Glory is Inevitable
The Glory of God reflected in the Glory of Humankind
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
(Psalm 19:1, NIV)
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.
(Psalm 8:3–5, NIV)
God’s glory - Our Glory
In the Bible, glory is an attribute of God and an attribute of people. Glory conveys a captivating presence, significance, and importance.1 Beyond this glory is given to God or a person through honor and praise, which expresses the majesty and splendor of the object of one's adoration.2 The Hebrew word for glory means "weighty" or "heavy. It is comparable to the English word "gravitas.3 When we say a person has gravitas it in because the person's presence is immediately impressive-worthy of attention, honor, and praise.
In short, glory is the state of being eliciting a natural response of attention, honor, and praise.
In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of glory. As the God-Man, Jesus Christ expresses the glory of God and the glory of humankind when rightly related to God. It is impossible to exhaust the biblical understanding of glory. Certainly, its vastness in too vast to capture in this brief article, For now, we will think of glory as:
1) An essential characteristic of God.
2) An ongoing process in a Christian's life.
3) The eternal experience of everyone who is in Christ.
Glory is an essential attribute of God. Psalm 24 depicts God as the victorious "King of Glory."
Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty— he is the King of glory.
(Psalm 24:8–10, NIV)
The Apostle Paul calls God our "glorious Father."4 In fact, the seraphim proclaim "the whole earth is full of his glory."5 The glory of God is part of the essence of God's being. Where God is. God's glory is there.
God Makes us Glorious
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
[emphasis added] (Romans 8:29–30, NIV)“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
[emphasis added] (2 Corinthians 3:18, NIV)
God's purpose is to conform us into the image of his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the true manifestation of God's glory.
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
(Hebrews 1:3, NIV)
God's purpose is to make us glorious by shaping us to become more and more like Jesus through the Holy Spirit living in us. It is toward this end that "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."6 We experience God's glory in our present lives, and we look forward to the completion of glorification.
God Will Crown Us with Glory
When Christ returns to gather his people, he will reward everyone for what they have done.
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. (Matthew 16:27, NIV)
The reward for God's people will be a crown of glory!
And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. (1 Peter 5:4, NIV)
Glory as an aspect of God's character, a process in the Christian's life and as an eternal experience. make glory our inevitable destiny.
Why Does God’s Glory and Our Glory Matter?
How we experience God’s presence in everything
God's glory and our glory matter because it is the beginning and the end of the path we follow to discern and follow God's will for our lives.
Whether life is going well or times are difficult, knowing God's glory envelops us in every moment of every day gives us confidence God is working everything together for our well-being. Our heavenly Father does this because we love him and we are called according to his purpose. Our Father's purpose is transforming us into the image of his Son. As we actively cooperate with God, we move "from glory to glory."
The finding of the divine action in all that occurs at each moment, in and around us, is true science, a continuous revelation of truth, and an unceasingly renewed intercourse with God. . . . It is a fund of peace, of joy, of love, and of satisfaction with God who is seen, known, or rather, believed in, living and operating in the most perfect manner in everything that happens.7- Jean-Pierre de Caussade
When we make it our aim to see God at work in all things then:
we find life.
we know our path.
we follow Christ faithfully.
we trust Christ's goodness.
In this, we realize God's glory transcending every moment and powerfully shaping us to be more like Jesus. Toward that end - no matter how painful or discouraging - all things propel us "from glory to glory." Therefore glory to God and glory for us is inevitable.
1HarperCollins Bible Dictionary
2Dictionary of the Bible
3The Thorelton Companion to Christian Theology
4Ephesians 1:17
5Isaiah 6:3
6Romans 8:28
7De Caussade, Jean-Pierre. Abandonment To Divine Providence (Unabridged: with a compilation of the letters of Father Jean-Pierre De Caussade) (p. 2). Neeland Media LLC. Kindle Edition.