Charnock’s Easter Egg – The Glory of God & Life in the Plural
When God and His glory are made our end, we shall find a silent likeness pass in upon us; the beauty of God will, by degrees, enter upon our soul.
Stephen Charnock
Stephen Charnock was a 17th-century Puritan pastor and preacher in Ireland and later in London. Many students of God’s Word know Charnock through his influential work, The Existence and Attributes of God. Secular historians have worked hard to defame the Puritans’ doctrine and manner of life, but an honest study reveals a very different view, one with much to teach us.
For example, did you know these ten facts about the Puritans? They . . .
- Were deep thinkers and prolific writers (prose and poetry), their works were profound studies on God, family, and life;
- Were highly interested in science, medicine, science, and discovery;
- Emphasized literacy and education – men, women, and children – believing that an educated and thinking people is a virtuous one;
- Loved poetry, music, sports, and humor;
- Loved freedom and believed in the protection of human rights;
- Believed in the importance and beauty of the marriage covenant – and romance! C.S. Lewis wrote of them: “The conversion of courtly love into romantic monogamous love was largely the work of… Puritan poets.” This emphasis on marriage extended out to a strong commitment to the nuclear family and raising children in deep, meaningful, and lifelong relationships;
- Treasured reading and obeying God’s Word as individuals, families, and communities;
- Produced some of history’s most significant and influential preachers;
- Were very involved in the spiritual and social welfare of their communities and nation.
- Were very relational, friendly, and loving – life was lived in missional community.
Most of all, as expressed by Charnock above, the Puritans lived first and last for the glory of God – this one love they pursued above all others. It was their heartbeat.
Just as the glory of God was the heartbeat of our Lord during His life and ministry on earth, a life whose “bookends” and every chapter in between them were defined by the glory of God:
At His birth, heavenly angels and earthly shepherds glorified God (Luke 2.14, 20);
At His death, His only desire was to complete a lifelong mission: glorify God the Father. (John 17.1)
When God and His glory are truly our heartbeat, our highest aspiration and deepest delight, “a silent likeness will pass upon us”: We will evidence the health and strength of that God-honoring pulse. The beauty of God will enter our souls, we will be transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus, and so, we will manifest the glory of God to the world.
Charnock’s Easter Egg
In the quote above, did you notice Charnock’s use of the words “our,” “we,” and “us?” There’s an Easter Egg hidden in his use of these plural pronouns. Yes, historically, he is using the grammatical form of his time, writing in the plural rather than the singular person.
But biblically, Pastor Charnock has uncovered a life-changing biblical truth: Making God and His glory our chief goal is, in its fullness, a “plural” endeavor – an “our,” “we,” and “us” pursuit. It is as we walk with others that our souls are compelled to seek God and His glory (Phil.1.27; Heb.10.24). It is walking the Emmaus Road with others in this pursuit of His glory that we are transformed more and more by Him into the image of Christ.
When we walk alone, we can sometimes, or even often, wonder where God is, much less where we can go to bask in the glory of His presence. But when we walk in the way the Savior has shown us – with others in shared bread and blood communion (I Cor.10.17) – we put ourselves in position to know Him in His beauty, His glory comes over us, and we are transformed into His likeness (Ephesians 4.13). Like the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, He joins us in our journey and breaks bread with us at table.
Why Is This So?
This is so because He is “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”
Not one member of the Godhead – Father, Son, or Holy Spirit – lives by or to Himself. Each one lives in perfect communion with the other members of the Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each complete and distinct persons, yet, each one’s completeness is interwoven in the shared life of the Trinity.
God has formed you in His image – you are an image-bearer of God, formed to reveal Him to the world. As such, God the Trinity did not form you to live by or to yourself, but, like Him, to walk in communion with others in Him, always in and for Him. It is in so doing that we fulfill our formation – and His will for our lives: as Jesus said, “Holy Father, . . . that they may be one as We are” (John 17.11).
Just for a moment, let’s look more closely at this “unity prayer” of Jesus, recorded in John 17:
John 17.21-25: “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.”
Jesus prays not for one individual but for all who follow Him throughout all time in all the world, including the Eleven. But to help us make the text easier to apply to our lives – more local, more personal – let’s focus on it as a prayer just for the Eleven.
And, to make it even more easy to apply it to our lives, let’s imagine that we and ten of our closest friends make up the Eleven for whom Jesus prays – ten fellow Christians, ten members of a discipleship group, or ten vocational ministers who are members of the same ministry. So, when you read the words “the Eleven,” see yourself and your chosen circle of Christian friends or colleagues.
In His prayer, Jesus makes a series of statements and requests, all of them focused on the communion of this community of believers, the Eleven:
In verse 21, Jesus prays that we, the Eleven, will be one in unity.
- What does this unity look like? Jesus says it looks like the unity of the Father and Son.
- From where does this unity come? He states it comes from us, the Eleven, being in the united Father and Son.
- What is the goal or fruit of our unity (the Eleven)? Jesus says the world will believe the Father sent the Son.
In verse 22, Jesus says the Father gave a glory to the Son that the Son has given to the Eleven:
- Why have the Father and Son done this? Jesus replies that this glory will do the work of uniting the Eleven as the Father and Son are united.
In verse 23, Jesus states that the Son will be in the Eleven, and the Son will be in the Father:
- Why this blending of heavenly and earthy unity? Jesus says that the world may know the Father has sent the Son, and that the world may know the Father loves the Eleven as the Father loves the Son.
In verse 24, Jesus speaks of His desire that the Eleven be with Him:
- Why does the Son desire that the Eleven be with Him? He says that they may behold His glory, the glory given the Son by the Father.
In verse 25, Jesus declares that the world does not know the righteous Father. But the Son knows Him, and the Eleven know that the righteous Father has sent the Son.
- Why do the Eleven know the righteous Father, but the world does not? Jesus says it is because the Eleven are walking together, united, in the Father and the Son.
Jesus says that true unity among His followers looks like the oneness of the Father and the Son and that this is so because their unity comes from the oneness of the Father and Son. This unity reveals the righteous God and His glory to us, a glory that draws us even more deeply into the unity that is enjoyed by the Father and Son and given to us. This unity will reveal the glory of God to the world – by this, the world will not only know we are Christians but that God is God, great and glorious, worthy of all praise.
FINAL THOUGHT
As the heartbeat of the communing Trinity in heaven becomes the heartbeat of our faith communities on earth, we fully know and enjoy this triune God. As the pulse of the communing Trinity becomes our pulse, we will desire to share life’s journey with other believers in a unity that is both caused by and mirrors the communion of the Trinity.
God has formed each of us to live in communion with other disciples of Jesus Christ. It is in doing so that each of us, individually and corporately, open Charnock’s Easter egg and doing so, experience the power of the truth He shares:
“. . . we shall find a silent likeness pass in upon us; the beauty of God will, by degrees, enter upon our soul.”
Amen. Even so, let it be, oh God.
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