To God alone be glory

HELLO and welcome to Thought for the Week. On 14th September 1741, after just 24 days work, the composer Handel completed his famous work, “Messiah”.

Nearly 300 years later, it’s still very popular, with many performances, amateur and professional, as well as a wealth of recordings. It’s called “Messiah” because it deals with Jesus Christ, starting with the Old Testament prophecies about Him, then going through His birth, earthly life, crucifixion and resurrection, and ending with His eternal reign in heaven.

The title “Messiah” comes from the Hebrew word meaning “Anointed One”, which is the same as the meaning of the Greek word from which we get “Christ”. But why is Jesus called “The Anointed One”?

For the answer, we go back to the Old Testament, where prophets (men who spoke about God to the people), priests (men who represented the people to God) and kings were all anointed as a sign of their office.

All three pointed forward to Jesus, Who supremely holds those three offices, being prophet, priest and king.

As prophet, He reveals God the Father. As priest, He represents His followers to God the Father, having offered Himself, dying on the cross as the ultimate and all-sufficient sacrifice on their behalf:

“But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God,” (Hebrews chapter 10, verse 12)

And in Revelation chapter 17, verse 14 says He is “King of kings and Lord of lords”. Small wonder that He has the title of Messiah.

Going back to Handel for a moment, at the end of “Messiah” he wrote the letters “S. D. G.” which was an abbreviation for the Latin phrase, “Soli Deo Gloria”, meaning “To God alone be glory”.

Handel realised that the wonderful words he had set to music concerned someone far greater than him.

May God enable us to trust fully in Jesus Christ, the anointed Saviour, and may we all glorify God!

David Lamb is a South Devon-based lay Baptist preacher.