Over the past few months I have taken the song “Behold Our God“ by Sovereign Grace Music and examined the lyrics of the song, exploring multiple themes the song captures. We’ve looked at God’s Grandeur, God’s Genius, and The Gospel. And today we finish with the only fitting end…Glory!
Chorus
“Behold our God seated on His throne, come let us adore Him! Behold our King, nothing can compare Come let us adore Him!”
Bridge
“You will reign forever! Let Your glory fill the earth!”
When it comes to glory it has a two fold meaning. There is the glory we behold, the weightiness of God. And then there is the glory we give, what is due to God.
The Glory We Behold
What the writers of “Behold Our God” do well is highlight both aspects of glory. Look at the words of the chorus, “Behold our God, seated on His throne…nothing can compare!” In fact all the other verses we’ve looked at through out this little blog series force us to behold God’s glory. Verse 1, behold God’s glory in His grandeur. Verse 2, behold God’s glory in his genius and infinite wisdom. Verse 3, behold God’s glory in the gospel, the saving work of Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection! Matt Papa says in his book Look & Live that we all have “glory tanks” that we seek to fill each and every day. What are we beholding to fill those tanks? I hope that we would daily, as John Baptist exclaims in John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Behold the glory of King Jesus, who ransomed us in his blood, who rose from the grave and is at the right hand of the Father! Behold our God who created this world and all that is in it, and pre-destined us for adoption as sons and daughters! Behold the glory of the Holy Spirit who opened our eyes to the riches of His grace, and dwells within us! He is God, he is glorious, nothing can compare!
The Glory We Give
After we behold glory, the only fitting response is to return glory. We see this in the chorus and bridge, “Come let us adore him!” “You will reign forever, let your glory fill the earth!” We see glory and we should in return glorify. When we fill our tanks with the wrong glory, we will inevitably give glory to the wrong things as well. Again I ask, what are we filling our tanks with? What then are we glorifying? Take time to read Revelation 4 & 5, and see the doxology of the heavenly beings and the elders. They are there beholding God himself, and their response is “Holy, holy, holy (4:8b)…worthy(4:11)…worthy(5:9 & 10)…worthy(5:12)…To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (5:13) They are praising and adoring the glorious one.
What are we beholding? What are we glorifying? “Behold our King, nothing can compare, come let us adore Him!”