Splendor

I never use the word splendor in speaking or writing, yet it is one of my treasured words.* Every time I read or hear it, I imagine a spectacular white light with golden edges.

This light is not like the myriad stars or a full unobscured moon shining brilliantly in the night sky. It is not like the most powerful flashlight illuminating the pitch-black woods to give comfort and guidance. It isn’t even like the sun flooding the entire atmosphere on a cloudless day, because shadows still live in pockets the sunlight can’t reach.

Splendor, to me, is a blinding light that penetrates everything, allowing not even the faintest shadow to exist. I think it is what heaven must be like, in the way that heaven is void of any of the darkness we experience here: sadness, confusion, sin, fear, loss, evil.

Merriam-Webster defines splendor as “a great brightness or luster, brilliancy, magnificence, something splendid.” And splendid means “excellent, being out of the ordinary.”  I think splendor is what I would experience if I looked into the face of Jesus. That might be why I am hesitant to attach the word to anything other than the Deity. I don’t want to cheapen the value of my treasure.

Splendor is used numerous times in the Bible in connection with God. A writer of Psalms said, “My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long” (Psalm 71:8). Splendor refers to God’s glory. It is who he is.

A prophetic psalm says, “Gird your sword upon your side, O mighty one; clothe yourself with splendor and majesty” (Psalm 45:3). Here splendor is “majesty and dignity conferred . . . on a king” (Brown-Driver-Briggs). Christ is the king clothed in splendor.

Another psalm instructs us to “worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth” (Psalm 96:9). Have you ever come to the point of trembling before the Lord, not from fear, but from the overwhelming goodness, righteousness, excellency, beauty—the splendor—of God? I think it must be similar to the radiance displayed on the face of Moses after he met with God on Mount Sinai. The sight so frightened the Israelites that he had to wear a veil in their presence (Exodus 34:29-35).

Such splendor seems as though it would be reserved for God alone. However, consider this verse in which David spoke to the Lord about man. “You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5). The word translated “honor” is the same word from Psalm 45 that describes the majesty and dignity that was conferred on a king. And the word translated as “glory” means honor and splendor and refers to “external condition and circumstances” (Brown-Driver-Briggs). God crowned man with his own glory at creation when he made us in his own image and directed us to rule over the rest of his creation (Genesis 1:27).

Any splendor man possesses comes from God. The Lord spoke to Jerusalem through Ezekiel: “And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign Lord” (Ezekiel 16:14). But what God gives, he can also remove. The prophet Jeremiah said of the same people after their continued disobedience, “All the splendor has departed from the Daughter of Zion. Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; in weakness they have fled before the pursuer” (Lamentations 1:6). God’s splendor could not exist with disobedience.

The splendor God gives us is not for our benefit. It is for his exaltation. The Lord said of the Israelites, “They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands, for the display of my splendor” (Isaiah 60:21). God does not plant us and grow his righteousness in us so we can shine, but rather so he will be able to reveal himself to the world through us.

Splendor does not always refer to God himself, at least not directly. Paul wrote that “⁴⁰the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. ⁴¹The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another, and star differs from star in splendor” (1 Corinthians 15:40-41). The Greek word for splendor here is doxa and means “something has inherent, intrinsic worth” (HELPS Word-studies).

Every heavenly and earthly body possesses splendor, that worth that simply, but profoundly, comes from being created by Almighty God. It differs even between two stars, but it always shines with brilliance and beauty—not because of what or who possesses it, but because of whose hand it came from. Perhaps I’ll take my treasured word out of the chest and begin using it when it refers to that inherent beauty and worth from God.

The Greek word endoxos “intensifies” doxa, “expressing the dignity (exalted status) of something” (HELPS Word-studies). It is the word Paul used to describe the church. ²⁵Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her . . . ²⁷so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25, 27, English Standard Version).

In some versions, endoxos is translated here as “radiant” or “glorious.” It is “equivalent to free from sin” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). When Christ presents the church, his followers, to himself, she will be “shining with a heavenly glory, and fully conformed to himself” (Matthew Poole’s Commentary). I wonder if he will tremble at the sight of his bride adorned with his own magnificence.

Splendor is

• the face of Jesus
• no trace of darkness
• intrinsic worth from my Creator
• God’s character displayed in my life
• the adornment of Christ’s bride

This is why splendor is a word in my treasure chest.

*Treasured Words are words that have special value to me. Hearing them causes brilliant light and comforting warmth to radiate from a place deep inside me and fill my soul with a sense of well-being.

Feature photo by Lukas from Pexels

Scripture quotations are from NIV unless otherwise noted.

Hebrew and Greek definitions and commentary notes are from Bible Hub. See Resources.