LORD OF GLORY

‘And sitting down they watched him there,’ Matt. 27. 36. What thoughts passed through the minds of the Roman soldiers as they watched the dying moments of Jesus of Nazareth? What did the ‘rulers of this world’, the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, see as they mocked and exulted in His death? And what did that small group of His followers think as they grieved for Him? One thing seems clear - that as they saw Him there they did not see Him as the Lord of glory. Our Lord Himself prayed saying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’, Luke 23.34. Peter says that ‘through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers’, Acts 3.17, and Paul adds here, ‘had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory’.

In Acts chapter 7 verse 2, we are told that ‘The God of glory appeared unto … Abraham’. This is probably a direct reference to the Son of God, who is always the One who proceeds from the Father to reveal the Father. James reminds us of the title again, when he speaks of ‘our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory’, Jas. 2. 1. In a prophetic sense, Christ’s entry into heaven is as ‘the King of glory’, Ps. 24. 7. We are given a wonderful insight into the mind of Christ as He, facing the horror and shame of the cross, could speak to the Father of ‘the glory which I had with thee before the world was’, John 17. 5. When the Son of God became man, making Himself even lower than the angels, He left the glory of heaven, veiling His own inherent glory too, that He might be found in fashion as a man. This incredible step of self-abnegation led Him in a pathway of obedience, right on to death, even the death of the cross, Phil. 2. 6-8.

With what deliberate contrast those words then come to us - they ‘crucified the Lord of glory’. The Lord of glory was put to death in a place of shame; men killed the Prince of life; the Light of the world was shrouded in darkness; the Son of the Blessed became a curse for us; the Just was numbered with the transgressors; the theme of angels’ worship became the song of the drunkard; the Immortal lay down His life. Why? This was ‘the wisdom of God … which God ordained before the world unto our glory’, v. 7. Only God could bring glory from shame!