Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will behold your face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with your likeness. I. THE VISION OF THE FACE OF GOD. 1. The object of this vision: "Thy face."(1) A sensible glory: such a glory was seen by Moses at Sinai, afterwards in the tabernacle, and at the transfiguration. (2) An intellectual glory: glory is resplendent excellency, real worth made conspicuous. This glory is the conspicuous lustre of Divine perfections. 2. The act of beholding: glory has a peculiar respect to the power of seeing. Sight is the most perfect sense: noble, comprehensive, quick and sprightly. The act of the mind is called seeing. The blessed shall have the glory of God so presented as "to know as they are known." II. THE SOUL'S PARTICIPATION OF HIS LIKENESS. How strange an errand hath the Gospel in the world, to transform men and make them like God. 1. There is a sense in which we cannot be like God. God will endure no such imitation of Him as to be rivalled in the point of His Godhead (Ezekiel 28:6-10). 2. There is a just and laudable imitation of God: we are to be imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1). 3. Man has already a likeness to God: the material world represents Him, as a house the builder; spiritual beings, as a child the father: others carry His footsteps, these His image. 4. There is a natural image of God in the soul of man, inseparable from it, its spiritual immortal nature, its intellectual and elective powers are the image of the same powers in God. There is also a moral likeness, wisdom, mercy, truth, righteousness, holiness. 5. Assimilation to God in moral perfections conduces to the soul's satisfaction and blessedness: "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." How great a hope is this! Were the dust of the earth turned into stars in the firmament, what could equal the greatness and wonder of this mighty change. III. THE RESULTING SATISFACTION: the soul's rest in God, its perfect enjoyment of the most perfect good, the perfecting of its desires in delight or joy. Desire is love in motion, delight love in rest. It is a rational, voluntary, pleasant, active rest: action about the end shall be perpetuated, though action towards it ceases. It is the rest of hope perfected in fruition. (John Howe.) Parallel Verses KJV: As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. |
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