The Glory of God

( Refer to the booklet on p12)

“Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:2–5

God is in charge! God is at work!

In fact, God’s glory is best seen in our weakness, and he seems to work well with us in it, with no one to share his glory. Paul Tripp has said, we all in some ways are ‘glory thieves”. We would like to give God the glory and would like to share in it along the way. His glory, however, shines better through hardship. why because there is something about weakness that delineates the fine line between creator-creature distinctions. He is God and we are not. He is in charge, and we are not. He is our shepherd and we are his sheep, his covenant people. The existence of the people of God makes sense only, if our present lives are seen in light of the end, to which God created the whole universe, namely his Glory.

 

Two kinds of Glories!

There is a glory forbidden, and there is a glory shared. The former is the glory that only God deserves while the later is the glory we await, our glorification.

Therefore, first, there is a glory only the Father shares with his Son and Spirit. That is the glory he alone deserves. This is the glory the first humans tried to obtain without living under the government of the Lord of Glory. This holy creator had a purpose for creation. However, there appeared in the garden of Eden an evil coalition made up of a fallen angel and human couples who were made in charge of creation. They wanted to thwart the purposes of God. Sin is not first and foremost, trespassing a set of commandments. No, sin at its core is a rebellion. It is a rebellion against this holy creator, thus idolatry. It is the worship of self, the human centered government, just Adam, the head of sinful humanity, attempted to rob him the glory. They wanted to be “like God, knowing good and evil.” They wanted a self-autonomy, a self-governed existence, determining their own lives and choices with out their holy creator telling them what he wanted to do through them. In stead of living for his glorious end, they wanted to work for their own selfish end. This was the deceit of the serpent. They wanted to know what is good and evil on their own. they wanted to be wise in their own eyes. Therefore ever since the fall, we human beings exchanged the glory of the immortal God, for the likeness of mortal beings.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

For fall have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

But there is a glory that we have come to share freely because we have been justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. we submit to his kingly authority, mediated through his mediatorial king Jesus, the second Adam:

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. John 17:24 (ESV)

The scripture presents the characteristic of the present age as evil and suffering. However, in this present evil age, the kingdom of God has dawned when the Son appeared in Galilee, proclaiming the kingdom (Mark 1:15). The good news of the kingdom has been at work since then. Living in light of the end has been the character of the people of God.

Two Fold Glory

• Glory is the End to which we live in the present
  • So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)
  • Glory is at work through our present sufferings:
• Benefits of our Justification: our justification by faith through Christ has obtain us
  • Peace
  • Access
  • Hope
    • Future Glory
    • Present Suffering