We Cannot Honor Christ Too Much

He received from GOD the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 2 Peter 1:17.

These words furnish poor sinners with matter for sweet meditation. Spirit of truth, help us to see the honour and glory of the Father and Son in them, and to get comfort from them. Here is, (1st.) a silencing answer to that objection: you rob the Father of his honour and glory, by ascribing so much to the Son Jesus. Have you never been assaulted with this temptation? It comes from the enemy of God and sinners. Can two walk together, except they be agreed? But God and we are agreed. Our faith puts all the honour and glory of our salvation upon God’s beloved Son. There God himself puts it. IN his beloved Son, God is well pleased, and with us also IN him. (2d.) Here see the nature of faith. It causes the soul both to imitate and obey God, and to be well pleased with what God is, the dear Man, his beloved Son. (3d.) Though, to the eye of nature, Jesus appeared as a mere man, in abject poverty, contemptible meanness, and lowest abasement; yet the Father gives him the highest honour and glory, because he magnified his holy law and made it honourable: satisfied his divine justice, and brought everlasting honour and glory to every attribute and perfection of his nature. So that now, “God is just, and the justifier of sinners who believe in Jesus.” Then, under a sight and sense of your ruined nature, innumerable sins, and dreadful apostasies from God, put honour and glory upon the Son of God this night. His work and salvation, God is well pleased with. It has satisfied heaven for all thy sins: let thy conscience be satisfied with Jesus, and glory of him and in him alone. For thy encouragement herein, (4th.) consider Peter, who wrote these words. He was honoured to be on the mount: saw his Lord’s transfiguration: heard these words from the excellent glory—and yet, O shocking to think of! this same Peter, with horrid oaths and curses, denied that he knew the man, whom God the Father had so lately honoured and glorified. Yet there was an inexpressible fulness of grace in Jesus for him. Out of Christ’s fulness, Peter received grace upon grace, whereby he was recovered from his fall, restored to repentance, and preserved to salvation. O may the dear Saviour look our hearts into godly sorrow and holy love, that we may say, “This is my beloved Saviour, in whom I am well-pleased.”

If God in Jesus is well pleas’d,
Such glory to him gave,
We ne’er can honour Christ too much,
Who came our souls to save.

O, Lamb of God! we lift our eyes
Up to thy gracious throne:
Grant us thee daily more to prize,
And call thee, Lord, our own.

- William Mason, A Spiritual Treasury For The Children of God, Volume 2, November 27