The Path Of Life.

That he should be abundantly recompensed for his sufferings, with the joy set before him, Psalm 16:11. He was well assured, That he should not miss of his glory: "Thou wilt show me the path of life, and lead me to that life through this darksome valley." In confidence of this, when he gave up the ghost, he said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit and, a little before, Father, glorify me with thy own self. That he should be received into the presence of God, to sit at his right hand. His being admitted into God's presence would be the acceptance of his service and his being set at his right hand the recompence of it. Thus, as a reward for the sorrows he underwent for our redemption, he should have a fulness of joy, and pleasures for evermore not only the glory he had with God, as God, before all worlds, but the joy and pleasure of a Mediator, in seeing his seed, and the success and prosperity of his undertaking, Isaiah 53:10,11.

Christ being the Head of the body, the church, these verses may, for the most part, be applied to all good Christians, who are guided and animated by the Spirit of Christ and, in singing them, when we have first given glory to Christ, in whom, to our everlasting comfort, they have had their accomplishment, we may then encourage and edify ourselves and one another with them, and may hence learn.

That it is our wisdom and duty to set the Lord always before us, and to see him continually at our right hand, wherever we are, to eye him as our chief good and highest end, our owner, ruler, and judge, our gracious benefactor, our sure guide and strict observer and, while we do thus, we shall not be moved either from our duty or from our comfort. Blessed Paul set the Lord before him, when, though bonds and afflictions did await him, he could bravely say, None of these things move me, Acts 20:24.

That, if our eyes be ever towards God, our hearts and tongues may ever rejoice in him it is our own fault if they do not. If the heart rejoice in God, out of the abundance of that let the mouth speak, to his glory, and the edification of others.

That dying Christians, as well as a dying Christ, may cheerfully put off the body, in a believing expectation of a joyful resurrection: My flesh also shall rest in hope. Our bodies have little rest in this world, but in the grave they shall rest as in their beds, Isaiah 57:2. We have little to hope for from this life, but we shall rest in hope of a better life we may put off the body in that hope. Death destroys the hope of man (Job 14:19), but not the hope of a good Christian, Proverbs 14:32. He has hope in his death, living hopes in dying moments, hopes that the body shall not be left for ever in the grave, but, though it see corruption for a time, it shall, at the end of the time, be raised to immortality Christ's resurrection is an earnest of ours if we be his.

That those who live piously with God in their eye may die comfortably with heaven in their eye. In this world sorrow is our lot, but in heaven there is joy. All our joys here are empty and defective, but in heaven there is a fulness of joy. Our pleasures here are transient and momentary, and such is the nature of them that it is not fit they should last long but those at God's right hand are pleasures for evermore for they are the pleasures of immortal souls in the immediate vision and fruition of an eternal God. - Matthew Henry