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The gospel! — "the glorious gospel!" whence did it come? Its birth-place was the bosom of God. What its end and aim? To save a world of souls. Whence does it rescue? From the fellowship and destinies of hell. Whither does it lead? Back to its birth-place — to heaven — to God. The single inquiry into the reason and propriety of the epithet here bestowed upon the gospel — "the glorious gospel." Let this then be our point, to prove that the gospel is a "glorious" scheme — a "glorious gospel." "The glorious gospel!" What is it to be "glorious"? Need I define this to you? — need I tell you what it is to be physically, what it is to be morally "glorious"? Who can need that I define to him the term "glorious," as applied to natural things, that has seen the bright orb of heaven shedding abroad his noon-day splendour? Who that has gazed upon the mighty sea, as it careered along, so bold, so free, so wild, gilded but untamed by that bright orb's beams? Or who so lost, I say, not to religion, but to all sense of moral beauty and grandeur, as to see no glory, no dignity, no greatness, in virtue? And the "gospel" is "glorious!" Why? It is "glorious," I observe —

I. IN ITS AUTHOR. Think you that even the most presumptuous hope would have whispered, that perhaps the very Being whom he had offended would Himself bear the penalty, that his Judge would perhaps be his Saviour, that grace should flow to him and his race through the blood-shedding of the only begotten Son of God, the Son in the bosom of the Father — God Himself? No; the brain of man devised not the "glorious gospel" — the heart of man conceived it not!

II. The gospel was "glorious" IN ITS MEDIATOR. Now this notion that such a free pardon, such a remission of the penalty of guilt, would have been a "glorious" act on God's part, is derived from human analogy, but so far from being a "glorious" act, it would have sullied the brightness of God's glory for ever, for He would have denied Himself, would have appeared before His creation as a Being uttering threatenings which He had no final and real intention of executing. Mercy might have been magnified, but to a woful disparagement of justice and holiness and truth. But "Jesus" is "the Mediator of the new Covenant" — He who is "so much better than the angels" — the Creator and "heir of all things" — the "Beloved Son" — the "very and eternal God!" How "glorious" a gospel flowing through such a mediation! how great the price of its salvation!

III. The gospel is "glorious" IN ITS OBJECTS AND RESULTS. It is the gospel of salvation, a "gospel of peace," It finds God and man at variance — God offended, man lost. How "glorious" then the object of the gospel — to reconcile God and man — to offer salvation, not to the Jew only, but to all the world — to utter a cry free as the air we breathe: "Ho, every one that thirsteth!" But how "glorious" its results! And these, in all their eternal fulness, who shall tell? But how "glorious" now! — how "glorious" Christ Jesus in the heart, "the hope of glory!" — how "glorious" to see "the Ethiopian change his skin, and the leopard his spots!" — to see the "blasphemer," the "persecutor, and injurious," preach "the faith which once he destroyed!" — how glorious to hear the savage gaoler cry: "What must I do to be saved?" But time shall one day be no longer, and shall the gospel glory be entombed in the grave of time? Bather shall its glorious results then truly begin.

IV. The gospel is "glorious" AS CONTRASTED WITH THE LAW. See, then, the glory of the gospel as a scheme of salvation for man, when contrasted with the law. See the law demanding (and that justly) what man cannot render — hear it, as the penalty of non-fulfilment and disobedience, proceed to call for vengeance, the death of the transgressor. See the gospel not only not refusing to recognize man's need, and frailty, as a lost sinner, but taking man up at this very point, the pinching point of his need, that he is a lost sinner. The very object, then, of the gospel is to vindicate God's law, and yet save the transgressor of that law, to exhibit a God all-just as a God all-merciful. But the gospel is more "glorious" yet! for as its only source was the grace of God, as God only "gave His only begotten Son" up to the death, because "He so loved the world," so from first to last is the gospel one of grace, and grace alone. But the gospel is more "glorious" yet! The law, we saw, had no pardon to bestow, no righteousness to give, still less could it restore the fallen nature, renew the alienated heart, or rectify the perverted and biassed will. It could not purify the springs of action. No law does this. But the Spirit of Christ to sanctify, no less than the righteousness of Christ, and the blood-shedding of Christ to justify, is the gift of the gospel. Such is the gospel — so "glorious " to God, so "glorious" to man.

(J. C. Miller, M. A.)

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KJV: According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

WEB: according to the Good News of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.