The Glory of God

"If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here." Moses implored God, "For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Thy sight?" He asked, "Please, show me Your glory."

You've likely heard the story-- This ordinary man asked to see God's glory. But God showed him neither a flash of light nor a peal of thunder. Instead, He revealed His "goodness" and "mercy". By faith, Moses saw that God's person and His glory are one and the same.

Philip asked a similar question, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." (Jn 14:8) Jesus gave a similar answer, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me?" Philip knew the truth, so Jesus pressed a little further, instructing him to, "believe" (Jn 14:11). His answer to Philip revealed the only way anyone can ever comprehend the glory of God. We must believe in Jesus. The glory of the Father is His Son (Heb 1:3).

Now, listen to the reason God gave for granting Moses' request: "You have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name." (Ex 33:15-18). We've all been asking the same thing for the same reasons: "Show us your glory--show us the Father and it will be enough. Then we'll know we've found favor in your sight". In other words, "What I have now, God, is not enough. Give me something real, something I can touch, handle, display, and prove." Our ideas about God, even sound ones, are not enough. Like Moses and Philip, we need the love, affirmation and acceptance that only God can provide. It has to come directly from Him, because He's the only one who knows everything about us. He knows us "by name".

We are often disappointed. We plead, "Show us your glory, Lord. Show us the Father." Yet God does not come down as we hoped, in a blazing pillar of fire, a heavy cloud, or a flurry of miracles. We long to see Him, searching the heavens, searching the Bible, searching the churches, looking for Him because nothing else is enough. God's answer remains the same, "I'm already with you. I know you by name. I've been with you for so long, don't you know me?"

The only way to comprehend the glory of God is to get to know Him. By faith, abandon religion as a hobby and embrace real life. Jesus plainly revealed the glory of the Father to His disciples (Jn 17:3-6). We often forsake the glory of God that surrounds us because we misunderstand it. We long to see God, and at the same time, we devalue the fact that He is already with us. We can recite the verse that says we all fall short of God's glory, but now that He has saved us, few expect to see ever increasing glory (2Cor 3:18). Our pre-conceived notions are getting in the way. We have found grace in His sight, and He has raised us up, together in Christ. When you see Him as He is, you will see his glory, and it will be enough.

You have not been shortchanged. God did not reveal more of His glory to others and hide Himself from you. In the Old Testament, God's glory was marvelous, but unapproachable. The New Covenant on the other hand, reveals God's glory through a relationship that is "exceedingly abundant" because it is "in Christ Jesus" (1Tim 1:14).

"Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?" (Jn 11:40)

In the Old Testament we see vivid images of God. The word "glory" is translated from words which convey meanings such as "weight" and "heaviness" lending itself to the idea of worth or wealth; dignity, preeminence or majesty. But most importantly, the word glory is used to describe occurrences of the self-manifestation of God. It is His moral beauty and perfection as a substantive, sometimes visible presence, actively involved in the lives of real people. Such displays of the presence of God are often seen as fire, smoke, clouds, dazzling light, or an act of power (Ex 13:21; Lev 9:23, 24; 1 Kings 8:11; Ex 14). But more than this, because God’s glory is a display of His presence, it is foremost a display of His personality. It is the splendor of perfect holiness and relentless love. Combining this with His greatness and authority, we see the composition of His attractiveness and His exalted position—His dignity, His countenance.

Philip asked, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." (John 14:8) Jesus responded, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me?" Everything Philip needed from the Father was standing right in front of him but he couldn't see it. He had formed an opinion of God that didn't line up with reality. When he came face to face with the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ, his false expectations distracted him from the truth (Jn 17:3-6). Philip was looking for a glorious miracle, but overlooked the miracle of Emanuel, God with us.

We've read about God in the Bible and we've experienced His activity in our lives. For all of us there is some disconnect between what we've believed about God and the reality of our circumstances. That gap is filled with disappointment, disillusion and mistrust. The Bible is true and our circumstances are real. What needs to change is the way we think about both. As hard as we we've tried to conform our lives to the story, like a bad B movie, we haven't got His character right. As God reveals His presence and His character through Christ in us, we discover who He really is. He is not the god of our imaginations! As we lay down our assumptions, imaginations, and pre-suppositions we stop imposing our false opinions on God and filtering the Bible through them. As Philip learned, to get to know God we must believe in Jesus, who is "the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature". (Heb 1:3)

Under the New Covenant we have intimacy and unity with God that wasn't available in the Old Testament. The meaning of the word "glory" changes to become more personal and practical. Glory is translated from the Greek words, doxa or dokeo, meaning an "opinion" (always good), "praise", "honor", or forms of the word "suppose" and "think". God’s glory is simply defined as an understanding of God that is true; a personal opinion of God that is consistent with who He truly is. With all the fullness of God's presence revealed in His Son, we abide in Him as He lives in us. God's glory and His person are one and the same. To the degree you can see "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27), your life will be transformed by the glory of God. You will see God in ways that are real, personal, credible, and believable.

God's glory is the self-manifestation of His own person--the reputation He has built with you as He reveals Himself through real circumstances (see Exod 14:4; 16:7-13). Our personal opinions shape what we believe about God, and false opinions distort the truth about who He is (Rom 1:23). To give God glory is to hold a personal opinion of God that is consistent with the reality of His person, or His personality (1Pet 4:14). The glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ makes God approachable for any who are willing to believe: "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them" (John 17:22). To the degree you can see "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27), your life will be transformed by the glory of God. You will see the glory of God in ways that are real, personal, credible, and believable.

Most of us haven't given much thought to understanding exactly what the Bible means when it speaks of God's glory, but consider its importance in light of statements like "it was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (II Th 2:14) and "whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31). These two verses alone show that lacking an understanding of what God's glory is, we could not even begin to know the basic purpose for which we were saved, or what it means to live the Christian life. We were called by the gospel for the purpose of obtaining a true knowledge of who He is and whatever we do, let it reflect what we know to be true about Him. God reveals His glory so that, "You shall know that [He is] the LORD your God" (Exod 14:4;16:7-13) "for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever" (Rom 11:36).

"And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory. So I will consecrate the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. I will also consecrate both Aaron and his sons to minister to Me as priests. I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the LORD their God." (Exod 29:43-46)

When God met with His children, He set them apart for Himself by His own glory. Why? So he could "dwell among them" because He is "the LORD their God." He is transforming your personal opinions about Him, through a revelation of His glory so you can walk in the truth. What you believe about God determines how you respond to Him. When you behold the glory of the Lord you are increasingly "transformed into the same image from glory to glory" (2Cor 3:18). You are in Christ and His Spirit is in you. God is not far away; His glory is not a mystical experience that others have seen but which has been withheld from you because "all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us" (2 Cor 1:20).

You have, in fact, become "the temple of the living God," the very place His glory resides! (Eph 3:16-19, 2Cor 6:16) "that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height--to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph 3:16-19).

[The Father] chose us in [Jesus] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. (Eph 1:4-6)

Many people read verses like these and all they see is the concept of predestination. The truly significant content of these verses is not that we are predestined, but what we were destined to become. A true understanding of what, or should I say, who God destined us to become in Christ requires genuine faith. Endless speculation about what God did will reduce your religion to nothing more than a hobby. You can spend your life making guesses about predestination or you can accept your destiny. One is an exercise in distracted faith, the other is practical application of the gospel to real life. Jesus is the destination and the kingdom of Heaven is upon you.

Read it again, carefully: Holy and without blame before Him. Adopted as sons. Accepted in the Beloved. Here is a test of how well you have actually applied the gospel of Jesus Christ to your life.

Do you believe you are truly holy and blameless in His sight, or do you see only faults, failures and weaknesses because you're seeing yourself through your own self-estimation, denying the true spiritual reality of how the Father sees you in Christ?
Do you walk in the freedom and acceptance of a son, or do you practice slavish obedience to religious laws, rules and regulations in an attempt to earn the right to dwell in His house?
Do you believe you are accepted in the Beloved (Jesus), or are you on the outside, convinced God accepts you less than He accepts Jesus?
You may have spent years wrenching out logical explanations of the doctrines of predestination, but if you can't answer the above questions with complete confidence in God's actual favor and acceptance, you have missed your destiny. If you are indeed in Christ, the Father sees you as a holy and blameless son whom He has accepted in Jesus.

Now this is all "to the praise of the glory of His grace". Applying the New Testament definition of glory to the revelation of who we are in Christ: this is all to the praise of a true knowledge of who God is because by His grace He has accepted us in Jesus.

For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Cor 4:6)

We've read about God in the Bible and seen His activity in our lives. We all experience some disconnect between what we've believed about God and the reality of our circumstances. That gap is filled with disappointment, disillusion and mistrust. Most of us haven't given much thought to what the Bible means when it speaks of God's glory. To many of us, "glory" is just a word. But the New Testament repeatedly links the revelation of the glory of God to everyday life (1Cor 10:31, 2Pet 1:3) and the trials we all go through:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Rom 8:18)

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor 4:17)

You've experienced the trials, but have you seen the glory? We've asked God to show us His glory, but in the face of difficult circumstances, we're often disappointed. Misunderstanding leads to false expectations. Could it be we've been looking for the wrong thing? The purpose of your trials and the revelation of God's glory is not to reveal to the world what a good Christian you are, but to reveal to the world what a great Savior Jesus Christ is. God's glory and His person are one and the same.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the [true knowledge of God's person] which shall be revealed in us. (Rom 8:18)

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of [an opinion of God that is consistent with the reality] (2 Cor 4:17)

Understandable glory shows us that the revelation of God's glory in our circumstances is the revelation His personality, not ours. You have thought that the glory of God being revealed in your circumstances meant that you should always do the right thing and come out of it looking good, but in your trials you are faced with repeated failure and weakness. So then, what is the purpose of our trials? It is not to reveal that you are a good person, but that even though you don't deserve it, you are a loved person. "that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? As He says also in Hosea: "I will call them My people, who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved." "And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' there they shall be called sons of the living God." (Rom 9:23-26)

Peter identifies the purpose of trials as the "proof of your faith" which leads to "praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1Pet 16-7). If you're like most people, some of the trials you're going through are not new. You've been struggling with them for years and getting nowhere. I recommend trying something new. In the midst of your trial, whatever it may be, hold fast to a true knowledge of who Christ is in you. As we saw last week, regardless of your faults, failures and weaknesses you are holy and without blame before the Father. Adopted as sons. Accepted in the Beloved (Eph 4:1-6). Take your eyes off your own performance. See past the false condemnation, defeat and despair to "the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ".

A true knowledge of Jesus Christ makes God's glory understandable and approachable for any who are willing to believe in Him: "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them" (John 17:22). God's glory is the self-manifestation of His own person through those who believe in Jesus, "the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature" (Heb 1:3). Because He lives in you, you have become "the temple of the living God," the very place His glory resides! (Eph 3:16-19, 2Cor 6:16)

However, we tend to think of this in self-centered terms, forgetting that "Christ also loved the church...; that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish" (Eph 5:25-27). To glorify God is to believe in the work of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, accepting the truth about who you are in Him. But it is impossible to see who you are in Christ until you also see that we are all one in Him.

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, (Rom 6:4-5)

Our old self-centered identity was put to death in Christ's body. Since we are raised with Him, we aren't raised back into our own body, that we should live for ourselves, or that the works of the flesh should justify us. On the contrary, we are raised members of the body of Christ, being justified by His life in us. Therefore, we are all members together with one another. For any member of the body of Christ to live only unto ourselves would be a denial the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (2Cor 5:15). Faith in Jesus Christ and unity in Him is the only legitimate basis for church membership and genuine Christian community. "So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another" (Rom 12:5).

The Biblical word for church, "ekklesia" means "assembly". Think of it as a puzzle. When each piece of a puzzle is placed in its rightful position in relation to the other pieces, we say that the puzzle is "assembled". As a result, the entire picture is seen and understood (Eph 4:16). It is the same with Christ and His church. When every member of the assembly contributes the life of Christ within them, a true picture of who God is and what He is doing to redeem the world is manifested, "to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph 3:10-12).

It is essential to understand that the church is not a mere building. The church is more intimate than any organization or denomination. It exceeds the scope of any Sunday meeting. We cannot go to church because you and I are the church! God set us apart for Himself by His own glory so He could dwell among us because He is the Lord our God (Exod 29:43-46). God has placed His church before the whole universe as a display of His own righteousness (Eph 3:10). You are in Christ and His Spirit is in you. God is not far away; His glory is not a mystical experience that others have seen but which has been withheld from you because "all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us" (2 Cor 1:20).