What Is The Glory Of God? The Telescope To The Microscope And Beyond

The James Webb space telescope was launched into space on December 25th 2021, it’s predecessor the Hubble space telescope had taken thousands of amazing pictures of deep space with it’s powerful lenses, but the James Webb telescope would be even more precise in it’s photographic abilities, taking pictures of deep space with great accuracy.

I recall as a new Christian, about 10 years ago I went on the Hubble space telescope website and I was looking at the pictures. And suddenly I was shocked by a realization of what I was looking at. I realized suddenly, wait a minute, God made this.

The Bible says, Psalm 19:1 ESV “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

Every nebula, every galaxy, every star was created by an infinite creative intelligence massively brilliant beyond my ability to comprehend. And when I looked at the images in that light, I was stunned by the glory of God as looked at the pictures.

So I wanted to share some similar pictures with you today, which show us the glory of God, what God has made, and we should look and say wow, God made that. And it’s amazing. Be in awe!

Yet we also know that the Earth itself, not just the heavens are filled with God’s glory as well.

As it says in Isaiah 6:3 ESV And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

“Example of AT2 and AT1 epithelial cell generation in a lung alveolar organoid used to examine MANC and AMP function. Green staining for surfactant protein C indicates AT2 cells whereas red staining for Hopx indicates AT1 cells. Credit: The lab of Ed Morrisey, PhD, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania”

Here is another picture, what is it? Perhaps a galaxy or nebula from the James Webb telescope? No, this is a microphotograph of a molecule in your lungs, from the lab of Ed Morrisey.

Whether we look through the telescope, or the microscope, we find something we’re studying today, called the glory of God. We find the fingerprints in the world of what God made, and we wonder at how he made it. We wonder at how it all works. And we’re amazed.

These are reflections of the glory of God. But what exactly is it itself?

What is the glory of God? Last week we talked about the presence of God, and being led by the Spirit of God. But, the glory of God is something different from the presence of God, or the leading of God.

The glory of God is an event or experience which reveals who God is to us in a deeper way.

Experiencing the glory of God explains to us in a deeper way, who God really is. It’s something that changes us forever.

The glory is mentioned in our foundation scripture for this series, John 1:14, it 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.“ -John 1:14

So you have the disciple John, writing the gospel of John, reflecting on his whole life, looking back, as an old man I’m sure, and saying, wow, living with Jesus those 3 years, I saw the glory of God simply by being with Jesus, listening to Jesus, watching Jesus work, seeing him crucified, it changed my life forever. I was not the same.

So I think, as we experience the glory of God, a little bit more each day, it simply reveals to us who God is, more and more. Until we can say wow, I really do understand who God is to me. Not completely, not entirely, but enough to say wow, I really do know God.

I recall particularly during our series of going through the parables of Jesus, we studied every single parable Jesus ever spoke recorded in all four gospels, and that was exciting for me, because every week I felt like we were getting another piece of the puzzle. And I think that’s how it is with the glory of God, more and more we encounter God, experience God, study God’s word, we understand more and more deeply the glory of God.

I want to look briefly at three different ides about the glory of God in the Bible where the glory of God is revealed.

Then conclude with the glory of God revealed to the shepherds at night, the night Jesus was born.

But first, what does glory mean exactly? The Greek word used in the new testament for glory is doxa.

The Outline of Biblical Usage includes the following definitions… (abridged)