God’s Glory, Presence & the Holy Spirit
Mag. Claudia R. Wintoch
Bible Doctrines
J.D. King
World Revival School of Ministry
Spring Trimester 2002
1. Introduction
These days many Christians speak
about the glory of God; the glory of God descending in their churches, in
worship services, entering His glory, experiencing His glory. But what is His
glory? What do they mean? Is the glory the same as His presence? And is the
glory the presence of the Holy Spirit? Do they mean that the Holy Spirit fills
their churches tangibly? Do they mean God fills them with His Holy Spirit? The
object of this paper is to examine the relationship between God’s presence, His
glory and the Holy Spirit.
2. Definitions
The word glory
appears frequently in the Bible[1].
In the Old Testament it is the translation of the Hebrew word דובכ[2] (kabod), when speaking of God’s glory.
The Aramaic word for glory, shekinah,
has become the word used for God’s glory by the Jews. When the Old Testament
was translated into Greek, the writers used the word δοξα[3]
(doxa) for glory; a word which encompasses
a much broader meaning[4]
and which brought the words kabod and
shekinah together, as the translation
for both. Sorge (2000:63) defines the glory as “the invasion of God’s reality
into the human sphere”.
The Hebrew word סינב[5] (paniym) is translated presence
76 times in the Old Testament, 390 times face[6]. Moses
spoke face to face with God, being in His presence. It often speaks about the
glory and presence at the same time. As the glory cloud descended, Moses would
come into the presence of the Lord and speak with Him.
There is only one passage, where we see the
Holy Spirit mentioned specifically together with the glory, which is in Ezekiel
43. Baker’s Theological Dictionary of
Biblical Theology defines the Holy Spirit as “the
transcendent, omnipresent spiritual and localizable presence of God's
personality and power, living in and divinely empowering all of God's true
people in diverse and incomplete ways that foreshadow their complete, future
renewal at the end of the age”[7].
3. The Glory and the Presence
In Numbers 14:21, the Lord says, as surely as I live
and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth. The seraphs
in Isaiah 6:3 cry out: Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory. God is
omnipresent, His glory filling the whole universe. “God is everywhere and is
present to every person. But the personal knowledge of that fact and the
experience of that presence is what finally really counts.” (Williams 1992:79).
Sorge (2000:68) distinguishes between the glory and presence today by saying
that “presence is subjective, Glory is objective”, meaning that all mankind together will see the glory
(Isaiah 40:5), while experiencing the presence depends on the person’s
spiritual tuning. The latter concurs with Jewish thought as seen in the Talmud:
“Although
the Shechinah is omnipresent, its
reality is more deeply felt in places and circumstances which, by their sacred
character, tend to attune the person spiritually to God. Especially in view of
the command, ‘Let them make for Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them’
(Exod. xxv. 8), the Tent of Meeting was regarded as a place where the Shechinah
was manifest most vividly.” (Cohen 1995:42f.).
Even
though the earth is full of God’s presence and glory, many do not perceive it.
God made a covenant with the people of Israel, wanting them to be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation (Exodus 19:6). He made His presence visible for them by manifesting
Himself in fire, smoke and a cloud, and speaking to them from the fire, through
thunder and lightning. God’s visible presence and His glory seem to be
interchangeable. His glory was always before them, yet they were afraid and
rejected it:
“The Lord our God has shown us his
glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have
seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. But now, why should we
die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of
the Lord our God any longer. For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of
the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? Go near and
listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our
God tells you. We will listen and obey.“ (Deuteronomy 5:24-27)
They
recognized that they could not survive in the glorious presence of God. They
even could not bear looking at Moses’s face that was radiating with His glory.
While His
glory seems to be identical with His presence, it is often used to mean the
intense, tangible presence of God beyond the every day experience. Ruth Ward
Heflin (1990:133) defines the glory as “the revelation of the presence of God.
It is the manifestation of His presence. He is glory. He is everywhere, but
glory is the manifestation of that reality … When glory comes down, it’s a bit
of Heaven’s atmosphere coming down to us, a taste of His manifest presence.”
Bob Sorge
(2000:57) is trying to illustrate the different degrees of His presence and
glory in the following table:
God’s omnipresence is represented around zero or one. In a worship service His presence would increase a few degrees, maybe up to nine or ten, where a sensory threshold is crossed and His presence becomes tangible, which would be what most charismatic Christians would call “the glory coming down”. As His glory increases further degrees, there might be healings or other manifestations. However, there comes a point where we humans in our flesh would die. Moses saw God’s glory every day, in the pillar of cloud and fire. However, when on the mountain with God, He experienced a greater manifestation of His glory that shone through him when returning to the camp. Even though he tasted of God’s glory, he still asked God to show him His glory (Exodus 33:18). That is quite remarkable, considering all Moses had seen, more than any other living being before. Yet God was pleased by his request and granted it. Again, we see His presence being identical with His glory: When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by … you will see my back (Exodus 33:22-23) (emphasis mine).
4. The Glory and the Spirit
It is interesting that the Holy Spirit is
hardly mentioned in the accounts of Moses, only in terms of being on or in
people[8],
during God’s most active season with Israel, while His glory and presence is
mentioned frequently.
Ezekiel watched the glory of God – that had
inhabited the tabernacle and then the Temple, God’s dwelling place – gradually
depart from His Temple. In his description of his visions Ezekiel frequently
speaks of the Holy Spirit who lifts him up, takes him to places and speaks to
him[9].
It is the only place where we see the glory and the Holy Spirit together, yet
being distinct.
Moses was a man, on whom the Holy Spirit was.
Even though he experienced God’s tangible presence and glory like many today
have not, those in the new covenant possess a far greater treasure. The God of
glory Himself now lives in us. When His glory descends, it is not only around
us, but the Holy Spirit lives in us, permeating every atom of our being. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect
the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing
glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2.Corinthians 3:18).
We not have His glory in us, but we are being transformed into His likeness,
with the end result of being like Him, being made up of glory.
5. The Glory and Jesus
Jesus left the glory He had with His Father and became man. At His baptism the Holy Spirit descended on Him and empowered Him for ministry. No mention is made of the glory of God in relation to Jesus at this time. The first time His glory was seen was on the mount of transfiguration, which would be better named glorification. Jesus’s face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light (Matthew 17:2). The mention of the cloud and the light remind the reader of Moses. Only Luke mentions the word glory: Peter and his companions … saw his glory and two men standing with him (Luke 9:32). Stern (1999:55) gives the following explanation: “So that his glory would not be less than that of Moshe and Eliyahu, who were speaking with him”, who are also described as having appeared in glorious splendor (Luke 9:31). However, the coming of Moses and Elijah “portends the nearness of the end of the age, and the reference to tabernacles has as its background the eschatological associations of the Feast of Tabernacles in connection with the idea of the tabernacling of God with his people” (Ramsey 1949:103) and Jesus’s glorification was “a fortaste of the glory of Jesus at the Parousia” (ibidem). The disciples may well have thought that Jesus would establish His kingdom at this time, since the appearance of the glory cloud was expected by the Jews at the end of the age[10].
Jesus was glorified in His resurrection from the dead and returned to His father’s glory He had had before, as Jesus had prayed in John 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
6. Conclusion
Stephen
saw the glory of God just before He went to be with Him (Acts 7:55). And Jesus
will come back with those who are His: When
Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory
(Colossians 3:4). Until then, we are
blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you (1.Peter 4:14). On
Pentecost the glory of God moved from the Temple into His people. The Holy
Spirit now lives in us, with all the glory of the Lord. And as we worship the
God of glory, we are creating an atmosphere for His tangible presence and glory
to be made manifest and change us so we become like Him.
7. Bibliography
Abrahams, Israel, The Glory of
God. Three Lectures, Oxford University Press: Milford 1925
Cohen, Abraham, Everyman’s Talmud, Schocken Books: New York 1995
Heflin, Ruth Ward, Glory.
Experiencing the Atmosphere of Heaven, McDougal Publishing: USA 1990
Njoku, Stephen Uche, Radical
Prayer and God’s Shekinah-Glory, Christian Living Publications:
Enugu/Nigeria 1991
Ramsey, Arthur Michael, The Glory
of God and the Transfiguration of Christ, Longmans, Green and Co:
Plymouth/UK 1949
Sorge, Bob, Glory. When Heaven
Invades Earth, Oasis House: Greenwood, MO 2000
Stern, David H., Jewish New Testament Commentary, Jewish
New Testament Publications: Clarksville, ML 1999
Williams, Rodman J., Renewal
Theology, Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI 1992