Editorial February 27, 1926 Issue

God's Glory

Albert F. Gilmore

Jesus' revelation of the majesty and glory of God was in the fulfillment of prophecy. Centuries before the advent of the Messiah, the prophet Isaiah declared, "And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." John, beloved of the Master, recognized first of all the disciples, it seems, the holy character of the Nazarene's mission—reflection of the glory of God. "We beheld his glory," John writes, '"the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." A later translator renders the last clause, "glories such as an only son enjoys from his father."

Christ Jesus revealed God to men in a degree far transcending the experience of any other. He came to make God known to mankind, thereby disclosing not only the possibility of winning freedom from material beliefs through the utilization of divine power, but showing the way whereby mortals, all mankind, could win their release. John regarded the miracle performed at the wedding in Cana as an instance when Jesus showed forth God's glory. How insistent was the Nazarene that none should mistake the purpose of his work to reveal the Father! Never accepting for himself the glory that belonged to God, he set for all time an example of self-abnegation and humility without parallel in Christian annals. In discriminating between the self-seeker and the humble he said to his disciples, "He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory; but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him." How conclusively did his every word and act conform to his high purpose to reveal the wondrous glories of God to benighted mankind, struggling under a self-imposed burden of materiality!

The materially-minded, failing to see in the lowly Jesus the fulfillment of their expectations as to the character of the Messiah, were unwilling to accept his revelation of the divine nature of the Father who had sent him. They looked for a kingly savior, who should come in pride and pomp, so caparisoned in regal splendor as to overawe by the very magnificence of his pageantry. Is it any wonder, then, that they failed to comprehend the importance of the lessons which Jesus so skillfully conveyed by parable and simple precept? "Centuries ago," writes Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 224), "religionists were ready to hail an anthropomorphic God, and array His vicegerent with pomp and splendor; but this was not the manner of truth's appearing." The simplicity of truth and the humility of its greatest demonstrator were beyond the comprehension of the worldly-minded priest and Pharisee.

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