THE DIVINE GLORY
‘Shew me Thy glory.’
It was a fine aspiration, worthy of the man who uttered it and the occasion on which he spoke. It was the reaching out of a darker dispensation after Gospel light, the reflections wishing to lose themselves in the great original. It was earth longing after heaven—the restlessness of earth longing for that which should be Divine, the rest of desire.
I. There are three kinds of glory: (1) the glory of circumstances; (2) moral glory; (3) the glory of the sense or consciousness that everything goes back to the Creator, encircling Him with His own proper perfections, the living of God in the adoration, gratitude, and service of His creatures. Moses saw all three. His prayer had an answer on the Mount of Transfiguration.
II. It was a very remarkable answer that God made to him. ‘I will make My kindness pass before thee.’ Kindness is glory. The glory of God was in Jesus Christ. That was the manifestation of the glory of God—that is, kindness. God is love. He has many attributes, but they meet to make love. All God’s attributes unite together, and His glory is His goodness.
Rev. Jas. Vaughan.
Illustration
(1) ‘The prayer is an uttered desire for a fuller, clearer conception of God’s unspeakable love to man in the redemption through Christ. His soul may have yearned for richer, spiritual, personal manifestations of God as an individual Saviour, amid so many grand material exhibitions of Godhead, so many splendid ritual services in the Tabernacle. His mind is apparently directed to one “glory” absorbing all the varied and multiplied glory—God’s distinguishing, crowning “glory” before all worlds and all intelligences. Nor does he pray for a manifestation of the longed-for “glory” for any other eye than his own. Like focal points of richest brightness “me” and “Thy glory” present themselves. What is so much desired is a personal, private revelation of God’s grace to His servant.’
(2) ‘Moses’ prayer sounds presumptuous, but it was heard unblamed, and granted in so far as possible. The precise meaning of the petition must be left undetermined. Only this is clear, that it was something far beyond even that face-to-face intercourse which he had had, as well as beyond that granted to the elders. We should hear in Moses’ cry the voice of a soul thrilled through and through with the astounding consciousness of God’s favour, blessed with love-gifts in answered prayers, and yearning for more of that light which it feels to be life.’