Tiago 2

Tiago 2

Ellicott comments that Paul gives us in these verses "a noble accumulation of genitives, setting for the inheritance on the side of its glory, and the glory on the side of its riches." Glory is the essential characteristic of salvation, and this glory is richly abounding. Lord of Glory, the majestic title of Christ, embodies the thought that He Himself possessed glory as His native right. As used by Paul, the title implies that he had the most exalted conception of Christ as Lord, T. C. Edwards on 1 Corinthians 2:8 says, The Lord to whom glory belongs as His native right.... Glory is the peculiar attribute of Jehovah among all the gods (Psalm 29:1). The expression... implies that Jesus was Lord of Glory, that is Jehovah and that the Lord of Glory died" (Acts 3:15). Paul also speaks of "the Lords death" (1 Corinthians 11:26). The hymnist invites us to "survey the Cross, on which the Prince of Glory died." As we saw in another connection our Lord's Deity gave efficacy to His death for sinners. He is called The Lord of Glory, then, because glory belongs to Him as His characterizing quality and because He came as "the effulgence of the glory of God" (Hebrews 1:3). Paul describes how the princes of this world "crucified the Lord of glory" who was "ordained before the world unto our glory" (1 Corinthians 2:7, 8; Matthew 25:34). The glory was ever His, and He came to bestow it upon us, and to bring to us the perfection of our nature. Arthur Way translates it, "to lift us into the glory of His presence." It was only through His sacrifice, however, that He achieved this purpose (Revelation 11:8). Jesus is the Lord whose attribute is glory (Psalm 29:1; Acts 7:2; Ephesians 1:17). The quotation from James has a different significance. Here, the words, the Lord are in italics, meaning they are not in the original, and so the passage should read, "our Lord Jesus Christ, the glory," or, "the Glorious One" (2:1), and is akin to the phrase, "the brightness of His glory" (Hebrews 1:3). He is the true Shekinah. But rich in glory, for our sakes He became poor, and the application James makes is instructive, namely, that in the presence of Christ the Glory earthly distinctions and glory should disappear (2:1-9). Incidentally, this is one of the rare passages in which James, the natural brother of our Lord, breaks through his habitual reserve in speaking of his brother, who had become his Master, and shows us something of his reverence and devotion. To him, Jesus was The Glorious One. Matthew