The Three Types Of God’s Glory

The English word glory means to honor, but glory also means the weighty brightness of Gods presence. And thanks to scritpure it can be seen that glory also means the unlimited laying down of life in surrender to Gods life.

All three of these definitions of the word glory are summed up and put on display in Jesus Christ.

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

1 Peter 4:14

The glory of God is entirely different from the glory of man. When Jesus Christ said “the hour of my glory is here.” in the garden before his trial. It was not when he had the thousands of fans singing around him saying wonderful things. It happened right before a different time, it was before a time of suffering and difficulty, cruelty, betrayal and death.

Instead it went on display when he was setting out to be betrayed, abandoned and mercilessly killed. A new type of God’s glory could be seen (to those with spiritual eyes) when he was being hated by men. It was seen when he was dying in their place, being disfigured, bloodied, spit on, mocked, beaten, betrated, instulted, abandoned, stabbed, provoked and many other horrible things we probably will never fully understand.

The Glory of Man

The glory of man is to rule over others, and to have an empire of others to command. It is also to make our ways known and dominant (leadership vision). And it often involves having others enrich us financially.

But there is a new type of God’s glory in the earth that has been on display since Jesus Christ. He took this aspect of life into himself, for himself and about himself. Have you seen it? It was first seen many years ago but it is still on display now. And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the son of Man to be glorified.” – John 12:23

The word glorified is the greek word doxazo, strongs G1391, to make glorious, to make renowned. Jesus then went on to describe this new glorification that he would encounter in verses 24-26. He defined it with terms like “death”, “whoseover loses his life in this world”, “not my will be done.” Jesus redefined and expanded the word glory here as far as we are concerned. He expanded glory into death, surrender, into unlimited laying down of human life in surrender to God’s life.

Another Type of God’s Glory – Suffering

A new type of God’s glory and greatness was is seen in the person of Jesus Christ, in the laying down of His life. We did not recognize it when we first saw it, in fact this new glory on display went unrecognized by almost everyone. It perplexed the natural man, to this day it is still looked down upon even still by many of his followers, for many it is foolishness.

But NOW we also know the glory of Jesus Christ in suffering? Can you see the glory of God in the laying down of life? Those ones we don’t like and have no patience for? The ones that cause us to quickly leave the room when they enter. Can we see him within the poor and needy?

God’s glory can be seen again…here and now. It is put on display when we lay down our lives for the purpose of Jesus Christ and those he identifies with on earth.

Can we begin to see God’s glory in suffering? In obscurity? Or in the laying down of human life?

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