To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:27 ESV
Have you ever stopped to think about God’s hope? We saw last week that He is the God of all hope, Romans 15:13 and that from the beginning of time, His desire was to be with man in the fullest expression of His Glory. While every created thing holds its own God-given glory, when we speak of the glory of God, we are speaking of His manifested presence.
Moses sought to see the glory of God, Exodus 33:18, but I would be remiss not to point out that first, He wanted to know the ways of God, Exodus 33:13. In response to Moses' prayer, God reveals His glory and manifests and proclaims His very character ~ The Lord, The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will be no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.
On a side note…this ‘unrepented iniquity’ visited by God upon following generations is rooted in the propensity found in every life to hold “practices” passed on, within or from a family construct. The father/mother, caregiver, peers, partners, spouses, mindsets and practices taught, are assumed by the learner to be normal and right. However innocently it may come, iniquity directly opposes the will and the word of God.
God’s desire to be ‘with’ man was seen in all the covenants and promises that He established throughout the Old Testament and on into the New. With the appearance of Jesus, God’s word became flesh so we are now able to physically behold His glory, as the only begotten of God full of grace and truth, John 1:14.
Now, we are left to discover the riches of His glory in this mystery, Christ dwelling within us being the hope of His glory. To continually demonstrate this very nature and character of God requires a vital, intimate, and yielded connection with Him.
The very one who has made us His temple dwells among us in great mercy and long-suffering displayed as He continues to dwell within imperfect people made acceptable only by the blood of His crucified son, Jesus Christ. Yet, in our imperfection, we are still His Hope. Hope for a love that was displayed in His Son by the willing offering of His sacrificed life in submission to His Father’s will.
As admonished by the Apostle Paul, we who have been sanctified, are continually being sanctified …..
For we are the temple of the living God as God said,
I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing,
then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.
2 Corinthians 6:16-18
Thus, He has this hope for us, to us, our sanctification freely offered, that His glory would be displayed in and through our union with Christ.