I often get asked how many Glory Books will I end up writing? My response is I don’t know. There are billions and billions of them in the Bible, but I do not know how many God wants me to write, and I actually see it as His decision and not mine.

I knew if I did ever write a fourth Glory Book that it would be entitled The Face and the Glory. I would come across intriguing Bible verses in my other studies related to this topic, jot them down and put them inside a folder I had for this. I worked some on the “sketchpad” (that is, the content of the book as a whole, the chapter order, the study for the material for each chapter). Once the sketchpad is complete, I know what I am going to write; I do not yet know how I will write it. I always wait for God’s direction about writing Glory Books. I would never do a quota of a certain number. I want to make sure it is His idea and not mine. Also I wondered with my many other ministry (and family) responsibilities as to when I would have the necessary time to write the book. I did not want to rush through it. I very much want to “get it right.”

In late November/early December of 2009 I had a “perfect storm” of events that radically changed my normal routine. First, I had a massive arthritis flair up. Second, I had this intense but periodic pain in my abdomen a little higher than where one’s appendix is. Since I already had mine removed years before, I knew that was not the problem. Third, my right hip joint got so that it would not support weight. I spent some nights groveling on the floor, pretty much like I had done so when I originally was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis years before. My rheumatologist had told me that from what I saw on my x-rays years before that I would eventually have trouble with my right hip. He could not say when that would be. He told me to pretty much do what I want to do, that I would not hasten or slow down the problem.

They gave me a strong dose of steroids, and that relieved the inflammation enough so that at least the hip would bear weight and the throbbing cease. I had x-rays done, but it was during the Christmas Holiday season, and since this was not life threatening, I had to wait until January 8 to see the orthopedic surgeon. I asked him what my next step was, and he told me, “Pick up the phone and schedule your total hip replacement. You’ve got bone-on-bone. But get your hernia fixed before your hip surgery.” 

That was the Friday before the Spring Semester 2010 began the following Tuesday. My initial plan was to try to hold out until the summer to have the surgeries, but it just was not medically feasible. I went in to tell Dr. Dick Mayhue at the Master’s Seminary about my unexpected turn in events, and he was very gracious and pastorally soothing and not upset about my situation. He put me on medical sabbatical and found replacement teachers to cover my classes. I was glad for the grace extended me, but painfully sad to give up my classes. I so enjoy what I do. I so enjoy my interaction with students. Some of the students in the classes I had that year had worked their schedule so they could take one of my classes. Many had started their seminary studies the same year that I came as a faculty member, and this was their final semester. I looked at the class rolls and grievously went the list student by student. I had about a couple of days of “whoa is me,” but I got refocused and knew that God—as always—remains in complete control.

The hernia surgery was February 3, 2010. They told me my hernia was in a most unusual place, so the surgery itself was pretty deep as some of the main abdominal muscles had to be cut and repaired. I was on strong pain medicine for two weeks. I could not read during this time. I could do headlines and very light stuff, but I could not comprehend a page in a book.

The hip replacement surgery was originally scheduled one month later for March 3, 2010, but I received a call from the surgeon’s office saying there was a scheduling conflict with the hospital, so my surgery would be bumped two week to March 17, 2010. The good news was that I was able to attend the wonderful Shepherds’ Conference that Grace Community Church puts on each year; the bad news was how it affected a very important scheduling matter.

Each year The Master’s Seminary offers a three-week study tour in Israel. Each year at least one faculty representative goes on the trip. We do so on a rotation basis, and for about three years, I was scheduled to go in May 2010. I had been to Israel twice before, once for almost one month of study, and once I went there to go teach in Amman, Jordan (crossing the Jordan River at Jericho). I had so looked forward to that trip. It was to be my wife Betsy’s first overseas trip. Beloved friends and some students signed up for the trip because I was a part of it (as they do with the other professors when it is their time to go).

Even though I had surgery, I was going to train hard in my rehab and planned to go. However, when they had to bump my surgery for two weeks, it was pretty much the kiss of death for me to go on that trip. Dr. Mayhue called me at home to inform me that the school had already made the decision to bump me off this year’s trip for medical reasons. I agreed with and supported the decision made by the school, but it greatly saddened me not to go for not only the reasons listed above, but just to go as a student of God and His Word and to learn in that setting.

Once I got bumped off the trip to Israel, I had a few months before I was to teach a one-week summer school class at the Master’s College. Before all the other medical stuff, I was having trouble with my right knee. I had previously had two surgeries because of arthritis damage, so I recognized some of the same symptoms. I had planned to get it checked some time in early January 2010 before the Israel trip. So I went back to the surgeon, and they found “a massive tear” in the meniscus and scheduled the third surgery for April 28, 2010. In my previous two knee surgeries, the knee was a lot worse once they got inside it, so it was not a complete surprise to awake from surgery and found they had performed micro-fracture surgery as well. I ended up being on crutches for six weeks. It slowed down my rehab for the hip replacement surgery.

So having had my schedule completely and unexpected changed, I ended up with a five-week segment in between the second and third surgeries. It was still in the early and arduous recovery and rehab from the hip replacement, and I was trying to wean myself off the pain medicine. I would do my rehab as they allowed, but most of my time (including where I slept) was my old faithful blue recliner that I had used when I got out of the hospital with RA back in North Carolina.

I very cautiously and without much expectation began to investigate if I could possibly work on The Face and the Glory during this five-week section between surgeries. I could not even sit at a desk yet, and then when I did, I could not do it for long. I also opened my “The Face and the Glory” folder to see what all I had in there. I thought I would be about 50% done; much to my amazement, I think it was more around the 10-20% range, being not nearly as developed as I had remembered. So in other words, I virtually started from scratch. I had no sketchpad and no table of contents. But I did get to study, and I had wonderfully rich times with God and His Word.

Under the circumstances, God had to bless it if this book was ever going to be written—which He did. So I wrote the entire first draft during that five-week period. At the end of July 2010, I read through it for the first time since the third surgery and edited it. It is by no means complete, but it turned out much better than what I thought it would.

So here are the introductory pages. More information about this later.

To God be the Glory!

Greg Harris

 

 

THE FACE AND THE GLORY

 

 

Lessons on the Invisible and Visible God

 

And His Glory

 

 

Dr. Greg Harris

 

 

© 2010 Gregory H. Harris

 

 

 

 

To all the Lovers of God’s Word,

 

especially to such students as those whom I taught at

 

Washington Bible College (1989-95),

 

Southeastern College at Wake Forest/Southeastern

 

Baptist Theological Seminary (1997-2006),

 

and The Master’s Seminary (2006 up to the present)

 

 

 

 

But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see me and live.”

                                            

                                                                                 —Exodus 33:20

 

 

[God] who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.

 

                                                                                 —1 Timothy 6:16

 

 

No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

 

                                                                                 —John 1:18

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  

                  (1)         The Enigma                                                        

 

                  (2)         The Face                                                             

 

                  (3)         The Peace                                                        

 

                  (4)         The Name                                                         

 

                  (5)         The Son                                                         

                                                                                                 

                  (6)         The Companion                                      

                                                                                                          

                  (7)         The Hiding                                                        

                  (8)         The Consideration                                                   

 

                  (9)         The Eyes                                                         

 

                  (10)       The Glory