…Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27, NIV)
It’s good to know that we “older people” aren’t the only ones who notice these things. Driving back to campus in the twilight after practice with my high school golf team earlier this week, one of the boys peered out the window and said, “Look at the sky.”
Sure enough, a broad canopy of cumulus clouds filled the sky, allowing the orange of the sun’s last rays to fill the empty spaces and create a spectacular close to the day. It was, without the least exaggeration, glorious.
But is that the right word? Dare we use “glory” in describing something so everyday as a sunset? Is this what Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Colossians that having Christ in us gives us “the hope of glory”?
Biblically speaking, the Greek word translated “glory,” which is doxa, does allow for the application of the word in the sense that something is brilliant and splendid. We can look at a snow-capped mountain, a rippling sea, even a delicate flower or a tender child, and call it “glorious.” In fact, if our mind takes us from this beautiful thing to the God who made it, speaking of his glory is perhaps the best thing we can do.
But we do not need hope for these things. They show themselves to us with regularity. As far as glory goes, they are a hope fulfilled.
In Paul’s words to the Colossians he must have been thinking of something else. He was, in the context, establishing that God had done something wholly unexpected in the thinking of the typical Jewish man or woman. He had now revealed himself to the Gentiles through his Son Jesus, and by his dwelling in the hearts of all who believed, regardless of their nationality, the hope of glory had been delivered to these many believers.
So what glory was he speaking of? Likely both of two forms of glory about which he wrote in several places: (1) the glorifying work that God does in us even as we walk this earth, and (2) the glorious age to come, when God’s eternal kingdom will be fixed in place for all time.
In the first case, Paul told the Romans: “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). There is a stunning past tense in this wording. It is not that someday we will be made glorious; it is that God has done this work in us already. We are, when Christ lives in us, a current reflection of God’s glory. The very idea of that is glorious in itself!
In the second case, Paul wrote in the same passage of our future glory: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” The groaning will end and all creation will be “liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:18-19).
Choose either. Choose both. In any case, you will find that placing your hope in the glory only Jesus provides will turn your affections to him in a newly excellent way.
—
Jeff Hopper
February 7, 2014
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.