Introduction
This study, “The Glory of the cross” is the deepest and most difficult of all. It is the deepest because of the nature of “glory”, it is the most difficult because of the state of the culture and church in which we live, and our struggle to believe that in Christ we are in the supreme glory (2 Cor 3:18; Eph 3:21; Col 1:27 etc).
It is doubtful whether “glory” is an attribute of God at all; it is more like the climactic manifestation of his attributes. The relevant biblical words (kabod, doxa) mean something like, splendour, honour, radiance, shining. The glory of God radiates through his power, wisdom, love, mercy and each of his attributes but together in their completeness we see the God of glory (Ps 29:3; Acts 7:2).
One of the root meanings for the main Hebrew term for “glory” is “weight” or “heaviness”. God’s glory conveys his absolute importance. The glory of God is endlessly substantial, it can never be trivial, superficial, bland, light, or entertaining.
The whole story line of scripture, and in fact the whole story of the world, is a story enveloped in God’s glory.
God Shares His Glory
Due to sin, especially in an individualistic culture like ours, we struggle to understand glory is a shared reality. In eternity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit share everything together –this is their one mutual glory. We receive an insight into this when we hear Jesus praying, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” (John 17:5) God loves his glory more than anything else because it is the greatest thing he knows.
God creates because he is motivated by glory, “[6 I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, 7] everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”” (Isa 43:6- 7 Compare Rev 4:11). He will end the world in glory,
“the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab 2:14) [Compare Rev 21:11]
Human beings are of special value only because they share the glory of God in a unique way as “the image and glory of God,” (1 Cor 11:7). When God put Adam in Eden he shared his life with him for the purpose of radiating the divine glory. Psalm 8:6 says, “Yet you have made him a little lower than God and crowned him with glory and honor.” The majesty and dignity of created humanity is their share in the attributes of God – his wisdom, power, love, patience etc. God made us so that we may share in his shared eternal happiness, this is the meaning of Eden = “delight” and it is the content of eternal life.
God’s whole Fatherly goodness, wisdom and love was in this warning, “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” (Gen 2:17). The warning was motivated by the purpose of keeping us in his happiness.
Evil Powers and Fallen Man Hate God’s Glory
Satan sought to destroy the majestic work of God in man and the way he schemed to do this was to lie about the divine glory (John 8:44). His story was that God had withheld the tree of knowledge from Adam and Eve because he did not want to share with them the glory of knowing good and evil. He accuses God of lying about the consequences of disobedience. The real truth is that Adam and Eve can have the knowledge of good and evil at no cost to themselves. This would be to be filled with the glory of one’s own life forever.
Sin is intoxicating because it has a glory associated with it – pride is an uplifting feeling, we delight in our physical and mental prowess or beauty (Ps 147:10; 1 John 2:16), humans “receive glory from one another” (John 5:44). All of this gives us a “rush”. [(Remember the comments of an American at the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, 100,000 people giving the salute and shouting “Heil Hitler”, almost swept away with it himself.)]
The cost of delighting in self to the exclusion of delighting in God is however enormous. To sin and “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23) is not simply to be deprived of the good things of God, it is to be handed over to a state of shame that penetrates all dimensions of life.
“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” (Gen 3:7). The wrath of God pours itself out upon the pride of man most specifically in shame. . [(God promises to turn glory into shame. “The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame” (Hos 4:7) “You will have your fill of shame instead o.f glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory!” (Hab 2:16))]
Yet God’s first act for shameful man is to cover him (Gen 3:21), this is a prophecy of things to come.
Shame is the absence of glory because sin brings the “falling short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23). Everyone [Jesus excepted] knows we have never been in any area of life all that we could have been.
During an interview a few years ago on TV, Tim Costello said the worst thing you can be called in our society is “a loser”. Who are the biggest “losers” in our society and who manifests the most shame? ……Australian aborigines drink on average 4x the alcohol consumption of the wider population. (http://web.biz.uwa.edu.au/research/jrconsumers/consumer/cons_article.asp?ArticleID=3 It is not aborigines however that most needs to concern us, there is hope of glory for them.
Idolatry is the attempted human remedy for shame. In scripture, an idol is an object of shame (Psalm 97:7 Isaiah 42:17 Isaiah 44:9 Isaiah 45:16 Jeremiah 10:14. Jeremiah 50:2.’ Jeremiah 51:17 Hosea 10:6). [So powerful is this association that the idol can simply be called, “the thing of shame” (Hos 9:10; Jer 3:24 (Compare the name Ishbaal, which means “man of Baal” is translated Ishbosheth, “man of shame” (2 Samuel 2:8 = 1 Chronicles 8:33).)]
An idol is a false glory that God cannot bear, “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.”(Isa 42:8). The ultimate idol is the human being themselves. I want to use an example that may sound marginal or extreme, but I believe it is a sign of where our city is spiritually.
When the Gay Pride march hits the streets [(and Paris Hilton “accidentally” releases a tape of her having sex with her boyfriend, then girlfriend)] we know we are in the realm described by Paul as “they glory in their shame and their end is destruction” (Phil 3:19). What is being manifested before our eyes is intense spiritual warfare. The forces of evil are actually attempting to wipe out the visibility of the image and glory of God in our society. Spiritually, this is what the stir about gay priests, gay marriage and so on is all about. Human pride is a substitute for God’s cloud of glory and when a culture first tolerates then exults sexual perversion (a sign that the church itself lacks spiritual authority) we are in a very dangerous state indeed.
When human beings “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal… God gives them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, … to dishonourable passions….women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise …committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error…. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Rom 1:20 -32 in part)
When a culture drops so low that it can no longer register shame it cannot be redeemed, only destroyed. This is the biblical importance of Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus said, ““You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (Matt 5:13).
Friedrich Nietzsche, the atheist prophet who grasped what was happening in western civilization 100 plus years ago, said, when God dies, culture becomes weightless i.e. “gloryless”, anything goes, there is no shame. Unbridled greed, indifference to the poor, gluttony, sexual immorality, abortion, cloning, euthanasia, educational nonsense “Triumph of the Airheads” (Outcome Based Education) etc. (1 Cor 6:9- 10). As an old Greek saying has it, “When the gods want to destroy a people, they first send them mad.”
[The deeper we enter into shame the more we deny the existence of the glory of God and the more we have to resort to coping mechanisms that drive us deeper into shame. Article in West Australian 14/11/06 about university students turning to prostitution in Australia to fund their studies, the more significant thing is that some of them are turning to drugs to be able to get through it. .]
Mercifully, God’s glory is God revealing himself and he will not passively let us think less of him than he is. Which would be to think less of ourselves and of the whole created universe. It is impossible that God should allow his glory to be trivialized – at all. Therefore he continues to manifest his glory.
Glory Redeems
The “God of glory” appear to Abraham (Acts 7:2), to Moses, and later Israel, at Sinai (Exod 3; 19), the glory of the LORD fills the Temple (2 Chron 5:14) and so on. When the glory of God is manifest, as it always was above the cherubim in the holiest place of the Temple, the presence and protecting hand of God imparted continuous security and peace. (In relation to the fundamental covenant promise, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” (Ex 6:7’; Jer 11:4; Ezek 36:28 etc.)
The greatest manifestation of the glory of God however was not on mountain tops (compare “mountain top spirituality”) or in stupendous miracles over nature (compare “signs and wonders spirituality”) but in a place not seen by the human eye. Each year, only once, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest went into the most holy place with the sacrificial blood (Lev 16:14) to put that blood on the “mercy seat” (Ex 25:18 -22) while the chamber was enveloped in a cloaking cloud of incense (Lev 16:13). Literally, the “mercy seat” is a “covering” and what it does is to cover sin’s shame so that God can meet with Israel above the outstretched wings of the cherubim in the cloud of glory (Ex 25:22; Lev 16:2). This invisible rite assured Israel that God was still with them, still their God. As long as the High Priest came out alive, the corporate conscience of the nation was cleansed year after year.
Israel’s great terror, or at least the terror of those who held faithful to the prophetic witness, was that she should lose the glory of God. They understood that beyond all the curses of the covenant (Deut 28) – drought, famine, warfare, infertility, disease, poverty, the final and worst judgment was the withdrawal of his glorious covering presence. Wrath is the absence of God’s glory.
When the ark of the covenant is taken captive, the first child born is called Ichabod, “The glory has departed from Israel!” (1 Sam 4:19 – 22) When in vision Ezekiel sees the glory of the Lord depart from Temple and city, he knows the national existence of Israel has been terminated (Ezek 10:18- 19).
The withdrawal of his glory is God’s last resort; it is the last step in a sequence: the populace turn to idols, the priesthood are corrupted by worldly privilege so that they no longer guard the holy places, and the prophets are persecuted.
Christ Images the True Glory
The only one who can turn this around is Jesus, “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) “Son, …is the radiance of the glory of God” (Heb 1:3). All the glory of the Father is revealed in Jesus – this is what he means when he says, “he who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:10). Let me apply “the Father test” as to how well we understand this – go to a prayer meeting and listen to people pray, especially young people, and listen to how often the prayers are addressed to “God” “Lord” “Jesus”, or some combination, compared to “Father”.
More broadly, there is much evidence the church is in shame. It says in Hebrews, “God is not ashamed to be called their God” (11:16); the impact of this on the human conscience is that we are not ashamed to testify to him as our God. The lack of open, vital, persuasive testimony to the God of Jesus tells us that we are living as if God is still ashamed to be our God.
Deep inside, many Christians believe that the Father is a scary person to relate to. Yet the scripture is totally clear, “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor 4: 6) because Jesus has no sin he has no shame and his face = his presence, perfectly radiates the glory of his Father to us.
As such, the devil’s temptation to offer Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory was totally uninteresting (Luke 4:5 -8). He was only interested in the glory that comes “from the only God” (John 5:44). He wanted only to share the life of the Father (John 6:57). How different is the materialism and earthly glory seeking among the children of God in our time – this tells us that the church of our day is (subjectively) covered in shame which it seeks to cover by layer after layer of success, status, wealth, esteem, titles, buildings and so on.
The Glory of the Cross
As he approaches his death (John 12:23 -26), Jesus begins to speak of the cross as the means of his glory.
27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” (John 12:27 –
What then are we to make of the condition of Jesus revealed in his cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). Surely this is Ichabod, surely there is no divine rule in this place, surely the temple of his body is empty of the divine presence, and surely the glory has departed. Yet Jesus is the true priest who has always guarded the holy place, that is, his body (John 2:19), against the least intrusion of anything sinful and idolatrous, he has utterly refused to worship worldly power and has kept himself completely pure for the Father. He is the man without personal shame.
The cost of the cross to the glory of God, that is God’s manifestation to God, is total. Jesus becomes (2 Cor 5:21), to quote the prophetic words of Psalm 22:6, “a worm and no man.” He is one who has nothing in common with God, there is no sharing in the happiness of the Father but he encounters the Father as a nameless and faceless God. “your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” (Isa 59:2) In bearing our sin Jesus is “cast into the outer darkness” where the “worthless servant” weeps and gnashes his teeth (Matt 25:30). This is his final emptying and “making himself nothing” as God (Phil 2:7). The KJV translated this verse as, “he made himself of no reputation”, that is, a person without glory. And what is a person without glory, a person only with shame. Jesus may have despised the shame of being crucified by men (Heb 12:2), but as our substitute he is enveloped in the shame of our separation from the Father. This is the darkness that covers the earth for three hours (Mark 15:3).
The New Testament uses a word about the death of Jesus that is translated in the Old as “mercy seat” (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10 hilasterion). On the cross Jesus is the true High Priest (Heb 2:17) who enters into the holy presence of God – to cover our shame. But unlike the Jewish High Priest, because he is the covering, he has no covering, because he is the sweet aroma of the one true sacrifice (Eph 5:2) he has no cloud of incense, because he is the one who must die naked in our place there is no covering wings for him. As the supreme sacrifice he must die. This utter exposure to the emptiness of our state robbed of glory is how the cross works for us as a sacrifice of atonement that covers our sins, all sins, for all time. This is the glory of the cross.
The total confusion of the apostles, the new Israel (12 signifies this), is totally understandable – their corporate conscience is in complete shock. Without the testimony of Jesus they cannot know what has transpired in the invisible spiritual realm between his humanity and God (1 Tim 2:5- 6).
Appearing to his depressed friends after his resurrection, “he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”.” (Luke 24:25 -26) And the writer of Hebrews says, “But we see Jesus who for a little while was made lower than the angels… crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. (Eph 2:9)
The glory of the cross is that Jesus was considered so worthy as to suffer the loss of all things (cf. Phil 3:8) for his Father. We now understand the sacrifice of the cross, not as the cost of glory, but as the means of glory.
The Christian Boast
“(to) him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Eph 3:21)
“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal 6:14)
When the church forgets the cross, when she forgets that “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25), she forgets who she is, she forgets she is the holy bride of Christ who he will present to himself in “splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”” (Eph 5:27). As she becomes ignorant of the fact that he sanctifies her, “having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,” (Eph 5:26), she speaks the cleansing word of the cross less and less and becomes degree by degree more and more filthy, stained by sin, until we are no longer surprised andappalled over the public scandals among the people of God.
In Australia (not America) the wife of one mega church pastor writes about her multiple orgasms with her husband while another gets up on stage and says, “I haven’t had an orgasm today, but x has.” Yet no one seems to discern the presence of a spirit defiling the bride of Christ. No wonder a seasoned missionary whose life had been saved by the miracle hand of God, upon returning to the West, said of the church, this is Ichabod.
We have become desensitized to the loss of the manifest presence and glory of God in the church – we think nothing of the fact that week after week we don’t see healings, conversions, signs, miracles, deliverances, repentance.
In the midst of the Azusa St revival the pastor said about believers leading unholy lives, “They don’t have to go and ask their pastor or their preacher, for they feel within their own soul that the glory has left them – the joy, the peace, the rest and comfort.” Remember how in Corinth, those who were humiliating their poorer brothers and sisters were being struck with sickness and death (1 Cor 11:30), because “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Cor 3:17). Is it any different in Perth?
Man was made for glory and must have glory, when the glory departs the church, false means of glory, substitute glories, must come in. The, later to be revealed as gay, priest I worked with was into organ music. These days “top pastors” teach their musicians how to create “atmosphere”, we have entertainment, performance music, drama of the highest quality, the compulsory in – church coffee shop. There is a place for humour in the church, but the role of the joke in the sermon has become so serious in some places that one wonders whether we are watching the manifestation of a spirit that trivializes the glory of God.
Suffering Brings Glory
The entire New Testament stands under the shadow of the truth that Jesus, “in bringing many sons to glory” was “made perfect through suffering.” (Heb 2:10; 5:9).
The men and women of the cross never sought conflict, it came to them because the cross – life exposes all false glories as substitutes for God’s true glory. Its presence and its glory in them are hated and people will try to rub it out, whatever it takes.
Godly New Testament believers found glory through their pain, “So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.” (Eph 3:13) “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” (1 Pet 4:14). In the light of the cross it was becoming manifest in the church and to the world (1 Pet 2:9) that a human being is really once again the glory of God.
Glory is Coming
I want to end this teaching with a word of encouragement, a shining is coming because the Father of glory is your Father (Eph 1:17). Soon this city will see a “glorious manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom 8:18 – 21). Soon their will be an arising of nameless and faceless people who will reflect the glory of God.
Jesus Christ has made various visitations to Perth (Luke 19:44; 1 Pet 2:12) and I believe another is coming soon. His other visits have ended in turmoil or disappointment for one specific reason.
Whether this visitation turns into a “habitation”, whether we live as “a holy temple in the Lord. 22 … being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (Eph 2:21- 22), will depend upon what sought of a welcome he receives here. Most particularly he is speaking about that love which covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8). What sort of love is this, what sort of love is indwelt by the divine glory so that as it is practiced across a city the glory cloud of the divine presence descends and does not depart? It is the love that refuses to expose, vilify, accuse, ridicule and to treat a brother/sister, or any other human being as an object of shame. For to do this is to grieve the Spirit, it is to reject the glory of the cross and to severely wound the heart of the Father. It is to fail to recognise the presence of the crucified Lord in those who are being forgiven.
Every revival brings in its wake mass exposure of sin e.g. Keith Green at Oral Roberts University, if we do not understand this exposure- for cleansing as part of the glory of the cross we shall surely fail to enter fully into the fullest purposes of God, fail to penetrate deeper and deeper into his holy and glorious heart as our Father (John 17:11) and our last state may be worse than our first (Matt 12:45; 2 Pet 2:20).