My mouth is filled with your praise,
declaring Your splendor all day long.
My mouth will tell of Your righteousness,
of Your salvation all day long,
though I know not its measure.
Psalm 71: 8, 15
I treasure these words. Did David write them?
All day long we can sing His praises - for His splendor, His righteousness and His salvation....
even though we know not its measure.
To measure means to determine the extent, dimensions, or capacity of something.
I wonder: will we ever know the measure of God's righteousness and salvation?
In the Bible there are examples of people seeing, sometimes in vision, glimpses of God's glory, or splendor.
(Splendor is a great word - comes from the Latin word meaning shining brilliance, magnificence, richness, and glory - conveys a sort of ethereal luminesce.)
Isaiah records:
....I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted,
and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him
were seraphs.. and they were calling to one another,
'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty. The whole
earth is filled with His glory.' At the sound of their
voices the doorposts shook and the temple was filled with
smoke.
Ezekiel describes:
...an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded
with brilliant light...spread out above the heads of the
living creatures was what looked like an expanse, sparkling
like ice and awesome....above the expanse over their heads
was what looked like a throne of sapphire and high above on
the throne was a figure like that of a man...and brilliant light
surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds
in a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the
LORD. When I saw it I fell face down. (Chapter 2)
Moses relates:
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders
of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel, Under His feet
was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as
the sky itself. (Exodus 24)
John tells us:
At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne
in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat
there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow
encircled the throne, resembling an emerald....(Revelation 4)
Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel and John saw glimpses of the
radiance of God - His vast splendor.
But they did not see its measure.
I find these biblical images hard to envision. I try.
But I don't have the same gasp of wonder and awe
that they did. I am not seeing it with the glorified
eyes that God gave them to see His radiance.
But I do know of something I can sort of imagine
about the glory of God - John saw it, too.
It is a wooden cross on a hill called Calvary.
When I see that vision in my mind, I, too, like Moses,
Isaiah and Ezekiel, fall down on my face in awe and wonder.
And, in spite of all they did see of God's splendor, they didn't see that picture of God's righteousness and salvation.
I see the cross, wear a cross, ponder the meaning of
the cross daily, and yet I still know not its measure.
Will I ever? Even in heaven?
Paul prayed:
I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may
have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how
wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpass knowledge -- that
you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of
God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)
And to the Romans he wrote:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,
nor any power, neither height nor depth, nor anything else
in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of
God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
We can still praise Him all day every day for His splendor, righteousness and salvation -- even
though we know not its measure.
Maranatha, Lord Jesus, come in Your glory!
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