And they brought what Moses commanded in front of the tent of meeting, and all the congregation drew near and stood before the Lord. And Moses said, “This is the thing that the Lord commanded you to do, that the glory of the Lord may appear to you.” Leviticus 9:5-6.

The consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood is the greater context of these verses. The wide-eyed expectation following their obedience to present themselves before Him, as He commanded them, was for the purpose that, “the glory of the Lord may appear to you.”

Wow! That is amazing! Moses and Aaron offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings. The culmination of their offerings was the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people (9:22-24). The Lord accepted their offerings and God’s glory appeared and He consumed the sacrifices prepared by the people.

What an awesome sight that would have been! To be exposed to the glory of God would evoke feelings of terror (in a very reverential way) and the overwhelming reality of their all-powerful God.

But this is not lost on New Testament believers. Look at the statement of Paul makes to the Corinthian church:

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ – 2 Corinthians 4:3-6.

The gospel reveals the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. And the glory of God is revealed when God shines in our heart the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. The same glory revealed to Moses, Aaron and the people of Israel is the same glory that we see in the face of Christ through the gospel.

There is a Christian song called, “Show me your Glory” which I suspect is penned after Moses request to see God’s glory (Exodus 33:18). I certainly get the idea, but we need to remember that if we have received Christ, we have already seen His glory. We do not need, like Moses, to ask to see it, we already have seen it in the face of Christ. This may not be impressive to some because some might claim they did not see anything with their human eyes. The key is that God has shone in our hearts, “… the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

The challenge for all of us is to value, by faith, our experience when God manifested His glory to us, leading us to faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins, to being removed from His judgement, given the righteousness of Christ and adopted into His family… how glorious is that? Spectacular!!

God’s glory is not a performance or show piece, and, to some degree not meant as a means for revival. It is the evidence of the pristine power of His unveiled presence. Regardless of how much you appreciate this reality or not, the celebration of any individual or church is the glory of God. The foundational component of faith is in a person. Anything short of His glory is robbing Him of it.

Our glory is not in our programs, or our history, it is in Christ because He is the glory of the Father. When we realize that He who defines all of life, and all of reality, is the same God who rescued us from the brokenness of sin and separation from His divine favor, we can rest in the assurance we have seen the glory of God. We celebrate and rejoice in the glory of God because He is worthy of all our praise.

In His grace and glory,

Pastor Brad.