The Morning Star

The Morning Star

This article is inspired by the essay written by C.S. Lewis entitled The Weight of Glory.

We are strangers in the universe. Some try to convince the people of the world that the glory of man is here on the earth, but when we question the use of the word "glory" weighed against the clear evidence of flaws, failures, misery, evil, famine, flood, etc. they then tell us that the glory is a long way off and that somehow we will evolve into it and the glory of man will finally reach its zenith. What they fail to mention is that even if it were possible that man could attain such a thing (which he can't) that the generation who realized it would eventually die anyway. No person could have such a thing for very long. No one is going to stop our sun from dying out when it either runs out of fuel or is demolished by the hand of God. All of man's efforts are destined for failure.

But then, around us, apart from all the sin and evil, there is real beauty. You can't notice a large patch of red, yellow, and purple tulips in the front yard of a house in Oregon and not lose your breath. In the spring, with the bright sun bouncing off of them, they are perhaps the brightest and purest colors I have ever seen. Yet, they do not make anyone beautiful, and no one can enter into their beauty. Star gazing in a dark place on a clear summer night is another of my favorite beautiful things, yet the stars are far away points of light that I cannot reach, and even if I could, the smallest of them would tear me apart with intense gravity and burn me to a crisp.

We are only bystanders, but all of us long to enter in. We long to be acknowledged as meeting the criteria and to be invited in, but the door is always closed and we're always on the wrong side of it. We are alone and separate from all of it. This gets to the heart of every man's desire and reveals much about his searchings throughout this world in an attempt to either fulfill the desire or, which I think is far more common, to bury it. Every man and woman in history has a deep desire to be asked to come in. ECC 3:11  He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.(NIV)

God reveals to us through Solomon that He has actually put this desire in the hearts of all men. It would be the cruel joke of a tyrant to do this and then to leave us far away from it so that we always long but can never be satisfied. MAT 5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

Many people try to ignore the desire. Whenever it begins to be brought up in conversation, they find themselves getting uncomfortable and awkward. They laugh it off and clumsily change the subject. It becomes romanticized or part of some nostalgia, yet it can't be fully ignored or hidden away. It will always be there: the longing, the desire, the deep want to be accepted into something that is of real beauty and value. A man will never be whole until he enters in, and because God is the Creator, every man knows this on some level.

Some think it's in memories. They have nostalgic memories of childhood, adolescence, or times in adulthood when things seemed to be whole and pure, but it is the trickery inherent in a memory that only makes it seem that way. This is why memories are not ever the reality they once were. If you could go back and relive that memory, you would find that the pureness you seek wasn't actually there, and it wasn't a time that you entered into the essence of beauty only to walk out again. This is a terrible trick. People long for the good old days when they weren't good in the way that they think they were. It is the scent of a flower, but not the flower itself. You never entered into the flower or became the flower, you have always been an outsider. It is the result of our fall. We chose this.

This desire is so strong in us that we have created mythologies in which we invent creatures that are gods, goddesses, elves, nymphs, and wizards that are made of the earth, air, water, fire, or stars, and if they are not made of them, they have control over them. Merlin is a wonderful and intriguing character since he speaks to the earth and he hears the earth's response. It was proclaimed that the diviners of the ancients could do the same, as Balaam claimed to be. We love Star Wars because the Jedi can do this as well. This only stems from our desire.

Yet our reality is much less fantastic. The force isn't with any of us. We may discover the freshness, purity, and crispness of a fine morning, but it doesn't make us fresh, pure, or crisp. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. Yet, to the contrary of our natural world, the New Testament invitingly says to "enter in." It is not asking us to enter into Nature, for Nature is finite. It is only God's first sketch. We are asked to enter into the very light, but not the light from stars and nebulae - a much, much brighter light than they could ever be.

Into the world of heartbroken outsiders, came the Lord, the Bread of Life from heaven. LUK 4:18-19 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are downtrodden, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." When the Lord read this passage, which is ISA 61:1, in the synagogue He added one part to it: ISA 42:7 To open blind eyes. He would have done this from memory, knowing that He would fulfill this passage as well. Of course we know that He healed several people from physical blindness, most fantastically, the man who was born blind in Joh 9. But this is not the true meaning of blindness but only a type of the real blindness, which is the inability to enter into that which is truly beautiful. JOH 3:5-6 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

The kingdom of Christ is a kingdom of glory. COL 1:13 For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son. God is in the business of calling many sons into it. HEB 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. His glory is given the term "light" as opposed to "darkness." Those who are initiated into the light can see and are no longer in the darkness - blind. The believer is called a child of light and so commanded to walk in the light, now, in time. He is invited to walk in the light and thus fellowship with Christ and all others in the church who likewise walk in the light. The good news … the great news … is that we have been invited in. We are no longer on the wrong side of the door. We are no longer bystanders who can only witness beauty for the short time we have, for we have entered into the real Beauty. We are in Him and He is in us, and He is the Morning Star. REV 22:16 "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star."

In the long ago past, the yet unfallen Lucifer was in some way entered into this light. ISA 14:12 "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! We learn from this passage, as well as Eze 28, that Lucifer had some wonderful blessings and privileges in God's government, but that his own splendor perverted his mind enough to throw it all away. Now it is the humanity of our Lord who holds this title and we are to enter into this Star and be fully absorbed into Him. This is our sure hope for eternity and a sure reason to rejoice in time, since those of us who are new creatures - in the old body and the old world - we truly experience this future reality to some extent. 1CO 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.

The Morning Star is also a gift to the believer who is an overcomer, which is a believer who has fulfilled God's plan for his life. REV 2:26-28 'And he who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations;  and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star.' Some have thought of the Morning Star as a medal, like the Medal of Honor, which the Lord gives or pins on the overcomer believer at His Bema seat. I have taught this in the past. But now I see something far deeper in this, thanks to the help from my old friend Clive Lewis. If Christ is the Morning Star then it is more than a medal. And by the way, the Bible uses such imagery as crowns and robes in order to paint a picture that we can understand as earthly creatures. It is likely that they are not as we now know them to be. Be that as it is, if Christ is the Morning Star, and it, or He, is given to me, then it is likely that I enter into something that is akin to a star, and since the morning star, which is actually the planet Venus, is the brightest object in the sky, then I must be entering into the brightest of light. It is more of an order than it is a thing, like many of the ancient orders of antiquity that required a secret initiation, which is not an idea far from our reality. Php 4:12 I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.

While it is true that all believers are children of light and have entered into the light and will enter into eternal light in a resurrection body in heaven, it would seem that to those who are overcomers there is a deeper star or light to enter into as a reward for fulfilling the reason they have been created. The reason we have been created is to learn the "secret" (Greek: musterion or "mystery") and then to walk in the way of it, which is the way of Christ. The reward is actually fulfilling the reason we have been created new, and so that reward carries on into heaven in the form of our Lord's title, Morning Star. We don't receive a pin that is external to us, but rather we are absorbed right into the brightest light of the universe. I would venture to say that we become a part of it.

The initiation into the order of greatest light or greatest honor is accomplished and given by God. If a believer has fulfilled the plan of God, he did so by faith alone in the salvation and grace of God. No credit or merit is ever for him, but to God alone who has accomplished it.

When you are in the presence of a believer you are with one who is so initiated. To love him as Christ has loved you, by means of the fruit of the Spirit, is the only true thing to do that is of the light. You no longer have to look at others as having something that you would like to take in order to make you feel more whole or more acknowledged or accepted. You have entered into the light and one day you will be absorbed so fully into it that you will become part of it forever. In the past you lacked a perfect Father, Brother, Husband, Master, and Friend, but now, not only are they all yours, but you have entered into the One who is all of them to you.

2CO 9:15 Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

Love to all my brethren,

Pastor Joe Sugrue

Grace and Truth Ministries