So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
To be a Christian artist means that one’s particular calling is to use one’s talents to the glory of God…
When talking to Christian musicians about their music making, it doesn't take very long to hear something about 'glorifying God' or doing music 'to the glory of God'. Such language is ubiquitous amongst lots of Christian musicians (and indeed Christian artists more widely), and yet frankly, it's classic Christian jargon that rarely gets defined very clearly. We all have a sense of what we mean by such terms, but if asked to clarify our meaning exactly, we probably struggle.
What's more, we certainly struggle to apply it. If I had a pound for every time I heard a music student express their desire to glorify God with their music but then immediately express some kind of confusion or even cluelessness as to what exactly that is supposed to look like, I'd have quite a pile of cash. The purpose of this article is to shine some light into all this murkiness.
What exactly is glory?
In the Bible, there are at least eighteen different words in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic which get translated as 'glory', though two words dominate: in Hebrew, kabod; in Greek, doxa. These two both have the sense of splendour and majesty. And indeed, many of the biblical references to glory can very simply be understood in this way: so for example, when Jesus speaks in the Sermon on the Mount about considering the lilies of the field, the ESV renders Matthew 6:29 as 'even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these' whereas the NIV says 'not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these'.
Kabod and doxa also have a sense of weightiness and dignity that should yield reverence and honour, and indeed, many more biblical references to glory and/or glorifying can be easily understood in this sense of honour(ing): so when Paul speaks of our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 6, his conclusion (v.20b) is rendered in the ESV as 'so glorify God in your body' whereas in the NIV it is 'therefore honour God with your bodies'.
Two other Hebrew words for glory (Tiph'arah and Tsebiy) also have the sense of beauty: therefore this sense may accompany certain other references to 'glory'.
Clearly 'glory', biblically speaking, is a rich rich term that is not easily defined, so much as described.
God's infinite excellence
Despite the difficulties of definition, God's people have nevertheless made some excellent attempts, and here are two of the best from church history:
The English Puritan writer Edward Leigh, in 1662, defined God's glory as:
The infinite excellence of the Divine essence.
Two and half centuries later, in 1908, the Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck expanded on this idea, writing:
The ‘glory of the Lord’ is the splendour and brilliance that is inseparably associated with all of God’s attributes and His self-revelation in nature and grace, the glorious form in which He everywhere appears to His creatures.
These are wonderful and rich summaries of the Bible's use of the word 'glory', particularly when applied to God's glory, which of course is the norm! However, two further details may be added:
God's name
Firstly, God's glory is often partnered with, even conflated with God's name. Indeed, God is named 'the Glory of Israel' in 1 Samuel 15:29, 'the Majestic Glory' in 2 Peter 1:17, and in a typical poetic couplet, in verse 15 of Psalm 102, the Psalmist writes:
The nations will fear the name of the LORD; all the kings of the earth will revere your glory.
This being the case, the American Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards could write:
God's name and His glory, at least very often, signify the same thing in Scripture.
God's presence
Secondly, God's glory is also often associated with His presence, which of course makes sense, it being (in Leigh's words) 'the infinite excellence of the Divine essence'. So when that Divine essence was manifest on earth in a particular way, those fortunate enough to witness it were often said to be experiencing the glory of the Lord and/or the presence of the Lord. The obvious example would be Moses, who was put in the cleft of rock whilst God's 'glory' passed by (Exodus 33:22), and who, having immediately afterwards been summoned up Mount Sinai to receive the law on the tablets, returned to the Israelite camp to discover that his own face shone, such was the radiance of God's glory that he encountered up on the mountain.
As such, God's glory is also often associated with the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle and later the temple, seeing as that was the place where God's presence dwelt with His people. So when the tabernacle is finally completed according to God's instructions, we read:
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Similarly, when the temple is finally completed in Solomon's day, in one of the most musically rich passages in the whole Bible, we read:
The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang: “He is good; his love endures forever.” Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.
The flip side, of course, is that when the ark of the covenant is captured by the Philistines, a bereaved wife cries out 'The Glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured' (1 Samuel 4:22). And in an even more terrifying vision in Ezekiel 11:22-23, the prophet witnesses God's glory departing from the temple as a judgment on Israel's idolatry.
Jesus: the radiance of God's glory
All that being said, we can hopefully now see how Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of the meaning of God's glory - for He is the ultimate self-revelation of God. When John spoke of the divine identity of Jesus, a man he had walked alongside for three years, as the eternal Word of God come in flesh, he could write:
We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
And as the writer to the Hebrews clarifies, this glory is fundamental to who He is from all eternity:
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word.
What's more, Jesus, when praying to His Father, speaks of the glory that they shared 'before the world began' (John 17:5). And thus it is no surprised that all the key events of Jesus's life are described as moments of particular glory. Peter 'saw His glory' at His Transfiguration (Luke 9:32); Jesus referred to His impending crucifixion as His 'hour...to be glorified' (John 12:23); both Peter and Paul referred to His resurrection and ascension as moments of 'glory' (1 Peter 1:21, 1 Timothy 3:16). Jesus famously referred to His Second Coming as a moment of unparalleled, unmistakeable glory, saying:
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on his glorious throne.
So this is what the glory of God is: His infinite excellence, splendour, and brilliance, encapsulated by His name, experienced in His presence, and embodied in the person of Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God.
Some implications
Two theological implications:
- God's glory is far greater and more wonderful and more brilliant than anything we have yet imagined. Our conceptions of God's glory fall far far short of what the Bible says, not least when we connect it to our music-making!
- God's glory is complete! After all, it consists of the infinite excellence of God's being, so let us stop thinking we can 'add' to God's glory. To give God glory does not mean that we give Him something He does not already have, but rather is to attribute to Him that which He already has, as a right and proper act of worship.
Two further, very important implications that follow on from those two:
- We should stop thinking of glory as a substance or commodity of which there is more or less to be distributed or withheld or in which we can bathe - rather glory is a quality of who God is, of His character.
- Therefore any present experience we have of glory must be connected to experiencing Jesus. Thus John wrote 'we have seen His glory' (John 1:14) to describe his encountering the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ.
Our experience of glory
Indeed, in terms of our present experience of glory, it is worth noting the Bible's insistence that not only is there a wonderful future 'glory' (as in a state of wondrous splendour) to which to look forward (see Romans 8:18, 1 Corinthians 15:42-43, Colossians 3:4 and 1 Peter 5:4), but 'glory' is also our present calling (see 1 Thessalonians 2:12, 2 Thessalonians 2:14 and 1 Peter 5:10). Crucially, one must notice how in nearly all these passages, that glory (whether present or future) is connected to Christ Himself: indeed, a few of them make clear that it is ultimately experienced in our union with Christ - that we are 'in Him' and He is 'in us' - indeed Colossians 1:27 speaks of this union as:
... Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Furthermore, in a lengthy passage in 2 Corinthians 3 in which Paul lauds the glory (splendour) of the new covenant compared to the old covenant, his great conclusion as to what this means for us as believers is:
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding 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.
The great aim of every Christian should be ever increasingly to behold the glory of God (chiefly in the Lord Jesus Christ) so as to be ever increasingly transformed into His glorious likeness - something which is effected by the Holy Spirit living within us.
This sets the foundations for part 2 of this article, then, which is to answer our main question: what does it mean to give glory to God? What does it mean to glorify God in our music?
