The Doctrine of Glory
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Hope

Hope is the driving force, consequently, within the soul to enable us to come to grips with the circumstances of our lives, and to deal with those circumstances. The ultimate hope is what every human being needs, of course, relative to his destiny after death. This hope, or lack of it, is going to affect everything that a person faces in his life. Without this hope, a person has to say, "What's it all worth? Where is it all going?"

So, God extends to us this ultimate future hope to those of us who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior. Without this hope, concerning the life beyond death, we cannot be normal human beings. Unless you have a hope beyond death, you are an abnormal human being. This is the most critical expression of hope in a person's life. Consequently, most human beings are always off-beat. Most human beings are always in the status of abnormality, because they have no bonafide, genuine, concrete hope beyond death. The Bible speaks to us a great deal about hope for Christians. It does not speak about any hope relative to unbelievers.

We have studied the biblical quality of hope, and have studied the summary of the doctrine of hope in order to clarify the fact that when the Bible speaks of hope, it is considerably different than when we use the word "hope" in normal language. The biblical hope does not carry any quality of uncertainty. When we say something in our day like, "I hope so," relative to this or that, we are injecting a quality of uncertainty. But the Bible never uses the word hope with any shade of uncertainty. Anytime the Bible speaks about our having a hope relative to this or relative to that, it's tantamount to saying that you have a sure thing relative to this and relative to that. Biblical hope is always a patient, confident expectation without any fear of disappointment. It's acting, in other words, on Bible doctrine. And that's why the hope is certain.

Thus, eternity (for those who possess a biblical hope) poses no fears. As a matter of fact, eternity is an exciting anticipation. That's why people who are born-again have the most critical hope that a human being needs – the hope beyond death. The Christian's hope gives him perspective, and gives him purpose for his life. It orients him to reality.

The Glory of God

So, it's important for us to determine exactly what the glory of God means. It is a word which we use. We often throw around the phrase "the glory of God." We do something, and we say, "It's all for the Lord's glory." But do you really understand what it is you're saying when you say "the glory of God?"

The Doctrine of Glory

Visible

For example, this word is used in Genesis 31:1 relative to Jacob's great wealth which he accumulated when he worked for his Uncle Laban: "And he heard the words of Laban's sons, saying, Jacob has taken away all that was our father's, and of that which was our father's he has all this wealth," or "glory." The King James translates it as "glory." And that is this word "kavod." What was this referring to? Well, Jacob became such a fantastically wealthy man that he had a lot of clout. He was impressive. As a wealthy man, he wore clothes that impressed people. As a wealthy man, he ate food that impressed people. As a wealthy man, he lived in houses that impressed people. As a wealthy man, he had servants that impressed people. In everything, his wealth (his possessions) set him apart from other people. Therefore, he possessed "kavod." He possessed glory. It was something such that people looked at this man, and they were impressed with him. And when he spoke, they were influenced by what he said, as a result of his possessions.

We have this also demonstrated in Genesis 45:13 in respect to Joseph, who had been sold into slavery in Egypt, and had ended up as the second in command of Pharaoh, the vice regent of Pharaoh. Joseph is described as a man who possesses "kavod" here in Genesis 45:13, where he tells his brothers to go back to Palestine and to report to their father. He says, "And you shall tell my father of all my 'kavod' (my glory) in Egypt, and of all that you've seen. And you shall haste and bring down my father here." And you'll notice that the "kavod" (the glory) of Joseph is associated with what they saw. Well, what did they see?

Well, what they saw, when they finally recognized that Joseph was the brother that they had sold, caused them to fall before him in fear. He was such a magnificent person. Because of what? Because of his position of authority – the power that he possessed. Only one person in all of Egypt was superior to him – the pharaoh, the king himself. And now Joseph exercised this kind of power. So, it again reflected itself outwardly. There was a governmental officials who stood by, waiting for him to speak. There was also the way he was dressed. There was the way he conducted himself. There was the whole form of the government. There was the whole power of the issuing of orders, and of people snapping. Joseph had "kavod" because he had something that they could see that impressed them, and obviously set Joseph apart from other people.

So, "kavod" means glory in the sense of greatness; honor; majesty; splendor; and, brilliance which you can see. That is critical that you have the word "visible" in your mind when you look at this word "kavod." It is a glory that is based upon what one can see.

So, this may be an action that awes others. It may be an influence that you carry upon them. It may be something impressive to people that demands recognition of the individual, and which sets him apart from others.

Light

Honor

Verse 2 two explains it a little more: "Who covers Yourself with light, as with a garment; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain."

In Psalm 8:1, you have this word "hod" used again. And it adds a little more of the clarification of the meaning of the glory: "O Lord our God, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who has set Your glory above the heavens." Here, on the basis of the previous passage in Psalm 104, was the light that surrounds Him – the dazzling, visible, brilliant light that surrounds God. And Psalm 8:1 says that the heavens themselves are a dazzling display of brilliance: "But your brilliance, God, is above the heavens." It is even more glorious than what we see on a good night out in the heavens, particularly if we are in some parts like the Arctic, and we can see the aurora borealis, and the heavens are just exploding with light, which absolutely is something you have to see. You just cannot explain that to people. It is like being in Disney World at 10 o'clock at night when the fireworks explode across the sky every night. And this is God's brilliant demonstration of His glory in some parts of the world where you see the northern lights splashing across the skies, so that you just can't believe all that color is out there.

Now, that is "hod." It is splendor, majesty, and brightness glowing in the sense of dazzling light around God as the King of the universe.

The Impressiveness of God's Presence

Honor

Majesty

Beauty

So, here you have glory in the sense of beauty as an ornament that makes God attractive to the appearance. Psalm 96:6 also uses this particular word for glory: "The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the people see His glory." Or it would be better translated here as "beauty." It is the word "tiparah:" "The heavens declare His righteousness." Now notice that. The reason the dazzling brilliance of God is portrayed is because this is an outward demonstration of His essence: Who He is; What He is; and, His perfections."

So, the heavens declare His righteousness. How? Because all the people see His beauty. All the people see the beauty of God in the things that He has created.

We may add one more in Isaiah 63:15: "Look down from heaven, and behold, from the habitation of Your holiness and of Your glory." And there it is: "Of Your beauty:" "Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Your holiness." Again, this is stressing the essence of God: "And Your glory" in terms of Your duty.

So, we can bring it all together and say that when the Old Testament speaks about glory, it means the glory of God, referring to His essence manifested externally in a visible, blinding brilliance of light and majestic splendor. Therefore, you will find that the glory of God is associated with verbs of seeing, as, for example, in Exodus 16:7, Exodus 33:18, and Isaiah 40:5, because God's glory is something you see.

Seeing

Appearing

So, here you have exemplified that the glory of God is something visible, and therefore associated with the verbs of seeing and verbs of appearing.

The result of this is that God's glory causes Him to carry influence with His creatures. When people or angels see the glory of God, He is obviously set apart in their esteem, and that causes Him to bear influence within them. They are impressed with His perfections, and it demands recognition of Him as the sovereign of the universe. It sets Him apart in the universe as the God.

Deuteronomy 3:24, therefore says, "O Lord God, You have begun to Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand. For what God is in heaven or in earth who can do according to Your works and according to Your might?" In other words, God said, "I'll show you what I can do. I'll show you who I am. And visibly you will see that there just is no one to compare with Me. There's no one else in the universe. There are no other gods."

Miracles

Well, the truth of the matter is that He has done it. All you have to do is read the Scripture. Anytime anybody says that, you are declaring that God is a liar. So, I wouldn't say a thing like that, because what you are saying is that, although I read that here these people in the Old Testament (Moses and all these great men) found that God revealed Himself to them in mighty works of wonder, and demonstrated Himself to be the living, sovereign, supreme, absolute, nobody-else God, I don't care if the Bible says; I don't believe it." That's what you're saying: "I want God to prove it to me. I have the arrogance to demand a direct revelation." The charismatics do not really realize what blasphemy flows from their lips and from their practice so regularly, in demanding that God demonstrate the miraculous to them, when the Bible is full of the fact that the miracles have already taken place.

That's why miracles always phased in and phased out. God never performed a miracle until the time of Moses. And then He just slammed the door down on miracles for centuries until the time of Elijah and Elisha. Then He lifted the curtain, and He performed a few more miracles, and then He slammed the door down. And there were no miracles until Jesus Christ appeared on the scene. Then there were miracles during the period of the apostles, and then He slammed the door down again. Miracles served their purpose. And they were all recorded in Scripture, and at certain points, we needed miracles, and now we have them to refer back to. The next time of miracles will be in the future, starting with the false miracles of the antichrist. So, if you are out to see God manifesting Himself visibly in some audible or some spectacular supernatural way, you are inviting the next era of miracles to begin taking place, which is going to be an era of satanic miracles.

That's what the charismatic movement has stumbled into because of their ignorance of the Word of God. They do not realize that when they call for miracles, God is not going to give them. His miracles have already been performed at stated times, and recorded. But somebody else is listening: the devil. And he delegates one of the demons, and says, "Do they want a miracle down there at that church? Go give it to them." And they get their miracles, and Satan gets his victory. And their souls are shriveled and destroyed in the process.

So, it's the visible glory of upon that set Him apart. His greatness was demonstrated. And His unique essence precludes Him from sharing His place of glory with any false God. Isaiah 42:8, therefore, tells us: "I am the Lord. That is My Name. And I will not give My glory to another; neither My praise to carved images."

Then in Isaiah 48:11, we again have the declaration that God does not share His glory with any other god: "For My Own sake; even for My Own sake, I will do it. For how should My name be polluted, and I will not give My glory unto another." So, what is God saying? God is saying, "I will not give My visible demonstration of Who I am, and My visible expression of My affections, to another god, for there is none other who can carry them. Only I can carry them."

Let's look at the Greek word for "glory." We have one noun. We've had it before. It's the noun "doxa." "Doxa" comes from a Greek verb "dokeo." "Dokeo" meant "to think" or "to seem." In classical Greek, therefore, the word "doxa" had the meaning of the opinion one has of himself, or the reputation he has in the mind of others. Opinion and reputation were the two key ideas in classical Greek when the word "doxa" was used. The Bible in the New Testament never uses the word "doxa" in this way. "Doxa" never means the opinion you have or the reputation that you may have. God the Holy Spirit took the word "doxa," and He used it in translating the Hebrew Bible into Greek (what we call the Septuagint version, which is symbolized by our "LXX." When the Septuagint was translated from Hebrew into Greek, every time they came across the world "kavod," the basic Hebrew word for God's visible display of glory, they used the Greek word "doxa" to translate it. And that led to the meaning in the New Testament, which is "honor;" "praise;" "majesty;" "splendor; and, "radiance" for the essence of God visibly portrayed.

Splendor and Radiance

Acts 22:11 also uses the Greek word "doxa:" "And when I could not see, for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those that were with me, I came into Damascus. Now if you'll look back up at that verse 6, you'll see what the apostle Paul is speaking of here. This is on his journey to Damascus to find Christians; to bring them into prison; and, to execute them:

"And it came to that as I made my journey, and was come near unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shown from heaven a great light round about me." What happened was that a light goes on Paul as it had on Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees. And verse 11 is telling us that this light resulted in Paul's going blind. From what? From the glory of that light – from the "doxa" of that light. What he is speaking of is that the protections of God were made visible to him in this cloud of great glory, and it caused him to go blind on the spot.

2 Peter 1:17 also uses the word "glory: "And He received from God the Father, honor and glory. And there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, 'This is My Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased.'" Now we have Peter looking back at that time when Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist, and a glory appeared overhead. What did they say? They saw another burst of brilliant, dazzling light, as God appeared in visible glory form: glory; visible; dazzling; radiant; splendor; and, fantastic light of such dimensions that: it frightens you; it can strike you dead; it can take your eyesight; and, it's awesome to behold. That's the meaning of glory.

A Flame

Now let's put the Hebrew and the Greek words together. And what do we come up with? Well, the Old Testament Hebrew words and the New Testament Greek words all convey the same meaning of glory. The words connote a visible, dazzling brightness of majestic splendor and beauty, symbolizing the essence of God: His perfection; and, His Holiness.

This is a word which is used 165 times in the New Testament, just to give you some idea of how often the glory of God is referred to in the New Testament. It's 77 times in the Pauline epistles. It's used 16 times in the book of Romans alone. It is 35 times in the Johannine writings. It is used 15 times in the Petrine letters, and then 38 times another New Testament books. It is used 165 times in the New Testament.

The Shekinah Glory

So, the word "Shekinah" is not used in the Bible. It actually comes from some Jewish writings called the Targoms. The Targoms are a translation, or sometimes a paraphrase, of Hebrew into Aramaic. After the Jews got back from Babylon (they had been captives there for 70 years), they got pretty hefty on their Hebrew, and their normal day-by-day speech was Aramaic. So, finally, they had to get the Hebrew translated into Aramaic so that they could read the Scriptures. And the Targoms did that – either a translation; or, sometimes it's a paraphrase. And it was in the Targoms that this word "Shekinah" was first used in reference to the glory of God. So, the rabbis used this in their writings centuries after the Old Testament was completed to describe the visible presence of God as seen in that glory cloud of fire in the Old Testament.

The word "Shekinah" looks like it's in the Hebrew: "skinah." It comes from the verb "shokan," and "shokan" means "to dwell" or "to live with." So, the word "skinah" glory connoted the dwelling in glory, or the One who grows in glory. And God dwelt in the midst of this glory cloud. And because He spoke to his people from this glowing cloud, it was described by these later Jews by the term "Shekinah" glory. And we use it to this day. It's a good term. If you speak to any Jewish person, and you mention the word "Shekinah" glory, immediately he knows what that means, if he knows anything about his history.

Now, let's take a look at the nature of this kind "Shekinah" glory in its appearance in the Old Testament, because we can learn a great deal about the meaning of the word "glory." We're going back and saying: what did this word mean in the Old Testament? What did people understand about it from the Old Testament, because when we come down to the New Testament, the word "glory" comes down the same way as it was in the Old Testament.

So, when Paul says, "One sure thing you have in your future is the glory of God," you're not going to understand it until you can go back to the Old Testament, and get a picture of what the glory of God really is back there; and, particularly under this term of the "Shekinah" glory.

The Garden of Eden

The Exodus

The Burning Bush

Verse 8: "This bush was not burned by this flame. And Moses said, 'I will now turn aside and see this great site – why the bush is not burnt.' And when the Lord said that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush." There you have God speaking out of the "Shekinah." And He said, "Moses, Moses." And he said, "Here I am."

Holy Ground

"Moreover, he said, 'I am the God of your father: the God of Abraham; the God of Isaac; and, the God of Jacob.' And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God." Moses realized immediately what was happening.

So, the "Shekinah" glory flame indicated the presence of God, and made the vicinity around the bush holy. God dwelt within this fiery flame. So, this fiery plane, in effect, was the dazzling throne room of God. And Moses was looking into heaven itself. Exodus 20:22: "And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Thus you shall say unto the children of Israel, 'You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven." Where had the Lord talked to the people? Where had He spoken to the people? Well, as you shall see later, when He spoke to them, it was out of this "Shekinah" cloud. Therefore, this cloud was the dwelling place of God. This cloud was heaven itself brought here before them. This is just as the New Jerusalem, where we shall dwell, is heaven brought here and put out into space as our dwelling place.

So, the "Shekinah" glory cloud with the dwelling place of God. It was, in effect, God speaking from heaven.

Now, the building site of this glory cloud, as the dwelling place of God, caused Moses to fall to the ground in fear. Finally, he realized what was happening. Oh, he knew about God. He knew God well. He had been thoroughly versed in God's ways, and in God's nature, and in God's essence. And suddenly, when he caught on that this was the visible demonstration of the presence of God, he shook all over, and he fell to the ground in fear. It was the "Shekinah" glory cloud that led the Israelites then in their escape from Egypt, and finally, in their travels in the wilderness.

If you'll turn to Exodus 13:21-22, we have this taught: "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them in the way; and, by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of the fire by night from before the people."

So, what you had heard was a cloud in a flame-like shape. Within this cloud was flame. During the daytime, this cloud shielded the glaring flame within it, and it was a thick cloud that moved before the Israelites to leave them. At night, the inner flames came through the outer covering of this "Shekinah" glory cloud, and it illuminated the whole countryside. Talk about a solution to the energy crisis – the Jews in the wilderness had it. I mean, they had all the light at night that they needed. I don't care where you went in that camp, it was broad daylight. In fact, I'm sure they must have complained to the Lord about how they had to keep putting extra heavy covers on the windows so they could sleep at night in their tents, with all this light that God is pouring all over the place.

You may add Nehemiah 9:19, which says, "Yet You, in Your manifold mercy, did not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of the cloud did not depart from by day to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night to show them light and the way in which they should go." This flame at night was sitting there, and it was the presence of God. And boy, you knew that you were right there where it's at – the Living, Jehovah, Supreme Ruler of the universe. And that made some of the Jews walk carefully, but others were such fools, because they were so negative, and they had so little capacity, that even with this visible demonstration of God among them, they were ready to murmur and complain. On occasion, they were ready to kill Moses himself, because he had led them as per God's directions. So, here is this cloud leading them out of the wilderness. This was a very great demonstration of the fact that God was among them, and that they were to act with complete confidence.

So, here was a sword-like pillar of cloud. During the daytime, it was a dazzling shining cloud fueling the flame. At night, the "Shekinah" glory was as a brilliant pillar of fire illuminating the camp. And the source of the "Shekinah" glory cloud of illumination was God. We may gather this from 1 John 1:7: "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light." And I want to point out something. Unfortunately, many times in the King James translation, the original Greek has the definite article "the" – "the light." And they translate it just "light." And we try to point out some of those to you. In this place, they did translate it, and it is important. It is the definite article. It is the light. What is the light? It's the "Shekinah" glory cloud: "But if we walk in the light of the "Shekinah" glory, as he is in the light of the "Shekinah" glory, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sins."

Do you begin to suspect what it means that you shall come into the glory of God? As a matter of fact, if in the Old Testament, the "Shekinah" glory clouds dwelt on the mercy seat within the tabernacle, have you put together who dwells within the tabernacles of today, as the "Shekinah" glory power of God. In the Old Testament, the Shekinah glory cloud dwelt in the holy of holies in the tabernacle. Who is the tabernacle of God now? Who are the temples of God now? And who is He that dwells within them? And what power is it that dwells within them?

Do you remember what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration? Why? Because the "Shekinah" glory dwelt within Him. Is it possible that you and I, pathetic as we, carry about within us this same cloud of glory? And wouldn't it scare you if it showed up? That's where we're headed. Your best is yet before you.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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