The glory of the LORD #2

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Heb. 1:1-3

As we noted in part 1, the glory of Lord speaks about His essential nature and being, sometimes manifested in a physical way. When we turn to the New Testament we see that God now reveals Himself in and through His Son, Jesus the Messiah. This is God's supreme manifestation of Himself to mankind:

Jn. 1:14 - "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth".
Jn. 2:11 - "This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed Him".
Lk. 9:32 - ".. and when they were awake, they saw His glory" - this being at Jesus' transfiguration.

Jesus the Son of God came to this earth to give us a fuller revelation of the glory of God. That glory was expressed in His person, through the signs that He did and in particular that glory was expressed through the cross, which in John's gospel becomes the "hour" of His glory (see Jn. 12:27-33). And it is at the cross that we see the greatest and fullest expression of the character and glory of God. At the cross we see His love manifested in that He sent His only Son to die there for us; and at the cross we see His wrath manifested as Jesus took the sin of the world upon Himself and became the propitiation for our sins. Just as when God revealed His name to Moses (Ex.34:5-7) and that name expressed both His love and His wrath so at the cross we again see these two aspects of God's character. Aspects which are actually essential elements of His true being, if we exalt one to the exclusion of the other we misrepresent the true character of God. Too many churches these days put too much emphasis on the love of God and try to do away with His wrath, the result is that many congregations have the wrong idea of God.
If we really want to know Him we must look to the cross and see and attempt to understand His wrath against sin and then see His amazing love in sending His Son to take the punishment for sin on our behalf. As the rainbow reveals its brightness against the dark rain clouds, so God reveals the wonder of His love against the dark backdrop of sin and condemnation, you can't see the rainbow without the black clouds, you can't understand God's love without understanding His wrath.

In the Old Testament the glory appeared in the tabernacle and in the temple as a sign that the Lord was dwelling among His people. Jesus "became flesh and dwelt among us", the Lord of glory (1Cor.2:8) has appeared to us as a man, as the light of the world that all may have an opportunity to see Him, and in seeing Him believe in Him and know the joy of His great salvation.
In our churches then Jesus, the Lord of Glory ought to be present, He promised after all that where two or three were gathered in His name He would be in their midst (Matt. 18:20). It is when we gather in His name that He is present. To gather in His name means to be true to His name and character, to glorify Him by worshipping Him in spirit and truth. We can't expect Him to be present if His name is dishonoured by false gospels and false representations of His true character.

Eph. 2:23 - The church is the "dwelling place of God in the Spirit", it is the place where God chooses to glorify His name in this present age. God is with His people through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
2Cor. 3:7 - 4:7 has much to tell us about God's glory and is worth further study, here we will just note the main points:

The ministry of the Spirit is more glorious than the glory that was revealed through the ministry of Moses (3:7-11). There were great and awesome manifestations of the glory of LORD in the Old Testament times. The glory revealed now far excels that.
The glory is veiled to unbelievers: The Old Testament can not now by itself reveal the glory of God (3:14,15), but that veil is removed when one turns to Christ (3:16). Satan blind the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the glory of Christ (4:4), that veil is removed through the gospel, so Satan does not want the true gospel to be preached.
The gospel reveals the light of the glory of Christ (4:4). If we want others to see the glory of Christ we must preach the gospel, and preach it truthfully and faithfully according to the word. If you want to see a good example of true gospel preaching read Acts 2 and look at what Peter said about Jesus.
Believers have the glory of God shining in their hearts (4:6,7). This is a truly wonderful thing, God dwells in our hearts by faith, in our beings we carry around "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ", Paul calls this a "treasure in earthen vessels". What an honour, what a fantastic privilege, God is now revealing the glory of His being to the world through His people, we are the lights of His glory in this dark world of sin, it is through us that the glory of the LORD is being revealed to all flesh (Isa. 40:5). That causes us to ask ourselves some questions - Am I being true to Him in presenting His true character to others? Am I conducting myself as one of His children in holiness and righteousness? My body is His temple, am I allowing it to be defiled by sin and unrighteous thoughts and deeds? Yes a wonderful privilege, but also an awesome responsibility.
We see the glory through a mirror (3:18), we cannot yet see the full glory of our God, though we see it in a far greater way than the people of the Old Testament yet we still cannot bear its fullness. That must wait until we ourselves have been purified and can see Him as He is for we shall then be like Him (1Jn. 3:2,3). His glory is veiled to the world but one day all will see Him coming in the clouds with great power and glory (Mk.13:26) and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil.2:11).

What does all this mean for our church meetings?
We should want our meetings to be times when people come and meet with the Lord Jesus, Jesus Himself wants to be present at our meetings. The word tells us that the church is God's dwelling place.
He will be present if we are giving Him the glory that is due His name. We can do that by preaching the truth of the gospel, by teaching the truth about Jesus, by teaching the truth about God and His character, not trying to fit Him into our mould. We must allow the Holy Spirit to move among us, exalting and glorifying Jesus. As we do these things the veil will be lifted from our eyes and from the eyes of unbelievers who come among us and in his temple we will shout, "Glory".

In Numbers 14:20-23 the LORD rebukes and punishes the men of Israel because they had seen His glory and the signs which He did but they did not heed His voice. Seeing God's glory ought to do something to us, we should be ready to serve Him in trust and obedience, we should fall down and worship Him, repenting of our sins, acknowledge our unworthiness and in thankfulness surrender our lives to Him and His purposes. And this perhaps is the greatest evidence that God is in our midst and is being given the glory due to His name - true disciples who love Jesus with all their hearts and are willing to do anything He asks of them, only wanting that all the glory and honour should go to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins.

Is this evidence being manifested in your church?
Is the glory of the Lord present in your meetings?
Is your life exhibiting the glory of the Lord?
Let's ask ourselves these questions and if we find ourselves lacking take steps to be sure we are truly glorifying God both in our personal lives and in our fellowship's meetings.