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3. The dead in Christ having been raised and the bodies of living believers having been transformed, THEY SHALL BOTH BE CAUGHT UP TOGETHER TO MEET THE LORD IN THE AIR, AND SO SHALL WE EVER BE WITH THE LORD (1 Thess. 4:17). It is especially to receive us unto Himself that Jesus Christ comes again at all. This He declared to His disciples on the night before He left them. He said, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also" (John 14:3). It is primarily love to His own that draws our Lord Jesus back to this earth again. He so loves us that he cannot get on without us. He sends no mere messenger for us, He comes Himself: "I come again" are His thrilling words. And it is to receive us "unto Himself" that He comes, not merely into heaven, but UNTO HIMSELF. The words indicate His intense longing for us, how He longs to press us to His very soul, His very self. We long for Him during His absence from us, but not as He longs for us. Even heaven itself is a lonely place to Him without us. Earth ought to be a lonely place to us without Him. Godet's comment on these words is worth repeating. Speaking of the believer and Christ's

attitude toward Him, he says, "He presses him to His heart, so to speak, while bearing him away. There is an infinite tenderness in these last words, 'unto myself.' It is for Himself that He seems to rejoice and look to this moment which will be the end of all separation."

4. At the coming again of our Lord Jesus and as a result of our then beholding Him as He is, WE SHALL BE MADE LIKE HIM. One of the most marvelous promises in the whole Bible is that uttered by John, the beloved disciple in I John 3:2. He says, "Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is." The perfect beholding of our Lord in that day shall transform us into the perfect image of the Lord whom we behold. Even

in the life that now is, it is through beholding the glory of the Lord that we are "transformed into the same image from glory to glory," that is, each new view of Him imparts something more of His glory to us. But now we see only through a glass darkly and consequently our reflection of His glory is imperfect. Then we shall see Him face to face

in His undimmed glory and shall perfectly reflect it. Our Lord then, when we are transformed into His perfect likeness, spiritually as well as bodily, shall be "glorified in His saints," not merely glorified by us but glorified in us. His glory shall be fully revealed in what we are in that day (II Thess. 1:10). Not only shall He be manifested in all the fullness of His glory, but we also together ith Him shall be "manifested in glory" (Col. 3:4, R. V). Oftentimes, when laboring to uplift those who have fallen deeply into sin, and whose character has been so disfigured by the wicked life that they have led that the process of salvation has been hindered by many a discouraging fall, and I have felt tempted to give up the battle for their redemption, I have taken new courage as I have thought of I John 3:2, and have said to myself, "though this one you are trying to save now seems so little like the Lord that it seems a waste of time to do anything more to help him, still some day, when our Lord comes and he gets one glimpse of Him as He is, he shall be transformed into His perfect image that he shall be just like Him." And oftentimes when discouraged over my own failures, and almost overwhelmed with

the thought of how unlike I was to my Master, the glad thought has thrilled me that it will not always be so, but some day, that glad day when the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God, and I am caught up to meet Him, and when I see Him as He is, I too will be just like Him, in all the infinite perfection of His character, then shall I "attain unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

5. And now a still more wonderful result follows, OUR LORD JESUS WILL BE UNITED IN MARRIAGE WITH THE CHURCH, HIS BETROTHED BRIDE (cf Eph. 5:23, 32), and the marriage supper of the Lamb be celebrated. John says, "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many thunders, saying, Hallelujah; for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth. Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come and his wife hath made herself ready. And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the

saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev. 19:6-9). These words are so remarkable that it is no wonder that the angel who spoke them to John felt the necessity of adding, "These are true words of God." All the depth of meaning that there is in them, it is impossible for us now to fathom, and this is a place where speculation should be very guarded; but this much has been revealed, that in Christ in His relation to His church, and there alone, has the full significance of marriage been realized (Eph. 5:31, 32), and that this intimate relation between Christ and His Church will be fully realized at His Coming Again.

6. At the return of our Lord EACH ONE OF HIS SERVANTS SHALL RECEIVE HIS REWARD: "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with his angels; and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds" (Matt. 16:27). It is not at death but at the coming of the Lord that we receive our full reward. All of those who love His appearing shall receive a crown of righteousness. It was in anticipation of this that Paul, as he sat in his prison cell in Rome awaiting execution, wrote, "I have fought the good