© Eric Schumacher – Preached August 13, 2006 at Northbrook Baptist Church, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
My text for this morning’s sermon is the entire Bible. Sometimes I fear that while we do a lot of teaching the Bibles stories, we do very little to communicate the Bible’s story. The Bible is one unified story, in which every little story plays a part.
My goal for this morning’s sermon is to demonstrate that the ultimate goal of all that God does is to display his glory to the ends of the earth. I want us to see that the grand theme of the Bible is the glory of God in the creation and redemption of his kingdom through Jesus Christ.
This is important because the things that are central to the heart of God should be central to the hearts of his people. If God has a goal for history and purpose for our existence, then we should be passionately committed to cooperating with that goal and that purpose. If the glory of God is the goal of God, then bringing him glory should be our goal as well.
Glory Defined
The first question we might ask is, “What is glory?” The word we translate in the Bible as “glory” comes from a word group meaning “weight or heaviness,” which can indicate “abundance,” “wealth,” or “splendor.” To speak of someone’s glory is to speak of their worth, it is to declare what is excellent about them.
So, for example, in Isaiah 49:3, the Lord says of Israel, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” Another way to translate “in whom I will be glorified” is “in whom I will display my splendor (or, beauty).”
When we speak of God’s glory, we speak of his greatness, his beauty, his worth or his excellence. Everything about God is excellent and weighty and beautiful. God’s glory is the display of his excellencies.
To glorify God is to declare what is excellent about God. It is to display his beauty. Worship is to acknowledge God’s “worth-ship,” that he is supremely valuable.
God cares deeply about his own glory. He says plainly in Isaiah 42:8, “I will not give my glory to another.” As we move through the storyline of redemption, I trust that it will become clear that God is acting in all of history to display his glory and that our purpose in life to glorify God. To understand this, is to understand the meaning of life.
Creation – Man is Created to Image Forth the Glory of God
The best place to begin any story is at the very beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The high-point of the creation week is God’s creation of man. The Bible tells us that God created man in his own image. Genesis 1:27-28 records:
When God created the world he chose to create living breathing “images” of himself. Man, as the image of God, would be God’s representative on earth. Man—male and female—was to fill the earth, subdue the earth and exercise dominion over the earth. In other words, Man was to be God’s representative ruler, exercising God’s rule over every area of the earth.
When you are a representative, you are to act as the person you are representing would act. Therefore, mankind was intended to display to the world what God was like. As the image of God, mankind was to “image-forth” to beauty, excellence, and worth of God. Man was created to display the glory of God in all the earth. At the very beginning of the Bible, it is already obvious that God’s goal is to cover the earth with his glory.
Fall
Most of us know how the story turned out. God had given Man his Word to inform them how to act as his “image.” Man was free to eat from any of the trees that God had provided that he not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which would bring certain death.
One day, Satan, in the form a serpent, approached Eve and questioned the Word of God.
Adam and Eve should have been content to be created “in the image of God.” Instead, they tried attain the position of God for themselves. Instead of being content to display God’s beauty to the world, they acted against God and tried to take God’s glory for their own.
When Adam fell into sin, all his descendants fell with him. Paul describes the fall of all humans in Romans 1:22-23, “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 reptiles.” Instead of giving glory to God alone, Man has given glory to man and other created things.
This is true of all of us. Romans 3:23 says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” To “fall short of the glory of God” is to fail to give God the glory that he alone deserves.
Adam and Eve’s fall into sin and every sin since them is basically the same—Sin is giving to someone or something else the glory that God alone deserves.
Tower of BabelAdam and Eve’s descendants do not do any better than their parents. In Genesis 11:1-4, we read:
In response to their pride and rebellion, God confuses the language of the people and disperses them over the face of all the earth. Now the problem of man fill the earth has been solved.
However, the issue still remains of man imaging forth God’s glory in all the earth. How will this come about?
Creation of Israel
Immediately following the Tower of Babel incident, we read of God approaching a man named Abram. God promises to make childless Abram into a great nation. Through Abram’s “seed,” all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
Abraham had a son named Isaac. Isaac had a son name Jacob. The Lord called Jacob “Israel.” Israel had twelve sons, whose descendants became a great nation called after their father “Israel.”
We learn in Isaiah 49:3 that when the Lord created Israel he said, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” Likewise, in Jeremiah 13:11, the Lord said, “I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me…that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory…” God created Israel to display God’s glory.
Remember too that God promised that in Abraham’s seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Here is the beginning of the answer to our dilemma: How will it come about that mankind will cover the earth displaying the glory of God? Israel is to be the instrument God uses to display his glory to every nation on earth.
Exodus to the Promised Land
Abraham’s descendants, the nation of Israel, find themselves enslaved for 400 years to the Egyptians. Through mighty signs and wonders, God got glory for himself over Pharaoh by dramatically redeeming his people in an event we call “the Exodus” (Exodus 14:4, 18; Psalm 106:7-8).
The Lord brought Israel through the wilderness, doing many things there to display his glory to them, and brought them into the land he had promised them.
On the way to the Promised Land, the Lord gave Israel “the Law.” The Law was God’s collected instructions for how God’s People were to live in God’s Land. It was by obeying the Law from the heart that Israel would display to the world God beauty and worth.
As the Kingdom developed, a monarchy would eventually be established. The King of Israel was to be a man who would exercise God’s dominion by upholding God’s law. The King of Israel was to rule in such a way as to see that Israel was a nation that displayed the glory of God.
Temple
After God’s people, instructed by God’s law, had entered God’s land and were under the rule of God’s King, the Temple was built. The temple was the central location of God’s glory.
Exile
As with Adam and Eve and their descendants, Israel failed to display the glory of God to the nations of the earth. Israel’s kings began to use their position, not to display the glory of God, but to bring themselves glory.
Israel as a nation was not giving God glory. Instead, Israel was a place where false gods were worshipped, blessings were hoarded, and immorality was rampant—all while the religious ceremonies for the worship of the Lord were often religiously observed. Therefore, instead of being a people for the glory of God, Israel was serving its own sinful lusts and taking the name of Lord in vain.
In response to their sin, God sent his people out of the land into exile. They lived under the rule of foreign nations. God could have destroyed his people. However, this would have brought disgrace to his name. If God’s people were fully and finally destroyed, the nations of the earth would laugh and say, “Some God Israel has! Our gods conquered him! The Lord could not protect his people!” So, for the glory of his name, God restrained himself from destroying his people:
Prophecy
During Israel’s exile and after her return from exile, the Lord raised up prophets. The prophets warned the Israelites of their sin and called them to repent and to return to being a people for the glory of God. The prophets foretold a coming day in which God would redeem his people so that his glory would extend to the very ends of the earth.
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God because he is the perfect displayer of God’s glory. Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” Man was created in the image of God to display the glory of God but failed. Jesus came as the one man who is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”
John 1:14 says of Jesus, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus reveals to us the glory of the Father. In fact, Jesus displays God’s glory so perfectly that he can say to his disciples (John 14:9), “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
The temple was the resting place of God’s glory in Israel. Jesus claimed that he is true Temple, the central location of the glory of God.
We can understand why Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and the world was put under a curse—they refused to glorify God.
We can understand why the people at the “Tower of Babel” had their languages confused and were scattered over the face of the earth—they refused to glorify God.
We can understand why God sent Israel into exile—they refused to glorify God.
Sin is exchanging the glory of God for the worship of something lesser. Sin is taking God’s glory for oneself. The wages is sin is death. Those who refuse to glorify the great King are guilty of high treason and must be executed to uphold the worth of the king’s name. To allow the dishonoring of God’s name to go unpunished would be to say that God’s name is not worth much. It would be to say that dishonoring God’s name is no big deal, because God is “no big deal.” That would be a travesty of justice.
So, we can understand the punishment and death of those who do not glorify God. But what about the death of Jesus—the perfect “God-glorifier”—how do we understand this?
Here are a few things that Jesus said as he faced the hour of his death:
The Apostle Paul answers that question for us in Romans 3:25-26:
You see, in the Old Testament story, God was not just condemning and executing people who had failed to give him glory. He was also saving them. The salvation of sinners should present to us a bigger problem than the damnation of sinners. The release of guilty criminals should bother us worse than the imprisonment of them.
The charge that could be brought against God was that he is not righteous because he forgives sinners without payment for their sins. The charge is that if God forgives (passes over) sins without punishing them, then he is unjust, unrighteous, and not worthy of glory.
So, “God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood.” That is God put his Son forward on the cross as a sacrifice to atone for sins and to satisfy his wrath. The wrath deserved by those sinners whose sin God forgives is all placed on Jesus Christ on the cross. Those who receive Jesus Christ’s work by faith are forgiven because Jesus Christ’s death is counted as their death to sin, and his perfect righteousness is counted as their perfection.
Through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, God is doubly glorified as the “just and the justifier.” That is, in the cross, God displays his glory—he proclaims his own excellencies. God displays the excellencies of his justice by pouring out his wrath on sin. And, at the same time, God displays the excellencies of his grace and mercy by pouring his wrath out on a substitute so that he can declare unworthy sinners to be just and redeem them safely into his kingdom, forgiving their sin.
Resurrection/Ascension
After Jesus glorified God on the cross, he was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father (Romans 6:4). This resurrection showed that Jesus was, in fact, God’s anointed King. The resurrection shows that Jesus is the true King who would rule over the true Israel of God in such a way that they would be a people who would display the glory of God to all the earth. Exalted to God’s right hand and given a name that is above every name, every knee will one day bow at his name and confess him to be Lord “to the glory of the Father” (Phil 2:8-11).
This is important to note. God did not and has not abandoned his purpose of filling the earth with his image bearers so that his glory is displayed over all the earth. This was and is still God’s plan.
Pentecost
Before Jesus ascended back into heaven, he promised to send the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would glorify him (John 16:14). On this note, the Holy Spirit is given to empower Christ’s people to glorify him to the ends of the earth. Jesus said:
It is essential for the church to adopt this mindset. The Apostle Peter teaches us that the church is the New Temple built to declare God’s glory in the earth.
Return of Jesus Christ and the New Creation
We, the church, seek to fill the earth with the glory of God by living holy lives and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. Nevertheless, we are mindful of the fact that we cannot accomplish and complete this task in a full and final way without the physical presence of our King.
Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ is coming again “to be glorified in his saints” (2 Thessalonians 1:9-10). It is on this day that Christ will banish all evil, all sorrow, all suffering because he will remove and overthrow all his enemies—sin, death and the devil.
When Christ returns he will reign and make a New Heavens and New Earth. We—the redeemed people of the King—will reign with Christ in His Kingdom forever (Revelation 22:5). It is then, and only then, that mankind will finally fulfill the purpose for which God created us—we will, conformed into the image of Christ, display the glory of God throughout the earth. In Revelation, John tells us of the vision he was given of that day:
This is the goal of God in creation and redemption—to display his glory to the ends of the earth.
Is the conscious goal and purpose your life in line with the goal and purpose of God?
Whether it be your vocation, your marriage, your family, your church—whatever you do, are you doing all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31)?
Is the goal of your life to display the glory of God in Jesus Christ?
My text for this morning’s sermon is the entire Bible. Sometimes I fear that while we do a lot of teaching the Bibles stories, we do very little to communicate the Bible’s story. The Bible is one unified story, in which every little story plays a part.
My goal for this morning’s sermon is to demonstrate that the ultimate goal of all that God does is to display his glory to the ends of the earth. I want us to see that the grand theme of the Bible is the glory of God in the creation and redemption of his kingdom through Jesus Christ.
This is important because the things that are central to the heart of God should be central to the hearts of his people. If God has a goal for history and purpose for our existence, then we should be passionately committed to cooperating with that goal and that purpose. If the glory of God is the goal of God, then bringing him glory should be our goal as well.
Glory Defined
The first question we might ask is, “What is glory?” The word we translate in the Bible as “glory” comes from a word group meaning “weight or heaviness,” which can indicate “abundance,” “wealth,” or “splendor.” To speak of someone’s glory is to speak of their worth, it is to declare what is excellent about them.
So, for example, in Isaiah 49:3, the Lord says of Israel, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” Another way to translate “in whom I will be glorified” is “in whom I will display my splendor (or, beauty).”
When we speak of God’s glory, we speak of his greatness, his beauty, his worth or his excellence. Everything about God is excellent and weighty and beautiful. God’s glory is the display of his excellencies.
To glorify God is to declare what is excellent about God. It is to display his beauty. Worship is to acknowledge God’s “worth-ship,” that he is supremely valuable.
God cares deeply about his own glory. He says plainly in Isaiah 42:8, “I will not give my glory to another.” As we move through the storyline of redemption, I trust that it will become clear that God is acting in all of history to display his glory and that our purpose in life to glorify God. To understand this, is to understand the meaning of life.
Creation – Man is Created to Image Forth the Glory of God
The best place to begin any story is at the very beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The high-point of the creation week is God’s creation of man. The Bible tells us that God created man in his own image. Genesis 1:27-28 records:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."God created man “in his image.” An image is a representation. A president’s “image” on a coin represents that president. In ancient kingdoms, much like some kingdoms today, leaders would erect “images” of themselves in the cities and lands that they ruled over. These images would send the message to the inhabitants of that the king ruled that land.
When God created the world he chose to create living breathing “images” of himself. Man, as the image of God, would be God’s representative on earth. Man—male and female—was to fill the earth, subdue the earth and exercise dominion over the earth. In other words, Man was to be God’s representative ruler, exercising God’s rule over every area of the earth.
When you are a representative, you are to act as the person you are representing would act. Therefore, mankind was intended to display to the world what God was like. As the image of God, mankind was to “image-forth” to beauty, excellence, and worth of God. Man was created to display the glory of God in all the earth. At the very beginning of the Bible, it is already obvious that God’s goal is to cover the earth with his glory.
Fall
Most of us know how the story turned out. God had given Man his Word to inform them how to act as his “image.” Man was free to eat from any of the trees that God had provided that he not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which would bring certain death.
One day, Satan, in the form a serpent, approached Eve and questioned the Word of God.
Genesis 3:4-6 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.The temptation presented by the serpent was that if they ate the fruit, they would be like God.
Adam and Eve should have been content to be created “in the image of God.” Instead, they tried attain the position of God for themselves. Instead of being content to display God’s beauty to the world, they acted against God and tried to take God’s glory for their own.
When Adam fell into sin, all his descendants fell with him. Paul describes the fall of all humans in Romans 1:22-23, “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 reptiles.” Instead of giving glory to God alone, Man has given glory to man and other created things.
This is true of all of us. Romans 3:23 says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” To “fall short of the glory of God” is to fail to give God the glory that he alone deserves.
Adam and Eve’s fall into sin and every sin since them is basically the same—Sin is giving to someone or something else the glory that God alone deserves.
Tower of BabelAdam and Eve’s descendants do not do any better than their parents. In Genesis 11:1-4, we read:
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth."While the story of the Tower of Babel is familiar to us, we should not miss the motivation of the people’s actions. Notice what mankind is doing and why. “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” The people made their city and their tower to “make a name” for themselves. In other words, they did it to bring themselves glory. And, they built it so that they would not be “dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” They built a tower in the interest of self-preservation and self-glorification. This flies in the face of the purpose for which God created man in his image, which is to spread over all the earth imaging forth the glory of God.
In response to their pride and rebellion, God confuses the language of the people and disperses them over the face of all the earth. Now the problem of man fill the earth has been solved.
However, the issue still remains of man imaging forth God’s glory in all the earth. How will this come about?
Creation of Israel
Immediately following the Tower of Babel incident, we read of God approaching a man named Abram. God promises to make childless Abram into a great nation. Through Abram’s “seed,” all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
Abraham had a son named Isaac. Isaac had a son name Jacob. The Lord called Jacob “Israel.” Israel had twelve sons, whose descendants became a great nation called after their father “Israel.”
We learn in Isaiah 49:3 that when the Lord created Israel he said, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” Likewise, in Jeremiah 13:11, the Lord said, “I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me…that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory…” God created Israel to display God’s glory.
Remember too that God promised that in Abraham’s seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Here is the beginning of the answer to our dilemma: How will it come about that mankind will cover the earth displaying the glory of God? Israel is to be the instrument God uses to display his glory to every nation on earth.
Exodus to the Promised Land
Abraham’s descendants, the nation of Israel, find themselves enslaved for 400 years to the Egyptians. Through mighty signs and wonders, God got glory for himself over Pharaoh by dramatically redeeming his people in an event we call “the Exodus” (Exodus 14:4, 18; Psalm 106:7-8).
The Lord brought Israel through the wilderness, doing many things there to display his glory to them, and brought them into the land he had promised them.
On the way to the Promised Land, the Lord gave Israel “the Law.” The Law was God’s collected instructions for how God’s People were to live in God’s Land. It was by obeying the Law from the heart that Israel would display to the world God beauty and worth.
As the Kingdom developed, a monarchy would eventually be established. The King of Israel was to be a man who would exercise God’s dominion by upholding God’s law. The King of Israel was to rule in such a way as to see that Israel was a nation that displayed the glory of God.
Temple
After God’s people, instructed by God’s law, had entered God’s land and were under the rule of God’s King, the Temple was built. The temple was the central location of God’s glory.
1 Kings 8:10-11 And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.The temple was the central fixture of Jewish life. It was the place where man’s sins were forgiven. It was the place where man met with God. It was from this central location that God’s glory was to be displayed to the ends of the earth as Israel became a blessing to all the nations.
Exile
As with Adam and Eve and their descendants, Israel failed to display the glory of God to the nations of the earth. Israel’s kings began to use their position, not to display the glory of God, but to bring themselves glory.
Israel as a nation was not giving God glory. Instead, Israel was a place where false gods were worshipped, blessings were hoarded, and immorality was rampant—all while the religious ceremonies for the worship of the Lord were often religiously observed. Therefore, instead of being a people for the glory of God, Israel was serving its own sinful lusts and taking the name of Lord in vain.
In response to their sin, God sent his people out of the land into exile. They lived under the rule of foreign nations. God could have destroyed his people. However, this would have brought disgrace to his name. If God’s people were fully and finally destroyed, the nations of the earth would laugh and say, “Some God Israel has! Our gods conquered him! The Lord could not protect his people!” So, for the glory of his name, God restrained himself from destroying his people:
Isaiah 48:9-11 For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.For the sake of his glory, God returned Israel to her land (Ezek. 36:22-23, 32). Yet, even though they returned to their land and rebuilt the temple, the glory of God was not present in the same way it had been before. Even so, the stage was being set for God’s plan to unfold.
Prophecy
During Israel’s exile and after her return from exile, the Lord raised up prophets. The prophets warned the Israelites of their sin and called them to repent and to return to being a people for the glory of God. The prophets foretold a coming day in which God would redeem his people so that his glory would extend to the very ends of the earth.
Isaiah 11:9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.After the prophets came 400 years of silence from God. Then, announced by the first prophet in 400 years, John the Baptist, Jesus Christ appeared.
Habakkuk 2:14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
Malachi 1:11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God because he is the perfect displayer of God’s glory. Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” Man was created in the image of God to display the glory of God but failed. Jesus came as the one man who is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”
John 1:14 says of Jesus, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus reveals to us the glory of the Father. In fact, Jesus displays God’s glory so perfectly that he can say to his disciples (John 14:9), “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
The temple was the resting place of God’s glory in Israel. Jesus claimed that he is true Temple, the central location of the glory of God.
John 2:19-21 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking about the temple of his body.Death
We can understand why Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and the world was put under a curse—they refused to glorify God.
We can understand why the people at the “Tower of Babel” had their languages confused and were scattered over the face of the earth—they refused to glorify God.
We can understand why God sent Israel into exile—they refused to glorify God.
Sin is exchanging the glory of God for the worship of something lesser. Sin is taking God’s glory for oneself. The wages is sin is death. Those who refuse to glorify the great King are guilty of high treason and must be executed to uphold the worth of the king’s name. To allow the dishonoring of God’s name to go unpunished would be to say that God’s name is not worth much. It would be to say that dishonoring God’s name is no big deal, because God is “no big deal.” That would be a travesty of justice.
So, we can understand the punishment and death of those who do not glorify God. But what about the death of Jesus—the perfect “God-glorifier”—how do we understand this?
Here are a few things that Jesus said as he faced the hour of his death:
John 12:27-28 "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven: "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again."Jesus saw his death on the cross as the ultimate instrument for bringing glory to His Father. The question is: How does Jesus Christ’s death display the glory of God?
John 17:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you...
John 13:31-32 When [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.
The Apostle Paul answers that question for us in Romans 3:25-26:
God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.Paul says that God put Christ forward on the cross “to show God’s righteousness.” That is Jesus’ death was intended by God to show that God really is righteous, because “he had passed over former sins.”
You see, in the Old Testament story, God was not just condemning and executing people who had failed to give him glory. He was also saving them. The salvation of sinners should present to us a bigger problem than the damnation of sinners. The release of guilty criminals should bother us worse than the imprisonment of them.
The charge that could be brought against God was that he is not righteous because he forgives sinners without payment for their sins. The charge is that if God forgives (passes over) sins without punishing them, then he is unjust, unrighteous, and not worthy of glory.
So, “God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood.” That is God put his Son forward on the cross as a sacrifice to atone for sins and to satisfy his wrath. The wrath deserved by those sinners whose sin God forgives is all placed on Jesus Christ on the cross. Those who receive Jesus Christ’s work by faith are forgiven because Jesus Christ’s death is counted as their death to sin, and his perfect righteousness is counted as their perfection.
Through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, God is doubly glorified as the “just and the justifier.” That is, in the cross, God displays his glory—he proclaims his own excellencies. God displays the excellencies of his justice by pouring out his wrath on sin. And, at the same time, God displays the excellencies of his grace and mercy by pouring his wrath out on a substitute so that he can declare unworthy sinners to be just and redeem them safely into his kingdom, forgiving their sin.
Resurrection/Ascension
After Jesus glorified God on the cross, he was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father (Romans 6:4). This resurrection showed that Jesus was, in fact, God’s anointed King. The resurrection shows that Jesus is the true King who would rule over the true Israel of God in such a way that they would be a people who would display the glory of God to all the earth. Exalted to God’s right hand and given a name that is above every name, every knee will one day bow at his name and confess him to be Lord “to the glory of the Father” (Phil 2:8-11).
This is important to note. God did not and has not abandoned his purpose of filling the earth with his image bearers so that his glory is displayed over all the earth. This was and is still God’s plan.
Pentecost
Before Jesus ascended back into heaven, he promised to send the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would glorify him (John 16:14). On this note, the Holy Spirit is given to empower Christ’s people to glorify him to the ends of the earth. Jesus said:
Acts 1:8 you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.Jesus’ purpose in sending the Holy Spirit is to empower us to go to the ends of the earth and to witness to Jesus Christ, who is “the radiance of God’s glory.” In other words, the task of the church in world missions to “declare God’s glory (in Jesus Christ) among the nations” (cf Psalm 96:3).
It is essential for the church to adopt this mindset. The Apostle Peter teaches us that the church is the New Temple built to declare God’s glory in the earth.
1 Peter 2:4-5, 9 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ….you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.Like living stones we, the church of Jesus Christ, are being built into a spiritual house—and New Temple—and have become a holy nation, so that we “may proclaim the excellencies” of the God who redeemed us.
Return of Jesus Christ and the New Creation
We, the church, seek to fill the earth with the glory of God by living holy lives and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. Nevertheless, we are mindful of the fact that we cannot accomplish and complete this task in a full and final way without the physical presence of our King.
Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ is coming again “to be glorified in his saints” (2 Thessalonians 1:9-10). It is on this day that Christ will banish all evil, all sorrow, all suffering because he will remove and overthrow all his enemies—sin, death and the devil.
When Christ returns he will reign and make a New Heavens and New Earth. We—the redeemed people of the King—will reign with Christ in His Kingdom forever (Revelation 22:5). It is then, and only then, that mankind will finally fulfill the purpose for which God created us—we will, conformed into the image of Christ, display the glory of God throughout the earth. In Revelation, John tells us of the vision he was given of that day:
Revelation 21:22-23 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.The plan that God instituted when he said, “Let their be light” will be brought to completion on the day when his glory is the light of the New Creation. The perfect image of God, the Lamb, will be our lamp, the place from which the light of God’s glory radiates.
Revelation 22:3-5 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
This is the goal of God in creation and redemption—to display his glory to the ends of the earth.
Is the conscious goal and purpose your life in line with the goal and purpose of God?
Whether it be your vocation, your marriage, your family, your church—whatever you do, are you doing all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31)?
Is the goal of your life to display the glory of God in Jesus Christ?
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