Glory to God

Without getting too deep today, let us take a moment to speak of the glory of God.  The glory of God is one of the central figures in Holy Scripture.  But it is also one the most misconceived theological concepts.  In the the most plain terms, the glory of God is the functionining processes of His holiness.  Or, with less flourish, God's glory is the representation of His holiness.  Every aspect and attribute of God exudes from His holiness and His infinitude.  

God is holy.  This means, among many things, that God is perfectly pure and entirely other; or, in other words, He is unlike us.  And it is from his Divine Otherness that He creates and sustains by the power of His Word.  This 'active step,' so to speak, is His glory; it is the evidence of His holiness.  Because He is holy, His glory comes out.  In a sense, His glory derives from God from His holiness, and it is from seeing His glory that we can assess and recognize His holiness.

There is a direct correlation between His infinite holiness and his glory much as the connection between the bulb and the light that pours forth from it: the light is evidence is the affect of the bulb's being just as the bulb's being as a giver of light is reflected in whether light comes from it or not.  Therefore, God's glory must properly begin with Hos holiness, otherwise we run risk of naturally supplanting His holiness with our own in the presence of His glory.  Needless to say, this is a counterfeit understanding of God just as it is a simple case of odplatry of self, and neither are acceptable in worship before the holy Lord.

Let us, then, always bow in penitent reverence before God when we encounter His glory, understanding that it is ultimately before His holiness that we fall prostrate.  And amen that it should be so!