#DailyDevotion The Father’s Glory Is Seen In The Crucified Messiah

2 Cor. 4:5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

 

The Christians’ life is not about themselves. Our lives are to proclaim Jesus Christ. Sometimes this may be difficult because our sinful flesh is what is exhibited, our egos, and the like more than Jesus’ life in us. Sometimes because of our union with Christ we may think it is us who do these good things that we do instead of Christ in us. Yet what the apostle Paul writes is what our lives in Christ is supposed to do, proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord.

 

Not only that Jesus is our Lord, i.e. ruler, king, but Jesus is the Lord, the God of the Old Testament in the flesh which certainly takes that into account. As the Lord he is the one who is merciful, kind, forgiving, gracious, slow to anger, keeping steadfast love but not letting the guilty go without punishment. That is who Jesus Christ is as Lord.

 

It is in the face of Jesus Christ we are given the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Moses had to be kept in a cleft of the rock when the Lord’s glory passed by and his name revealed. That rock was Christ Jesus. While the Lord’s bare glory is too much for us in this fallen state, his name revealed in Jesus, the Lord in the flesh, we are able to bear. If we want to know what the Father is like we need look no further than Jesus. Jesus and the Father are one. If you know Jesus you know the Father.

 

Jesus shows his glory in this, that he was crucified. It is a most strange and weird place for glory to be revealed. The cross is the place for punishment. It is an instrument for the lowest of the low to receive the death sentence. Looking upon Jesus Christ crucified we see someone stricken, smitten and afflicted by God. What kind of glory is that?

 

It is the glory of one who is merciful, gracious, kind, steadfast in love, forgiving iniquity but by no means letting the guilty go free. For there on the cross, the Lord exhibits all the qualities of his name. There most certainly the guilty are punished in the flesh and soul of Jesus. There the Lord provides a guilt sacrifice, a whole burnt offering. There on the cross the Lord provides the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world. On the cross we see the steadfast love of the Lord who out of love for his creation has had mercy on us and has been kind to us by sacrificing his only begotten Son, making him sin for us that we may be made the righteousness of God.

 

If you want to know what God the Lord is like, look no further than Jesus Christ of Nazareth and see what he did for you on Golgatha.

 

Heavenly Father, grant that we may exhibit the life of Jesus Christ in our lives, having been given the light of the knowledge of the glory of your  Son in our hearts, that we too may shine of that glory in our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.