Glory What is glory? Do you know? We say it all the time. I was singing a song with the phrase, “Unto you be all the glory,” and I stopped. What the heck is glory? We say it ALL the time, and I have no idea what it means, so I opened my Bible. What I found out made me even more confused. I found out: Glory dwells Glory shows Glory departs Glory fills Glory has weight You can… declare glory reveal glory give glory come in glory glorify a name glorify God have glory appear in glory see glory So what is this multifaceted thing? I narrowed the idea of all of them down to four things: give glory, see glory, declare glory, and glory is an aspect of God. Revelations 4:9 says, “the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever.” So here creatures were giving God glory. John 17:22 says, “The glory you have given me I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one,” which is Jesus talking to the Father saying he gave us glory that the Father gave to him. For “seeing glory” it comes up later in John 17 in verse 24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” Jesus is still praying here, but instead of saying how he gave glory, he’s asking for God to open our eyes to SEE his glory. In Exodus 33:18 “Moses said, ‘Please show me your glory.’” Moses is asking God to SEE his glory. Then an example of “declaring glory” is in 1 Chronicles 16:24, “Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.” Finally, “glory” is an aspect of God, which is shown throughout the Bible, like many of these examples, but specifically it shows up in Acts 7:2 when Stephen is speaking to the high priest and Sanhedrin before they killed him. He calls God “The God of Glory.” David writes in Psalm 29:3, “the God of glory.” At this point, I got frustrated and wrote, “How can one “give glory” or “receive” it? I was praying and asking what this meant when God brought me to 2 Corinthians 3:18, which says, “And we all, with unveiled face, reflecting the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” God brought a revelation to me, and suddenly it all clicked. Glory is the image of God. It’s just a single word to describe God’s presence and embodiment. Additionally, he revealed to me that only those who truly seek him will not only be able to see it but also begin to reflect it, as it says in 2 Corinthians. Like in Exodus 33:18 from the previous example; he asks God to see his glory. In that time, Moses couldn’t truly see God’s complete glory, or image, because it would kill him; however, he passed by Moses and allowed him to see his back. Moses spent so much time in God’s glory that he began to reflect that glory, and since Moses came before the Holy Spirit strengthened us to be able to handle God’s glory living inside us, his face “shone,” as it says in Exodus 34:29. Moses hung out in God’s glory all the time, and began reflecting that glory with a shining face, so much so that he had to “put a veil over his face” (Exodus 34:33). However, when Jesus died on the cross, he tore the veil of the temple allowing us access to God’s presence. Since we are seated with Christ, as stated in Ephesians 2:6, and have been strengthened by the Holy Spirit, as stated in Ephesians 3:16, we are able to actually house the glory of God within us without the need of a veil to cover our faces, for the Holy Spirit has strengthened us and Jesus has torn the veil. Therefore “giving glory” means to cause someone to look like God. To “see glory” means to see God and his presence. To “declare glory” means to “proclaim the existence of God.” Additionally, you can actually incorrectly “give glory” by having a different god placed in front of god. For example, if you worship money and put your faith in it above God, you are giving glory to money. You are calling money equivalent to God’s presence, which is just silly because I can burn a stack of money and it will completely lose its value, but God’s presence is eternal. Moreover, sin causes God’s glory within us to fade, but repentance, which means to turn away, can replenish that new glory shine with God’s grace. The Hebrew word for “glory” is “kavod,” which originally meant “heavy.” It was the only word the Hebrew writers could use to describe the substantial depth of God’s presence. In poetic uses of the word, writers paralleled “kavod” to heavy weapons. Such as in Psalm 3:3, it likens it to a “shield”, and in Job 29:20 he relates it to a “bow”. This heaviness of God’s presence is our defense; it is our offense; it is our reflection; and it is our God. Where do you place glory? On the one who can carry the weight eternally? If the object receiving glory can bend and break, you’ve misplaced the glory.
