When we talk about God’s glory, we are talking about everything that comes from God and everything God is. For example, God’s greatness, goodness, power, and love are all part of his glory and are called “attributes” (Isa. 42:8; Rom. 11:36). While we can’t see God, we can see at least some of his glory in what he does in the world. God’s glory can be overwhelming to experience because it is so beautiful and amazing. God rules from heaven, and heaven is filled with his glory (Ex. 24:17; Ps. 19:1; 72:19; 1 Tim. 1:17).

What is the glory of God?

Author Christopher Morgan gives a succinct definition of God’s glory:

The glory of God is the magnificence, worth, loveliness, and grandeur of his many perfections, which he displays in his creative and redemptive acts. (Morgan, “The Glory of God,” The Gospel Coalition)

God’s attributes include both his incommunicable attributes, such as his self-existence, self-sufficiency (aseity), eternality, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and unchangeableness (immutability), and his communicable attributes, in which humans image God imperfectly, such as his love, truth, mercy, holiness, and goodness. So God’s glory manifests his perfections, and this display of God’s glory is beautiful.

According to Jonathan King in his book, The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics,

“…everything God does is, by definition, beautiful (i.e., God-glorifying)….And the more perfectly you delight in that thing, the more you realize its beauty.” (p. 30)

In beauty we take delight in God’s revealed glory. King cites author David Bentley Hart, who states,

“In the beautiful, God’s glory is revealed as something communicable and intrinsically delightful, as including the creature in its ends, and as completely worthy of love.” (p. 61)

 

We see God’s glory in creation and his redemptive acts in Christ.

Everything God is and does is glorious because he is perfect in every way. God made the world, including people, to glorify him, and he sent his perfect Son Jesus to help us and make us glorious like him (John 1:14; Rom. 8:29-30; Phil. 2:10-11).

We get an idea of God’s glory from seeing the beauty and majesty of his creation. Another way we know about God’s glory is by reading the Bible and learning about him and all he has done and is doing because of his love for the world, most of all by redeeming us in Christ.

In his book God’s Glory Alone—The Majestic Heart of Christian Faith and Life, theologian David VanDrunen points out that the Bible’s references to divine glory “tell us something about who God is.” They illustrate that God is “the one worthy of all honor” and that his glory is revealed in the created order, which “we can really only perceive…as he manifests it in the world” (pp. 44-46).

The manifestation of God’s glory can be so majestic that it can also be terrifying, but Christians don’t have to be afraid.

We find God’s glory on display in Scripture in two key biblical events. In Exodus 19, before Moses went up the mountain, “there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled” (v. 16), and “Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly” (v. 18).

We also read about the fear the three women experienced in Mark 16:8 upon seeing the stone rolled away from the tomb and having an angel tell them Jesus had risen from the dead. The manifestation of God’s glory in the resurrection caused the women to be seized with trembling and astonishment, and likely most of us here would respond in the same way!

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