The Dark Side of Glory

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The Son is the radiance of His Father's glory1

Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.2

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There is, in my mind, a certain discrepancy between these two verses. When Jesus walked this earth, the disciples, the Pharisees, the soldiers gathered at the foot of His cross—none of these saw any glory in Him; He was a very ordinary man of His times. Yet, something there was about Him which touched the very core of many. They saw something of Father never before seen in a human. Then He said, "glorify Me…" This He said within hours of His death. "Glorify Me with the glory I had before the creation."

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The cross is His glorification.

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In His darkest hour, at that time, He revealed the glory He had with His Father from all eternity. Nothing reveals the Father's glory, His radiance, His perfection more than does Jesus, hanging lifeless between heaven and earth. Here is the brightest light, the most radiant of all Their acts; the outshining of Father through this horrendous act perpetrated on His Son.

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Thus, Paul can say that those moments were the absolute glory shining forth from the darkness of death.

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Jesus is, was and ever will be, the glory, the absolute glory of the Father. See Him shedding the bright beams of father's love into the darkness of this world. See Him there, dead, radiating Father's love to a sin-dark world—to you and me and all others. See Him, ignoble in apparent defeat, the Seed ready to burst from the earth in but a few hours to shine forth, to radiate, illuminate the darkness of Adam First's world.3

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To Father and Son be the glory forever and ever.4

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1 Hebrews 1:3

2 John 17:5

3 John 1:4

4 Romans 11:36

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