A selection of verses showing that God's glory includes both his creative and sustaining power and his character and purpose.
God's glory is seen in the splendour of the universe:
1 The heavens declare the glory of God.
The expanse shows his handiwork.
6 The heavens declare his righteousness.
All the peoples have seen his glory.
When Moses asks to see God's glory, he is told that he will see God's goodness and hear his name:
18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”
19 He said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the LORD’s name before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”
Moses is told that God's name and glory include his character:
5 The LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the LORD’s name. 6 The LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD! The LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, 7 keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation.”
Jesus Christ showed God's glory:
14 The Word became flesh, and lived amongst us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus prays that believers may be involved in God's glory:
22 The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one; 23 I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.
God's purpose is that the earth will eventually be full of the knowledge of his glory:
14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD’s glory, as the waters cover the sea.
These chapters have links to this theme:
Category