In the Word: God is Glorious

Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. Over the next several weeks, we will be pouring over Scripture with the goal of knowing God increasingly as He truly is. As we study together, we encourage you to use the comments as a place to dialogue with us about what you are learning and share your answers to the questions below. We pray that you hearts will be encouraged as you study these names of God along with us! 

God is Glorious

But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O LORD my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that Your servant prays before You this day, that Your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which You have said, “My name shall be there,” that You may listen to the prayer that Your servant offers toward this place.
1 Kings 8:27-29

READ:

King Solomon, did you hear about the King of kings, the Son of Man, the Lord of the Sabbath—greater than the temple, the embodiment of it (Matthew 12:6)? Did you hear of God intending to dwell with man, announced with a loud voice (Revelation 21:3)—a declaration matched to man’s innermost desire? Did you know of the God-Man who will sit on Jerusalem’s throne (Luke 1:32-33)? And did you know that the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord, who will reign forever and ever (Revelation 11:15)?

“But will God indeed dwell on the earth?” you pose in your dedication prayer of the temple (1 Kings 8:27a).

You knew the name of the Lord would be with you (1 Kings 8:29), and you also knew that the one true God could know no containment (1 Kings 8:27)—thus, your question of awe. But King Solomon, how poignant is your question now too!

…

Will He? Will God dwell on this earth? King Solomon marveled, and so do I—at what God will do. As Solomon’s dedication prayer progresses, it is as if he puts his “finger to the text” (1 Kings 8:29). God has said it. So it will be. And God has spoken prophetic promises for believers to trust concerning future developments:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.
[…] And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” (Revelation 21:3, 6a)

So it will be.

King Solomon was astonished as he put together seemingly-precarious pieces of theology in his prayer, as if saying, “My great God knows no bounds, and yet He will choose to dwell in this house? I take Him at His marvelous word!” God’s greatness goes beyond the limitlessness of His presence; He is great in all of who He is. Solomon’s question only becomes more perplexing when considered in light of God’s great holiness: How will God dwell with sinful man?

Still, He has said it, and so He has planned a sure way.

This way, this plan, is at the crux of the revelatory glory God destined in great love to bring from His earthly creation—culminating in the second coming of the Lord Jesus:

New Testament writers proclaim that the glory of God’s nature, character, power, and purpose is now open to view in the person and role of God’s incarnate Son, Jesus Christ (John 1:14–18; 2 Cor. 4:3–6; Heb. 1:1–3).

God’s glory, shown forth in the plan and work of grace whereby He saves sinners, is meant to call forth praise (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14), that is, the giving of glory to God by spoken words (cf. Rev. 4:9; 19:7).¹

Matthew Henry writes on the certainty of God completing His plan for this world—from initial creation to final glorification—in his commentary on Revelation 21:3:

As His power and will were the first cause of all things, His pleasure and glory are the last end, and He will not lose His design; for then He would no longer be the Alpha and Omega.²

God’s purpose to dwell with His people through Christ is sure: “It is finished!” and “It is done!” (John 19:30, Revelation 23:6). The glory His people will forever ascribe to Him is as good as accomplished.

Intertwined together are these: the glory of God and the keeping of His revealed design. Such certain hope—that God would so tie His glory to a people of His creation—is confounding, comforting, and best of all, true. Consequently, the Christian’s glory-giving to God is also tied to true gladness about His plans: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory!” (Revelation 19:7a). What an incentive for us, who may be tempted to confine ourselves within grief, to not resist the coming of true and celebratory joy within our souls, as these truths of God’s glory through redemption renew our hoping!

REFLECT:

• Scan through today’s reading again and list the ways God shows His glory.
• Re-read Revelation 19:7a. Have I given much consideration to the connection between the glory of God and my personal gladness in God’s design of salvation? Given that gladness in God’s salvation does not preclude sadness about my loss, am I resisting any of this joy?

PRAYER AND PRAISE:

This world, this creation, this life—these are about You, my Lord, and the demonstration of Your glory. You know exactly and fully how my experiences will bring glory to Your name. For Your sake—and the glory that You have ordained to draw from my life—I trust You with every moment of heartache. Perfect, holy, and righteous in all of Your designs—You have made a way from me to You. Together we will dwell. And so, may Christ be lifted high and glorified always. So it will be. And in knowing and glorifying You now, I am being made glad.

QUOTE FROM SOURCES CONSULTED³:

God is the sum total of all excellency. There is nothing higher or greater or better than God. Every conceivable perfection is in God in an absolute manner, and He is exalted above all shortcomings and all limitations. The Bible therefore speaks of the perfection of God and it also speaks of the blessedness of God. Take those many expressions in Paul’s epistles—for example, Paul’s words, ‘the glorious gospel of the blessed God’ (1 Tim. 1:11). What does Paul mean when he refers to God as ‘blessed’? Well, he means that God’s own perfection is the object of God’s own knowledge and of His own love. He rejoices in Himself. He delights in Himself and is perfectly and absolutely self-sufficient. God is, according to the Scriptures, well-pleased within Himself and His glorious being: the blessedness of God.

The last thing is the glory of God and this is the biblical way of describing His greatness, His splendour, His majesty. We read of the glory of God filling the house—the Temple (1 Kgs. 8:11), and of the glory of God being manifested in dimmed vision to certain people. This means they had some conception of the greatness, the splendour, the majesty, the might of His being. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God the Father, God the Son).

¹J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1993), 60.

²Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. VI, Acts to Revelation, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc6.Rev.xxii.html, italics in the original.

³Sources consulted for this series: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God the Father, God the Son; Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology; Paul Enns, Moody Handbook of Theology; John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion; J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs

Lianna (@liannadavis) is wed to Tyler and mom of two dear daughters. She is author of Made for a Different Land: Eternal Hope for Baby Loss (Hope Mommies, 2019). More of her writing can be found at her website.

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