January 9, 2001
I'm not sure I can make this make sense today but I'm going to try. I started in Isaiah 6 looking at something entirely different this morning and I got pleasantly sidetracked with thoughts of the Glory of the Lord, what that means and how you describe it... what I realized is I can't, and maybe that is God's point....
I looked up all the scriptures that referenced the "glory of the Lord" and saw how awe inspiring God's presence was to the people. It completely filled wherever it was, came with thunderous imagery - made a powerful impact. Ezekiel tried to explain what he saw in Ezekiel 1 he gives us absolutely fantastic imagery and at the end he says that this was "...the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God" (Ez 1:28) God and his presence are so far beyond what we can comprehend.. truly he is awesome (a sadly overused word) and awe inspiring. When people saw the glory of the Lord they felt their unworthiness and fell face down before God!!
That did make me look at Hebrews 1:3 a little different.. "the son is the radiance of god's Glory..." I've always look at that as saying that Jesus is God's character exemplified and stopped there.. but its sooooo much more. How differently I should look at Jesus now. Another big thought that will only get a little space here is that the glory of God, his presence, filled Jerusalem and filled the temple in the OT scriptures... in the NT scriptures the church is Jerusalem and we are the temple. We should be full of God's Glory... this takes on a whole new very deep meaning. 2 Corinthians 3:18 " we with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's Glory..." WOW!