The glory that we will see is far greater than the glory now. The Jews meditate and discuss the glory of the LORD descending on Sinai, and inhabiting the temple. The glory has departed Israel; when the temple was sacked a child was named Ichabod, for the glory had departed.
But there was a restoration under David.
And the restoration when Christ returns will be great, glorious, and terrible.
1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? 2You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; 3and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, 6who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, 8how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? 9For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! 10Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; 11for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!
12Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, 13not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. 14But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. 15Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; 16but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
It is not our past or our credentials or what we have done that qualifies us for salvation. There is nothing we can do. We are broken. Our time is little, and without Christ, without meaning. And the narrative will damn us more strongly than the law of Moses.
Most people tend to look at others where they were, and judge them by things they have done in the past, even in the distant past. That is why the Left constantly digs through long-forgotten personal histories in seeking to discredit people; to them, you will forever be whatever the worst interpretation of the worst thing you have ever done or said is. That this is patently absurd, of course, is irrelevant to them. They care nothing for the truth, they only seek to destroy. They are little satans, accusers in service to the Great Accuser.
But they are not alone. Petty people always insist on trying to force people into the box of their past. They cannot conceive of change, of personal growth, or personal improvement, and they hate it when others make them feel as if their understanding of the world is incorrect. They will never stop trying to remind even the most successful, most transformed individual of his less impressive past.
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The individuals I appreciate most are those who seek after the truth, even when they find it uncomfortable or personally distasteful. I am far more comfortable with the seekers than with those who are convinced that they have arrived at the final one true understanding of God, Man, the universe, and everything, whether it is the Catholic Church, the Bible, or Science that provides them with the basis for their baseless confidence.
I prefer those who know they see as though through a glass, darkly, probably because they are the only people who are not hopelessly self-deluded who also possess the courage to reject the despair of the nihilist.
Not everyone who walks the hard and narrow path of truth is, or will become, a Christian, but it is a path that eventually leads to Jesus Christ all the same.
We cannot see the glory to come. But this is our hope: that God is faithful, and he will redeem us by his blood. Ignore the narrative. The enemy will try to accuse us all. He wants us broken, damned, and back in his plantations, being farmed for progressive votes while being eased to damnation. As if there is no glory to come, but only power and spite.
Do not be them. Do not be like them.