Shekinah Glory in Every Believer
Shekinah Glory in Every Believer.
“God is a living, personal Presence, a living Spirit… There is nothing between us and our God now, our faces shining with the brightness of His face. Our own faces are unveiled and we see as in a mirror the glory of the Lord; and so we are being transformed into His very image, transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually changed from one degree of radiant glory to the next with ever-increasing intensity of brightness as God enters our lives and we become like Him in His glorious image.” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
THE HOLY SPIRIT: The Spirit of Glory; the Presence of God appearing in Shekinah glory through light, fire, and luminous cloud; God’s divine Presence on earth; the eternal life-giving Third Person of the Holy Trinity; the intimate bond of divine love and truth shared by God the Father and God the Son; the dynamic power of God offered to every human being on earth; the supernatural Presence in the Community of God who is personal without being material; the invisible creative force with divine intelligence who truly knows the mind of God from the inside; the Spirit of God who thus has all knowledge and is present everywhere in the universe; the sacred energy streaming forth from the Father and the Son, pouring love into our hearts (Romans 5:5), producing virtuous qualities in us (Galatians 5:22-23), and gradually transforming each believer into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18).
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. God’s profound glory is independent of His Shekinah glory on earth. 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.
SHEKINAH: The Divine Presence, the appearance of God’s glory that dwells on earth, and implies God’s nearness, closeness, God’s with-ness to us. Shekinah is understood in Judaism, and then adopted by Christianity, to be the “uncreated light, fire and luminous cloud” that became visible when God made an appearance on the earth. God’s Shekinah glory announced His presence. Shekinah glory is not the full inner essence of God’s Being, since God is an invisible Spirit who “dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:16). But instead, God’s Shekinah is the “out-raying” of that source of Light, like the sunbeams coming directly from the sun. We can’t even look directly at the sun, but we can see and feel and get the benefits of the sun though its rays. The Shekinah is the sunbeam from the “Father of Lights.” Isn’t it wonderful that the palmist exclaims that “Yahweh God is the sun!” (Ps. 84:11). Shekinah has been described as when the Omnipresent One becomes localized, when the Invisible One becomes visible. Shekinah is God’s visible glory pulsating outwards from the spiritual energy of God’s Being, the flowing out of light from the “consuming fire” of God’s essence. (Ex. 24;17).
DOXA (Greek word for ‘glory’ in the New Testament): Splendor, brilliance, the awesome light that radiates from God’s presence and flows forth from God’s character; is associated with his acts of power that are worthy to be honored, praised, revered; is often seen as a synonym to Shekinah glory; the magnificent excellence and dazzling greatness of God in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
God’s Word is basically the story of God’s glory. Holy Scripture is the glorious story of God’s Presence on earth, His Shekinah glory dwelling with humanity through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In fact, rabbinic authorities have long taught that the Shekinah is present whenever two or three believers are gathered to study Torah. And the Christian have expanded that to say that “wherever two or three are gathered in God’s Name, He is in their midst.” Many biblical scholars have said, then, that the Shekinah glory is the nearest Jewish equivalent to the Holy Spirit of God.
Resemblance. Through the Holy Spirit of Jesus dwelling in us and us in Him, we come to resemble the image of Jesus in His glory. Our transformation, our sanctification, would seem to happen two ways, then… The Holy Spirit inside of us gradually transforming our nature into the glorious image of Christ; and each of us inside of Christ, receiving through His Spirit an endless supply of the interior qualities of Jesus, His character, attributes, and all the spiritual riches we could ever imagine. We were created in God’s image, became hopelessly broken, and then in God’s love welcomed into Jesus so that we could end up like Jesus once again through the power of His Spirit. Being inside of Christ and intimately joined with Him means we receive the divine sap of the Spirit that flows through the Vine. Being grafted into Christ, we have an eternal supply of heavenly nutrients that enable us to change, mature and go from one level of radiant glory to another, into the very likeness of Christ Himself.
“For as the waters fill the sea, the earth will be filled with an awareness of the glory of the LORD.” (Habakkuk 2:14). How will this happen? The visible glory of the Lord will cover the earth when His people who reveal His glory in their lives cover the earth through the Holy Spirit. Believers in Jesus are expected to be the light of the world, bringing the radiance of His glory to all the corners of the earth by demonstrating His goodness, His character, His light.
Glorious Indwelling. This the 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 Peter4:14). “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).
“Because of His glory and goodness, He has given us great and precious promises, so that through them you may escape from the world’s corruption due to disordered passions and human desires, and may become partakers of the divine nature, participants in His nature, sharing in the divine life of God.” (2 Peter 1:3-4).
Could this word from Peter be claiming that when we are given the privilege of becoming “partakers of the divine nature, participants in His nature, sharing in the divine life of God,” we are given the very Shekinah glory of God? Yes, I believe that is what Peter is saying.
“No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor. But if we love one another, God remains united with us, and He makes His permanent home in us and we make our permanent home in Him. His love is then brought to its full expression in us. He has given us His Spirit within us so that we can have the assurance that we remain united with Him and He with us…. Those who confess and give thanks that Jesus is the Son of God remains in union with God, they live inside of God, and God lives inside of them. We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love He has for us. God is love; and those who remain in this love remain united with God, and God remains united with them.” (1 John 4:12-16, The Complete Jewish Bible and The Passion Translation).
With Us, God. One of the important prophetic titles of Messiah Jesus is Emmanuel (Greek spelling of the Hebrew Immanuel): Emmanu-El; literal meaning in Hebrew is “With us, God;” it is often translated as “With us is God,” “God with us,” or “God is with us.” The name Emmanuel speaks of the eternal reality that our Creator has a strong desire to be in our midst, dwelling with us. Emmanuel is a promise that implies the ongoing, permanent presence of God with us. Miraculously, our heavenly God is with us, His earthly people. God the Father is the first Emmanuel, exiling Himself from the Garden after they sinned against Him. Creator God hasn’t left the side of humanity ever since. God the Son continued the same quality of the Godhead, the next Emmanuel in line, when he took on flesh and became incarnate and was with us through thick and thin, through life and death and then life again. The third and final divine Emmanel is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love shared by the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit was called the “paraclete” by Jesus, that Greek term meaning “called to come alongside” us. Thus, there is this astounding with-ness to the Trinity that assures us of God’s everlasting presence with us. We need never feel alone as we have believers with us who extend God’s presence through their ministries to us.
“Living within you is the Christ who floods you with the expectation of glory! This mystery of Christ, embedded within us, becomes a heavenly treasure chest of hope filled with the riches of glory for His people, and God wants everyone to know it! (Colossians 1:26-27, the Passion Translation).