THE GOD OF GLORY AND THE GLORY OF GOD
The revelation of the God of glory involves a sphere or world filled with the glory of God. Ultimately this will embrace the whole universe, the new heavens and new earth wherein righteousness will dwell. Stephen, when he looked up into heaven, saw such a sphere, but it was restricted to heaven—he saw the glory of God. In the beginning of the chapter, it says the God of glory appeared to Abraham. It does not say in what manner, but in some way He made Himself known to him. It was this manifestation of God that characterised the faith of Abraham and governed his future course, led him to take a course in obedience to the call of God which was against all human prudence, or, as people say, common sense, and it was this apprehension of God which sustained him in that course. That which must determine the faith of God’s people at any time is the special revelation of God given at that time—our faith cannot go beyond the revelation of God.
It is well for us when our faith really answers to the revelation as Abraham’s did. In the end of Romans 4, we get, as it seems to me, an idea of what is expressed in the term “the God of glory”. It is the One who is able to carry out His own will and promise in spite of all the weakness of the creature, and all the opposition of the enemy, and the power of death, so that He can call things which be not as though they were. None but the God of glory can do this. We cannot speak of anything we intend to do tomorrow as if it were already an accomplished fact—a hundred things may happen before tomorrow to prevent our carrying out our purpose, or we may be laid low in the weakness of death. The God of glory calls things which be not as though they were already accomplished facts, because nothing can prevent Him carrying out His purpose. He is the living God, and nothing can resist His will, see Rom 8: 29, 30. Whom He predestinated, them He called; whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified. Now we are not yet actually glorified, which involves our being conformed to the image of God’s Son, but God can speak of it as if it were already an accomplished fact, because nothing can prevent Him carrying out His purpose. He calleth things that be not as though they were.
This manifestation of God insures the fulfilment of the promises and of every word which He has spoken. Hence it says Abraham staggered not at the promise through unbelief, but found strength in faith, giving glory to God—that is, he accorded to God the glory which belongs to Him as the God of glory. Though conscious of the weakness of death in himself and in his wife, he looked straight away to God and found strength in so doing. When we look away from ourselves and see the God of glory all difficulties vanish, because there are no difficulties or impossibilities with God. It was this manifestation of God to him which sustained Abraham when he was called to offer up his only son, the one in whom all the promises centred. By faith he offered him up, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from among the dead. The God of glory is the God of resurrection, as He has been manifested to be in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. By Christ we believe in God that raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory. When we realise that we have nothing but weakness in ourselves we find strength in faith in looking to the God of glory.
Now with Stephen we get a step in advance. Being full of the Holy Spirit, he looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus. This sight is characteristic of Christianity. Consequent upon the exaltation of Jesus to glory on the ground of the work of redemption, accomplished on the cross, the Spirit has come down to bear witness to Him, and to all that God has established in Him in heaven, so that in this way heaven is opened to us. That is where God has wrought and where His glory is fully displayed in raising Christ from the dead, exalting Him to His own right hand above all principality and power and every name named in this age and the coming one, and in Him God has established His great purpose in regard to man; and His having fulfilled it in the one Man is the proof that He is able to accomplish it in regard to all who are the subjects of His purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. This is the witness of God’s great triumph over all the powers of evil here, the world and the devil, and over every obstacle which could stand in His way—sin and death, all that in which Satan’s power has been expressed. This is the display of His glory. What I understand by the glory of God is the display or shining forth of His attributes in harmony with His nature, and in victory over every difficulty and all opposing elements. In human things if a man achieves some great work or gains some great victory, he displays his power and this becomes his glory, and the greater the difficulties or the opposing forces the greater the glory acquired. With God, He does not acquire glory, because He is the God of glory; all glory is His, but He manifests His glory in what He does. Everything He does declares His glory. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19: 1), all His works praise Him. But in Christ risen and glorified as Man at the right hand of God, according to His purpose, we see the fullest display of His glory—we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Nothing which He is about to do in the future will exceed in glory what He has already accomplished in Christ. But all this would have been impossible apart from the work of Christ—it was dependent upon a Man who could do all His will. Whatever glory God ever connected with man after the flesh has been a failure—the Adam-man has ever brought dishonour upon the name of God. But in Christ God has found a Man who was capable of accomplishing that great work on which all God’s revealed glory rests, the work of redemption, the accomplishment of which is the glory of the One who has done it. In Christ, too, God has found One who is capable of giving effect to all His will, so that in another day God will by Him fill the universe with His glory. In John 11: 4, in connection with Lazarus, the Lord said to His disciples: “This sickness is not unto death [that is, death was not to be the end], but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby”. And again, when at the grave Martha raised difficulties on account of the fact that Lazarus was not only dead, but that the body was already becoming corrupt, the Lord replied to her, saying, “Did I not say to thee, that if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” He allowed the fruits of sin to take their full course to death and the grave, that all this might be the occasion for the display of the glory of God and His own glory, so that thereby the sisters and the disciples might become great gainers by an increased knowledge of God and of the Son of God.
But how could God come thus into a scene of sin and death and Satan’s power and display His glory in delivering man from all that is the fruit of sin? Only by Christ, and on the ground of His death. In chapter 12: 27, 28, having His death before Him, the Lord said: “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But on account of this have I come to this hour. Father, glorify thy name”. While shrinking from that terrible hour, from all that death was to His holy soul, yet in obedience to the Father’s will He would accept it in order that the Father might be able to come into a scene of sin and death and Satan’s power, and glorify His name. The answer was, “I have both glorified it [referring to the resurrection of Lazarus] and will glorify it again”, John 12: 28. That is what He has done in raising Christ from the dead, and what He is doing in delivering men from the fruits of sin and from the power of the devil, and what He will yet do, delivering the whole creation from the bondage of corruption, and establishing all His will in heaven and earth, destroying death and the grave and the power of Satan absolutely and for ever, bringing about a scene of blessing where everything will declare His glory. Yet all this would have been impossible but for the death of Christ, so that we may say that God is indebted to Christ for all His glory. Otherwise this world would have been the sphere of Satan’s power and triumph, man’s complete ruin, and an everlasting blot upon the glory of God. Speaking of His death (John 13: 31, 32), the Lord said, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God also shall glorify him in himself, and shall glorify him immediately”. In the death of Jesus God has been glorified in regard to sin and all that has come in by sin. His name has been vindicated, His attributes have not only been displayed but glorified in the death of Jesus; for Him sin has been put away and the power of Satan annulled, so that He is free to act as if sin had never stood in the way, in grace to carry out His purposes for the recovery and blessing of men in which He is glorifying Himself. Every barrier has been removed in the death of Jesus, and the heart and hand of God are free. The answer to this is that God has straightway glorified the Son of man, not yet publicly but in Himself. Thus we see that the cross, the work of redemption, is the foundation on which all the glory of God rests, which glory will be displayed in the perfect accomplishment of all His will in spite of sin and every adverse power. The result will be a new world, a universe which will be according to God, everything answering to what God is, everything to His pleasure: a scene filled with the glory of God, in which every part of it will declare His glory, and that means a universe of bliss, for God, being what He is, could not rest in anything save in the perfect happiness of the creature, finding its spring in the knowledge of Himself.
There will Thy love find perfect rest,
Where all around is bliss;
Where all in Thee supremely blest,
Thy praise their service is.
When this is brought to pass it will be seen that God is the first and the last, the One who was before all evil and who will be after it. All that has come in meantime only serves as the occasion for the display of what God is. When Israel had utterly broken down under the law, and refused to go and take possession of the land of Canaan, God spoke of destroying the whole nation and making of Moses a nation greater than Israel. Moses pleaded with God, on the ground of the maintenance of His own glory, how God would be dishonoured in the eyes of the nations around if He failed to bring the people into the land. God’s answer was, “Surely as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah!”, Num 14: 21. So it will be, “The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea”, Hab 2: 14. When Moses had set up the tabernacle, the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a figure of the universe (Heb 3: 4), thus the filling of the tabernacle with the glory of God is symbolical of what will be, as we have said—that is, not the earth only, but the whole universe being filled with the glory of God, of which we see the earnest in the present exaltation and glory of the Christ. We can well afford to accept the truth as to all that we are, the sin and weakness and death we find in ourselves, and contemplate the breakdown of everything committed to the responsibility of man, in the light of the glory of Christ. How inspiring to look up into the opened heavens and see the glory of God and Jesus at the right hand of God. It casts into the shade all the glory of man, and while we gaze upon the glory of the Lord we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.
From Helps for the Poor of the Flock vol 16 (1911)