, written in 1858, he describes the episcopal charge of William Magee, Archbishop of Dublin, that sought for greater state protection for the Church. The Erastian nature of the charge offended Darby particularly, but also many others including Bellett.
The pair bonded particularly over prophetic issues, and attended meetings and discussions together at the home of Lady Powerscourt, and Bellett and Darby (along with the Brethren movement in particular) were particularly associated with dispensationalism and premillenialism.
Bellett wrote many articles and books on scriptural subjects, his most famous works being The Patriarchs, The Evangelists and The Minor Prophets.