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THE LIGHTS AND PERFECTIONS IN THE LORD
Published May 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-6-8
Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson
PREFACE
In ancient Israel, the temple spoke of Christ, Himself not only the ultimate priest, symbolised by the High Priest, but the ultimate sacrifice, so that as priest He offered ... Himself! Moreover it was He of whom the whole temple stood as temple, provision for worship in His own name.
The High Priest had a special series of garments to wear in his official capacity, and one of these was called a breastplate. You see Paul using the terms in a symbolic depiction of the Christian soldier in Ephesians 6.
The lights and perfections, or Urim and Thummim were attributed symbolically to the breastplate via the ephod or garment which was worn together with it, with its precious stones on which the names of the tribes of Israel were inscribed. There were four rows of three precious stones each, varied, beautiful, in total a treasure of loveliness and a symbol of purity where light glisters and the whole, in the ephod or garment attached to the breast-plate, spoke of solicitude with the divine light at work in the very purity of God, as with love and mercy He beheld His people.
David once used it when seeking wisdom from the Lord when the force of the nation with a misled king was seeking to destroy him, whom the Lord had anointed. It was a symbol of God's entire care and availability, not to circumvent His law, but to fulfil His will within His own word, when disruption of dishevelment, indeed when anxiety and troubles proved great, and thus it was part of His attestation of available power and wisdom to cover anything that life might bring (cf. Ephesians 3:20).
Lights from the light, perfections in the glory of God, these are the things symbolised, and these are the things which one hopes to attest in this volume, starting with the sheer wonder of the glory of God in solving so much so simply, which without His own presence and nature COULD NOT BE SOLVED, and never has been. It is because God is as He is (I AM THAT I AM), that man is as he is, and that problems from sin are as they are, and that solutions are as they are; and this fact continually confirms the reality of God to the sinful, straying and yet seeking heart of man. Starting where man started, by the creative act of God, according to the creative further act of His word, the Bible, NOTHING cannot be resolved concerning the nature of man and his world, destiny, way and situation, indeed concerning the very creation of God and His power over it.
When you START with God and then attend to what has happened IN VIEW of that, and with His word beside you, then you proceed to solution. It is failure to do this which creates the insoluble seeming problems of man; and with these, because their solutions are not taken, the woeful tragedies of man are expanded as if by an atomic bomb, dropping its waste as it goes.
The need is to seek the Lord with all the heart, study His word with relish, and apply it; and applying it, and following on to know the Lord, to enjoy and rejoice in it as Psalm 119 in such an exemplary fashion shows us. This involves seeking concerning its advices, commands and exhortations, to follow them, in action.
How many are His perfections, and how numerous His lights which He sheds, like columns or arrows of light in a sunset, from the one source, in beauty upon man.
Let us then consider some of these divine gifts to us that are to be found in the Lord, as one looks toward Him in faith, and be thankful and worship and praise the Maker of man, the provider of salvation, and the Redeemer who did it, that we MIGHT know God and SO find these wonders in His word and will, and His divine amplitude of blessings above all we could ask or think (Ephesians 3).
CONTENTS
LIGHTS AND PERFECTIONS IN THE LORD:
MORE PRAISE FOR CHRIST
WILL, WON'T, WANDER AND WORK
WISDOM,
LIGHT, PERFECTIONS IN PREDESTINATION,
THAT IS NOT MYSTERIOUS BUT BEAUTIFUL IN CLARITY
ONE OF THE WELL-LIT PERFECTIONS OF THE LORD
THE TRINITY IN ITS LIGHT AND PERFECTION
LIGHT FROM THE TRINITY IN BROTHERLY LOVE
The third light and perfection
LIGHT FROM THE TRINITY IN
THE TEMPORAL AND THE ETERNAL
LIGHT FROM THE TRINITY
LEADING TO LOVE FOR
HIS GLORIOUS WORD
THE WORD PAST ALL CONFESSIONS
THAT RULES ALL, SHOWS TO ALL
AND COMES FROM HIM WHO ALONE KNOWS ALL:
THE BLESSED BIBLE, WORD OF TRUTH
CONFESSIONS COME AND GO, BUT THE WORD OF GOD GOES ON FOREVER
ITS LIGHT SUCH THAT THE LAW OF THE LORD IS PERFECT
REJOICING THE HEART,
WITHOUT COMPROMISE, QUALIFICATION, ADDITIVE OR MANIPULATION
(This includes a look at the World Reformed Fellowship's Proposed Confession 2010.)
LIGHT FROM THE TRINITY
LEADING TO LOVE FOR
HIS GLORIOUS GRACE
SHARPLY IRONIC, GLORIOUSLY LOVING, MARVELLOUSLY EFFECTIVE -
THE CROSS OF CHRIST
Focus on Luke 23:39-43
THE TRINITY IN ITS LIGHT AND PERFECTION
The seventh light and perfection
to which we look in this volume is this: the Trinity.
THE SPRING THAT NEVER LAPSES
THE SPIRIT OF MAN IS NO EXCRESCENCE
BUT HIS VERY ESSENCE!
THE PHASES OF ETERNAL LIFE
BLESSEDLY TENDERED,
ETERNAL LIFE MOVES IN ITS SALIENT BEAUTIES
AS THE LORD FULFILS ALL
CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONSEQUENCE:
VITAL EMBLEM OF THE CREATOR
The very Earth is Full of the Glory of the Lord
as the Waters Cover the Sea:
What is Coming is the Realisation of this Fact!
(Habakkuk 2:14)
THE INTIMACY OF THE TRINITY AND
THE EXTENSIVE AND SUPERNAL APPLICATION TO MAN