As a result of an email I recently received, I am going to do a series of posts on God’s glory and suffering — this will be a slow series, and will depend on my state of mind in the near future (in other words I am processing all kinds of stuff right now). I think it is very important to have an understanding of God’s glory that is shaped by His life of love in Christ by the Spirit. Which means that glory is not a principle outside of love and personal relationship; but in fact it is its inverse. In other words, God’s glory cares about intimate and personal details (like the sparrows or us). I’m afraid that there is thinking out there that sees “God’s glory” as an impersonal force that has nothing to do with “us;” when in fact the Incarnation says just the opposite.
In other words, what’s at stake here is how we correlate something like: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God” with Jesus Christ’s revelation of God’s glory as He ministered His life to those around Him while on earth (or even in His mediation to Israel in salvation history). I think there are competing things going on between the “Westminster Shorter Catechism’s” understanding of “glory and glorify,” and who we see revealed in Jesus Christ in the Incarnation. This will be the jumping off point for the posts ahead . . .
