The glory of God

The glo­ry of God is the com­bi­ned total of all His gran­dio­se divi­ne attri­bu­tes. Ever­y­thing com­bi­ned tog­e­ther makes God a glo­rious God. Jesus Christ put asi­de divi­ne glo­ry when he came to earth as a man. On the cross he was glo­ri­fied and ther­eby made access to God’s glo­ry pos­si­ble for us. When we look at the cru­ci­fied and risen Jesus, we reco­g­ni­se God’s glo­ry and are chan­ged into it.

The Ser­mon on the Mount makes it clear that the meta­mor­pho­sis is about beco­ming like the Father. J. I. Packer says: «We are modern peo­p­le and modern peo­p­le, while they like big ide­as about man, are usual­ly con­tent with very small ones about God.«In the sum­mer series we will focus on God and hop­eful­ly per­cei­ve him a litt­le more in his great­ness and beau­ty. When we reflect on the glo­ry of God today, it should give our faith a who­le new strength and dyna­mism.

What is the glory of God?

In Eze­kiel 1, Eze­kiel descri­bes a visi­on of the glo­ry of God. The­re is no mathe­ma­ti­cal­ly pre­cise defi­ni­ti­on of the glo­ry of God, but an attempt to descri­be some­thing inde­scri­ba­ble. At the end Eze­kiel says: «[…] This was the appearance of the image of the glo­ry of the LORD […].»(Eze­kiel 1:28 ELB).

When you read this text, you think it’s a com­ple­te­ly cra­zy com­pi­la­ti­on that someone put down on paper in a drug fren­zy. But the­re is an inner struc­tu­re and a meaningful­ness. A few examp­les: The human face stands for wis­dom and under­stan­ding. The bull is a fer­ti­li­ty sym­bol. God is the giver of all life. The lion repres­ents divi­ne strength and power. The eagle repres­ents speed and agi­li­ty. God can be ever­y­whe­re. The wheels repre­sent the omni­pre­sence of God becau­se they can move any­whe­re. The­re is no place on this earth whe­re God can­not go. The eyes on the rims of the wheels sym­bo­li­se omni­sci­ence. God sees and knows everything.

Eze­kiel seems to say: The glo­ry of God that I see is the com­bi­ned sum total of all His gran­dio­se divi­ne attri­bu­tes. Ever­y­thing com­bi­ned makes God a glo­rious God. On this basis, now the attempt to defi­ne the glo­ry of God in three steps:

1. The glo­ry of God means his infi­ni­te other­world­li­ne­ss. The unta­med God can­not be put in our pocket. God reve­als hims­elf in his Word. That is why we can under­stand some things about God. But when all is said and done, the­re still remains an infi­ni­te other­world­li­ne­ss that lies bey­ond what we can grasp. If we wan­ted to grasp God with our minds, it would be like try­ing to bot­t­le Lake Con­s­tance into Lake Hall­wil. Do we want a glo­rious God or a God we can under­stand and who func­tions accor­ding to our ide­as and standards?
2. The glo­ry of God expres­ses that He is of the very hig­hest importance. The Hebrew word for glo­ry, kabod, means Hea­vy, Weight. The glo­ry of God expres­ses that God Hims­elf is of the utmost weight and importance. Not­hing should be as important to us as He is. If any­thing in our lives is more important than God, we deny His glo­ry. A see­saw tilts when the­re is an object on one side that is hea­vier than the one on the other side. On one side I say I trust God and love him. On the other side, I am stin­gy and cheat on taxes. The sca­les tilt; it is not God who has the grea­test weight, but money. Or: Becau­se I don’t get the reco­gni­ti­on I want, I am devas­ta­ted. This is a sign that peo­p­le and their voices have more weight than what God thinks about me. God is pre­sent in our lives in all his glo­ry only when his weight tips the see­saw to his side.
3. The glo­ry of God stands for his abso­lu­te beau­ty. Beau­ty is exis­ten­ti­al­ly important. We spend a lot of money becau­se we want to be beau­tiful. We are attrac­ted to beau­tiful peo­p­le. We go to beau­tiful places to cele­bra­te. We enjoy a beau­tiful sun­set, beau­tiful music or beau­tiful archi­tec­tu­re. We are attrac­ted to beau­ty. God’s glo­ry means that he is the most beau­tiful thing we can pos­si­bly ima­gi­ne. When we dis­co­ver His glo­ry, we will be drawn to Him and it will chan­ge us. To glo­ri­fy God is to obey Him not becau­se we have to, but becau­se we want to, becau­se we are deligh­ted, exci­ted, fasci­na­ted and cap­tu­red by His beauty.

How do we respond to the glory of God?

How do we know that we have been caught up in the glo­ry of God? Eze­kiel gives the ans­wer: «[…] And when I had seen it (= glo­ry of God), I fell on my face and heard one speak»(Eze­kiel 1:28 ELB). Fal­ling on one’s face is a sign of three things: wor­ship, deep humi­li­ty and sur­ren­der.

When I have reco­g­nis­ed the glo­ry of God, the fol­lo­wing hap­pens in my life:

I will hum­bly fall down befo­re Him. An exam­p­le of this is Isai­ah, who comes into cont­act with the glo­ry of God. «Then said I, Woe is me, I peri­sh! For I am of unclean lips, and dwell among a peo­p­le of unclean lips: for I have seen the King, the LORD of hosts, with mine eyes.»(Isai­ah 6:5 ELB). It can­not be that we see the beau­ty of God and are not at the same time con­vic­ted of our unrigh­teous­ness and impu­ri­ty. It can­not be that we see the great­ness of God and do not ack­now­ledge how weak and limi­t­ed we are. It can­not be that we stand in the light of God and do not per­cei­ve the dark­ness of our heart. When peo­p­le come into cont­act with the true God and see His glo­ry, exact­ly the same thing always hap­pens: they fall hum­bly on their faces. Job has seen God after a long strugg­le. The reac­tion to this is: «The­r­e­fo­re I recant what I have said and rep­ent in dust and ashes» (Job 42:6 NLB). When Peter caught a glim­pse of God’s glo­ry, he said: «Lord, take no fur­ther care of me – I am too gre­at a sin­ner to be with you»(Luke 5:8 NLB). If you have never expe­ri­en­ced this hum­ble reco­gni­ti­on of your sin­ful­ness, it indi­ca­tes that the­re is a lack of God’s glo­ry in your life. If you still think you are bet­ter than the others and God is lucky to have you on His team, the­re is a lack of God’s glory.

I will meet and ser­ve God uncon­di­tio­nal­ly only for His own sake. As long as we have not reco­g­nis­ed God’s glo­ry, God is more of a tool for our wis­hes to be ful­fil­led. As long as we have not reco­g­nis­ed God’s glo­ry, we go to wor­ship becau­se we Need inspi­ra­ti­on or becau­se we enjoy the fel­low­ship. We pray that God our Wis­hes ful­fil­led and us gives strength in dif­fi­cult situa­tions. May­be we even ser­ve God, but only becau­se we seek the appr­oval of others. Do I seek the things God gives me or God hims­elf? Tho­se who begin to grasp the glo­ry of God will want God more and more for His own sake, and not becau­se of the things they want from God. «God, you are my God; you I seek with all my heart»(Psalm 63:2 NLB).

How does the glory of God take hold of us?

Our deepest pro­blem is that we basi­cal­ly have no access to God’s glo­ry. When Moses was on Mount Sinai, he wan­ted to see God’s glo­ry. God then said to Moses: «You can­not bear to see my face, for no man can see me and remain ali­ve»(Exodus 33:20 ELB). How can we have access to God’s glo­ry wit­hout dying?

We find the ans­wer in Eze­kiel, who com­pa­res the glo­ry of God to a rain­bow: «As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on a rai­ny day, so was the appearance of the sple­ndour all around […].»(Eze­kiel 1:28 ELB). The rain­bow only appears in the enti­re Old Tes­ta­ment with Noah. After God has jud­ged the world through the flood, God places the bow in the clouds as a sign of peace. It ser­ves as a sign of grace and a pro­mi­se that God will not des­troy the world a second time through a flood.

The Hebrew term for rain­bow also refers to a war bow, i.e. an instru­ment through which peo­p­le are kil­led by arrows in war. This bow with arrows of God’s wrath and jud­ge­ment hangs in the sky as a sign of grace. Charles Spur­ge­on asked the ques­ti­on in which direc­tion the bow points. The direc­tion of the bow is not down­wards towards us, but upwards, whe­re God is. God says the direc­tion of the arrows is my direc­tion and if neces­sa­ry it will be shot down and direc­ted against mys­elf. This is exact­ly what hap­pen­ed on the cross. Jesus endu­red the wrath of God. He threw hims­elf into the arrows for us and bore the punish­ment for our misses.

The rain­bow and the cross belong tog­e­ther. In Eze­kiel, the rain­bow is an expres­si­on of the glo­ry of God. Short­ly befo­re his death, Jesus said: «Father, the hour has come. Glo­ri­fy your Son, so that the Son may glo­ri­fy you.»(John 17:1 ELB). With this he says: On the cross my glo­ry and the Father’s glo­ry is reve­a­led in ulti­ma­te form. The glo­ry of God shows its­elf in the full sen­se at the cross. The­re the bow of war final­ly beco­mes the rain­bow of grace and the unmist­aka­ble expres­si­on of the beau­ty and glo­ry of God.

When Jesus, the Son of God, came to this earth, he laid down his divi­ne glo­ry. Isai­ah pro­phe­ti­cal­ly descri­bes: «His appearance was neither beau­tiful nor maje­s­tic, he had not­hing win­ning to plea­se us. He was des­pi­sed and rejec­ted by the peo­p­le […].» (Isai­ah 53:2f NLB). That is why many peo­p­le turn away from Jesus becau­se his figu­re was so unat­trac­ti­ve and ugly.

Why did Jesus do this? So that you and I may have access to the glo­ry of God. Jesus laid down his glo­ry that we might have it. We are clo­thed with the beau­ty and righ­teous­ness of Jesus. And sud­den­ly the glo­ry of God is no lon­ger dead­ly. Christ died so that we might live! Sud­den­ly God looks upon us with loving, fat­her­ly bene­vo­lence and turns to us in Christ and gives us his glo­ry. Jesus giving up his glo­ry is the most glo­rious and beau­tiful thing that has ever hap­pen­ed. Paul says: «For God, who said: Let the­re be light in the dark­ness, has made us rea­li­se in our hearts that this light is the radi­ance of the glo­ry of God, which beco­mes visi­ble to us in the face of Jesus Christ»(2 Corin­thi­ans 4:6 NLB).

How are we caught up in the glo­ry of God? In behol­ding the cru­ci­fied and risen Lord! In the face of the cru­ci­fied and risen Jesus Christ we see the full sple­ndour of God’s glo­ry. And when we gaze upon that glo­ry, we our­sel­ves are chan­ged into it. «Yes, we all see with unvei­led face the glo­ry of the Lord. We see it as in a mir­ror, and by gazing upon the image of the Lord, our who­le being is trans­for­med in such a way that we beco­me more and more like Him and share more and more of His glo­ry. This trans­for­ma­ti­on is the work of the Lord; it is the work of his Spi­rit.» (2 Corin­thi­ans 3:18 NGÜ).

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: Eze­kiel 1:4–18;22–28

1. How would you defi­ne the glo­ry of God?
2. What are the effects of the glo­ry of God? Which of the­se have you alre­a­dy experienced?
3. How do we access the glo­ry of God? What does this have to do with Jesus Christ?
4. In the mat­ter of the glo­ry of God, how are we being chan­ged into His image (2 Corin­thi­ans 3:17f)?