GLORY
© Paul Brydson  
The Church of God in Williamstown
WEB SITE: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~sanhub/index_.htm

EXPERIENCES OF GLORY
We were camped on a ridge in a clearing in a rhododendron forest. It was our third day out, and up until then the weather had been fine, though cloudy. That night we had stood around predicting, willing, hoping that the weather would be clear and sunny the next day. The following morning I woke up at about 5 o'clock. It was still dark. Trying not to disturb my tent-mate, I spun around in my sleeping bag to the door of our tent, slowly undid the zip and then poked my head outside. What I saw was a sight I can never forget. A near full moon was shining, and everything was perfectly still. I could see down into the valley below, and it shimmered in the moonlight like a soft silk curtain. And sitting on this silk curtain, like a shining ghostly apparition, soared the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas. They were about 15 miles away, and yet their snowy garments glowed like a string of gigantic pearls suspended in mid-air against the dull, velvety-black sky. I lay there in my sleeping bag, just staring in wonder at the panorama as the emerging sunlight slowly took over from the moonlight and turned the snow from its pearly luminescence into a soft purple, to pink, to fiery-red and then to brilliant white.

An awesome encounter with the grandeur of nature can leave us stammering for superlatives to describe it: majestic, glorious, magnificent.

Most of us have not experienced war, yet what must it be like to be in a country experiencing war? You see a huge army steamroll through your town. There is the general in his uniform, riding in his staff car, followed by numerous officers and accompanied by hundreds of ground troops carrying machine guns that could cut you down in a second. There are tanks thundering, machine guns on trucks, rocket launchers and lorries. Helicopters and jets scream overhead. We have seen such scenes on TV or in movies, but what would it be like to see such a force pound through your home town? A military convoy. What words would adequately describe what you would feel in such an experience? Awe? Terror?

Yet there are other forms of glory. Imagine being invited into the trophy room of some famous sportsman and seeing the records of the glory of his achievements. Or what would it be like coming into the glorious presence of a great king?

All that wealth, power, and wisdom (2Ch 9:13-26; Mt 6:28-29)! How would you feel coming into the presence of a man who controlled all this? Yet Christ tells us that Solomon, in all his glory, was no comparison in glory to a flower in the field.

I've mentioned the glory of the creation that God has made, the glory of an army, the glory of a sportsman, the glory of an earthly king blessed by God. However, what would it be like to experience the Glory of God?

THE GOD OF GLORY
God is called the "God of glory" (Acts 7:2). Psalm 8 says that His Name is majestic (Ps 8:1), and other scriptures tell us that His Name is glorious (1Chr 29:13; Neh 9:5; Ps 8:1; Ps 79:9; Rev 15:4). We are told in Psalm 76 that He is more glorious and majestic than the everlasting mountains (Ps 76:4). So let's consider the Glory of God.

THE VOICE OF THE LORD

Have you ever been near the seashore with a strong wind blowing and the huge sea pounding (Ps 93:3-4)? You have to shout to make yourself heard. The raging waters are like the activities of men (Ps 46:2-3; 65:7). God says He will make Himself heard above all the clamour of man's ceaseless activity (Job 37:1-5; Isa 30:30). The expression of God's words is not like that of man's empty words. It cannot be ignored. Rather, it is to be compared to the crash of thunder over the chaos of the world, and to the speed of lightning in its fierceness and suddenness of execution. When God speaks, His voice shakes the earth. This has happened before (Ex 20:18-20), and it will happen again (Hag 2:21; Heb 12:25-26). God smashes what seems strong and noble, but is actually wicked and overbearing (Ps 37:35). He makes what seems so immovable to dance like a scared fool. This is what the voice of God is going to do. How do we compare to such a Being? THE "DAY OF THE LORD"
God's right hand, on the other hand, can save and can put the wicked in their place. Isaiah tells us that God has a time marked when He will do just that: People complain, "Why doesn't God do something about all the evil in the world?" Like an army that obliterates its enemy, the glory of God's power will smash every form of human pride and arrogance, and then people will be terrified because God's has acted so totally against the evil of the world, and has shown the magnitude of His ability to act. MOSES' EXPERIENCE OF GOD'S GLORY
God's ability to deal with evil is all part of His glory. Moses saw another aspect of God's glory. So Moses experienced both the glory of the brilliance of the Lord's presence, and the glory of God's character—that He is merciful and gracious, patient, filled with goodness and truth, forgiving, yet also holding accountable the guilty who are stubborn in their sins. The phrase, "God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children", does not mean that He punishes children for the sins of their fathers, or causes children to inherit the sins of their fathers. God hates that accusation against Him (Ezk 18:1-4,20-24; Jer 31:29-30). Rather, it is stating that God holds you accountable if you follow in the bad example of your father. Blaming your parents for your bad behaviour does not hold up in God's court of law!

THE GLORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Just as the glory of God came to dwell in the tabernacle and temple, so too the glory of God dwelt in Jesus Christ who tabernacled among men. We are told that the apostles beheld His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (Jn 1:14). He manifested His glory through miracles like turning water into wine; as wine gladdens the hearts of men, so too He brought good news to gladden the hearts of men (Jn 2:11). Another of His miracles was raising Lazarus from the dead.

It is too easy to read over these verses and not stop to appreciate the glory they reveal. How glorious and wondrous was that act! And He is going to do it again, on a huge scale!

Jesus Christ manifested God's glory in life. In death also, He was crowned with glory.

The manner in which Christ cared for the well-being of His mother in the depths of His suffering; the manner in which He bore scorn, mocking and spitting without reviling in return; the comfort He provided for His neighbour crucified beside Him; the courage with which He faced the whole ordeal—these all reveal aspects of the glory of God. It was His worst and yet His finest hour, as He laid down his life for the world. Thus He is called the "Lord of Glory" (1Co 2:8).

Then after His death, He was raised from the dead by the Father's glory:

We are told that He was taken up in glory (1Ti 3:16), and was given glory (Acts 3:13; Php 2:9; 1Pe 1:21). He will return in glory, and will be seated on His glorious throne. Everything God does is glorious, never half-hearted, never mediocre. It is always glorious. Jesus Christ's glory came through completing the work God had given Him. THE TRANSFIGURATION
Let's now consider an experience the apostles were given of Christ's glory: the Transfiguration. Compare Mt 16:28—" the Son of Man coming in His kingdom"—and Mk 9:1—"before they see the kingdom of God has come with power". So God the Father, as encouragement to help the apostles through the difficulties that lay immediately ahead, is about to give them an experience of the glory of the return of Christ and the realisation of His kingdom! —which is interesting, because earlier they had been discussing who Jesus Christ was; was He Elijah or was He another resurrected prophet? He wasn't Elijah, and he wasn't Moses, because here they were talking to Christ! Christ isn't Elijah, and He isn't a risen prophet. He is the promised prophet like Moses, to whom all people must listen: So this was a witness to the apostles that Jesus Christ was the fulfilment of this promise. Moses, like Christ, underwent a transformation on a mountain. Paul explains the relevance for us of this experience of Moses: MAN IS TO GLORIFY GOD
And so likewise is it for us. We are called to become glorious. Sounds corny, but that's what it says. Glory comes through being selected and then called to a certain purpose, being prepared to fulfil that calling, and then succeeding in that purpose (Ro 8:30; 2Ti 2:21). God has predestined His saints for glory (Eph 1:18-19). In discussing the confusion some people have between free-will and predestination, Paul states: However, this is something we chose. We are not mindless tools manipulated by God! However, Paul tells us in Romans that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Ro 3:23). When we become wise in our own eyes, we change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man (Ro 1:22; Jn 7:18; 1Thes 2:6). We are not to glory in ourselves, but in our relationship with God, and also with others. Indeed, Proverbs tells us that seeking our own glory is no glory at all. We can only overlook a transgression if we are seeking something greater than our own personal glory. Paul sought the glory of others. The growth of others was his crown and glory (1Thes 2:20). And so he tells us that we should seek glory through well-doing (Ro 2:7). In the use of our every gift, we are to glorify God: We are to glorify God in everything we do, in body and spirit (1Co 6:20), in eating or drinking (1Co 10:31), in life and in death (Php 1:20). It is God's will that He be glorified in His servants. It is man's duty to glorify God. THE PROTESTANT HERITAGE: A CONTRAST
Let me bring in a contrast to what I have been describing up until now.

In his book "Fear of Freedom", Erich Fromm discusses the cultural environment that contributed to the Reformation in the 1500-1600's. The breakdown of the medieval system of feudalism had major impacts on all classes of society. One was that man was now seemingly free. This freedom had a twofold result. He was now free to act and to think independently, to become his own master and do with his life as he could—not as he was told to do. But this same freedom left him feeling alone, isolated and anxious. He was deprived of the security and sense of belonging that went with having a predefined place in his society.

This is very much where we find ourselves today. We are not limited to a career or status or location because of the family into which we are born. Just because my father was a truck driver does not mean that I was destined to also become a truck driver.

Fromm describes how this freedom brought isolation and personal insignificance more than it did strength and confidence. Today, many people feel like a cog in a huge machine. Protestantism validated these feelings of insignificance that people felt amidst the social upheavals they were experiencing. Martin Luther taught that because of man's inherent evil, it was only by humiliating himself to the utmost, by giving up every vestige of individual will, by renouncing and denouncing his individual strength, that he could hope to be accepted by God. If he completely submitted by accepting his individual insignificance, then the all-powerful God might be willing to love and save him. In this way, Luther gave a perverse goodness to these feelings of insignificance created by social conditions.

Fromm also describes how Calvin's teaching on predestination expressed and enhanced the feeling of individual powerlessness and insignificance. He claims that no doctrine could express more strongly than Calvin's the worthlessness of human effort and will. The decision over man's fate is taken completely out of his own hands and there is nothing he can do to change this decision. He is a powerless tool in God's hands.

The other result of the Protestant teaching to emerge at this time was to lead people to capitulate before authority and to relinquish the principle that authority is not justified because of its mere existence if it contradicts moral principles. How many have not understood this in our day? In making the individual feel worthless and insignificant as far as his own merits are concerned, in making him feel like a powerless tool in the hand of God, it deprived man of the self-confidence and the feeling of human dignity which is the premise for any firm stand against oppressing authorities. This is part of the heritage of our society.

And so, according to Fromm, out of the social upheavals of the sixteenth century, Protestantism made feelings of insignificance into a virtue pleasing to God. And how rampant is this feeling of insignificance today! And how Christians hold on to feelings of insignificance as a perverse humility, a sickening and debilitating alternative to arrogance!

THE REALITY AND HOPE OF GLORY
As we should work to glorify God, so He works to glorify us. He therefore cannot view us as insignificant. Such a view is a blasphemy against the love of God.

In everything we do, we are to express this glory given to us. This was the apostle Paul's goal: He likewise tells us: Glory for us is a present reality and a future hope (Ro 8:17). We know that we receive the fullness of that glory when Christ returns, because then we will appear with Him in glory (Col 3:4; 2Thes 1:10). As we read in 2Co 3, that process of transformation should have already begun (2Co 3:18), through the Holy Spirit and by wisdom. So let us allow the Scriptures to encourage us to find this hidden wisdom. It is for our glory that we search out these hidden things:

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