Answer: For His glory.
In the previous lessons learned that God made us and all things. Here we learn why He made all things: for His glory. This is important, because God has given us a mission in life: to glorify Him. As the Apostle Paul puts it, ‘So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.’ (1 Corinthians 10:31) And this isn’t just what we are here for; it’s what all of creation is made for! The heavens are designed to declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1); the whole earth is filled with His glory (Isaiah 6:3), and in the future the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of God’s glory (Habakkuk 2:14).
God’s glory is a big deal in the Bible, but what is the glory of God? One way to understand God’s glory is that it is His greatness, character, presence, and power put on display. It is the full potency of God for all to see. When the Bible tells us that all of creation glorifies God, it’s telling us that the world reveals God’s greatness, character, presence, and power. We already know creation does this, because in the previous lesson we learned about how the natural world tells people about God’s existence and what He is like (Romans 1:20). Because the glory of God is the public display of His attributes, it isn’t surprising that Jesus Christ is pictured as the glory of God, because He is a full revelation of God and His attributes. John 1:14 says, ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’ The Apostle John continues and writes, ‘No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared him.’ Hebrews 1:3 puts it this way: ‘[Christ] is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.’ Jesus is the fullest revelation of God that we have! When we listen to the gospel stories and hear about Jesus doing miracles, and casting out demons, and teaching in parables, we are seeing the Living God at work among His beloved creatures. It’s a wonderful perspective to have when hearing Jesus stories!
The glory of God is God’s full potency – His existence, His greatness, His character, His presence, and His power – put on display.
However, though all of creation tells us about God, not everyone listens to the message; in Romans 1.21-22, just after establishing that creation is a megaphone announcing God’s existence and power, Paul says that people ‘did not glorify [God], nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.’ Instead of glorifying God, sinful people reject what creation plainly tells them, and by doing so their foolish hearts are darkened. As a result, we live in a world that shouts God’s glory while some people acknowledge that glory and others refuse to see it. This won’t always be the case, however; as the prophet Habakkuk promised, a day is coming not only when the whole earth will be filled with God’s glory (for it already is!) but with the knowledge of that glory; in other words, a day is coming when all people everywhere will listen to what creation is saying and acknowledge God’s glory and bow down to Him.
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