Glorify God—What’s That?

Jun 26

We sometimes say that we want to “bring Glory to God.” What does that mean? The Bible talks a good deal about “bring glory to God,” “glorify God,” and the like. How is this possible? Doesn’t God already have plenty of glory? The scripture certainly makes it clear that God’s very nature is glorious. So how can we “glorify” him?

Glorifying God means making him known

The answer in part is that glorifying God means at minimum to make him known. The night before Jesus was horribly executed, he prayed, ““Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” (John 17:1) Certainly there was nothing glorious about his death so what could he have meant? In fact, Jesus did make the Father known in ways that previously were unknown. Of Jesus John wrote: “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth… the one and only Son, who is himself God … has made him known.” (John 1:14, 18) So Jesus was praying that his love for people would be made known, and that the Father’s love for the world would be revealed. (John 3:16) And that is in fact what happened in the crucifixion.

So, at minimum, our gatherings at church are intended to glorify God by making him better known. His glory will take care of itself. We don’t need to add anything to it, not that everyone wants to see or know God’s glory. (Exodus 34:29-33; by contrast: 33:18)

In this sense, I believe, Jesus instructed his disciples to let their light shine before others “that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) People will see the good deeds and know a little more about God, even if they don’t wish to acknowledge it. Jesus reminded his disciples, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous… Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:45, 48)

We can choose to draw attention to God:

Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations,

ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;

bring an offering and come before him.

Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. (1 Chronicles 16:28-29)

Who or what glorifies God?

In fact, the Bible indicates that everything glorifies God, in this sense of making him known. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” writes the psalmist.

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;

no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)

Can evil deeds and people glorify God?

If even inanimate (and living) nature glorifies God, what about our evil deeds? What about evil people? Do they glorify God?

Certainly our evil deeds can obscure the truth about God. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” (Romans 1:18) Even in this circumstance, however, God’s wrath (whatever it is) burns against “godlessness and wickedness.” Even human wickedness brings attention to God’s righteousness, although, as in the good deeds that people do, people may not wish to acknowledge it. As Paul wrote: “if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world?” (Romans 3:5-6) If a person is looking for a reason to doubt God’s existence, the evil of humanity provides a basis. That is how godlessness and wickedness suppress the truth.

Humans are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), so we all in a sense glorify God, if imperfectly. The image is tarnished and obscured in even the best of us; it may even be deliberately suppressed. Counterfeit Christians, like the weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, obscure the truth about God. Yet for some reason, God tolerates their presence until a time when they will be judged and cast out.

God’s gonna win

The doxologies in Paul’s letters (Romans 11:34; Galatians 1:5; Ephesians 3:20-21; Philippians 4:20; 1 Timothy 1:17) basically are celebrations of the fact that God is glorious, good, and merciful, despite human sinfulness and error. God’s glory finally will be known “in full” (1 Corinthians 13:12), which will be a source of unspeakable joy to those who have sought him, and indescribable misery to those who reject him. (Luke 23:30) God used the evil Babylonian empire to bring justice on his own people (Habakkuk 1:5-11) despite the damage done to his reputation. Even the people, Jew and Gentile alike, who did evil in crucifying Jesus, despite their best efforts, brought glory to God in that they revealed the depths of his love for us. Some people bring glory to God on purpose; others, like the Babylonians or the murderers of Jesus bring glory to God in spite of themselves. All of us, no matter how tainted with sin, will give glory to God:

At the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

I want to bring glory to God on purpose. How about you?

I first wrote this article back in 2016.

Edward Wolfe

Edward Wolfe has been a fan of Christian apologetics since his teenage years, when he began seriously to question the truth of the Bible and the reality of Jesus. About twenty years ago, he started noticing that Christian evidences roughly fell into five categories, the five featured on this website.
Although much of his professional life has been in Christian circles (12 years on the faculties of Pacific Christian College, now a part of Hope International University, and Manhattan Christian College and also 12 years at First Christian Church of Tempe), much of his professional life has been in public institutions (4 years at the University of Colorado and 19 years at Tempe Preparatory Academy).
His formal academic preparation has been in the field of music. His bachelor degree was in Church Music with a minor in Bible where he studied with Roger Koerner, Sue Magnusson, Russel Squire, and John Rowe; his master’s was in Choral Conducting where he studied with Howard Swan, Gordon Paine, and Roger Ardrey; and his doctorate was in Piano Performance, Pedagogy, and Literature, where he also studied group dynamics, humanistic psychology, and Gestalt theory with Guy Duckworth.
He and his wife Louise have four grown children and six grandchildren.

https://WolfeMusicEd.com