Jesus, The Almighty God (The Lord of Glory)
Overview
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In the Old Testament, creation is said to be full of God’s glory (Psalm 19:1-6 & Isaiah 6:1-3) because God alone is the Almighty Creator. Through His immense will and power, God brought creation into existence and has sustained creation from moment to moment ever since. Creation therefore evidences and testifies that God is the King of Glory (Psalm 24:1-2 & 24:7-10) whose glory is seen in all created things.
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However, while comparing God’s wisdom as expressed in the crucified Jesus with the so-called wisdom of the world, the Apostle Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that the world in its foolishness crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Corinthians 2:6-8). As the Lord of Glory, Paul is identifying Jesus as the Almighty God (in union with the Father and the Holy Spirit) whose glory can be seen in all created things.
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Further to this, John identifies Jesus as the Lord Almighty whose glory fills the whole earth (John 12:37-41). After applying a passage to Jesus’ ministry from Isaiah’s commissioning (Isaiah 6:9-10), John states immediately afterwards that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him. Within the context of Isaiah 6, Isaiah saw the LORD Almighty who was high and exalted and seated upon his heavenly throne and whose glory fills the whole earth. According to John, this was Jesus. Through this identification of Jesus, John is therefore recognising Jesus as the Almighty God (in union with the Father and the Holy Spirit). John’s application of Isaiah 6 to Jesus is also in keeping with his earlier statements about Jesus being God's Eternal and Uncreated Word through which all things were made (John 1:1-4 & 1:9-10) as well as with Jesus’ own statement about the former glory that he possessed with the Father before the beginning of the world and before creation. (John 17:1-5).
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Bible Passages
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Psalm 19:1-6
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(1) The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (2) Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. (3) They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. (4) Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. (5) It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. (6) It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Psalm 24:1-2 & 24:7-10
(1) The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; (2) for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.
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(7) Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in. (8) Who is this King of Glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. (9) Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in. (10) Who is he, this King of Glory? The LORD Almighty - he is the King of Glory.
Isaiah 6:1-10
(1) In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the LORD, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. (2) Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. (3) And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
(4) At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
(5) “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
(6) Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. (7) With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
(8) Then I heard the voice of the LORD saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
(9) He said, “Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ (10) Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
John 1:1-4 & 1:9-10
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(1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He was with God in the beginning. (3) Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (4) In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
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(9) The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. (10) He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him.
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John 12:37-41
(37) Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. (38) This was to fulfil the word of Isaiah the prophet: “Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
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(39) For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: (40) “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn - and I would heal them.”
(41) Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.
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John 17:1-5
(1) After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. (2) For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. (3) Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (4) I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. (5) And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
1 Corinthians 2:6-8
(6) We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. (7) No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. (8) None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.
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