Moses, David, Isaiah, and the remnant of Israel in the days of Nehemiah, all unite to praise, or call upon God’s people to praise, the glorious name of Jehovah, the God of Israel, and well they might as we consider the ways of the Lord for the securing of His own glory and the blessing of His people Israel. The voice of Jehovah, His majesty and His kingdom, are all spoken of as glorious, and of the God of Israel, Asaph wrote, “Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey” (Psalm 76:4), and in Psalm 66:2 the writer says, “Sing forth the honour of His Name: make His praise glorious.” Everything that belongs to God, and all that He does, must take character from Him, and the divine glory that shines out brings forth praises from the hearts of those who are able to discern it, and who know God in His love, His wisdom and His power.
Concerning Jehovah
What is said in relation to the glory of Jehovah is blessedly illustrated for us in Exodus 15, where Moses and the children of Israel sing their song of deliverance on seeing the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host. The opening words of the song are, “I will sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea” (verse 1). Moses composes the song so that each individual can sing as expressing the feelings of his own heart in celebrating the great triumph of Israel’s God. Miriam, as a prophetess, and the women of Israel following her, use almost the same words, but as exhorting the people, “Sing ye to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously” (verses 20, 21). It was almost as if Miriam and the women of Israel desired to continue, and for others to continue, the singing of the theme of Jehovah’s glorious triumph.
It was indeed a glorious triumph that Jehovah secured for the blessing of His people, and one that foreshadowed a very much greater triumph that the Lord Jesus would secure as entering into death to vanquish Satan and his power, and to remove from His people the fear of death (Heb. 2:14-15). Satan no doubt thought that he had been mightily triumphant when he seduced Eve and brought Adam into sin imagining that he had frustrated the purpose of God for the blessing of man. He was totally unaware of the counsels of God that had another Man in reserve, One who, through death, would give effect to all God’s counsels, and in doing so would completely vanquish Satan and the power he exercised to terrify men. The triumph of the Lord Jesus through His death upon the cross was indeed a glorious triumph for God, for Himself, and for His people.
In verse 6 of our chapter, Israel celebrated the “glorious power” of Jehovah, singing, “Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: Thy right hand, O Lord, has dashed in pieces the enemy.” Pharaoh was foolish enough to challenge the power of God when he refused to let Israel go, and in consequence learned of the greatness of God’s power, both in the destruction of the land of Egypt and in the overthrow of his army in the Red Sea. Whether it be man or Satan, he has to learn that he cannot interfere with God’s people with impunity. God may wait in patience until the evil is ripe, but when He intervenes His right hand is manifested to be glorious in power, a power that nothing can resist.
When Satan had influenced men to crucify the Son of God, he must have thought that he had secured a great victory over God, but he was soon to learn “What is the exceeding greatness of His power” (Eph. 1:19). It was “mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.” There never had been such a demonstration of the might and glory of the power of God, for Satan and all his host would fain have kept Christ in death, but instead, God took Christ, the Man of His counsels out of death, and gave Him the highest place in heaven, so that from there He could fulfil all His will, and give effect to His eternal purpose. Coming out of death, Christ “led captivity captive” (Eph. 4:8), and “having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them” (Col. 2:15).
The holiness of God is celebrated in verse 11, “Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” God’s holiness was fully manifested in Christ’s death where, during the three hours of darkness, He had to forsake His own Son, who was made sin for us. When made sin for us, we hear the Son of God cry, in spirit in Psalm 22:3, “But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” It was “according to the Spirit of holiness” that Jesus was “declared the Son of God with power,” by the “resurrection of the dead”. How glorious indeed is the holiness of God as seen in relation to the death and resurrection of His Son.
Concerning the Lord Jesus
Psalm 72 declares the blessed conditions for Israel under the Lord Jesus as God’s King in the millennial day, but Messiah will also “have dominion…from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth” (verse 8). It will be a time of peace and plenty, and “His Name shall endure for ever…all nations shall call Him blessed.” The contemplation of this scene of blessing causes the hearer of the Psalmist to well over with praise to God, and he adds “And blessed be His glorious Name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory” (Ps. 72:18-19). The Name of the Lord God of Israel that is so glorious, unites with the Name of God’s King in this psalm, for it is in the Person of Jesus that God’s glory fills the earth to fulfil the word of the Lord in Numbers 14:21, “But as truly as I live all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.”
Isaiah, like the psalmist of Psalm 72, looks forward to the coming day in chapter 4, and writes, “In that day shall the Branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel” (verse 2). When the Lord Jesus was on earth the prophet showed that there would be no beauty for Israel’s eye, even if He was altogether lovely in the eye of God His Father, His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased, the true vine that brought forth fruit delightful to Him. When the Lord returns to earth, Israel, those who have come through the judgments of the tribulation, will see that Messiah, the BRANCH that was fruitful for God when He was rejected by the nation, is “beautiful and glorious.”
The prophet in Isaiah 11:10, sees Jesus as “a ROOT of Jesse”, for He is both the root and the Branch, that which produces the fruit, and that which supplies the nourishment. Again he refers to “that day the day of Christ’s glory, when He “shall stand for an Ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and His rest shall be glorious. Israel will rally round Him whom once they had rejected, and the Gentiles who, in Pilate, had united to cast Christ out of this world, will seek Him. Since the rejection of Christ this world has known nothing but conflict and unrest, but when He returns His rest shall be glorious. The rest that this poor world shall enjoy under Christ will be characterised by His glory that fills the earth.
Eliakim in Isaiah 22 is a type of Christ in the time of His glory, although the “nail in the sure place” is seen both in glory and in rejection. In the day of His glory, “He shall be for a glorious throne to His father’s house,” and all the glory of the house of David will then be His, and all who are blessed will be blessed in relation to Him (verses 22–24). Christ is then seen as “a glorious throne,” for all authority will belong to Him, and He will reign in righteousness, and the glory of the Lord that fills the earth will centre in Him as He sits upon the throne of His father in Jerusalem.
As God’s Servant, the Son of God was found in this world, but to all outward appearance He had spent His strength for nought, and in vain (Isa. 49:1–4). Deeply feeling the rejection of Israel, but conscious that He had been well-pleasing to God His Father, the Lord says, “though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength” (verse 5). How blessedly this is fulfilled in the words of the Lord Jesus in John 13: “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him” (John 13:31-32). Israel’s rejection of Christ but opened the door for Him to be God’s salvation “unto the end of the earth” (Isa. 49:6). Truly He was glorious in the eyes of His Father, in His life on earth, in His death, and in His present place on high at the Father’s right hand.
Quite a different scene is brought before us in Isaiah 63. Messiah has passed through His suffering, and has come for the blessing of His people Israel, but also for the judgment long predicted on the enemies of His earthly people. Edom, the inveterate foes of Israel, who refused to allow Israel to pass through his border on his way to the land of promise (Num. 20:21), who pursued his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity (Amos 1:11), and who said in the day of Jerusalem’s judgment, “Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof” (Psalm 137:7), will come under the unsparing judgment of the Lord, when He comes “with dyed garments from Bozrah…glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength” (verses 1). This is not Jesus in His meekness and lowliness, but the warrior in His glorious garments of majesty and righteousness.
Concerning Jerusalem
Under David and Solomon, Jerusalem was a great city, and especially when the glory of the Lord filled the temple (1 Kings 8). Since then it has seen much sorrow, and conflict has raged within and without its walls. Even now, with Jerusalem controlled by the Israelis there is strife within and around. Yet the day is coming when the city over which the Savour wept shall be “a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down,” where “the glorious Lord” will be for Israel a “place of broad rivers and streams” (Isa. 33:20-21). Well has it been written concerning Zion, “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God” (Psalm 87:2), for there are many prophecies of the glory of the holy city in which the Lord will reign in glory in the millennium.
Something of the glory of Jerusalem in the coming day is found in Psalm 45, where Jesus, as the true Solomon, is portrayed upon His throne, all His “garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia,” and Jerusalem, as His queen, upon His right hand “in gold of Ophir” (verses 8, 9). The place of favour that Jerusalem enjoys in intimacy with the King is described in the words, “The King’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold” (verse 13). Jerusalem is not only glorious for the display of the great King, but is glorious in His eyes as having a special place of favour and intimacy with Him. See also Daniel 11:16, 41, 45, regarding the glorious land.
Concerning the Church
If Jerusalem is to have a special place with Christ when He comes to reign on earth, the church has a very special place with Him as His bride in heaven. Revelation 19:7–9 tells of the blessed place of intimacy the church shall have with Christ in heaven, and Revelation 21 and 22 show the church displaying the divine glory in the millennium and in the eternal day. In preparation for her marriage in heaven, as also for her place with Christ in the day of His glory, Christ is caring for the church as she takes her way through the world towards her glorious destiny.
Christ’s love for the church is such that He “gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25), and what He is doing now for the church makes known what He had in His heart for her long before she existed. His present ministry for her is sanctifying and cleansing her “with the washing of water by the word” (verse 26), and the day of her being presented to Himself is in view. He will make her a suited companion for Himself, just as God made Eve a suited companion for Adam, for she will be “his like” just as Eve was to Adam. In Isaiah 49 we have heard Christ say, “Yet shall I be glorious in His eyes, so He is making her “a glorious church.” If He is glorious, she too must be glorious.
As the sacrificial Lamb, He was without spot (1 Peter 1:9), and He will have the church without spot. He was the lamb without blemish; she also must be without blemish. He is holy (Heb. 7:26); she too must be holy. Nor will there be any “wrinkle” on her, no mark of age to detract from her freshness and beauty, so that we see the church after being with Christ for a thousand years “as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2), her beauty unimpaired, and fit to be Christ’s companion, the object of His love and the sharer of His glory for the eternal day.
R. 29.1.70