Gold speaks to us here of something that is totally of God and of glass that is transparently pure. May we adapt the latter simile, and suggest that future purity is well illustrated by pure glass, but that our present purity is best described by clear water? For water can readily become clouded with defilement, but no impurity can enter the texture of glass. Our purity today is still liable to change, our purity then will never alter. The "divine nature" imparted to us now is that of pure gold; there is no question about that. But alas, we contribute to it a sorry mixture of dross, to the extent that God's chief work in us is always one of dealing with us by subtraction and removing that dross!
Today in the Church as Christ's body, by the inward working of the Cross of Christ in our lives, God is seeking to eliminate that dross mixture, bringing to the judgment of His death all that which is in us and that is still of ourselves. The only thing we have within our power is to produce dross, only dross and more dross! And that must go, all of it, before we find our place amongst the pure gold of God's eternal city in the Kingdom of God. The final removal takes place when we leave this life for the next. For now, regarding our lives on earth, may it be: 'No longer I but Christ' (Galatians 2:20), for He and He alone is my Gold. He alone is my purity! We need to become as transparent as glass that others see Jesus in us!
