Made for Glory Series (III)

Part III – What Man did to Deserve Eternal Destruction and Hell

Now here is where we come in. I talked about in Part II that God loves Himself more than anything and what I am going to talk about is how man offended (lack of a better term) God’s God-centerness and His glory. The list in Romans 3:9-23 is probably one of the grimmest pictures of mankind in the Bible, and in verse 23 Paul sums the list up with “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” So, when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden (they were perfect before God and glorified Him in whole), they made themselves the center of glory instead of God, therefore God , not receiving the glory due to His holy name condemns all mankind to an infinite debt of glory that needs to be paid and that cannot be paid by humans themselves. So, unless another way of paying the debt is supplied, every human being that will ever live on the earth will have to pay that debt eternally by being in hell when they die.

To see how serious God is about His glory we must look at Romans 1. In Romans 1:23 we see that God starts the judgment here on earth. “And [wicked men] change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made corruptible by man – and the birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.” (NKJV) The word “change” could be translated “exchange” so read it in that sense, “and [wicked men] exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”(ESV) I put the English Standard Version (ESV) in here because it better explains what is happening in the verse. So let’s review to make sure we’re on the same page, the ungodly and the unrighteous men (vs. 18) exchange the infinite glory of God for a finite image made with hands. Let’s read on in verse 24 an see how God reacts (so to speak). “Therefore [Paul’s building off the last verse] God gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor they’re bodies among themselves.”(NKJV) John Piper puts it in perspective that God gives them up to the swamp of their choice to drown in.

I understand that this part is very grim, but I’m going to talk about the one and only hope in Part IV – “What Christ did to Restore God’s Glory”

Made for Glory Series (II)

Part II – God’s Glory

To understand what being made for glory is, we must understand God’s glory. God loves__________, what would you put in that blank? Probably the most common word we would put in there is us, or believers. This is true, God loves believers, but there is a better word to put in the blank, namely, God. So, God loves God – Wait a minute, that’s vanity, you might say. But lets think about it, since God is the creator of the universe and has complete control over it and being the greatest being in the universe, it would be idolatry (placing something minor in the place of something great) for God to love anything more than Himself.

The word for glory in the Greek is δόξα or doxa and it has the idea of majesty, praise, and the verb δοξάζω or doxazo has the idea to magnify. So, God loves God and therefore glorifies/magnifies God because God is worthy of glory/majesty.

Isaiah 48:11 where God says He will not share His glory, in the context God has just finished saying that the reason He did all the things for Israel was for His name sake. Psalm 106:6-8 gets more detailed in the things that God did for Israel, splitting the Red Sea and leading them through the desert were acts by God to the glory of God (the text uses the phrase “so that He[God] might make known His mighty power).

Quickly I’m going to talk about God’s love in relation to His glory. The common thought of love in this day is to make much of someone. But probably a better way to define love is to want the best for someone. Now if God gave you the best computer, the fanciest car, the biggest TV, the best He wouldn’t love you because He isn’t giving you the absolute best thing, namely Himself. So therefore it is more loving for God to give Himself than for Him to give you a higher rank or a better view of yourself.

This is basically from the view point of God the Father; I will take a look what Christ has to do with this theology in later parts.

Next, Part III – “What Man Did to Deserve Eternal Destruction and Hell”

Made For Glory Series

Part I. – Introduction

The title of this blog is “Made for Glory”, and in the next few posts I will be explaining the theology behind it. “Made for glory”, in this day and age this term could have many meanings, for one it could mean you were made for praise of the a sport after you scored, or you were made to be praised in general, or you were made for a high office/rank. Consider, though, that you would not say at the birth of a child that it is made to have glory in basketball, but you would probably say as the child grows and show potential in playing basketball that he was made to be glorified in basketball; also realize how self-centered those possible meanings are. Theses are NOT the meanings implied by this blog. The meaning intended on Made for glory is not the self centered definitions that I have given in the above statements but is completely opposite. Compared to the above, the biblical definition of “made for glory” has known ever since the beginning of time and is anything but self-centered. When I refer to the term “made for glory” I mean that every human being, from birth, is made to enjoy the glory of God and be happy in it eternally. Everyone has a desire to be happy; the problem is though that many look for that happiness in the wrong things: money, sex, possessions, etc. These are not what the human race was created for. Mankind was made for God’s eternal, all satisfying glory. This is why people who pursue the riches of the world and don’t pursue the glory of God are never happy. They pursue to be happy but the happiness there are pursuing only last for a time. This is the reason Moses left Egypt, Hebrews 11:25 – “[Moses] choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God that to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.” Isaiah 43:7 makes clear that God made Israel (context of Isaiah 43) for His glory. Technically all things were created so that God would be glorified. Psalm 19:1 – “… the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” I will continue this point in the next post. Until then…