Knowing and Experiencing God as the God of Glory and the God of the House of God

This week we come to the last crystal in the book of Ezekiel, The Return of the Glory of God to the House of God, and today we want to see how our God is the God of glory and also the God of the house of God.

The main burden of this crystallisation-study of Ezekiel is to see the dwelling place that God desires to have on earth. God wants to gain a base, a standing on earth, so that He can move and carry our His administration.

We want to see what is the relationship between the house of God (the building of God, His corporate expression) and the glory of God, which is God Himself expressed in splendor.

In the book of Ezekiel we see how the glory of God left the house of God because of the idolatrous images that the people of Israel brought into the house of God. God’s judgement came according to His glory, and the glory of God left the house of God in stages; Ezekiel saw the glory of God depart.

Then, toward the end, when a certain condition is fulfilled, the glory of God returns. Hallelujah, God wants to have the glory of God return to the house of God.

We want to see how this takes place, and how we can little by little and day by day participate in this so that the church, the Body of Christ, may be built up, and so that God may be glorified in the church and the Lord would have a house on earth, for Him to return to the earth.

In particular, today we want to see how our God is the God of glory, how He draws us by His glory and He infuses us with His element so that we may believe into Him and follow Him.

Also, we want to see that our God is the God of the house of God; He is not only the God of individual believers but the God of the house, and we can and should experience Him as such a One.

We need to Know and Experience God as the God of Glory and as the Father of Glory

The God of glory appeared to Abraham; he was in his father’s house, worshipping idols like the rest, but the God of glory appeared to him, caught him, called him, and infused him with the ability to go out of there and to the land where God wanted him to go.

Abraham believed God because he was infused by God with the ability to believe, for God’s repeated appearing as the God of glory infused the element of faith into him.

The same thing happened to us also, in principle. One day the God of glory came to us through the preaching of the gospel. We may have been in the world, without any inclination to seek God, but the God of glory appeared to us and infused us with the very ability to believe, and we could not but believe.

As we listened to the gospel, there was an infusion going on: God was infusing us with Himself until we responded to Him by believing into Him and giving ourselves to Him.

Actually, it wasn’t just us responding to Him, but He Himself in us was the one responding – He infused us with Himself, and His believing ability was transfused into our being.

Every time we are under the hearing of faith, God infuses us with Himself, and we just believe into Him. It’s like being under the x-ray that allows the healing beams to operate in our being and infuse us with life.

The God of glory is not someone who scares us away or rejects us; rather, He infuses us, He transfuses His element into us, and when we respond to Him; then, He regenerates us to make us His sons.

The God of glory becomes the Father of glory to us as we believe into Him. Eph. 1:17 mentions, the Father of glory, denoting that He regenerates us as by infusing us with Himself, and He makes us His corporate expression, for His glory is expressed through us.

The title, the Father of glory, implies regeneration (“Father” implies begetting through regeneration) and expression (glory is the expression of God). As we hear the gospel and as we are under the hearing of the faith, day by day, we are infused by the God of glory with His element so that we may be regenerated and become His expression.

Hallelujah, the God of glory becomes the Father of glory and makes us children of God, regenerated with the divine life to be God’s expression!

God calls us, the New Testament believers, by His invisible glory (Acts 7:2; 2 Pet. 1:3), and He becomes to us the Father of glory, being expressed through His many sons (Eph. 1:17; Heb. 2:10).

We have been regenerated by God in our spirit; our spirit is the organ for contacting, receiving, containing, and digesting God.

Our soul is the organ of expression; therefore, our soul must be transformed, otherwise the God of glory cannot be expressed through us as the Father of glory, because the self and the natural life is still expressed through the soul.

Hallelujah, in His organic salvation we will be and we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory (John 1:12-13; 1 Thes. 2:12; 2 Thes. 1:10, 12)!

We thank You, God of glory, for appearing to us and for infusing us with Yourself to make us children of God, part of God’s expression. Continue to appear to us day by day, Lord, to transfuse Yourself into us and saturate us with Your element, until we come Your full expression, the sons of God expressing God in glory. Oh, Father of glory, we love You! Transform us further in our soul so that we may become Your corporate expression, Your many sons who express the Father of glory in their living!

Experiencing God as the God of the House of God, the God of the Building of God

In Gen. 35:7 we have the divine title “El-Bethel”, which is “God of the house of God”.

After Jacob was broken and transformed by God through the experiences he went through, so that he entered into the stage of maturation, he became Israel; then, in Gen. 35, he came to Bethel a second time, this time in reality (not just having the vision of God’s house but being in its reality).

Here, at Bethel, Jacob built an altar and consecrated it to the God of the house of God. Before this chapter God was the God of individuals; He was the God of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Isaac, but in Gen. 35 He is no longer just the God of individuals but the God of the house of God.

We need to know God not only as our God personally but as the God of a corporate body, the God of the house of God. Bethel signifies the corporate life, which is the Body of Christ; in calling God the God of Bethel (the God of the house of God), Jacob advanced from the individual experience to the corporate experience.

All believers in Christ know God personally, and they experience Him as their God to some degree; but how much experience do we have of God as the God of the house of God, the God of the Body of Christ?

We need to experience God in sich a way that He is not only God to us individually but also the God of the house of God. We must admit that we don’t have yet much experience of God as the God of the house of God, but we are in the church life, and here we can have a taste of such an experience.

We thank the Lord that, after coming into the church life, we started to have some experience of God’s being to us the God of the house of God, the God in the Body of Christ.

We all can testify that the God we experience in the church life is not just our “personal God”, that is, the God we experience personally and privately by ourselves, but our God is in the Body, the Christ in you and in me, the God of the house of God.

Our experience of God in the church life is much richer and sweeter than our personal experience of God, for here we can enjoy God as the God of the house of God.

The more time we spend in the church life, exercising our spirit and being in fellowship with the saints, the more we experience the God of Bethel, the God of the house of God.

Glory is the expression of God; when we experience God as the God of glory, we become the expression of God. Building is the corporate expression of the Triune God.

The glory of God and the building of God go together, for the church, as God’s building, is the corporate expression of God (Exo. 40:34-38; 1 Kings 8:10-11; Rev. 21:10-11; Eph. 3:19, 21; 1 Tim. 3:15-16).

We need to be saved from independence, individualism, isolation, and our peculiarity so that we may be built up with the saints into the Body and be buildable, truly corporate. Then, we need to be saved from self-likeness, from expressing the self.

There’s no doubt that we will be saved much more in the life of Christ, we will be transformed thoroughly, we will be saved from independence, individualism, and peculiarity! Praise the Lord, we will sooner or later become the building of God saturated with God for the corporate expression of God!

Lord, we want to experience You as the God of the house of God, the God of the Body of Christ. May we know You not only as our God individually but as the God in the Body of Christ. Transform us further, save us more from our peculiarity and individualism, and bring us into the experience of God as the God of the house. Lord, we believe and are assured that You will save us much more in Your life, You will transform us thoroughly, You will save us from independence and individualism, and You will make us Your building, Your corporate expression!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis, msg. 80 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Ezekiel (2), msg. 12 (week 24 in the HWMR), The Return of the Glory of God to the House of God.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # O God of glory, / You’ve changed my destiny. / Oh Lord, Your mercy / In love appeared to me. / O God of glory, / You have attracted me! / My heart responds to Thee / And turns spontaneously. / O God of glory, / You have appeared to me. / Dear Lord, Your beauty, / My God, has captured me! (Song on seeing the God of glory)
  # Stone-ify me for Your building, / I desire a home for Thee. / Let me share Your dream of Bethel; / Duplicate Your heart in me. / Burn, refine away the nat’ral; / Transformed preciousness I’d be; / Lord, perfect me as a pillar, / Standing solid, weightily. (Song on being for God’s building)
  # In God’s house and in Thy Body / Builded up I long to be, / That within this corporate vessel / All shall then Thy glory see. (Hymns #840)