Sermon · Gospel for Life

The Glory of God in the Face of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:3-6)

~42 min read

An alternate version of The Glory of God in the Face of Christ (2 Cor 4:3-6)

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The Glory of God in the Face of Christ (2 Cor 4:3-6)

By Jay Wegter

True religion is above the natural powers of man. Through the last 2000 years of history the church has often forgotten that truth. Thus the gospel has been pushed down from its biblical description as “the power of God” (Rom 1:16-17)—and turned into something men are capable of performing (as if salvation is man’s prerogative). The scriptural reality is that a mighty working of God’s sovereign power is needed in order for a person to become saved.

250 years ago Jonathan Edwards had this same concern in connection with the conversion statistics of a revival known as the “Great Awakening.” Edwards penned his concerns in his magnum opus, The Religious Affections. His book is a masterful exposition of the marks of true salvation with particular emphasis placed upon the supreme mark of salvation known as the religious affections.

Edwards argued that true salvation must have a foundation that goes deeper than self-interest. Genuine salvation is characterized by a Spirit-engendered sight and savor of God’s glory. Hypocrites lack this mark of salvation (entranced vision of God’s glory and character). Edwards presses his case stating that the truly converted man has seen Christ spiritually whereas the world has not seen Christ in this way (p. 23). Edwards stresses that the religious affections are the fruit of a new heart and that these affections are what moves the Christian life. Satan cannot counterfeit this sentiment—no natural man sees God’s glory and the creature’s happiness woven together in Christ.) SERMON PROP.: To see God’s glory in the face of Christ is to

be a saved person who actively continues beholding that glory.

What is this Glory of God that men cannot see?

The outshining of the divine perfections and excellence made sensible to us in Christ—or spiritually discernable in Christ unto the ravishment and satisfaction of our souls—a saving knowledge of God. This glory is a savor that satisfies the soul. But spiritually blind persons are not ravished by the historical facts of Jesus’ life. They do not experience what Edwards describes as, “The true sense of the divine excellency of the things revealed in the Word of God and a conviction of the truth and reality of them thence arising.” Thus, in the unregenerate person there is no perception of the spiritual beauty, treasure, and supremacy of Christ—no true comprehension of His fitted-ness to save, bring us to God, and make us like Himself.

Concerning the sight of God’s glory:

ONE

: This glory is hidden from the unbeliever (vv. 3-4)

The Gospel is glorious, but its glory is hidden from the lost. The Gospel’s true character and excellence as the revelation of God is not apprehended. Unbelievers cannot perceive or rejoice in the splendor of the Gospel. The reason is because of the character of those who reject the Gospel; Scripture says that they are foolish (1 Cor 1:18) and ‘dead’ to the things of God (Eph 2:1-3). They are still aware of God, but they are blind to His glory, thus the precious things of God are not viewed/considered as valuable.

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Our first parents’ Fall into sin was a forfeiture of God’s glory (Rom 3:23). This three-fold forfeiture includes losing our ability to reflect God’s glory (depravity); losing our spiritual sight of God’s glory (spiritual blindness); and losing our passion and desire to see that glory and live for God’s glory (idolatry instead of worshipping the God of glory). In order for salvation to restore us to God—it must be able to reverse this three-fold forfeiture of God’s glory.

Satan is behind this concealment of God’s glory.

The god of this world has blinded the

minds of the unbelieving. The gospel is

veiled to those who are perishing (4:4). Satan is the

blinder;

the destroyer;

the
murderer of souls
(Jn 8:44). Blinding the minds of unbelievers is

Satan’s full-time business. He seeks to prevent men from seeing the glory of Christ.

The glory of Christ is the sum of all His divine and human excellence. These perfections, centered in His Person, make Him the radiant point of the universe—the clearest manifestation of God to the creature—the object of supreme adoration, admiration, and love. To see His glory is to be saved, for we are thereby transformed from glory to glory (3:18).

The Gospel, as the revelation of the glory of Christ, is the source of the illumination. Satan tries his best to block the illumination men’s minds. Through the evil one’s lie, the unbeliever is incapacitated from gazing upon the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ.

The spiritual darkness began when our first parents sinned in the Garden of Eden. Original sin extinguished the relational knowledge of God. Spiritual darkness extinguished the light of the knowledge of God in the soul—this darkness characterized by ignorance, fear, enslavement, corrupted affections, estrangement, and rebellion. (EX. The darkness is like a sooty veil which blocks our comprehension of God’s wonderfulness, perfections, excellence, beauty and desirability. We were created to be ravished by divine glory; but fallen man’s default response is idol worship—he takes his needs to the world.)

Satan’s original lie drove a wedge into the mind of man. A dichotomy within man’s heart was formed in the process. Our first parents, once having acted upon the devil’s lie in partaking of the forbidden fruit, became blinded to God’s glory—they regarded God’s glory and man’s highest good as mutually exclusive—‘logically’ the lie was used to justify human self-determination, and justify the enthronement of human reason.

Satan’s lie was nothing short of murder (Jn 8:44). For when the lie was believed and acted upon, it cut off man from the life of God, and the knowledge of God. Lucifer’s lie about God’s goodness scribes the very outline, shape, and contours if you will, of the spiritual darkness that rules every unregenerate soul (down to the present age).

The luciferian lie has three basic parts: 1.) “God is not good and loving.” God is withholding your highest good. He is even threatened by your human potential. He is severe and unloving. This became an excuse to think

negatively
about God
. 2.) “God is not truthful.”

“You shall not die.” Doubt leads to denial. The lie cast doubt upon the authority; authenticity; reliability; and truthfulness of God’s Word. This became an excuse to think

skeptically about

God. 3.) “God is not righteous and just.” God is not going to comprehensively punish sin. His threats are idle. God is not to be feared. His dictates are not really commands; only advice. This became an excuse to think

irreverently about God.

Since God is not good, truthful, and righteous, you need to be your own god. Experiment a bit; liberate yourself; determine truth; reality; right and wrong for yourself. This became an excuse to think

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independently from God, and an excuse to worship created things .

Satan is the default god of this world, by his lie he energizes spiritual darkness

We are created as worshippers—to be enthusiastic spectators of divine excellence—that is our creational identity. We are created for God—for His glory and His pleasure. But spiritual blindness and rebellion means that we employ our worshipping capacity in serving idols (the worship of created things—which enslave).

You have heard it said, the most important thing about you is how you think about God. The mind is where Satan has his influence. He blinds the mind to divine glory. The word in our text is “minds”—the evil one’s blinding work speaks of the noetic effects of sin upon every unbeliever. No man ever reasoned his way to God. This satanically induced blindness leaves every natural person with darkened understanding (Eph 4:17-20). (EX. Note my witness to Cal Poly prof. in SLO. He scrunched up his face and uttered: “what Christians call the Trinity is actually the 3 chakras of the body. The love of darkness is the blinded mind of unbelief.)

Think of some of the greatest minds in history, and their philosophical achievements; Plato, Aristotle, Socrates—perhaps that’s as high as the fallen intellect can go. Yet they never arrived at the knowledge of their Creator. God tells us why: “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor 1:21).

TWO:

The glory of God can only be known by Christ as He is revealed in the gospel (v. 5)

The only way that sinful man can love a holy God is to be justified in the sight of our holy Creator (that is to be set right with God’s holiness, justice, and righteousness through a declaration by God the Father). Apart from redemption in Christ (which is the ground of justification); God’s holiness repels, terrifies, and justly argues for our eternal punishment. Man’s response to threatened damnation is enmity and hostility (lives with his back to God).

So great is our heart’s/mind’s darkness, that a fiat act of divine creation in our hearts is necessary in order for us to perceive the character and radiance of God’s glory. (Illus. word picture of Carlsbad Caverns, Dad to son, “Don’t let go of my hand.”)

Just as man cannot look up at the noon day sun with unaided eyes; so also, man cannot behold the glory of God’s moral majesty unless it is reflected in the face of our merciful Redeemer. The glory of Christ, who is the image of God, is the light of the Gospel. When we are confronted with the Christ’s glory; we are confronted with the true likeness of God (Heb 1:1-3).

God is infinite—His glory boundless. EX. Our minds can hardly conceive of a structure like the Sombrero Galaxy which has 50 billion suns (50,000 light years diameter—30% of Milky Way Galaxy); how much more difficult to contemplate God. Galaxies are but the finger work of God (Ps 8:3). Countless people have but a ‘God concept’ (merely a large category).

Christ our Redeemer is the image of God; and of man at the same time. This is God’s mystery; that the second Person of the Godhead should be man in His true essence and stature according to the purposes of the Creator. Christ as logos emanates the brightness of the Father’s glory. Christ is equal with God; yet clothed in our nature (Phil 2:6). This is the great mystery that was held in the bosom of God (Rom 16:25-26). Jesus said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9).

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In Christ the divine and the human meet, and are reconciled. Christ is an exalted man; He takes the redeemed from dust to glory. He is our man in glory. The world to come shall be ruled by glorified men above angels (Heb 2:5-8).

We can only ‘see’ and behold God’s attributes from the vantage point of safety and refuge in the new covenant inaugurated by Christ’s blood. While subject to wrath due to the guilt of our sin, we cannot know God (we will retain our enmity; and we will hide from our Creator; we will manufacture a benign, domesticated god). Christ’s lordship is comprehensive—He is lord of all reality. Thus to be a saved individual is to have your imagined sovereignty crushed that Christ might have first place. To believe is inseparable from bowing to Christ’s lordship.

Since Christ’s incarnation, no one has ever come to terms with who God is apart from Christ. One cannot know the God of glory independent of God’s redemptive design in Christ. How does a sinner gain the knowledge of God? He must know himself to be the object of God’s redemptive work in Christ; he must receive pardon for sins in order to know God. (EX. Only the forgiven know God. Cal Arts acct.)

The events of the gospel are meant to reveal the glory of Christ. The revelation of the glory of Christ is not some abstract mystical divine light—the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Christ is anchored in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (prophesied).

Thus the saving sight of this glory is inseparable from the historic gospel events. But when we preach the gospel, we are not only proclaiming what happened (historic event), we are proclaiming the testimony of what God did in that event. “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Pet 1:23). “And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed” (1 Pet 2:24).

Now let’s examine why the saving knowledge of God’s glory is compared to light flooding into absolute darkness.

THREE

: It requires a sovereign revelation of God (v. 6)

We preach--knowing that no one can say “Jesus is Lord,” but by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3).

Paul declares that the Apostles do not preach to attract the admiration of men; for that is to ‘make the cross of Christ void” (1 Cor 1:17). The Apostles preached always with the awareness that a work of the Holy Spirit is required to cause a man to recognize Christ as Messiah, supreme Lord of heaven and earth (human personality and eloquence won’t do that).

When a man is brought to recognize Christ, he will love and worship Him; and in so doing, he will be made like Him (3:18). Knowledge of God in Christ is not a mere matter of intellectual apprehension; it is a matter of spiritual discernment to be derived from the Spirit of God only. This is our premise this morning—to have seen the glory of God in the face of Christ is to be a saved person. (EX. The spiritually dead sinner cannot generate his own light, no spark which may be fanned into a flame—giving the ability to apprehend God’s glory.)

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The glory of God is spiritual; it is spiritually discerned. In order for the apprehension of God’s glory to take place, God must shine in the heart to give the knowledge of His glory (Matt 16:17; Gal 1:17; 1 Cor 2:10; 14). Spiritual discernment is imparted by the Holy Spirit; this discernment is necessary to comprehend the glory of God. But spiritual discernment is not necessary to appreciate the grandeur of the Tetons, or a thunderstorm, coral reef, or a rainbow. How important is the glory of God in the face of Christ? 1) By the first sight of that glory, God initially saves the soul (v. 6). 2) By the ongoing beholding of that glory God progressively sanctifies the soul (3:18). 3) By the direct sight of that glory at Christ’s return the Lord instantly perfects and glorifies the child of God (1 Jn 3:2).

As Christian leaders, our work is setting Christ before men’s eyes. Our task is to display Christ—exhibiting man’s need of Him, and Christ’s sufficiency, graciousness, and willingness to save. We are to preach Christ’s offer of Himself as Savior to all who truly turn to Him in submission to His rightful rule.

Our text informs us that salvation is by divine revelation; it is not simply the acceptance of the recorded facts of Jesus’ life, and work, and message. Men of God of two and three centuries past (such as Edwards) saw the ‘religious’ unsaved as those who had converted to Christianity but not to Christ. Though outwardly moral and verbally orthodox, the false professor is without personal knowledge of Christ. This subject of being a stranger to Christ was the touchstone that permeated the messages of these divines when they addressed nominal Christianity.

Regarding the need for the work of grace in the conscience, J. C. Philpot observes; “Pulling down of all man’s false refuges, stripping him of every lying hope, and thrusting him down into self-abasement and self-abhorrence, is indispensable to a true reception of Christ. No matter how informed his judgment is he will never receive Christ

spiritually into his heart and

affections, until he has been broken down by the hand of God in his soul to be a ruined wretch” (J. C. Philpot, The Heavenly Birth and its Earthly Counterfeit, Chapel Library, p. 4).

In part our text is addressing this issue: Does salvation come solely by accepting the historical facts of Jesus’ life, or by faith in “Christ the Son of the living God?”

(Is life based solely on an acceptance of the historical facts of Christmas an Easter?) In Matthew 16:17 the Lord told Peter that his response, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of

the living God,” (Peter’s grasp of Christ’s glorious identity) did not find its source in flesh and blood but was the result of the Father’s revelation).

“Peter had not arrived at his belief by mere reason:

flesh and blood had not worked out

the problem; there had been a revelation to him from the Father who is in heaven. To know the Lord in mere doctrinal statement, no such divine teaching is required; but Peter’s full assurance of his Lord’s nature and mission was no theory in the head: the truth had been written on his heart by the heavenly Spirit. This is the only knowledge worth having as to the Person of our Lord” (

Charles H. Spurgeon

, The Gospel of Matthew, Revell, p. 224).

The Apostle Paul’s own testimony of personal salvation also includes the revelation of Christ. “But when it pleased Him, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, in order that I might preach His Gospel among the Gentiles. . .” (Gal 1:15-16a). Spiritual eyes must be opened by a sovereign, fiat command of God, “Let there be light.” Blinded persons might consider the facts of the gospel, but they do not see compelling spiritual beauty. The beauty of God’s glory is beyond the powers of natural sight and sense. A new faculty of soul is needed (‘spiritual eyes and ears’).

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“Many today believe in the historical Jesus who are ignorant of the character of God. The power of the Gospel is to give the knowledge of the glory of God.” His true character is known only in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). “Many trust in Christ precisely as the Jews did in Moses. This is another gospel; an historic Jesus, not the glory of God in the face of Christ. Those who hold to this gospel are strangers to the truth and are still in love with the world” (James Haldane, Revelation of God’s Righteousness, Chapel Library, p. 27).

Only with the planting of a new faculty, a new capacity will there be a savor for the glory of God—a savor the makes a man willing to ‘sell all’ for Christ’s sake. Only regenerate individuals have the Spirit-enabled savor of divine glory. The sight of this glory kills the love of the world (and its idolatrous addiction to idols).

“Nature may have a superficial knowledge and illumination of the Savior. The natural man may be active and do something for Him. But to love the cross, to suffer with Him, to follow Him through the streets of Jerusalem to Golgotha as He stoops dumb before His shearers so that your spirit feeds on His flesh and blood and humiliation is a work of God’s Spirit in you. The natural man may have His emotions stirred by Christ’s passion, but only the true saint is acquainted with Christ in his spirit so as to feed upon his Substitute” (Edward Morgan, The Life and Times of Howell Harris, p. 239).

“The most important question that could ever be asked is: Do you know in reality the living Christ? Do you know Christ by personal revelation? The question is not: Do you read the Bible? Are you religious? The question is: Have you ever seen yourself a lost, vile sinner before a holy God? Have you ever been stripped of your self-righteousness and laid low in the dust of humility? Have you ever viewed by faith the glorious Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, all because of a direct and personal revelation to you of God the Holy Spirit? (

W. F. Bell, Do you

know Christ by personal revelation? --

Chapel Library).

“If you only know Jesus by no more than the world knows, than the learned among men know, you have not the real blessing. If you only know the Lord of Glory by what you have found out yourself, in reading or in talking to others, unaided by the Father’s drawing power, you are not blessed with true salvation. The true children of God have been made humble. They confess their total dependence upon the grace and mercy of Christ, and place their entire confidence and faith in His meritorious righteousness and shed blood” (Ibid.).

“Is Christ your Surety, your Substitute, your Sacrifice, and your Savior? Do you believe in Jesus by an inward discernment of Him? Do you clearly see Him as the Son of man and the Son of God? Do you see Him as your propitiation (soul’s acceptance) before God? If you know Him in this way, it has not been learned from the instruction of men; you have had a direct revelation made to you by the Father concerning who Jesus Christ really is” (Gal 1:16) (Ibid.).

Thomas Boston indicates that the man or woman called of God cries out in his soul, “Give me Christ or I die.” “I am willing to sell all to have Him” (Matt 13:44-46). And once you have Him as Savior, you are convinced of your special interest in Him and His righteousness. None truly believe until by the Spirit it is plain to them and are thus persuaded by inward illumination.

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It is possible to be a “secure” sinner in the gospel offer; but to not discern Christ’s voice in the gospel offer. They hear it (the gospel), but not as the Word of the Lord Himself. They hear it merely as it is broadcast (general) to all men; THUS, it has no authority in their consciences. But when the sinner first hears Christ’s voice in offering eternal life; he concludes it is to others but not to him. He can’t believe it is to him.

But where saving faith is working, the Holy Spirit applies the gospel offer to the soul in particular—with power as the Word of the Lord Himself. Then, the man applies it to himself by believing (1 Thess 1:5; 2 Thess 2:13). Without this there is no receiving of Christ. Otherwise the soul can see no foundation of faith for itself. There is no receiving aright unless the sinner regards the offer to be to him in particular. This is the quickening word (Jn 6:63; 1 Pet 1:23). The sinner must receive the word of the gospel as the very word of Christ to him in particular. You concluded the law of God was condemning you in particular—to believe savingly, you must conclude that Christ’s word in the gospel is to you in particular (Thomas Boston, The Beauties of Thomas Boston, pp. 593-596).

We have been laboring to establish the reality of what our text is teaching—that God’s ‘shining into the heart’ is an act of Sovereign Mercy.

Our text alludes to the original darkness of creation week (4:6). The primordial darkness (described in Gen 1:2-3) could not make its own light—it had no properties which could be developed into light. No luminaries yet existed. If there were to be light, there must be an external source to shine upon the newly created world; God, by a fiat act (fiat – by divine order of decree), said, “Let there be light.”

So also, the darkened soul of man has no properties that can be developed into light. The sinner needs an external source of light; God alone can provide that light (Ps 36:9). At creation week, by divine fiat God spoke light into existence (fiat – by order or decree). So also, when God shines into the heart of a man; it is by means of His power through the Gospel that He does so (James 1:18).

God’s activity of shining dispels the darkness in the heart and removes the sinner’s enmity and hostility (Col 1:20-22). In the O.T., God said, “Let there be light.” In the N.T., God became light for us (the Living Word was made flesh on earth – Heb 1:2).

By this gospel light the mind and heart are illumined to the reality of the guilt transfer at Calvary so that it is spiritually discerned. See by faith the second Person of the Godhead pumping out His heart’s blood for the likes of you—evicts the ancient lie, removes enmity from the heart (Col 1:21-23). Salvation is called, ‘receiving the love of the truth’ (2 Thess 2:10). This is not merely mental assent, but the ravishing sight of glory whereby the sinner ‘closes with Christ’. At the moment of conversion; God floods the heart with light. The heart is the center of a man’s whole being. The reality of the sovereignly induced shining into the heart guarantees man is nothing less than a new creature (5:17).

The result of the light shining is gnosis—the saving knowledge of God; the revelation of the Father in the Son; the image of the invisible transcendent God—in whom are hidden all the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:3).

The light of God shining into the heart and mind lifts the veil; removes the satanically

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induced blindness; and brings the knowledge of God; knowledge of ultimate truth; knowledge that is advancing from glory to glory; complete at the appearance of Christ (1 Jn 3:2).

Salvation is a matter of revelation (Matt 11:25-30). God’s shining into our hearts at the moment of salvation is the exercise of divine infinite power (Rom 1:16; 1 Cor 1:18; 2:5; Eph 1:19; 2 Pet 1:3). The gospel comes bringing the power to close with Christ.

FOUR

: The perception of this glory fits us for service and worship, and ultimately for life in God’s presence.

Christ is God’s ‘Light’; the redeemed have seen the glory of God in the face of Christ—and they continue to seek to behold it.

We have seen that the Gospel is hidden from one class of men; yet God opens the eyes of others to see His glory. God’s glory is divine majesty and excellence (object of our admiration and adoration). It is only seen by faith in the face of Jesus by the illumination of the Spirit.

God becomes in Christ the object of knowledge—the clearest revelation of God. (“He who has seen Me has seen the Father”—to Philip—Jn 14:9.) Those who refuse to see God in Christ are estranged from all true knowledge of God (Jn 1:18; Matt 11:27; 1 Jn 2:23; 2 Jn 9; Jn 15:23). Salvation comes by the revelation of Christ (Gal 1:15, 16). Christ came to ‘explain the Father’—Jesus brought truth and grace in so doing (Jn 1:17-18).

In Christ God provides a place for us to be washed, hidden, accepted, and adopted. It is a place of favor, status, sonship, and right-standing—all graciously given. In Christ, we see God’s mighty attributes exercised in order to bring us to glory. We cannot see His glory without a profound spiritual change. God’s almighty power enables us to see what He wants us to see: the infinite value and divine excellence of these things. To see God’s glory in the face of Christ is to repent in sorrow over sin for having preferred idols to true treasure.

In the Person of Christ, we see God’s perfect attributes in our own human nature. We see Christ as Mediator; we see His perfect suitability to be our Savior.

God’s glory is revealed within the specifics of God’s plan, a plan referred to as God’s mystery; or, the mystery Christ (the plan that the Son of God should become incarnate in human history in order to redeem sinners –Eph 1:9; 3:3; Col 1:26, 27; 2:2).

Christ took upon Himself all our unfitness, our demerit, our curse, our separation from God, our guilt, and liability to judgment. To see Christ as our suffering Substitute has the net effect of purging the soul of enmity, hostility, fear, and suspicion.

(EX. Like a prism bending light so that we see each of its beautiful spectral colors; Christ was bent in the crucifixion so that the light of the glory of God might be seen in all of its variegated colors ‘all the perfections of God’. For in the Person and work of Christ; all of the attributes of God were put on display for the first time in human history.) A ‘spectrum of glory’ is revealed from His humiliation suffering to His ascension as King/Lord of the cosmos.

To see Christ as your own Redeemer; is to see God in His glory. For there is but one safe place; but one vantage point to behold God’s glory—it is only found in the cleft of the Rock (Ex 33:12-23). God’s plan to show you His glory is bound up in His purpose of hiding you in Christ (Jn 17:1-5, 24). Christ is the observatory from which we view God’s glory—but Christ is also the focal point of God’s glory.

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God communicates Himself to you in Christ; to know God in Christ is to be a saved person (Jn 17:3). Christ came to bring us back to God. As we keep looking to and beholding Christ and contemplating all that God is toward us in Christ; we are transformed; we are liberated from the residual effects of the Edenic lie.

Being in Christ forever changes our relationship to God’s glory

When the light of God’s glory in the face of Christ shines into the heart the sinner is awakened to God. The saved man or woman becomes an “unveiled one”—a beholder of glory (3:14-18). By His glory He is taking His redeemed ones from dust to glory. By faith in Christ the believing sinner understands that God’s glory is inseparably joined to our highest good. For God has made the rescue of sinners to be the chief instrument for the display of His glory.

To see the glory of God in the face of Christ brings us into total sympathy with God’s plan to glorify Himself. Our forfeiture of glory by reason of sin is reversed in salvation. As we keep beholding the glory of the Lord, we are transformed—we are sanctified—we are incrementally changed into Christ’s moral likeness.

This is all to fit us to bear the inconceivable weight of glory to come (2 Cor 4:17; 2 Thess 2:13-14). On the last day when Christ the Lord invades human history and splits the heavens open at His glorious return every eye will see Him (Rev 1:7). Then the sight of God in human flesh will cause the believer to marvel (2 Thess 1:10). “No one told me the weight of the glory to come!” But, the reprobate and hypocrite to shudder in terror (Rev 6:15-17). “How dreadful is the vengeance of God” said Calvin. Both the saved and the lost will be aghast—they had no tangible concept of what it would be like to see the self-existent God glorified in human nature. Then the reality will hit in an instant: “I will exist as long as God does—the relationship I bear to Him now is permanent. “The sheer weight of His glory.”

Dear people, continuing to behold the glory of the Lord is crucial to your spiritual vitality. It is essential to your success in spiritual warfare, for the battle is mainly waged at the level of spiritual sight. Your vocation to behold the glory of Christ is central to your spiritual health. For when we behold His glory, we are viewing the source of our life, viewing our new identity, and perceiving the divine power to bring to pass our destiny in Christ.

The glory of God in the gospel has the power and effect to take us off of ourselves— lifting us above carnal self-concern to blessed self-forgetfulness as we contemplate and take in the beauty of God. Feeding on the gospel manna puts us a freshly corrected orbit around the Lord. As we gaze upon the glory of the Lord, it has a rectifying prioritizing effect upon our lives. It moves us off of self at the center. Renewed views of His glory produce a mind shift away from preoccupation with self and personal concerns.

Occupation with the Lord and His glory breaks our cultural addiction to mood alteration through music, diversions, and amusements. The glory of the Lord enlarges the heart to take in more of God and His purposes. This deepens our divine viewpoint so that we take increasingly delight in God’s plan of the ages. We love the fact that God has invited us into His plot (Eph 3:10). We thrill at the prospect that we are stewards of the manifold wisdom and grace of God—steward of the unfathomable riches of Christ—stewards of the mystery hidden in God for so long; but now revealed in the gospel.

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The glory of God in Christ causes us to abide in Christ more diligently—relying upon Him and feeding upon Him as ‘Source Person.’ This has the power to take us off of ourselves as the imagined architects of our lives. In so doing, this makes me noble because trust in God and knowledge of God is the source of our boast—our dignity—our glory (Jer 9:23-24).

How we need this nobility of deriving our glory from His glory. The reason why is that we are incredibly weak and worm-like because our trust is so weak. God’s glory breaks into my pettiness and fearfulness—letting me know that God is for me in Christ. Then I behold God’s glory again and everything changes. God becomes vast and immense and majestic again— people become small—and I can return to being the grateful trusting creature held by His covenant love. Circumstances matter less and less. Peace and comfort overtake the remnants of anxiety. My fretful interpretations of circumstances melt away—joy and hope come upon me in a way which transcends my circumstances. There is no peace like letting God be God!

When I am beholding the glory of God; the sheer scope of what God is doing expands my heart. Then I stop imaging that everything is hanging by a thread: my income; my ministry; my relationships; my performance; and my health. Beholding the glory of the Lord gets me trusting again that the Savior who loves me is the focal point of the universe and I (to His glory) am a trophy of His grace. And His grace is glorified in the remarkable work of God taking me from dust to glory. Thus, when this glory permeates my thoughts and affections, it produces in me joyful abandon—I am set free from attempting to run my life as a control freak. I can leave room for God to work. My prayers become less of me telling God how to do His job, and more my seeking the mind of the Lord.

Beholding His glory lifts me out of preoccupation with myself and into ennobling passion for His glory. Trust and its byproduct nobility equip me to think big thoughts of God—to think His thoughts after Him. I embrace afresh God’s intent to glorify His grace and this produces holy expectation that God desires to bless me and employ me in His service. This capacity for divine viewpoint is all gospel-driven—it is energized by the realization that God’s eternal purpose to glorify Himself through the redemption of sinners through Jesus Christ.

While stuck in this state of doubt, nothing is easier than to interpret God through my circumstances (imaging that if these circumstances are against me; then the Ruler of the universe who sovereignly permitted these events must be against me as well). I can only recite the following mantra for so long: this is for my good. Without a sight of God’s glory, this is for my good can become hackneyed and powerless to minister to my disillusionment.

What is needed is a fresh view of His glory; then Romans 8:28 takes on a new power to encourage the heart. God’s glory stands behind all of His promises; therefore, it stands to reason that beholding His glory will impart renewed heart to us to believe His promises. Then, when beholding His glory, I am gathered into the bosom of Christ and all of life falls back into its proper place beneath the all-consuming purpose which will someday fill the heavens and the earth and the entire cosmos. On that day, the work of Christ will remove the curse as far as it is found—heaven and earth will be one. The cosmos, and we, His redeemed, will exist perfectly for His glory.

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Addendum:

We are creatures created to find our highest good in God’s glory. In the fall we lost the ability to attain this purpose. For the redeemed, God’s glory and our highest good are forever joined in Christ. At salvation, the two meet (God’s glory and our good)—never to be severed.

Our daily privileged task as God’s redeemed children is to keep beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ. We must keep feeding our souls upon who God is toward us in Christ —our relationship with God as it is settled in Christ. This is the manna for our souls. Our souls have been created anew to thrive on this gospel manna.

The glory of God causes us to abide in Christ more diligently—relying upon Him and feeding upon Him as ‘Source Person.’ This has the power to take us off of ourselves as the imagined architects of our lives. In so doing, this makes me noble because trust in God and knowledge of God is the source of our boast—our dignity—our glory (Jer 9:23-24).

How we need this nobility of deriving our glory from His glory. The reason why is that we are incredibly weak and worm-like because our trust is so weak. Just as a personal testimony: I know that I am a detail person who struggles with a self-afflicted neurotic perfectionism. I tend to over-analyze everything, and in a New York second I can find myself mired in the imperfections of self and everything around me as I survey flaws; injustices; and oppositions—real and imagined. As a consequence, pettiness eats up nobility.

God’s glory breaks into my pettiness and fearfulness—letting me know that God is for me in Christ. How I need to feed on this. As a sensitive person who feels everything intensely, I tend to focus on hurts; resistance; unfaithfulness; neglect; jealousy and a host of other negatives from others. It is just too easy to fixate on these perceptions (many of which are overblown). My knee jerk response when God’s glory is out of view is to ‘fight’ these people in my mind— setting up and dwelling upon adversarial thoughts. Or, just as carnal, to imagine how I could micro-manage each situation until I am consumed with contingencies and engaged in the hopeless task of trying to assume God’s role as Lord of providence.

Then I behold God’s glory again and everything changes. God becomes vast and immense and majestic again—people become small—and I can return to being the grateful trusting creature held by His covenant love. Circumstances matter less and less. Peace and comfort overtake the remnants of anxiety. My fretful interpretations of circumstances melt away, and wonder of wonders—joy and hope come upon me in a way which transcends my circumstances. There is no peace like letting God be God!

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Beholding the glory of God puts issues of eligibility and qualification to rest; it moves me above the carnal concerns of performance. In this way beholding cures one of my greatest carnal tendencies: that is to imagine that God is changeable toward me and may not be for me. Our paralyzing awareness of our failures teams up with frowning providence and we imagine that God is not for us as He formerly was.

How often we are presented with the opportunity to assume the spiritual posture shown by the psalmists. So many of the Psalms entail an outpouring of the heart: all these things are happening to me—nevertheless Thou art with me, and I expect you Lord to put everything together according to your all-wise and gracious purposes.

So many of the Psalms represent a meeting of God’s glory and our human experiences (with their twists, turns, and troubles). Our challenge, like the psalmists, is how we will interpret our circumstances. God’s glorious grace has a goal, a plot if you will—that Christ might be the first born among many brethren in a re-made universe. Each of God’s children have a past—a history as a spiritually dead sinner. We know by experience what it is to sin and what it is to be sinned against. Our past forms a kind of ‘script’ if you will. Like Joseph’s brothers we struggle with the concept of a full and free forgiveness. As a result, we slip into the fantasy at times that God is going to collect some of the debt we owe Him for our trampling of His law. In that sense our former life as a sinner is a kind of script of strict moral cause and effect—it argues for the right to define me and limit God’s determination to bless me.

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How intensely important it is therefore to keep the glory of God in the gospel before us; for the gospel gives me the divine logic of grace: none of my Christian life involves ‘servicing the debt’ of what I owe God! Christ has assumed the believing sinner’s debt in its entirety. That means that the entire tenor of my Christian life is to be one of overflowing gratitude. I do not obey and serve to service the debt. Christ has erased my debt so that I can worship; serve; and obey out of a life of freedom and gratitude. I have been entirely liberated and set free in order to be consumed with His glory as my “reasonable service of worship” (Rom 12:1-2).

This all-pervasive reality for the believer has everything to do with which ‘script’ dominates our lives. The grace ‘script’ has written a new identity for me as a son. That is the script I am to interpret by and live by. It is to rule our lives. The sonship script has replaced the sinner’s legal/law script. Now my reasonable service of worship is to give myself back to God. I can abandon myself to His glory because Christ was abandoned on Calvary in order to set me free from the debt of my sins. This is the glory theme for which I was created and for which I was created anew.

ADDENDUM: The Glory Story of God in Christ

Jay Wegter

So many believers are living in harness—that is as if the ‘yoke of Christ’ is heavy and burdensome (Matt 11:30; 1 Jn 5:3). As a consequence, they live by the tyranny of the urgent without a perspective of the glory of God. Since their lives are bound up in temporal concerns, the glory story is far from the horizons of their thought life (Phil 3:19).

God breaks into the believer’s self-obsessed world with massive disillusionment. But, what we often fail to see is that this disillusionment with self is critical to our progress in the faith. Let’s consider the source of our disillusionment. It is our pride of life, fleshly mode (our default mode) of imagining that we are the sum total of our accomplishments. In our pride of life reasoning we falsely assume that we are the architects of our own glory, security, and honor.

God breaks into our truncated world by sending losses; crosses; mediocrity; and stagnation. He catches us in His ‘net’—we feel as if our life is in freeze frame mode. Try as we may we can’t seem to make things happen like we used to do. Our real problem is that we fail to discern that God is scraping us down to bedrock. But while in that freefall, it can feel like God is against us as He methodically kicks out each of our ego props—one at a time. In the midst of this we have little idea that this is for our good—and that we will land again on Christ our true foundation, our continent of rock.

The Lord has to do this strange work in our lives on a semi-regular basis because we so quickly depart from feeding upon Christ as He is exhibited in the glory story of the gospel. So God breaks into our world—our little hut made out of the sticks of manageable Christianity. He does this in love—applying the cross of Christ to us—for it has been far too long since we have seen His glory.

But having our ego supports kicked out is a dangerous time because we can turn so easily to false sources of comfort. Self-pity and sensuality may beckon us; or more ego vindicating activities may make overtures to us (offering to restore ego supports and prop up the afflicted self).

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It is in these times when God has caught us in His net (Ps 66:11ff.) that He sends disillusionment for one great purpose: that we might ponder afresh the infinite difference between self and Christ. The flesh loves Gnostic Christianity (with the religious self at the center instead of Christ as in Galatians 2:20—“not I but Christ”). In that spurious Gnostic form of religion, the vastness of Christ is lost—the infinite difference between Christ and the religious self is obscured. Paul writes the book of Colossians to restore the supremacy of Christ in the minds of the Colossian believers who tempted by an incipient form of Gnosticism (see the ‘Christ hymn’ found in Colossians 1:15-21 designed to exalt Christ’s supremacy).

So God allows us to descend into deep self-disillusionment in order to startle us with our weakness; sinfulness; and unfruitfulness. This disillusionment sends seismic waves through our manageable Christianity. And we are defining manageable Christianity as a Christianity that is blind to the glory of God—for in manageable Christianity the saint may go for months without experiencing any awe over the great things of God. God chooses disillusionment to blast us out of our self-focused narcissistic religious practices.

Those in Christian ministry are diligently disciplined by the Lord (Rev 3:19; Heb 12:1-12ff; 1 Pet 4:12-13; 5:10). God’s servants must be frequently recalibrated by views of God’s glory—for in our spiritual ambition we tend to reduce our Christianity down to our Christian service and our devotion to God—and to our attempt to solicit His help for our Christian ministry agendas.

Thus, the Lord may freeze our ministry fruitfulness until we are willing to say, “Lord, show me your glory!” When Moses wanted to quit, it was show me your glory that got him back on track amidst the greatest challenges imaginable (Ex 33:18ff.). When I am most obsessed with my ministry, my fruits and works, or lack thereof, I am actually in the poorest position to be fruitful. That is the great paradox—when most self-obsessed—even in being preoccupied with excellence and production, I may be worlds apart from true fruit-bearing. How different is God’s way. His way is the glory way: behold His glory; be transformed by His glory; proclaim His excellencies (1 Pet 2:9-10). Only the gospel can take us off of self. We cannot transcend self—self cannot cast out self.

In glory-less, manageable Christianity we don’t want to feel our utter dependency. We want God to come along side our plans, and we forget that He saved us to communicate to us His glory. In our glory-less state we forget that we need constant strengthening in the inner man in order to be able to ascertain; grasp; and comprehend God’s love and glory in Christ (Eph 3:16-19). God busts us out of our manageable Christianity by showing us His glory—by drawing us into His glory plot again—instead of our own attempts to draw Him into our life agendas.

Whole churches, whole movements, whole denominations are so dead set on their religious agendas they are for the most part blind to the glory of God in Christ as the ongoing nourishment of the soul. It makes us wonder aloud how it will go with them at the bema judgment; for works not founded upon Christ and His glory will be burned up (1 Cor 3:13-15). Like the church of Ephesus in Revelation chapter two, they were so busy for God; but left their first love. They did not keep repenting over this departure; they eventually lost their lamp stand. They were more interested in production than communing—in quantifying their works than in bearing fruit that came from abiding (Jn 15:1-5).

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Temporal concerns always work to crowd out the sight of God’s glory. Human excellence becomes a substitute for the glory of God. Worship teams, hype, emotion, socializing, fanfare, and sentimentality become the dry husks of religion we are eating instead of feeding upon Christ and His glory. What is highly esteemed by man is detestable in the sight of God (Luke 16:15). It makes us wonder why we don’t hear a cry in our churches, “No more husks! Show me Christ!”

Now what, where, and how, do we behold the glory of God? First of all, the glory of God is beheld in the face of Christ (2 Cor 3:18-4:6). God moves His glory out of the realm of abstraction and into our experience by showing it to us in Christ. Only there does His glory become perceivable; tangible; and salvific. Still we need strengthening to attain to—to comprehend—to behold that glory.

As men we are still drawn to operate as a human doing—drawing our value from all of our accomplishments. But through the grace of the cross applied—trial, loss, setback, weakness, even confusion and disillusionment become the tools in God’s hands to startle us to see the infinite difference between self and Christ. Only then do we want God Himself as the solution instead of our beloved agendas—this is the cross applied to our flesh.

Now the divine glory story concerns the covenant of redemption—that God chose a people and gave a bride to Christ; BUT, this bride in her natural state was corrupted, polluted, without the heavenly virtue of holiness—but even more, she was a rebel, dead in sins—and intent on killing Christ, her future husband. Therefore, at the heart of the glory story is this plan so immense in glory as to fill eternity—that in order for Christ to win, raise, claim, be espoused to, and take His bride—He must assume her liabilities. He must gladly take upon Himself the very things that kept her from Him. He must take on her moral alienation; her wrath; her punishment; her death; and her agony. Only then could He be her righteousness; her glory; her virtue; her life; her light; blessedness; love; and destiny.

He so radically identified with her condition that He closed the infinite gap between dead wicked rebel and self-existent holy God. Our meditation upon glory therefore involves thinking upon this gap that Christ closed in His incarnation and redeeming work—a gap so great that the distance between her tomb and her throne could only be spanned by the willingness of the God-man. Christ, by the immensity of His Person fills the gap between the innate poverty of His bride and the riches of eternal glory. He closes the gap between her just deserts and her new destiny. The glory story of God in Christ gives us the glory of God—for the glory of God revealed in the face of Christ is HOW we have come to know God. For God has shown us His glory and Himself in the face of Christ.

But the cost is remarkable. Christ had to become a human cadaver carried to a stone tomb so that we could be with Him forever in glory. Let this distance that He spanned stagger you. This distance from polluted dust to flawless glory—from alienation to perfect access and belonging in the presence of God—this distance spanned by Christ is so amazing that it is teaching tool to instruct angels in the wisdom of God (Eph 3:9-11). It is the glory of God put on display in our salvation. It is the gloriousness of Christ’s Person in assuming the condition of His bride in order to give her His status—His relationship—His right-relatedness to the triune Godhead. This means that HOW God saves in Christ has become the primary revealer of the eternal glory of the Godhead.

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But it gets even better, for God is allowing us—even commanding us to handle this treasure—to fix our minds upon it (Col 3:1-4). In fact, we must handle this treasure if we are to pass through this life without becoming idolaters. Handling this treasure is manna for our souls, food for our hope. We must feed upon Christ and His glory OR by default we will not be unscathed by the world. Without this glory, we will attempt to feed our eternal souls on the bogus bread and husks of this world.

The glory story is how God has dispelled the ancient lie of Eden from our souls. The darkness in every unbeliever’s soul is composed of the remnants of Satan’s original lie—that lie consisting of the proposal that our good and God’s glory are at odds. The lie drives a wedge there in the soul and we collectively as a race (by acting upon the lie) forfeited our sight of His glory and our desire for His glory.

Only by the cross of Christ are they rejoined (God’s glory and our good) in our thinking and loving. Only by the diet of the cross will glory and good stay joined and fused. We cannot function successfully in the world as worshipping children of God without the cross. The world, the flesh, and the devil all conspire to reassert the lie that God’s glory and our good are at odds— the lie always pushes for the possibility that there is a higher good than God’s glory.

The church is suffering from cultural Christianity because the sight of God’s glory is obscured through a rationing of the gospel of Christ. Where gospel preaching is in short supply —a gap grows. The Apostle Paul dealt with a similar problem in the Corinthian church. Paul gives the God-ordained solution to the Corinthian catastrophe—it is as simple as it is potent: the cross is the diet of the mature—anything less and we will find ourselves attracted to the impotent wisdom of man (1 Cor 1:18-25).

God saved us by granting us a sight of His glory in Christ. The moment, when by faith, we beheld the Son of God dying in our place—pumping out His heart’s blood onto the dusty Judean soil for the likes of us—we came to know God through a sight of His reflected glory in our Savior—we no longer regarded His glory and our good to be at odds. Christ in our nature and in our place as suffering substitute removed the darkness. Our hearts flooded with light—the enmity there was cleaned out and replaced with the saving knowledge of God—we became reconciled to the God of the universe (Col 1:21-22). Now God’s cause, His glory, has become our cause. By the mercies of God, we are rationally abandoned to this cause (Rom 12:1-2).

Select Bibliography:
John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentary
Jonathan Edwards, “The End for which God Created the World,” Works of Edwards
James Haldane, Commentary on Romans
James Haldane, “The Wisdom of God Displayed in the Mystery of Redemption,” Works
of James Haldane
James Haldane, Commentary on Romans
James Haldane, Revelation of God’s Righteousness
Murray H. Harris, Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary
William Hendrickson, NTC
Charles Hodge, I & II Corinthians

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Philip E. Hughes, ITC
J. P. Moreland, Love your God with all your Mind
Edward Morgan, The Life and Times of Howell Harris
Charles H. Spurgeon, The Gospel of Matthew