The Glory Within
“So Moses finished the work. Then... the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exod. 40.33, 34). “The glory of the Lord is risen upon thee” (Isa. 60.1)
In the Most Holy Place there was no natural light. Unless God fulfilled His promise and took up His abode there, the Sanctuary would remain in total darkness. But God had said, “There I will meet thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony” (Exod. 25.22). Putting His trust in that word, Moses fulfilled the divine plan to the letter, and then in Numbers 7.89 we read that “He heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy seat that was upon the ark of testimony, from between the two cherubims.” Thus Moses was faithful as a servant in all His house (Heb. 3.5).
Please turn now to the story of Stephen. He was before the Council and the charge had been laid against him. It was now Stephen's turn to speak. “And all that sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.... And he said,... The Lord of glory appeared unto our father Abraham” (Acts 6.15; 7.2).
Here we have a transfigured man, a man in whose face a wonderful new light is seen. Then in a verse just below we are given the explanation of it in his own words: “The God of glory”. And Acts 7.55 confirms it again: “He, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God.”
But note that this transfiguration, this glory, is discovered in a man called to be a servant. It comes at the end of a life (though in this case a short one) of service to the Lord and to His Church. And remember too that that service was, at least to begin with, a very prosaic and ordinary one. So it was evidently not Stephen's person, or even his history, that made these men so angry. It was the power of God, manifested in him now in a new way, that caused them to fear. They were bringing false charges against him, but his face shone — which is just the opposite of what we should expect! Flattery, and not criticism, is what usually has this effect. What they saw was the reverse of nature. It was glory — what God means by glory. That is to say, it was something they could not understand and it had the effect of putting those men under judgment. Therefore: “they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth” (Acts 7.54). They could not face this servant at the end; they could not tolerate his presence among them.
Now the first thing we have to be clear about is that, with God, glory always comes at the end of a history. We may have many wonderful experiences in life, and we may see God at work in wonderful ways and be tempted to say, ‘This is glory’. But God says: ‘Not yet’. There is something better; something much more wonderful ahead.
Years ago, when I was in England and studying in London, I went one day to see the Lord Mayor's show. This takes place every year in November when the new Mayor of London takes office, and as his great procession passes through the streets of the city many who can spare the time stop work to go and see it. It was a wonderful sight. First, there were military bands of the different regiments, and then a whole series of displays carried on cars showing various trades and industries. After these there were more bands, some on foot and some on horses; then followed the Royal Life Guards and the Pikemen of the Tower of London in old-fashioned uniforms; and, at last, after a long, long time, came the horse-drawn coaches carrying the official persons.
The first of these had in them some splendid looking men in fine clothes with attendants and marks of rank, but when I asked the people around me they said these were just the junior officials. Then one by one they came, in one gorgeous coach after another; a whole procession of large and pompous gentlemen dressed in long robes and wigs and cocked hats, and carrying golden chains, swords, maces and other insignia of office. Each one was more impressive than the last, and was bowing in acknowledgement of the cheers of the crowds, and with each new coach, I thought, ‘Surely this is the Lord Mayor’ and the people around me said, ‘Not yet’. At last, seated alone in a coach and flanked by more soldiers and retinue, an even larger gentleman appeared, and as the crowds shouted and clapped I said to someone, ‘Surely this is he!’ ‘No, that is the retiring Lord Mayor’, they said and I waited again. Only after more bands and a further array of guards and liveried servants came the brilliant gilded coach containing the new Lord Mayor of London in person — and the show was over. I had waited all that time and seen so much to amaze me, and yet when the real thing came for which I had waited, it had outshone all the rest.
Yes, glory is like that. It is always the end of a series. This is clear from Moses' experience. First he saw the Lord in the bush (Exod. 3). Later at Sinai he went with the elders of Israel into the mount and they “saw the God of Israel” (Exod. 24); and a little later he went alone into the cloud upon the mountain and the glory of the Lord appeared (Exod. 33). There he received certain instructions and on his return with them we are told that the “skin of his face shone” (Exod. 34). But there was something more yet, and only when the instructions had been carried out in detail, and the Tabernacle, God's dwelling place, had been set up, it is said that the “glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exod. 40). That is fulness of glory, and it relates to the fulfilling of God's purpose. The same thing was true when the Temple of Solomon was completed (2 Chron. 5.14); and we can say that the term ‘glory’ is only used in scripture— at least in relation to men and the earth—when a divine pattern and plan has been fulfilled. Glory is not a vision or a wonderful sensation. It is always something related to a plan of God; and if we are ever going to come into the knowledge and experience of glory, it is essential that we fully come into line with the divine pattern and plan.
“We were eye witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a Voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (2 Pet. 1.16-17). Here it was the Voice which they heard which constituted the true glory. The blazing light and the shining garments were not it; they were only subsidiary to it. God put the emphasis upon His Word. ‘Don't be carried away, Peter, by what you see. Hear Him’ (Matt. 17.4-5). Hear Him, and carry out His commands.
It took me a long time to discover the meaning of this. For long after I was saved I was running around giving my testimony and witnessing—but never hearing the voice of God. Only after two years or more was I brought up abruptly and made to learn the lesson. Oh, there is all the difference between devising schemes for God and hearing and being governed by the voice of God.
We can see the same principle at work in the life of the Apostle John. In John 1.14, speaking of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus, he says, ‘We beheld his glory’. In those early days of his discipleship John saw a little, and what he saw took hold of him and began to work through him and in him.
Years later in Patmos he saw something still more wonderful, when he met the risen Lord and heard Him speak. Why was he given this experience? It was that he should convey a message from God to the seven churches in Asia. But what did he pass on? Not just what he saw; not merely a description of the “one like unto a Son of man”, but the message spoken by that One; and that message was eventually the whole book of the Revelation. You see, to be shown God's glory is not to be given something for our personal gratification, so that we talk ever afterwards about the experience. It is with a view to a ministry for the whole Church.
How much we are taken up with gifts, with testimonies, with the various outward things of Christian work and witness! I used to pray for the gift of pinging and of playing the violin, thinking them necessary as qualifications for an evangelist. I thought that God depended on those things and others like them, and how wrong I saw! Singing and playing the violin will not save a soul! What we need is to hear the voice of God and to know what He is saying, so that we can convey His message to men.
We must come into the divine order. John is revealed to us in his Gospel as a man walking in the closest relationship with his Lord. With that behind him as a history, he is now to be entrusted with a message to the churches. For this purpose he is shown the glory, in order that he may speak to them with authority.
Come into the divine plan for the whole church and you will know what glory is! Working for ‘my group’', ‘my party’, ‘my mission or movement’, to get more members and impress yourself on others — that way no glory is ever seen. Only when God's dwelling place is completed — only when all that is represented spiritually in the Old Testament by the Tabernacle and Temple has been secured in the hearts of men —only then does the glory of the Lord come in.
As we saw in the last chapter, John had a greater vision still in Revelation 4 and 5. He was shown the glory of the Lamb in the throne. Of course that was wonderful in itself; but the vision was related to the messages of judgment and tribulation that follow. Chapters 6 to 20 contain these messages and it is their relation to the vision in chapters 4 and 5 that is important. That vision tells us that the view of earthly events that follows is a heavenly one — from the Throne — and that it is the Lamb in the throne who is ruling in them throughout. What a reassurance this knowledge brings to our hearts when we see God's terrible judgments begin to come to pass!
Finally, in chapter 21 John is shown the Holy City, new Jerusalem, “having the glory of God”. It is not now something seen and enjoyed, nor yet some-thing spoken of. It is not even something reflected, as in the face of Moses or Stephen. Now it is something possessed. God's goal has been reached, His plan fulfilled. His people have His glory. Yes, glory always results from the fulfilment of a divine plan.
A little child has ambitions. He hopes one day to be a policeman, a soldier, or an engine-driver. Then as he grows older and his horizon expands he is led on to higher ideals. We are God's “little children.” He sent His Son to save us. Why? Not just for our material advantage, or our health, or to give us a better time, but in order to bring us into the perfect plan of God. At first our grasp of this fact is small and limited, but by His grace it begins to dawn upon us. Alas that so many go on for so long with a little child's idea of our spiritual life. We need to hear the voice of God that we may fit into the plan of God and find our place in the structure of the City of God.
God wants men and women who will apply themselves wholeheartedly to this matter. David could say of the pattern of the Temple, “All this have I been made to understand in writing from the hand of the Lord” (1 Chron. 28.19). That is no less possible in our day, if we will take the Scriptures seriously and count upon the Holy Spirit to instruct us.
Then again, in 1 Chronicles 29 we read of the people's contributions to the Temple, and in verse 8 it says: “They with whom precious stones were found gave them to the treasure of the house of the Lord”. Nothing was private. Everything was made available to God, even at personal cost, and He had first choice of all. That happens when the divine pattern is governing everything. The fears and trials of the battles they have passed through, the hardships and exertions through which they have gone to collect this treasure, are all forgotten in the joy of bringing it into the House of God.
Let me be quite clear about this. I am not speaking about decorating earthly buildings or contributing to earthly institutions. Over most of these, God's verdict is ‘Ichabod — the glory has departed’ (1 Sam. 4.21). No, the treasures spoken of here are ‘living stones’. They are born again believers, men and women who, coming into Christ, and giving themselves wholly to Him, are being built up into “a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2.4-5). It may be a costly and painful process to fashion us and fitly frame us together so that we may become a habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph, 2.22). But let us be found faithful, for the end of that process is glory. It is a Holy City, God's dwelling place, “having the glory of God”.
THE END