“Who is he, this King of glory?  The Lord Almighty—he is the King of glory.”

It shouldn’t surprise us that the Lord is very precise when it comes to his word choices.  Since the Lord is purposeful in all he does, nothing is random, especially with his word, the expression of his heart and character.  It’s true about the written inspired word and with Jesus the incarnate Word.

So as we consider King of glory, found four times only in the last four verses of Psalm 24, we might wonder why it’s “King” of glory, and not “Lord” of glory, or even “God” of glory.  These other descriptions do appear elsewhere (1 Corinthians 2:8, James 2:1; Psalm 29:3, Acts 7:2, respectively).  However, never do we see “Prince of glory” in the Bible, despite it appearing in Isaac Watts’ 1707 anthem “When I survey the wondrous cross”.

There is at least one very good and clear reason why this is King of glory and not something else.  The psalm begins with the statement that all the earth is the Lord’s, suggesting sovereignty and ownership.  The next two verses raise questions about who can go up to this Sovereign in his dwelling?  The answer is that very few can—only those who have “clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false” (v. 5).  In contrast, however, this Sovereign will come down from “the hill of the Lord” (v. 3), and make his entrance into Jerusalem, the city of “gates” (vs. 7, 9).  Notice that verses 7 and 9 are symmetrical, as are 8 and 10.  This is obviously a song or a chant when the King of glory enters the city.  Why sing or chant?  Because the return of the King of glory signals the coming of the long awaited kingdom.  Jesus comes through the Eastern Gate (Ezekiel 43:1, 44:1-3) to take his earthly throne.  So incredible and glorious is this occasion that even the gates themselves must lift up their heads!

The importance of Jesus being described as the King of “glory” here cannot be fully appreciated until we replay the story of God’s glory, which was his before he ever said, “Let their be light” (Genesis 1:3), light being but a poor reflection of his glory.  But he continued making everything in the universe.  Then he got to man, as David conveys in Psalm 8, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” (vs. 3-5).  There it is: of all the things God made, it was only mankind that was “crowned with glory”, and that glory came from God himself.  It had to: nothing else had it.

As the only created beings made in God’s image and bearing a degree of glory, we have no idea what the fellowship was like between Creator and creature, and between the creatures themselves, male and female.  We can only guess, and my guess is that this guess is going to be all wrong.  We simply cannot be accurate except to say this glory was their covering.  However wonderful and probably indescribable it was, one thing we do know: it vanished in a flash in Genesis 3.  Leaves made a pathetic substitute!

To get a little glimpse of the seriousness of this, let’s consider physical phenomena.  In any room there are radio waves that our natural senses cannot detect.  But plug in a radio and turn it on, and we can pick them up and hear whatever’s playing on a particular station.  There are many other things similar to that that we completely miss and frequently never think about.  Now move into the spiritual realm.  We have a hard time trying to adequately define or describe God’s glory precisely because it’s so foreign to us.  As fallen creatures we have no idea what it’s like, except to know that God says that if we should see it with our eyes, we’d be zapped dead in a heartbeat an possibly not even leave any ash behind!

So how can anyone watch the King of glory enter the city gates?  Because this King is the Lord Almighty, or the Lord of hosts.  And all 235 times he is mentioned, it’s all in the Old Testament, not the New.  When this Lord came to earth, he came not to judge, but to give his life. So out the Sheep Gate he went to the cross to save those whose glory was lost.  One day he’ll restore them to an even higher glory (2 Corinthians 3:18) than Adam and Eve enjoyed.  That is why those witnesses chanted and sang as the King passed through those gates.  Are you joyful and singing in anticipation of the King’s return, as you ponder the glories that await you?