COLUMNS

For His Own Glory

T.M. Moore

December 27, 2024

His glory, our delight.

A Christian Guidebook: Why Has God Saved Us? (7)

For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,
As the waters cover the sea. Habakkuk 2.14

The reasonable glory of God
To say that God has saved us for His own glory can sound a little, well, self-serving. We look at people who are always trying to get glory for themselves in one way or another, and an old Carly Simon song cues up in our brain: “You’re so vain…” And vanity, that’s not a good thing, as we all know.

But for God to seek glory for Himself is nothing like this. For God to seek His own glory is like water in a clear mountain stream, seeking the ocean. Or our lungs hungering for fresh air. Or leaves delighting to bask in the sunshine. It’s what they’re made for, what they do, and how they flourish and bless the world.

For God to seek His own glory thus is the most natural—well, not really natural, since nothing about God is merely natural—and the most reasonable thing of all. God being God, it makes sense that He should be glorified, and that His being glorified should have beneficial effects for those who experience that glory. For when God is glorified, glory breaks out, like the sun in full radiance, and blessings and benefits abound, healing and wellbeing begin, unspeakable joy and rejoicing pervade whatever is in glory’s reach, and those who know that glory and experience the reality of it want one thing only, that God would be even more glorified than at present.

God has saved us for His own glory, with which He bathes and fills and rejoices all who know, love, and serve Him.

When God glorifies Himself, everything and everyone within the immediate reach of that glory realize—if only briefly—the mystery and wonder and purpose of their own existence. Put another way, when God is glorified, “A splendid time is guaranteed for all” (Lennon/McCartney).

Consider the apostles.

Delightfully terrified
When Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, “His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light” (Matt. 17.2), “exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them” (Mk. 9.3). The apostles—Peter speaking for them all—found so much joy in the experience of Christ’s glory that they wanted to build some lean-tos and camp out for a while (Matt. 1.4). That is, they were so positively affected by their experience that all they wished to do was prolong it.

At the same time, as the glory of Jesus was magnified and enlarged by the bright cloud and the voice coming out of it—the voice of God the Father (v. 5)—the disciples “fell on their faces and were greatly afraid” (v. 6).

But they didn’t make any attempt to leave the Presence of God’s glory. Instead, they were comforted in their fear and doubtless rebolstered in their joy when Jesus “touched them and said, ‘Arise, and do not be afraid’” (v. 7).

This was as much of the glory of Jesus Christ as anyone had seen to that moment. We can be sure that Jesus’ purpose was realized in thus glorifying Himself, and His glory blessed the apostles and so affected them that they were renewed in their own purpose of following Him. Peter, recalling that situation years later, insisted that the ministry of the Word of God was a measure of that glory, entrusted to them as the means whereby others might know His glory as well (2 Pet. 1.16-19).

When God is glorified, while the supernatural and unbearable “weight” of it might seem to crush us, we are actually filled with holy joy, confirmed in our calling, and fortified to serve the Lord in all we do (1 Cor. 10.31).

Seeking God’s glory
In the spring of my senior year in high school, bored and pining for the last day of class, I and a friend decided on a risky adventure. Right across the river, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis was nearing completion. Outwardly, it was finished—630 feet of gleaming stainless steel which, in the glow of the moon and riverfront lights, glistened as if it were alive. The landscaping around the Arch not yet begun, and it had been raining for a few days, so the ground was muddy and nigh-about impassable. But we had decided to go and touch this wonder, just to be able to say we had. Arriving at the site, we broke through the “Keep Out” barriers (this was 1967, when I was still a lawless wrong-believer) and, on hands and feet, climbed the slight incline and achieved the base.

I stood at the south leg, my back to the river, and pressed my muddied body against the Arch, spreading my hands as wide as they would reach, and looking up to the top. Suddenly, I was transfixed. It was like an out-of-body experience. I could not stop looking up, even though my heart was pounding as it had never done before. It was as if I was glued to the thing; its glory would not let me go, and I was strangely OK with that. For in those moments, I was experiencing such affections as I had never known before, affections of transcendence, smallness, wonder, joy, fear, and hope.

If a man-made sculpture can produce such effects on one who did now know the Lord, how much more can God in His glory, speaking out of His Word or receiving us into His Presence or filling us with His Spirit or stretching out within us or allowing us to see Him with the eye of the heart in His exalted glory or tasting of His glory in the sacrament—how much more, in any of these situations, will wretches such as we not be glad for God to glorify Himself? And which of us will not, in the grip of His glory, renew our resolve to live for His glory as those He has saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ?

God has saved us so that He might glorify Himself. And if you understand this as God intends, you will desire nothing more.

Search the Scriptures
1. In 2 Corinthians 4.17 Paul uses the idea of “weight” to describe God’s glory. Why is that an appropriate metaphor?

2. In that same chapter, verse 6, Paul says that we may know the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What does he mean by that? How do you experience that glory?

3. How does Paul instruct us concerning the glory of God in 1 Corinthians 10.31? Why should we want this to be the guiding objective for everything we do all day long?

Next steps—Transformation: Where do you expect to experience the glory of the Lord today? How do you expect to glorify Him?

T. M. Moore

Additional Resources
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