What is the glory of God?
God's glory is not a thing separate from Him — it is God Himself made known. The commentators approach it from several sides: what glory reveals, where it shines, why sinners cannot stand in it, and how it becomes the believer's hope and daily aim.
Glory Is God Revealed
The first thing writers press is that glory is not something added to God, but God shown for what He is — which also settles what it means for us to glorify Him.
J T MawsonBut what is meant by His glory? The glory of God is the revelation of what He is. When we speak of glorifying Him we do not mean that we can add anything to Him or make Him more glorious than He is, but that having received the revelation of Himself by faith we respond to it and give Him that place in our thoughts and lives that the revelation claims.
What Creation Cannot Tell You
The sky says something true about God, but not the deepest thing. That had to wait for the coming of the Son.
J T MawsonWhat is the glory of God? The glory of God, in the moral aspect of it, is the display of His own blessed nature; He has revealed Himself. How has He done that? He has done that in the Person of His beloved Son, and having done it the great fact has come into evidence that GOD IS LOVE. That is the glory of God. You would not know it by simply scanning the heavens. They declare His handiwork, His wisdom, His divinity, His power. Men did not learn this great fact at Sinai, for there in the presence of the thunderings and fire of that dread mount they were filled with terror.
Shining in One Face
When Scripture points to where this glory may now be seen, it points to a Person, not a place.
G. V. Wigram"The light of the glory of God" where? In the face of Jesus Christ. God, pointing to that face, says, "If you want to know all my glory, there it is." Unsearchable glory — glory past finding out — there it is in the person of my Son!
And because it is that face, the effect on the one who looks is completely changed.
Michael HardtWe can look back to the cross and also look up to a glorified Christ; then we see nothing less than "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6), and indeed without fear or care, for it is in the face of Him who suffered for us that we see God's glory. Glory on its own causes fear, but glory in the face of Christ is glory in grace.
The Cross as the High Point
The cross is treated not as a setback to God's glory but as its fullest telling — a place where something came out that innocence could never have shown.
J. N. Darby"I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do." The Son of God is exalted in consequence of what He has done: He has finished the work and glorified God as He never could have been glorified except for sin. This may sound strange: but what was in the heart of God never could have been shown out in any other way, as it has been shown at the cross. He displayed His power in creation, but when I come to the case of sinners, all that God is in goodness, grace, and patience comes out as it could not have done with an innocent man.
Why Everyone Falls Short of It
Falling short of God's glory means failing to meet its requirement — and the measure is not other people.
W. W. FeredayWho is able to meet the requirements of God's glory, so as to be free and at home there? In Isaiah 6 we have a man terror-stricken because for one moment he found himself in the presence of the glory of God. There has been but one man in this world whom the glory could acknowledge as worthy of it. To Him there came a voice from the excellent glory: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (2 Peter 1:17). In Him then we see what the glory of God requires in a man. Do we correspond to Him? Here alone is the true standard whereby we may measure ourselves aright.
Glory as Proof and as Hope
For the believer that same glory becomes evidence — a Man who bore sins is now in it.
J. N. DarbyThe glory of God is the witness that there is the complete cleansing away of all sin. That Person at God's right hand, who was made sin, went under death, went into the grave, and has passed it all, and is now in glory; and, in virtue of the work being accomplished, the testimony comes to me, the One who bore my sins is in glory, and all is done with.
It is also still ahead, and named as a hope rather than a present possession.
C StanleyWe do not hope to be justified, or to have peace — these we have — but we hope, with rejoicing, for the glory of God. Is it not joy to our hearts to know that we shall soon be in the scene where all is to the glory of God, all suited to Him; all pure within and without?
Glory in Ordinary Days
The word "glorify" then lands on the plainest parts of life, including the body, and cuts across our natural direction.
F. B. HoleWe are not our own. We are Another's, spirit and soul and body. Hence, "glorify God in your body," is the word for us. The whole idea of the unconverted is to gratify and glorify themselves in and through their bodies. Be it ours to gratify and glorify God.
Summary
- Revealed — Glory is the revelation of what God is; we add nothing to Him, we only respond to what He has shown.
- Displayed — Creation shows His power and wisdom; the Son shows His nature, and at the cross God was glorified as He could never have been otherwise.
- Focused — All that glory shines in one face, and seen there it is glory in grace, not glory that terrifies.
- Measured — Only one Man ever met its requirement, so He, not other people, is the standard by which we measure ourselves.
- Reflected — For the believer glory is proof that sin is gone, a hope still ahead, and a daily aim in the body we do not own.