The third thing we looked at was that rewards are not given automatically. They come to those who fulfil certain conditions, and we saw in Revelations 3 - to him that overcomes. "Him that overcomes will sit on My throne". In John 12 - "him that serves Me, him My Father will honour". So, we see promises that have conditions; and clearly, it's a just God, that would distinguish each believer from the other, according to the life they live.
We won't go into it today, but the judgements on sin vary in the level of the person's actions, their motivations, and the light they walked in. The depths of hell and punishment also vary in level; and the rewards in heaven vary in level. We saw in the Book of Revelation, you can either be: seated in the throne with Jesus - in a place of close connection and participation in the coming kingdom, in a governing role, a ruling role, a shaping role, a forming role, where you can be around the throne - and that's quite a different position to be in.
We saw also that our small sacrifices now have a huge, huge recompense. In other words, what God rewards us is out of proportion to what we do. We saw that in Matthew 25:21, where He said to the servant: "you were faithful over few things, I will make you ruler over many things"; and: "well done, you were faithful in very little, have authority over 10 cities" - Luke 19:17. So notice there: very little; much! Very little; much! Little here; 10 cities! Now you understand what kind of status is involved in the management of 10 cities. That's a very high level of authority and responsibility, so He's saying: faithful now, a little; then certainly you'll be given much.
We saw it in Hebrews that God is a rewarder. So we look then at the list of the rewards, and there are so many you can't list them all out, it would take a long list to do that. But we kind of put them under these kinds of headings, because they seemed to overlap a little:
- Eternal Intimacy
- Eternal Authority
- Eternal Glory
- Eternal Garments
- Victor's Crowns
- Honour & Praise from God
- Treasure & Riches in heaven
- Vindication of our Life, before our enemies.
Those were the eight categories I spoke of.
In the first studies we looked at: Eternal Intimacy; Eternal Authority; and Eternal Glory. Last week we spoke on the eternal glory; the resurrection and the two resurrections. Today's one is on: Eternal Garments; but I've re-labelled it to: Garments of Glory and Beauty, so that's our focus for today. Next week, I'll pick up the next couple: Victor's Crowns; and then, Honour and Praise.
Main MessageFirst of all, what are 'garments of glory and beauty'? What is He referring to? If you want to search the Bible yourself, type in: 'garments' or 'clothed'; and then do a search across the Bible, and you'll find there's many, many references. Perhaps the first reference that we would be aware of, is in the Book of Genesis, where it says: Adam and Eve were naked, but not ashamed. In other words, they must have been clothed in the glory of God. When they sinned, they were covered in shame, and they went and covered themselves with fig leaves, and hid themselves in the trees. We see then God clothing them with animal skins, because of their nakedness; and that was a prophetic picture, of the death of Jesus on the cross. He would provide for us the covering by faith, the covering of righteousness, that we would need. Clearly, Adam and Eve had lost the garments of beauty and glory, that they were clothed in.
The Bible tells us about God Himself being clothed; for example, in Psalm 104:1, it says: He's clothed with honour and majesty. You've got to get out of thinking naturally; you've got to think of the spiritual realm; and of the great honour, great majesty, and great regal garments, that Jesus has. In Psalm 104:2, it says: He clothes Himself with light, as though it was a garment. If we were to catch a glimpse of God, then we would see brilliant light. In the New Testament it tells us: He dwells in immortality and light, which no man can see. You know, it would overwhelm him, because of our limitations of our flesh. In Psalm 93:1, it says: God is clothed with majesty and strength. Notice, it's talking about honour, majesty, light, strength - so these are spiritual things, spiritual realities, but they express themselves in the person appearing to be clothed with substance.
We find also other references: for example, the angels. There's a number of references to angels in the Bible; and when angels appeared, we find that they generally were clothed in what appeared to be fine linen, or white linen. When you look at the Old Testament, they described it through what was familiar in their day; so, if the same thing happened today, you'd use a different language to describe it. For example, Jesus said: I am the bread of life. They understood bread, there was a culture of bread; if you were in Asia, you would say: I am the rice of life. There was a use of something they're familiar with. In the Old Testament, almost all of the pictures relate to what they're familiar with. In the New Testament, you see it done differently.