The Glory of God in Paul’s Letters

The great underlying subject at the heart of much of Paul’s theology is God Himself. Paul most fully celebrates the glory of God when he presents his gospel, which is not simply a message of how individuals get saved from sin and death but how God has brought heaven and earth together in the Messiah (Eph 1:10). For Paul, the coming together of Jews and the Gentile nations into one body is a sign of this. Romans 15:1–13 states this great aim: that both Jew and Gentile “with one mind … may glorify with one mouth the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 15:6). Mutual welcome is indispensable within the body of Christ—Christians coming together across the boundaries of race, class, gender, and culture. Paul states that what was predicted in the Old Testament has now been accomplished, as people from across the world place their hope in Jesus Christ, the root of Jesse who rises to rule the nations (Rom 15:12). In Philippians 2:11 Paul rejoices that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, “to the glory of God the Father.”

Paul sees God glorified when people become truly themselves through the grace and power of the gospel (Col 3:10–11). God created us to bear His image in the world, and when that image is restored through the very image of God—Jesus Christ (Col 1:15)—and through the work of the Spirit, the living God is glorified as He is reflected into the world.

The primal sin of humanity is idolatry, worshipping and trusting that which is not God and so losing the glory of God. This stands in stark contrast to what happened when Abraham believed God and trusted that He could do what He had promised (Rom 1:18–25; 3:23; 4:18–21). That is part of the larger logic of Romans 1–4 as a whole. The reversal of the fall of humanity and the renewal of the whole cosmos is the theme of God’s overall plan of salvation. Within this scope, the saving plan for humanity is one vital part; we are justified in order to be justice-bringers, saved to be the agents of salvation for the world. God’s plan always was to rescue the world through Israel: This has been accomplished through Jesus, Israel’s representative Messiah.

God called Abraham so that through his family He might undo the sin of Adam. This is what the covenant with Israel was all about, and why—as Moses correctly saw—God’s own glory was at stake when the covenant appeared to have failed. After the Israelites forged the golden calf while Moses was on Mount Sinai, he asked God, in effect, “If you let us die in the wilderness, the Egyptians will hear of it, and then what will you do for your great name?” (Exod 32:11–13). God’s glory was at stake, then and throughout the story of Israel.

Here we arrive at one of the great truths of the gospel: The accomplishment of Jesus Christ is accounted to all those who are “in Him.” Paul’s view of God’s covenant plan focuses on Jesus as the Messiah in whom God’s people are summed up, and through whom, in their unity, they give glory and praise to the Creator. He will demonstrate it finally when He gives resurrection life to His people and through their “glory”—that is, their new, risen “rule” (compare Psa 8)—rescues the whole cosmos from bondage and decay (Rom 8:21).

In 1 Corinthians 15:20–28, as in Romans 8, Paul allows the argument to mount higher and higher, with Jesus already reigning as Messiah and Lord until He has put all His enemies under His feet, in fulfillment of Psalms 8 and 110. When the task is complete, and death itself is destroyed, He hands over the kingdom to the Father, so that God may be all in all. For Paul, the sole glory of God is intimately bound up with the healing and restoration of the whole of creation, and with the rescue of human beings from sin and death so that they may be restored as God’s image-bearers. “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,” Paul says in Romans 5:2, and by the end of Romans 8 we know what he means. Soli Deo gloria! (“Glory to God alone!”) is the cry that arises from fully understanding what Paul is saying in terms of creation and covenant.1

N. T. Wright