Revelation Song #6 – Glory and Honor!
Revelation Song #6 – Glory and Honor!
“The revelation of Jesus Christ…” (Rev. 1:1). John the Divine left no doubt about the purpose of his Book of Revelation. His very first words in his prologue were that his vision was an unveiling of Jesus. His baffling and otherworldly writings in this book were not primarily about future events, or the destiny of human life on planet earth, or all those mysterious activities in the heavenly sphere. John was writing first and foremost about the Person of Christ, and he intended everything in the book to point back to Him. Revelation was a lifting of the veil on the full identity and activity of Christ. It is a revelation of Jesus, from God, concerning Christ Himself. The Godhead is both the primary source of John’s vision and its main subject. Everything in this extended vision that came to John straight from heaven is to be understood through the prism of Christ. Regardless of how dramatic, puzzling or profound its contents, everything in John’s vision is intended to help us discover more of Christ and deepen our knowledge of and love for Him. All these events in Revelation that seem to pique the reader’s curiosity are nonetheless streams that are meant to lead us back to the River of Life. Perhaps it would do us all well if we continue to remind ourselves of Paul’s declaration as we read John’s vision… “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2). So then, we can’t let ourselves get too sidetracked, too stuck in the weeds, with these fancy special effects in John’s vision… the beasts and the dragons and the angels, the numbers and colors and gemstones, the symbols and metaphors and poetic imagery… After all is said and done in Revelation, St. John has composed an essentially Christ-centered book.
Gold Mine: Another way of looking at the book of Revelation is to strap on your miner’s helmet and search for Biblical gold. In John’s vision are many gold mines that have Jesus Christ as the source… Mines like His appearance in His glorified presence, the Logos of God, the seven titles of Christ, the words to the seven churches, the seven Beatitudes, and the many songs of worship that come straight to us from heaven! And there is more! Mining all the gold in Revelation will make us wealthy with His treasure for all of eternal life. But all those fancy special effects in John’s vision are only fool’s gold if they distract us from Jesus.
“After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God!’” (Revelation 19:1).
God’s Glory. The biblical meaning of God’s glory tends to emphasize the weighty splendor of God’s personal Presence; God’s supreme worthiness to be honored and praised; the overwhelming greatness of God’s beauty and power; the eternal weight of God’s substance; the heaviness of God’s inherent majesty. The weight of God’s presence outweighs the world; His presence is more substantive and heavier than the universe. His eternal glory remains constant, whether or not He decides to reveal Himself to us. God’s essential glory is forever Real in the heavens, whether or not we experience Him here with our senses on earth. When God’s glory makes an appearance, we can get everything from angels and trumpets and fire and earthquakes, to lightning and clouds and wind and thunder, to smoke and voices and blinding lights and foreign languages, to open graves and resurrected bodies and torn curtains and noontime darkness, to miracles galore.
Handel: Messiah | And the glory of the Lord | VOCES8 & Academy of Ancient Music
Glorifying God is to acknowledge and applaud the awesome reality of God’s presence in the world; to make His presence heavier and more obvious; to magnify Him by enlarging His name and reputation in the world; to live in a way that strengthens God’s credibility; to honor God in a way that reveals His truth and makes Him less hidden; to live in a way that preserves God’s glorious Name and Personhood; to follow God in a way that helps others to recognize God as the ultimate Person of Substance; to publicize and promote His glorious name by demonstrating His character; to be a guardian of God’s goodness and spiritual power in the world; to recognize the true and eternal status of God in a life-changing way.
“Above this surface was something that looked like a throne made of blue lapis lazuli. And on this throne high above was a figure whose appearance resembled a man. From what appeared to be his waist up, he looked like gleaming amber, flickering like a fire. And from his waist down, he looked like a burning flame, shining with splendor. All around Him was a glowing halo, like a rainbow shining in the clouds on a rainy day. This is what the glory of the Lord looked like to me.” (Ezekiel 1:26-28, NLT).
The Fire of His Glory. Time and again in Scripture, God turns out to be a fire. Is there a better way to describe God’s glory? He is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24) that gives light, sparks love, judges sin, and purifies like a refiner’s fire. Somehow, the Lord is a Person and yet a fire that kindles faith and declares His presence. How were the people alerted to God’s presence on Mt. Sinai? “And the glory of the Lord appeared to the Israelites like devouring fire on the top of the mountain.” (Ex. 24:17). “Mt. Sinai was wrapped in smoke, for the Lord descended upon it in fire.” (Ex. 19:18). When we are confronted with a fearful, overpowering fire, our natural response is to be in awe of its power, and that is a natural reaction when seeing God’s glory. We respond with fear and awe and a healthy respect. Somehow, God can be our friend as well as a consuming fire. We are able to talk with this Fire, like Moses on Mt. Sinai. Sometimes the fire is small and seemingly manageable, like the burning bush. Other times it appears to be out of control, a raging wildfire managed only by God. But make no mistake, in His glory He is a devouring fire. “Offer to God pleasing service and acceptable worship, with modesty and pious care and godly fear and awe; for our God is indeed a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:28-29, AMP).
Shekinah Glory. Let us tiptoe into deep waters, into a tremendous mystery within this particular title of the Holy Spirit. There are so many inspiring aspects to this title, the Spirit of Glory, that we might as well take our time wading in. God’s glory can be described as the weighty, majestic, and fiery presence of God on the earth when He wants to localize Himself. God’s glory is what He looks like when He chooses to make an appearance. God is indeed everywhere, but apparently there are those times when He wants to appear on earth. The Jewish scholars between the Testament periods developed a wonderful word for “dwells,” Shekinah, which sums up for them, and us, God’s personal, divine presence on earth. So these two terms, Shekinah and glory, have come to mean much the same thing, and the two terms are often spoken as Shekinah glory, both terms together. And now the Holy Spirit comes to mind. When we see Shekinah glory, the fire of the Holy Spirit inevitably appears as well, in the midst of the glory, as a part of the glory. Since God is a “consuming fire,” it is not surprising that fire usually demonstrates God’s presence. All three of these spiritual realities, God’s glory, Shekinah glory, and the fiery Spirit, seem more or less indivisible. I’m not sure how one would separate one from the other, even if we wanted to do so. All three have to do with God’s localized presence, with God settling in and making a dwelling place.
Shekinah literally means “the One who dwells, settles in, resides, makes Himself at home.” The supernatural power of God’s presence has an understandable effect on nature. Shekinah Glory bursts the earth at its seams. Nature doesn’t seem prepared for God’s glory and seems to sometimes have a difficult time managing something so otherworldly. After all, God’s glory is weightier than the universe, it has more substance to it than the entire world. Even a sliver of Shekinah glory sends the earth into turmoil. Isaiah asks for God’s presence and what it would take for Him to make an appearance in Isaiah 64:1: “Tear the heavens apart and come down!” Or perhaps you like the way David puts it in Psalm 144:5: “Bend your sky, O Lord, and come down.” One dramatic example is described when God’s glory made an appearance on Mt. Sinai… “Mt. Sinai was enveloped in smoke, because Yahweh descended onto it in fire. The smoke went up like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently, as the sound of the heavenly shofar grew louder and louder; All the people experienced the thunder, the lightning, the sound of the shofar, and the smoking on the mountain; To the people of Israel, the glory of the Lord looked like a raging fire on the top of the mountain.” (Ex.19:18 and 24:17). The heavenly fire from the Holy Spirit was a fearful and awesome part of Shekinah. God’s glory, the Shekinah, the Holy Spirit. What a fearful package of uncreated light from the essence of God Himself. The Spirit of Glory is one way of putting it. Another translator says: “The Spirit of the Shekinah, the Spirit of God.” Another put it this way: “The Shekinah glory of the Spirit.”
God’s presence was an important chapter before Jesus, but it now becomes intensely personal. Jesus is Shekinah incarnate. Jesus is Shekinah glory in the flesh, spiritually full of the fire of the Spirit. In the face of Christ, we see the muted version of God’s glory, shekinah in the minor key, because we wouldn’t be able to manage an appearance of His glory in its fullness. The Son of God is the spiritual radiance of God’s Shekinah presence. Christ is the permanent dwelling place of God’s glory, which is gloriously multiplied by the personal presence of the Holy Spirit in every believer’s life (Col. 2:9; John 14:9; Heb. 1:3; 1 John 3:2).
God’s Glory in Each of Us. There is even more of a personal indwelling of the Shekinah Spirit of Glory. When the Holy Spirit dwells in each of us, He makes Himself at home, permanently. The early Christians started adopting Shekinah as the way of describing God’s presence in us through the Holy Spirit, and many Bible translations have continued that tradition. “Just as God’s presence rested in the Temple, the Spirit of Shekinah now rests on us, since our bodies are now the Temple of the Spirit of Glory who lives in us.” (1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 Peter 4:14). “Now ‘the Lord’ in this text means the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us, with faces unveiled, see in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and we are being changed into His very image, from one degree of glory to the next, by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). “For it is the God who once said, ‘Let shine out of darkness,’ who has made His light shine in our hearts, the light of the knowledge of God’s glory shining in the face of the Messiah Jesus.” (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Revelation-Light. There will be no sunlight in heaven, no artificial light or natural light. There will only be supernatural light in the New Jerusalem. As it turns out, Shekinah glory through the Holy Spirit will provide all the light we will ever need. “The city has no need for the sun or moon to shine on it, because God’s Shekinah gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.” (Revelation 21:23-24).
CeCe Winans – King of Glory (Official Audio)
Have you heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words? I believe that a song can mean two thousand words. Enjoy some deep worship with this song by Maverick City.
Revelation 19:1 (feat. Naomi Raine & Mav City Gospel Choir) | Maverick City Music | TRIBL – YouTube