Romans 5:1-2 “Glory”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Therefore, being justified out of faith, we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we also have gained access by faith into this grace in which we have taken a stand, and we revel on [the] hope of the glory of God.

“We revel in the hope of the glory of God.”

I think it is easy to read those words and say, “Hallelujah. Amen!” However, if I pause and ask myself, “But what exactly does it mean?” I realize I don’t know. How do we “hope in the glory of God?” and why use this wording anyway? Shouldn’t it say something like, “And we revel in the hope of one day seeing God’s glory”? It seems like that would immediately make sense. However, why is it just “the hope of the glory of God?” What glory? In what way? What exactly is Paul thinking of when he sees us “reveling in the glory of God?”

As I pondered this question, I was reminded of Rom. 3:23, where it says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” I’ve had the same problem there. I’ve asked myself, “What does that really mean?” and, as I mentioned in the last post, I ask myself why it didn’t say something like, “For all have sinned and fall short of God’s holy standard.”

As I pondered here on Romans 5:2, I realized there is perhaps something here I’m totally missing, so I decided to peruse through the Bible and see what else it says about “the glory of God.” I got out my Strong’s Concordance and turned to “glory.” Of course, one also has to look at “gloried, glorying, glorify, glorious” and all those many grammatical variations of the concept of glory. However, as I did peruse down through the verses, looked up the ones that seemed instructive, and wrote out those I found particularly meaningful, I actually think I did strike on something momentous.

I’m going to try to put it into words and hope it is helpful to anyone else who might stumble across these thoughts. Here’s the deal: First of all, the Bible would teach us that God is glorious. The whole earth is filled with His glory. The heavens declare the glory of God. God is glorious in every possible way! It is a fractal of His very being that He is glorious. Everything He does is glorious. Everything He is is glorious. Now, can I suggest, it goes without saying this is the teaching of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation?

Of course that “glory” extends to the Lord Jesus. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory…” (Heb. 1:3). In order to be our Savior, He “set aside the free exercise of His divine attributes” to be born a helpless baby and to live as one of us here on earth. Even in that, His great Kenosis, His “taking the very nature of a servant” and “being made in human likeness,” what did the angels say? “Glory to God in the highest!” John says “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory” (John 1:14). Because He came, the Bible can say, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Cor. 4:6). We understand the glory of God “in the face of Christ!”

All of that is great, of course, but it still doesn’t explain to me how I “revel in the hope of the glory of God.” Where I began to see the hope is when I started seeing the passages where all this glory actually extends to us. Of course, God is glorious. Of course, Jesus is glorious, but we’re just created beings, lowly creatures, right? What does the Bible say, “What is man that You are mindful of Him? You made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:4,5). “Crowned him with glory and honor.” When God created Adam and Eve, He created them in “glory and honor.” I would almost suggest that is inevitable. The fractal of God’s glory fills the universe so that, when He creates man, man cannot be anything less than glorious. Our glory flows from His. Our glory is because He is.

You and I were born to be glorious.  How could we be less if we were created by a glorious God? The whole earth is filled with His glory and that includes us. We’re filled with it. Think about II Cor. 3:18: “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” We “reflect” His glory. It “comes from the Lord,” but we do reflect it.

Our problem, of course, is that sin entered the picture. Instead of “glorious,” now God describes us as “Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness—only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil” (Isa. 1:5,6). “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And there is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of Thee: for Thou hast hid Thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities” (Isa. 66:6,7).

Sin degraded us. Here is where I believe I begin to see the “hope.” The glory of God is our proper place. It is where we belong. We were created to share in God’s glory, to be ourselves glorious because He is. Certainly, like the image of God itself, man still exhibits that glory in many ways, but in our fallen world, that glory is horrifically marred. Instead of “glory,” ours is a world filled with cruelty, misery, disease, and oppression. We destroy ourselves and waste the very lives we were given. On a personal level, we destroy our relationships, and on the larger plane we fight wars and murder each other’s sons and daughters.

I was once in a place and suddenly someone pushed in a young man in a wheel chair. The young man must have had severe cerebral palsy. He was twisted, distorted, and pitiful. He obviously could not speak and probably had little recognition of even what was happening around him. As I looked at him, it struck me how in a sense, that is not him. That is not who that young man was meant to be. In the short second I observed it all, I could see that, in reality, he was a very intelligent, very talented, handsome young man, who should stand up straight and dive straight ahead into the glorious life he was intended for. But look what the curse of sin did to him. It utterly robbed him of all but a glimpse of the glory that should have been his. What will death mean for him? Will it not mean to wake up in the presence of the Lord Jesus, to stand up straight, to be gloriously handsome, and ready to face an eternity of the glory he was born for?

However, are you and I really any different? Has not the curse of sin also twisted and disfigured us? Has it not robbed us of the glory that should have been ours? Seeing all of this, it begins to make sense to me why “we revel in the hope of the glory of God!” What does it say, “Whom He justified, them he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we wait for the Savior…who shall change or lowly body that it may be fashioned like His glorious body” (Phil. 3:20,21). “Our body is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory” (I Cor. 15:43). Like that young man, we have hope precisely because God created us for glory. That is our eternal future in Christ! “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4).

Our hope goes far beyond that, though, because that glory reaches down to touch us even here. As we read above in II Cor. 3:18, as we behold His image, we are even now being changed into that image “with ever-increasing glory.” To be “conformed to the image of Christ” is actually to have our very lives redeemed, to see ourselves restored to the glory for which we were created. We were created in the image of God and that is where we belong. This too is part of what Paul meant when he talked about, “urging you to live lives worthy of God who calls you into His kingdom and glory” (I Thes. 2:12). Sin makes us live lives of shame and disgrace. To live for Christ and His kingdom lifts you and me to actually live lives of honor.

I believe all of this is exactly why Paul calls it simply “the glory of God.” Glory is because God is. However, that glory is very real and encompasses us!

As I said to begin with, I think this is momentous truth. It actually explains a LOT about our world. It explains why we humans are so enamored with “greatness.” We all love to be honored. We like to be “decked out” and, as soon as we have the money, most of us will surround ourselves with beautiful clothes, a mansion of a house, the most expensive car(s), and any and every other possible indication of “greatness.” Why is that? Because that is what we were born for: glory.

However, it turns ugly when we forget that we are only reflecting God’s glory, that it all comes from Him, and that without Him we are nothing. When we leave out the Lord, we invariably become arrogant. Too often the rich and powerful actually become animals in their cruelty and greed. How often is it true that the very rich and famous in our world actually live pathetic lives of drug and alcohol addiction, of multiple divorces, of badly estranged relationships within their families, and so forth? An honest survey of human history will expose that many of them actually die in abject misery, though their very bed may be plated with gold.

This also explains why we should not accept shameful behavior in our lives. Perhaps certain habits are comfortable to us, but if they are dishonorable, then our desire should be that the Lord should redeem us from them, that He should help us to, in effect, stand up straight and step ahead into the honorable, the glorious person He made us to be.

This too would change how we see each other. Yes, everyone around us has been twisted by sin, but that doesn’t efface the fact we were created in glory and for glory. As we look at others, may we look to see that glory. May we look to see the beauties, the strengths, the talents the Lord has invested into each and every human being.

There is no doubt much more that could be said, but I can confidently state now it makes perfect sense to me why, being justified by faith, we can now “revel in the hope of the glory of God.” It makes perfect sense to me why Paul describes our problem as falling short of “the glory of God.” And may we all be the more moved to love and praise Jesus whose death and resurrection has rescued us from the shame and dishonor of sin, and purchased for us the restoration of glory!