Dr. Dan Hayden •
Have you ever tried to go to sleep with the light on? Well, Israel must have gotten used to it. The bright light of God’s glory shone from the tent of worship in the center of Israel’s camp every night. It must have been an awesome sight!
In John 1:14, John uses the word “glory” twice when referring to the Person of Jesus Christ. After saying that Jesus is God having become a man to live among us, he goes on to say “…and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” Now John said that he was actually connecting two events from the past. The first event was the glory he had seen in Jesus when Jesus was transfigured before his very eyes on the Mount of Transfiguration. The second event was the glory of the Father when God descended upon the Old Testament Tabernacle. That glory—was known as the shekinah glory of God.
The word “shekinah” comes form the Greek word for tent—skaynay. Now the Greeks took the consonants of that word S-K-N, and added other vowels to make another word—“she-ki-nah”—a word that means “residence.”
So the shekinah glory was “tent’ glory—the same “residence” glory as when God resided in the midst of Israel. Now what John is saying is that the glory of Jesus is the same glory as the glory of the Father when He resided in the tent of worship. The glory of Jesus is the shekinah glory.
Say—don’t be afraid of the dark. The light of Jesus’ glory shines all night long.