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B y NORMAN B. HARRISON* Minneapolis, Minn.
G lory to god ” ! This is the divine declaration of the intent of the incarnation. The angels could not keep the Good News to themselves, but caused the sleeping Judean hills to reverberate with their paeans of praise that first Christmastide. And well they might. Glory is manifested excellence. To make God the Father known in His essential worth and excellence of character and being—to glorify Him—this the Son alone could do, and this was His all-absorbing purpose. So we read: “The Word [essentially God from eternity] was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The person and work of our Lord became the focal point of the glory of God; from Him that glory radiates to all men to the end of time. This Christmas season, in the year of our Lord 1934, when men need so sorely to be lifted out of the sordidness of earth’s sin and shame, shall we not turn our ears anew toward the heavens to hear the clarion call, “Glory to God,” as the antidote for all our ills? Now, more than ever before, we need to be occupied with Him. What, think you, would be the effect, even at this late day, upon this old world of ours, were we to refuse to celebrate another mere holiday of tawdry tinsel, and to humbly beseech the Christ of Bethlehem and Calvary to glorify Himself in the muddled affairs of men as Re deemer and Lord ? Long, long ago, a servant of the Lord voiced the hunger of his heart in the cry, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory” (Ex. 33:18). We must see His glory; only so will we turn back to Him the praise and glory that is His due. What Moses merely glimpsed of heavenly glory, it is ours to envisage in the entire panorama of divine revelation. v G lory in the H eavens
The heavens, God’s great illuminated sign pointing to Himself, condemn every godless man. The unbeliever has not lived up to his knowledge; he has “glorified him not as God” (Rom. 1:21). G lory in the T abernacle The tabernacle is God’s picture of His plan of salvation. It portrays God’s provision for man’s redemption, recon- conciliation, and restoration to full relationship with Him self. It prefigures His purpose to “dwell in them, and walk in them.” It was the “tent of meeting” for God and man. Coming by way of the altar of sacrifice, man was brought on into the tent, into the presence chamber of the King. So we read that when “Moses finished the work,” with every thing done as directed, God accepted, approved, occupied, “and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Ex. 40: 33, 34). God was present among His people; His glory was manifest. G lory in the S on What the tabernacle was in type, Christ our Lord be came in reality. “The Word”—who “was with God” and “was God”—“tabernacled among us [for such is the Greek], (and we beheld his glory . . . ) . ” In what did that glory consist? Did it consist in the manifesting of His deity and lordship over nature by mir acles and wonders? Yes, for we read of the turning of water to wine: “This beginning of miracles did Jesus . . . and manifested forth his glory.” But there was more. His glory consisted in doing as a Man what mere man through sin failed to do. His glory lay in doing always His Father’s will—“I delight to do thy will, O my God”—resulting in the constant, uninterrupted, abiding presence and approval of God. “He that sent me is with m e: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him” (John 8 :29). His was a life centered in God, claiming His constant approval, presence, and power —a life of glory to God. G lory in the C ross
“The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psa. 19:1). The stellar universe was cre ated as the material setting for the glory of the Creator. It is the visible expression to all mankind of the invisible God. With this daily and nightly display of His reality and deity emblazoned plainly—“For the in visible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eter nal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1 :20)—every god less unbeliever is condemned by the involun tary sight of his own eyes. *Pastor, Oliver Presbyterian Church.
The supreme revelation of the glory of God is in the cross. Whatever of agony, shrinking, and shame it held for the Godhead, Jesus Christ viewed it as the goal of His earthly ministry and rejoiced in it as the glo rifying of both the Father and Himself. In it God is glorified: First, by the manifestation of His love—“God commendeth his love to ward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5 :8 ) ; second, by the obedience of the Son—“obedient unto [Continued on page 426]
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