For His Glory
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. My five-year-old hands moved along with the words tumbling out of my mouth. As I grew, the simple words were exchanged for choruses accompanied by guitars from youth group leaders. Along with the new acoustics came a deeper understanding of who God was and what his word said. Once in college, I moved from the familiar Romans Road to dwell on concepts like holiness and sovereignty.
With each year, God seemed to get bigger, and I got smaller. Motherhood and seasons of suffering sent me diving into the confessions and creeds of church history. The simple song of my younger years brought to mind footnotes with longer explanations. He loves me? Well yes, but redemption isn’t only about his love for me. It’s really about his glory!
For Christians who want to honor the supremacy of God, “his glory” seems like the right answer for everything. Why did God save us? For his glory. Why did God give us the Spirit? For his glory. And so on. Biblically-attuned Christians rightly desire to push back against the emotional and self-focused view of God that can be so prevalent. Yet in the midst of these very true statements, there is a risk of slipping into a few grave errors in misunderstanding the nature of God.
No Greater Glory
It’s true the glory of the Lord is revealed through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The end of all of God’s works is himself, for “from him, through him, and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36). Yet, a problem comes when we believe the act of redemption added glory to the Lord. This is not true.
“He will be no kinder of a God next Tuesday than he was last Wednesday.”
God is supreme in existence. He is I AM, Yahweh, the God who needs nothing. He is not served by human hands, and he does not change (Acts 17:25; Mal. 3:6). We tend to refer to these attributes as God’s immutability and aseity. It’s these traits that assure us he will be no more or less holy of a God tomorrow than he was today. He will be no kinder of a God next Tuesday than he was last Wednesday.
As created beings, we are constantly changing, becoming something different, and moving toward life or away from it. God on the other hand does not change. He is perfectly lovely, perfectly holy, and perfectly glorious. And because he is the same yesterday today and forever, this means he was perfect even before the earth was created (Heb. 13:8).
From eternity past God was satisfied within himself because he didn’t need to be anything more. He lacked nothing. In the beautiful relationship of the triune God, God was fully good and fully glorious within himself even before he spoke the words, “Let there be light.” God was right to ask Job, “Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?” (Job 41:11). God needs nothing more, as he already held everything he needed from the beginning of time.
Who Gains?
This means that God can’t become any more glorious even by his death and resurrection. The Son did glorify the Father through his life and death, yet in Jesus’s high priestly prayer, we see this glory was one he held already with the Father before the world existed (John 17:5). Christ did not gain any more glory through the work of redemption.
“In the beautiful relationship of the triune God, God was fully good and fully glorious within himself.”
Instead the only ones to gain in his redemption were those who desperately needed to change. The benefits of the work of Christ was his children. This is the point Scott Swain drives home in the last chapter of his book The Trinity: An Introduction. In it Swain summarizes: “God’s external works, in their endless variety and also in their cosmic totality, are a supreme act of charity, an act of the most liberal generosity” (127).
This is an important point to keep in mind as we talk about the glory of the Lord in his work. God did not save us so he could increase his beauty, like he was Zeus demanding more glory for himself. He does not need to manufacture glory, he only displays what he already has, and it’s his children who benefit from beholding it.
Not a Hierarchy
This naturally brings us to a second error we want to guard against as we speak of God’s glory, which is to view it as something removed from his attributes. We might be prone to separate his drive to display his glory as if glory is a higher trait separated from his love, charity, or goodness. But the simplicity of God tells us he can’t be divided into parts.
He isn’t compartmentalized where one part reigns truly supreme and separate over the other. If this was so it would mean the lesser parts were not as perfect! Instead every attribute of his being works in unison and they all shine out in his glory. This means in the glory of the Lord his great love is revealed, along with his goodness, kindness, holiness, justice, and so on.
We can see this clearly in the Israelite’s exodus, as God made all of Egypt know there is no one like Yahweh (Ex. 8:10). Yet coupled with his mighty display of power, we see his love in rescuing his people in order to draw them (and the nations) back into his life-giving fellowship. L. Michael Morales writes that for generations to follow, the Lord’s glory performed in the Exodus would “become the nourishment, strength, and comfort of [the Israelite’s] children” (Exodus Old and New, 42). And this is the Lord’s way throughout all his glorious works.
This is why it’s foolish to believe his love or mercy is somehow detached from a higher end of God’s desires. They don’t compete for power, but they work in perfect unison—showing the Lord’s great holiness, sovereignty, and authority while revealing his merciful love and charity for the sinners who benefit.
A Right Perspective
As we come out of the Easter season and meditate on all that was accomplished on the cross, let’s make sure we’re thinking rightly about the nature of the Lord. His glory wasn’t bolstered by his death, nor is it separate from his other attributes.
In his glorious display of power, Christ crushed the serpent of death while pouring out his love on his children.
“In his glorious display of power, Christ crushed the serpent of death while pouring out his love on his children. ”
Our Lord gained nothing, but we gained everything. What a supreme and glorious God. When we stop to dwell upon the supremacy and simplicity of the triune God, we can look at the cross and sing with even greater confidence, “Jesus loves me, this I know.”
Brianna Lambert is a wife and mom to three, making their home in the cornfields of Indiana. She loves using writing to work out the truths God is teaching her each day. She is a staff writer with GCD and has contributed to various online publications, such as Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition. You can find more of her writing paired with her husband’s photography at lookingtotheharvest.com.