You may have heard and even sung along with the refrain to the beloved carol “Angels We Have Heard on HIgh:” Gloria in Excelsis Deo! Literally, that means “Glory in the highest to God.”
We say and sing “glory to God” all the time in our worship. Jesus even instructed us to include it in our every day prayers: “For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, Amen.” (Matthew 6:13)
At the same time, the Bible teaches us that God has, or lives in, glory.
In Exodus 33:18, Moses said to the Lord: “Please show me Your glory!”
The Psalmist frequently sings of God’s glory:
“The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”( Psalm 19:1)
“The Lord is high above all nations,
and his glory above the heavens!” (Psalm 113:4)
John opens his gospel with a reference to it: “And 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.” (John 1:14)
In Acts 7:55, Stephen saw God’s glory as he was about to be stoned: “But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”
And the Apostle Paul prays for the Ephesians: “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being.” (Ephesians 3:16)
The dictionary definition of glory is: “magnificence or great beauty.” That is a great description of the glory God has. He is the only perfect being in the universe. His glory means that He is perfectly content in Who He is. And perfect contentment in Himself, His magnificence and beauty, the sum total of all His perfections, is what makes God God.
His glory is different from human glory. His glory is not rooted in a need to be recognized. The online version of the Oxford Dictionaries has a second definition of glory: “high renown and honor won by notable achievements.” Sports medals, military decorations, prizes won in contests, status symbols, for example. Those are all recognitions we strive for and can be proud of, because they prove to us that we have significance. But that is actually the very heart of our sin nature which causes us to rebel against God: the desire to be our own god, to be validated and recognized by others and so to get a little bit of glory for ourselves, however fleeting it may be. We need those little bits of glory so we may have “good self esteem” and to be able to look back on a meaningful, successful life.
God, on the other hand, does not need validation or recognition of achievements. He is perfect. He already has fullness of glory. He has no need for more. He has no needs at all.
Then why are we called upon to give Him what He already has? Why does the Bible command us to declare and sing to His glory? That almost seems like a form of megalomania.
I believe that declaring God’s glory is for our sake and not His, as is the case with all forms of worship. Our worship of His glory takes our eyes off ourselves and the things of earth and man and fixes them on the superior radiance of God’s glory. That builds our faith. It increases our joy in being allowed to call this glorious God “Father.” It strengthens our faith in Him as we see His superior power, wisdom, love, grace, and mercy. And that, in turn, makes us want to declare His glory even more.
Declaring, studying, worshipping, and basking in His glory also enrich our prayer lives. They intensify our desire to be in His glorious presence. They breed a more steadfast faith in the fulfillment of His promises. And they lead to victory over Satan, who hates God’s glory. Satan wants the kind of glory that falls under the second definition. Where God does not need it, he craves it. His sole aim is to get mankind to worship him instead of God. And he recoils and flees when we deny him our worship. He cringes when we renounce our enjoyment of the human world he made, and any agreement with His lies. He cowers in fear when we declaring the unequalled glory of God, because by doing so we also declare that we are no longer under his dominion.
In Christ, God’s glory became visible. That is why John opened his gospel with it. It shone in the sky when He became one of us in human form. It was revealed through the superior wisdom of His preaching and the miracles He performed. It broke through the darkness when He breathed His last on the cross as He bore our sin, the earth shook, and the curtain that had hitherto hidden the glory of God was torn in half. It proved its power over death as He rose again. Then it showed its divinity as He ascended into heaven and from there poured out His Spirit to reside in us and open our eyes and heart to its riches.
To worship Christ is to worship the glory of God. To pray is to bring His glory down to earth and ask its Owner to reveal it to the ones we intercede for and let it shine in their pain or darkness.
And when we die, we enter His glory to live in it forever. That is why the Apostle Paul spoke so strongly about the connection between Christ and God’s glory:
“the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:26,27)
When Christ indwells you, so does God’s glory. And His presence in you by the Holy Spirit is our solid hope that when we leave our earthly bodies behind, we shall see and enjoy His glory face-to-face. Not by the thimble-full we can comprehend in our short three-dimensional lives, but in full measure. That is why we need glorified bodies at our resurrection!
Proclaiming His glory prepares us for seeing and savoring His glory in full. It wets our appetites. It deepens our longing for the glory of our heavenly homes. It steadies our course heavenward and strengthens our faith in the face of obstacles along the way. It loosens our bonds to the world we were born in and tightens our bonds with heaven where we have our citizenship.
So magnify, glorify, exalt. And let your eyes set on His glory deepen your everlasting joy in Him.
Gloria in Excelsis Deo.