Sometime this week I was asked about the relationship between God’s glory and the gospel. As believers we are called to pursue God’s glory in all things, or to magnify his infinite greatness and worth in all things, or as the catechism says, we exist to glorify God. How does this relate to Jesus and his saving work? How does the cross relate to our pursuit of God’s glory in all things?
The Biblical answer is that the gospel as it centers on Jesus and his saving work supremely displays God’s glory or magnifies God’s infinite greatness and worth, and saves us to do just that. We often make much of ourselves when we think of the gospel, and we tend to make ourselves the end goal of the saving work of Jesus. However, as we turn to the Scriptures we find that God’s final and ultimate purpose is to preserve and display his glory in all things. To pursue any other end would make God less than glorious, because it would make that which he pursues either greater than he is, or he would be less than glorious. God’s own infinite greatness and worth is the motivation, reason and end goal in everything he does. Everything God does is to preserve and display his infinite greatness and worth above all things. As you search the Scriptures you discover that this is the overwhelming testimony.
Creation exists to declare the infinite greatness and worth of God. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork (Psa. 19:1) God saves people for his glory. Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made (Is. 43:7). God does everything to preserve his glory. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another (Is.48:11)
You discover that God’s glory is also the goal of the gospel or the saving work of Jesus. As you turn to John 17:1, Jesus in praying that he might be glorified in his coming death on the cross, prays that it might be to the glory of his Father. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” The lifting up of the infinite greatness and worth of the Son in his death on the cross, is to highlight the infinite greatness and worth of God! Jesus doesn’t say, “Father, glorify me … let people see my infinite greatness and worth in my death so that they might be saved”. Instead he says, “Father, glorify me … let people see my infinite greatness and worth in my death, so that your infinite greatness and worth above all things might be seen.” Other passages in John repeated remind us that the death of Jesus was to glorify the Father (John 21:19; 12:27-28)
And so it’s no surprise that when Paul speaks of the gospel in Ephesians 1, he speaks of us being recipients of grace to the praise of his glory! We are saved so that God might be praised and glorified i.e so that his infinite greatness and worth might be seen and praised. Everything God does is to the praise of his glory in preserving it and magnifying it. While this might seem egocentric on God’s part, it’s worth pausing to ask ourselves this question. Who else should he magnify or could he magnify other than himself as a being of infinite greatness and worth? We forget that God is not like us in seeking praise for his own name, because as a being of infinite greatness and worth above all things, for him to do any less would either make him less than great or make that which he seeks to magnify greater than him.
Let’s get our understanding of the glory of God and the gospel right. The ultimate goal of the gospel or the ultimate goal of the death of Jesus for sin is to make much of God, and I am saved to make much of God in all things. The ultimate goal of the death of Jesus for sin is to preserve and magnify the infinite greatness and worth of God, and I am saved to magnify the infinite greatness and worth of God in all things. That’s the whole point of the saving work of Jesus. It’s the reason why I am condemned and am in need of saving: it’s because I don’t glorify God as God. I am condemned because I refuse to recognize God’s infinite greatness and worth above all things. We read in Rom.1:23 that instead of seeing and recognizing and worshipping the God who is of infinite greatness and worth above all things, instead of seeing and recognizing and worshipping the one being in the universe who is to be treasured above all, we turn and we worship created things ascribing greatness and worth to them that belongs to God.
The gospel in saving us deals with our sins, and turns our hearts, minds, affections, and desires towards the God who is of infinite greatness and worth above all things, such that we now live to pursue his glory, because we now see that he alone is a treasure above all things. Which is why I said before that the death of Jesus for sin is to preserve and magnify the infinite greatness and worth of God, and I am saved to magnify the infinite greatness and worth of God in all things. God and his glory is the goal of the saving work of Jesus in the gospel. Just like we make much out of our treasures in life because we consider them great and worth something, in the same way the gospel makes much of the God who is the ultimate treasure above all things, and saves me to now make much of God as my ultimate treasure in life because I now see and grasp his infinite greatness and worth above all things.
