10
The Brightness of The Glory
The `brightness' (or `effulgence') translates a word (apaugasma) which occurs nowhere else in the New
Testament. We may get clearer light if we turn to the typical people Israel. When the ark was taken from Israel, the
wife of Phinehas named her son Ichabod-'Where is the glory?' saying:
`The glory is departed from Israel: because the ark of God was taken' (1 Sam. 4:21 cf. 22).
The Psalmist's comment is:
He `delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the enemy's hand' (Psa. 78:61).
A - This shows that Israel's conception of God was very limited, and even though you proceed to show that
Christ was the Jehovah of the Old Testament that will not lift Him beyond `A God'.
B - Hezekiah may correct your mistake:
`O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the Cherubims'.
A - As I said, Israel localized the Deity.
B - You did not allow Hezekiah to finish:
`O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the Cherubims, Thou art THE GOD, even Thou alone, of all the
kingdoms of the earth; Thou hast made heaven and earth' (2 Kings 19:15).
The glory of the Lord is `above the heavens' (Psa. 8:1), yet Hezekiah's prayer teaches that for the purposes of
grace that infinite and incomprehensible glory could be attached to the ark of the covenant, even as in the fulness of
time it should be manifest in the flesh. Ezekiel says:
`And upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it ... This was the
appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD' (Ezek. 1:26-28).
Thus it is that Ephesians 1:17 says that `the God of our Lord Jesus Christ' is `the Father of the glory'.
The Image and The Substance
A further title is `the express image of His substance'. `Express image' is the rendering of charakter, from
charatto `to engrave'. Charagma is translated `graven' in Acts 17:29, which we might render:
`We ought not to suppose a gold, or a silver, or a stone sculpture of man's art and device to be like the Deity'.
One of the dictionary meanings of `substance' is `that which underlies all outward manifestations'. God is
invisible. Christ is the image of the invisible God. God's `substance' is manifested in Him Who is the express
image of the unseen underlying substance. Faith is the `substance' of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1). Works, walk,
witness, give expression to the unseen faith (Heb. 11). No laws, fasts, feasts or sacrifices, no series of typical men
could ever be the express image; Christ alone occupies that place.
As I trust you will treat all that is put before you in a true `Berean' spirit, the following comparison of passages
may be of service.