Glory

The glory of God is the weight, radiance, and sheer magnificence of all that he is — his perfections made visible. "The heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps 19:1); it filled the tabernacle and temple, blazed on Sinai, and shone in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4:6). Glory is not one attribute among others but the going-public of God's whole excellence.

We were made to see it and reflect it, forfeited it in sin ("all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Rom 3:23), and are being remade to share it — "from one degree of glory to another" (2 Cor 3:18). The restlessness of the human heart, its hunger for beauty and significance that nothing in this world finally satisfies, is at bottom a homesickness for this glory. The end of the story is a creation "filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea" (Hab 2:14).