Glory

 

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

 

I was talking with the “better half” the other night, and she asked: what do you think about the word “Glory”? Even though most everyone has heard the word, it has all but disappeared from our common language used daily today. Maybe, hearing it in the old 

Civil War hymn “Battle Hymn of the Republic Words”:  

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

 

Glory is a glorious word, but what does it mean exactly? Well, the Greek word for “glory” is “doxa”, meaning the kingly majesty which belongs to God as supreme ruler, majesty in the sense of the absolute perfection of the deity. But also, the most glorious condition of blessedness into which is appointed and promised that true Christians shall enter after their Savior's return from heaven. The felicity of heaven prepared for the children of God; celestial bliss. 

 

When we proclaim: “Glory to God in the Highest”, we are giving Him our heartfelt praise ascribed in adoration; truly honoring our Heavenly Father for His divine presence, provision and power to save. Glorification is our exaltation to honor and dignity; our elevation to glory as adopted children of God and citizens of Heaven. Glory is the word.

 

Julia Ward Howe’s 1862 poem “Battle Hymn of the Republic” continues: 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

 

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemnors, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on."

 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free,
While God is marching on.

 

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

In Christ, Brian