A Defense for God's Glory

Biblical defense for God’s glory

To glorify God is to make God known. It is to magnify His name. What is His name? His name is all that He is and represents, His nature and attributes. His name is also His glory. To glorify God is to shine the spotlight on God to reveal who He is, exalt His name, and have others to see His goodness. To live for the glory of God is to care about His reputation and to live in a way that people can see the goodness of God through us.

The Apostle John tells us that God is love (1 Jn 4:8), and the Apostle Paul defines love for us: “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:4-7). If God is love and love by definition is not arrogant and does not seek its own, then God is not arrogant and God does not seek His own. This is the progressive revelation revealed to us through Jesus Christ who reveals to us the very nature of God (Jn 1:18; Heb 1:3). This nature is a sacrificial, self-giving, and selfless love. This nature is humble. And this nature is a Trinity. Because God is a Trinity, One being consisting of three individual persons, God can be selfless in all that He does. One member of the Trinity may give glory, honor, and exaltation to another member of the Trinity and this is part of Inter-Trinitarian love. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and the Spirit loves them and they love the Spirit.

In Psalm 2:8 the Father says to the Son, “Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Your possession.” Then we see in John 17:9 that Jesus is praying to His Father and refers to His disciples as “those whom You have given Me” (Jn 6:39; 17:24; 18:9). Those whom Jesus has saved are all “God’s own possession” (1 Pet 2:9; Tit 2:14), His inheritance, and reward (Mt 13:44-46; Lk 15). He purchased them with His blood (Acts 20:28; Rev 5:9). They are intended to be His servants as 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, “and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” In this way, we were created to love and glorify God as Isaiah 43:7 says, “Everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made.” God wants us to glorify Him by living for Him as Jesus commands, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” He purchased us so that we would make ourselves useful unto Him and live in a manner worthy of God and His kingdom (1 Thess 2:12; 2 Thess 1:5). It is our purpose and inherently created function to live for the glory of God.

Unfortunately, God’s glory isn’t taught much in Christian circles and in many places I have been, Christian piety is severely lacking. People talk however they want with whatever kind of filthy jokes or foul language. They go to the bars and get intoxicated. Their reading of the Bible and Christian books is minimal to non-existent. They constantly complain at work and their attitude is sour. They argue with their bosses and lie to police officers or other officials and treat customers unfairly or rudely. They simply live however they please and somehow don’t feel guilty for it. But that is not the life God has called them to—those things don’t glorify God. Those things do not make them set apart from the world to shine the light of Jesus. Instead, they are living like the darkness. They are tarnishing the reputation of God. This is one thing I must give credit to the Calvinists that I have noticed. They are typically much more pious living for God and I believe that stems from some of the teaching they get regarding the emphasis of living for the glory of God. It is important for this subject to be taught because so much of our culture is “me-centered.” Even despite all that God has done for us, some of us tend to just focus on ourselves and how to live the most comfortable life but Jesus commanded His disciples to deny themselves daily for Him (Lk 9:23). Some of us really need to ask ourselves “am I a disciple of Jesus?” Or, “am I merely a disciple of myself?” ‎St. Bernard has said, “If anyone makes himself his own master in the spiritual life, he makes himself scholar to a fool.”

Though God has created us for Himself to glorify His name, we must not think that God is hungry for glory as if we’re filling some need in Him that He is deficient in. Acts 17:24-25 says, “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.” This is somewhat of a paradox. On the one hand, God created us for His glory and on the other, He doesn’t need us. But it is because God does not need us and because He does all things out of His loving nature that His desire to be glorified is not selfish. But even this word “desire” seems misplaced and we might be better off using the word “will” and say, “it is God’s will to be glorified.” That is, it is God’s purpose. God does not need us but He wants us. But what is the purpose? What is the end goal? Some might say that the end goal is just for God to receive all the praise and honor. But that would be a misunderstanding of God’s very nature as love. God wants to receive the glory because as a Trinity, He wants the others to be praised, thanked, and loved. It is in the nature of God’s love to want all the best for one another. If you notice, when Jesus was on this earth, He never sought His own glory but rather that the Father be glorified in everything. He even said, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me” (Jn 8:54). Jesus was completely selfless and He became The Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, abandoning His own will, seeking only to do the will of His Father. And He was obedient in all things, even to the point of death on a cross (Phil 2:8). What is so beautiful about God’s glory is that God is a self-giving God. He shares His glory with others (Ps 84:11; Jn 17:22; 1 Cor 2:7). He desires to exalt others (Ps 8; 1 Pet 5:6; Rev 20:6). As a result, we become caught up in this Inter-Trinitarian love so that just as the Father loves the Son, so also does He love us (Jn 15:9).

The central moving and determining factor of God’s glory is His love and goodness. When Moses asked God to show him His glory, God said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion” (Ex 33:19). Then the glory of the Lord passed by Moses and the Lord proclaimed His name before Moses saying, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Ex 34:6-7). The thing God most wants to be remembered, represented, and known for is His goodness. This is why Jesus died on the cross and why He told His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35). And even with this, God’s end goal is to redeem the world and to restore all things for the pleasure of the Trinity and for all creatures.

God’s glory is primarily about His goodness—not His power. His power is just a means to show His goodness like in Acts 17:26-27 where it says, “and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” Far from God stacking up the odds against people so that more people would take the path of eternal destruction (as if that would somehow make God more glorious or ascribe glory to His name), God is for each person and sets up circumstances in life to increase the likelihood for people to reach out to God and find Him. That is what He uses His power for and it all comes back to His goodness. As for the hardening of Pharoah’s heart and Romans 9, God decides to use what we already are for His glory. He does not force us to become something other or to be stuck in a terrible condition so that He receives praise. However, I will not get into that in depth here since I have covered those issues elsewhere. Leighton Flowers and Mike Winger also cover these subjects if you want more resources on that. And regarding Isaiah 48:11, this passage is in the context of idols being worshipped and so God does not accept the sharing of false worship of other gods or idols since He is the only One true God. Also, God acts for His own sake, wanting to display His grace and compassion as verse 9 shows, “For the sake of My name I delay My wrath, and for My praise I restrain it for you, in order not to cut you off.”

In John 9, Jesus passes by a man who was born blind and the disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” and Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Jn 9:1-3). God sometimes allows certain circumstances in life so that later on, something good may be made out of it. God can also help make people humble for their good because it is the humble who enter into heaven. If some people didn’t have disabilities, they might never know God or be given the greatest opportunity to seek God, or they would be too prideful and would reject God. Those are just a few reasons why people might have disabilities. The Lord also created Moses with a speech impediment so that later, God could use him to speak to Israel (Ex 4:11). As Paul said, “power is perfected in weakness,” and this is so the power of Christ may dwell in us and work through us (2 Cor 12:9). This disability of Moses was necessary to keep him humble and reliant on God so that he would bring God’s message and direction to lead Israel and show the world the salvation of the Lord. God sometimes allows things to happen like people born with disabilities so that God’s glory can be displayed and good may come out of it. But just because we cannot always see what good reason there is, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. God’s wisdom and ways are higher than our own. But we can trust God ruling the universe because God makes decisions about this world in relation to His goodness and love.

I would recommend checking out my previous article, Theodicy: A Defense for the Goodness of God

Philosophical and theological defense for God’s glory

In Calvinism, they tend to emphasize God’s power and control as what most glorifies God whereas in Provisionism and Arminianism, they emphasize God’s self-sacrificial love as what most glorifies Him. I’ve noticed that Calvinists tend to place their trust more in God’s sovereignty and self-glorification than in His love. When I was a Calvinist, I used to think more that way as well. But the problem with this is that it creates this view of mankind as merely expendable. A god who cares more about power and control and appearances than about loving people is not a god that we can wholly trust or take comfort in. In this doctrine, God’s love and care for us takes less precedence and is logically secondary to His self-glorification. Whatever happens to us whether good or bad is merely a by-product of all the choices God makes for Himself. In this paradigm, one cannot legitimately affirm God’s love for us as the motive for loving us. Rather, He loves us for His own self-exaltation. We are merely beneficiaries of this action similar to how a social media influencer creates a video of being generous to someone and ends up with millions of views and the money and fame that follows from that video. But if such a video were not to go viral, would the influencer continue being generous to people? Perhaps not. I find that through such a view of God, faith is weakened because it is misplaced. In Calvinism, faith is placed first and foremost in God’s sovereignty and glory rather than in God’s love. But the Bible never says that “God is sovereignty” or “God is glory,” rather, it says, “God is love.” This is who He is in His very nature. It would make the most sense then to place our faith in God’s love as first and foremost. There, we would find that we will have much greater faith in God since love is always for us, for our good, and the good of others.

If we think about it, such a view of God’s self-exaltation is not even rationally feasible to believe because love cannot be a façade or a mere outward action of doing a good deed. God’s love must be genuine, having been moved from the heart to act on behalf of someone else in order for that love to truly receive the greatest praise and honor. Therefore, it would be self-defeating for God to seek His own benefit at the expense of others and somehow call that genuine love. It is for this reason and others that God’s love cannot be like that.

What we know through progressive revelation is Jesus Christ. He showed us the exact nature of God’s character to us in washing the disciple’s feet, coming to serve rather than to be served, and to lay down His life for even His enemies. He exemplified sacrificial and selfless love to us in His incarnation, life, and death. It would be unfeasible to think that such sacrifice and suffering would be rendered on behalf of humanity if God was not moved by genuine love to do so. Love was the motive—not self-glorification. God is in heaven and needs nothing. He is completely sufficient in Himself. He does not need men and angels to stroke His ego or to pacify His insecurities (since He has none). In the riches and grandeur of heaven, and the perfect love and harmony of the divine Trinity, God lacks nothing and needs to prove Himself to no one. He created all things and by His will and power they continue to exist. God is not threatened or intimidated by our small existence since He created every galaxy and universe. He is a humble and meek God. He does not need to flex His muscles or show off to win anyone’s validation or approval. Therefore, any idea of God’s glory being about self-exaltation to prove Himself as the end goal simply falls flat on its face. The accolades and praises of men and angels fill no void in God’s heart, nor make Him happier than He already is. To say such things is to deny God’s own self-sufficiency. To affirm such a doctrine also contradicts the humble and selfless love of God’s nature revealed through Jesus Christ. Anytime God proves Himself to humanity, it is not for His sake, but ultimately for ours. God doesn’t prove Himself to others; rather, He proves to others Himself. It is for their benefit and for the benefit of the world that God reveals His glory because of the abundant love that overflows from His nature.

Even when we say God glorifies Himself, it is still for our sake, since His very nature is self-giving. This self-giving God has His own desires and plans but those plans are about bringing salvation to all people and redeeming the world to restore all things because God is love. God continually seeks to maintain His name and prove His goodness to humanity so that we will trust Him because in trusting Him we can be saved and healed and ultimately enter into the community of the Trinity. This God is overwhelmingly for us because He is overwhelmingly good; and because of that, we can trust Him. This is not a God who sees humanity as merely expendable since He did not spare His own Son but gave Him over for us all. He did not withhold the very best He had to offer. This is a God who seeks the good of others at the expense of Himself. The pinnacle and climactic point of all of human history was the crucifixion of Jesus which is about selfless and sacrificial love.

This view of God’s glory does not minimize God’s glory but magnifies His glory in that His self-sufficiency, and His humility and love revealed through Jesus Christ are exalted above all. This is not a weak God but a meek God. For the all-powerful God to share His love, power, and glory with others requires a great deal of fortitude. Only someone with such strength of character and fearlessness could accomplish such things to take on human flesh and to live and die not to be served but to serve and give His life a ransom for many (Mk 10:45).

Another reason why we can trust God

This is what Michael Reeves has to say about God’s nature:

Athanasius simply boggled at Arius’s presumption. How could he [Arius] possibly know what God is like other than as he has revealed himself? “It is,” he said, “more pious and more accurate to signify God from the Son and call Him Father, than to name Him from His works only and call Him Unoriginate.” That is to say, the right way to think about God is to start with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not some abstract definition we have made up like “Uncaused” or “Unoriginate.” In fact, we should not even set out in our understanding of God by thinking of God primarily as Creator (naming him “from His works only”)—that, as we have seen, would make him dependent on his creation. Our definition of God must be built on the Son who reveals him. And when we do that, starting with the Son, we find that the first thing to say about God is, as it says in the creed, “We believe in one God, the Father.” That different starting point and basic understanding of God would mean that the gospel Athanasius preached simply felt and tasted very different from the one preached by Arius. Arius would have to pray to “Unoriginate.” But would “Unoriginate” listen? Athanasius could pray “Our Father.” With “Unoriginate” we are left scrambling for a dictionary in a philosophy lecture; with a Father things are familial. And if God is a Father, then he must be relational and life-giving, and that is the sort of God we could love.
[…] Since God is, before all things, a Father, and not primarily Creator or Ruler, all his ways are beautifully fatherly. It is not that this God “does” being Father as a day job, only to kick back in the evenings as plain old “God.” It is not that he has a nice blob of fatherly icing on top. He is Father. All the way down. […] The Father is called Father because he is a Father. And a father is a person who gives life, who begets children. Now that insight is like a stick of dynamite in all our thoughts about God. For if, before all things, God was eternally a Father, then this God is an inherently outgoing, life-giving God. He did not give life for the first time when he decided to create; from eternity he has been life-giving. (Delighting in the Trinity, Michael Reeves: 22-24)

Since God is Father, He is loving, relational, and live-giving. When God sent to us His Son, it was the love of the Father overflowing into the world as His love just could not be contained. Therefore, we can trust whatever God does for His glory and good pleasure to be good, just, and wise because we can trust His very nature.