The Glory of God

Jay: In the story of Lazarus we discussed last week were two verses concerning the glory of God:

… when Jesus heard [that Lazarus was ill], He said, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” (John 11:4)

[Just before raising Lazarus from the dead] Jesus said to [Lazarus’ sister, Martha], “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” (John 11:40)

What is glory? What does it mean? In the dictionary, and often in scripture, it is often used in the context of praising God. For example:

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
 And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” (Luke 2:13-14)

But sometimes God’s glory seems synonymous simply with His presence, as in the Exodus:

Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people!’ But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, ‘I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.’ Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.” And He said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then he said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?”

The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name.” Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” Then the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33:12-23)

A third use of “glory” seems to be as a power, essence, or manifestation of God.

So glory can signify praise for God, the presence or being of god, and the manifestation or demonstration of God’s power.

Is the glory in Exodus the same sort of glory proclaimed in Lazarus? Does God need the glory that is supposed to accrue as a result of praising and worshiping him? If so, is it our responsibility to give it to him?

David: The interpretation of glory as a synonym for presence or being makes sense, but (as is my wont) I have to wonder why the proper words were not used to begin with. In any case, I cannot see that God needs our praise. Scripture indicates that God would be over the moon if only we would love one another, never mind lavishing praise on him!

Robin: The definition of “glory” seems crucial.

David: The dictionary defines it as “high renown or honor won by notable achievements” and “magnificence; great beauty.” As a verb, it means “take great pride or pleasure in.” It does not define it as “presence,” though one might say that the presence of God is a glorious thing. I think recognizing and attesting to God’s presence, to God the “I Am”, is truly important, but dwelling on his gloriousness is irrelevant and unnecessary.

Charles: It seems to me the issue of God’s glory arose out of the separation of God and Man. With free will, Man tends to emphasize things of the world and the flesh rather than things of the spirit. Given that God’s ways are not our ways, I don’t know that God demands praise, but he does demand that we submit to his will. Until we can do that we are incapable of appreciating the glory of God. The Lazarus story showed us how reunification with God—through Jesus and the forgiveness of sins—will occur, and in so doing it revealed the glory of God. As with most Bible stories, the lesson of Lazarus is applicable at the individual as well as the humanity level. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus and he was a sinner. Through God’s mercy—and through the Son—he was nevertheless resurrected and reunified with Jesus, with God. Therein lies the glory.

Jeff: I am not sure that the word “glory” as used in the Old Testament means the same as it does in the New. The [garbled] in the tabernacle was a physical manifestation to the Israelites of God’s presence and his anointing of them as his chosen people. People could not see the ark of the covenant but they could see the effect of it as God’s dwelling and as the source of God’s anointing of Israel. Today, what do we have that could be considered its equivalent—as God’s manifestation, his visible presence, on Earth?

David: The big names of the Old Testament—the people who met God more or less face-to-face—seem to me to have been somewhat less than whelmed by the experience. I would have thought there could be no experience more glorious, more amazing, more humbling, but in some cases at least it doesn’t seem to have been that way. Some US presidents may be said to have had glorious terms in office; others not. But such a distinction surely ought not to apply to God, yet I get the feeling that some in the OT treated him as though they wished there had been an alternative God to vote for!

Jeff: The awe, the fear of God seems to me to be everywhere in the OT.

David: By and large, yes; but take Gideon, who treated God as though he were some sort of trickster. How one could meet a glorious God and not know it is beyond my comprehension.

Jay: Even Moses seemed not especially overawed. God told him to save the Israelites and instead of responding with instant acquiescence he started talking to God about the help he was going to need.

Charles: It seems that those who truly had faith in God were indeed overwhelmed by God’s manifestation. Only those who retained some doubt or self-reliance or some unwillingness to accept God’s plan tended to betray some arrogance or pride in the presence of God. At the Burning Bush, Moses almost had to be reminded that he was walking on holy ground. Christian converts in the New Testament generally are in awe of Christ. What God wants from us is unconditional acceptance of his will, and his glory is fully manifested in return for that acceptance. Less than complete acceptance results in a less-than-complete manifestation. And we tend to recidivism, like the Ninehvites who were back to their old wicked ways a few hundred years after accepting God’s will.

Robin: God’s glory involves a light unlike anything humans have seen; a light so intense that it invokes fear:

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. (Luke 2:9)

This is perhaps why the veil covering the Holy of Holies—the Ark—was needed in the tabernacle: To shield corrupt Man from that fearsome light. Perhaps that also explains why Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden: Once corrupted, they could no longer countenance the light of God’s glory. Before the Fall, they were able to walk with God and bask in that light, in that glory. That is glory used as a noun. Its use as a verb perhaps has a different connotation: To glorify God means to recognize God’s eminence. All humans are seeking to find something greater than we are. We hero-worship film stars and others who achieve things greater than we can achieve. It implies that we are dependent on others for a sense of what glory is. Jesus came clothed in humanity because it was the only way for God to be with us in a tangible way. People could not have tolerated him had he appeared in the divine light. Until he raised Lazarus from the dead, the glory of God perhaps did not shine through Jesus. In the Mount of Olives, prior to his arrest, people fell down as if dead—paralyzed by Christ’s glory.

Michael: I think it is important not to reduce the meaning of glory just to “presence”. I don’t think God requires acts of glorification by us but I do think we need God to be seen as glorious in the sense of the dictionary definition. Although “glory” is a human concept projected onto a God we cannot know, to reduce it destroys his majesty and reduces the reverence we feel for him.

David: I agree that God is glorious by definition. An inglorious president is quite conceivable—the United States has had its share!—but an inglorious God is not even conceivable. So why focus on it? It seems so unnecessary.

To pick up on Robin’s comment that before the Fall Adam and Eve were unfazed by God’s glory: Could it be because they did not know Good and Evil? Not knowing Good, how could they know God?

Charles: They were able to be in the presence of God because they were unblemished, free of sin. God is the source of all and his will must prevail eventually, but in choosing to follow his own will Man separated himself from God and can only reverse it through total re-submission to God’s will and reliance on God’s mercy. God was and is the only moral authority, but Man wants to exercise it.

Jeff: Glory seems to be a bright light—which at face value seems different from the glory spoken of in Lazarus. Adam and Eve were clothed in God’s glory until they sinned, when they became naked. The righteousness of God has a shining quality to it. Perhaps that is just our human way of describing an ethereal condition we cannot perceive with the senses and cannot describe factually. Ezekiel talked about seeing God as a bright, fiery light. That is a common description.

Jay: And light was the first thing manifested at the Creation.

Jeff: Ever since, light has been associated with Good. That it is a blinding light explains why humans are unable to perceive it directly.

Jay: Moses could not see the entirety of that light, and even his followers could not look at the light being reflected on his face as he came down from the mountain.

Robin: Before the Fall, Adam and Eve knew Goodness because they lived and walked with God. When they ate the forbidden fruit and God said now they would know Good and Evil, God may have meant sarcastically that they only thought they would know, and make decisions concerning, what was Good and what was Evil.

Charles: Either one believes in an ultimate moral authority—God—or one degenerates into relativism. There is no in-between. It’s our way or God’s way. Without God as the moral authority, it is left to Man to be the moral authority and we see in today’s world that this leads ultimately to a world where anything goes. God will judge that, ultimately; in the meantime, civilizations rise in nobility and community and fall in shame and individualism.

Jeff: The atheist or relativist might argue that civilizations fall prey to other aspects of humanity. The case can equally be made between inherent morality in humankind and imposed morality by God.

Charles: That harks back to the question of why God allows sin to occur. Regardless; to be present with God, somehow sin has to be purged from the equation. Some of the most brutal human societies have been atheistic.

Jeff: But some have also been theistic!

Charles: This gets us to the topic of religion, which is about structure and rituals and so on, all of which are prone to corruption, as history shows. But I am talking about moral authority in a higher sense, at a much higher level—the level of God—than the level of religion. This is a level our religions, our humanity, and our science cannot reach. Evolution cannot account for compassion. The manifestation of God’s glory is when we worship the creator not the creature, when we are obedient to his will. We will remain incapable of that level of obedience until the End Time, when sin will be expunged and God will judge.

Robin: We know that God will judge rightly, because God cannot make a mistake. So we cannot know why God allows innocents to be slaughtered but we can understand that it is part of God’s plan.

Charles: We struggle just to interpret scripture in English, never mind in the original. At the end of the day, that God allows Man to have free will may serve only to emphasize that ultimately, only God prevails and provides.

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