The Glory of God
New City Catechism by Tim Keller and Sam Shammas contains fifty-two questions alongside their Biblical answer to read, retain, and grow our minds and hearts to the Lord’s. The book begins with, “What is our only hope in life and death?” and answers, “That we are not our own but belong, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.” This answer originates from Romans 14:7-8 - “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” Verse 9 that follows states, “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” The tiny yet powerful book begins with this truth because it is the answer to the question all souls yearn to know - the true meaning and purpose of life. The answer directs us to the realization that God’s glory is the ultimate truth, as it never wavers and is the ultimate will of the Holy Spirit that resides in God’s children.
Paul’s letter to the Romans centers on this truth - he reminds them, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Romans 11:36), and contrasts the creation with God saying, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God Himself proclaims in Isaiah 42:8, “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.”
If in fact we live and die to the Lord with His glory being our foremost desire, then the daily content of life- the interactions, the thoughts, the goals, the hopes, the conversations and all inner and outer workings of life should be aimed to that end. Paul admonishes us in Ephesians 5 by saying, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” and then proceeds to explain to the members of the church in Ephesus how to walk uprightly. But before Paul gives practical counsel on how to imitate God, he writes the reason it even matters - “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” The life, death and resurrection of Christ was a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, for God’s glory and for the glory of the son, who is God!
While teaching, Christ Himself quoted Deuteronomy saying the greatest command above all others is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might. Matthew, Mark and Luke record this saying which Christ was reciting from the law that came to Moses from God. The original book contains the encounter between Moses and God where God demonstrates the unbound mass of His glory - when Moses prepared to receive God’s law he asked to see God’s glory - “Then Moses said, “Now, please show me your glory.” The Lord answered, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will announce my name, the Lord, so you can hear it. I will show kindness to anyone to whom I want to show kindness, and I will show mercy to anyone to whom I want to show mercy. But you cannot see my face, because no one can see me and live” (Exodus 33: 18-20). This is the glory that Christ commands we submit our hearts, souls and might -
“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
If our sin is the very reason God’s glory is deadly to us, how are we to love the Lord with every fiber of our being? How is one to desire God’s glory foremost? The very evil that resides in the core of every son of Adam is the evil that Christ carried to the cross, each punished by the complete wrath of a Holy God - yet God says, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” The answer is in God naming us beloved children. God is glorified regardless of our ability in a moment to glorify Him, He is perfect and unwavering in his glory. But because Christ lived a glorified life, died with the wrath of God on the evil of our sin, and then was resurrected as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, we have become beloved children who have been gifted the very Spirit of God Himself - the one who demands God’s glory above all else. So we praise God for His Spirit and ask the Spirit to do what we cannot. The prayer concerning the power, or the omnipotence, of God, prayed by A.W. Tozer in The Knowledge of the Holy is a befitting plea for a heart that is bent against God’s glory but that yearns with the Spirit indwelled for a life that wants to live in truth.
“Our Heavenly Father, we have heard Thee say, “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.” But unless Thou dost enable us by the exceeding greatness of Thy power how can we who are by nature weak and sinful walk in a perfect way? Grant that we may learn to lay hold on the working of the mighty power which wrought in Christ when Thou didst raid Him from the dead and set Him and Thine own right hand in the heavenly places. Amen.”
