Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify Thee…I have glorified Thee on the earth.
—John 17:1, 4
Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples.
—John 15:8
The glory of an object is that its intrinsic worth answers perfectly to all that is expected of it. That excellence may be so hidden that the object has no glory to those who behold it. To glorify is to remove every hindrance, and so to reveal the full worth and perfection of the object that its glory is acknowledged by all.
The highest perfection and deepest mystery of the Godhead is His holiness. In it, righteousness and love are united. It is this holiness that is the glory of God. For this reason the two words are often found together. So in the song of Moses: “Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness?” (Exodus 15:11). So in the song of the seraphim: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3). And so in the song of the Lamb: “Who shall not…glorify Thy name? For Thou only art holy” (Revelation 15:4). As has been well said, “God’s glory is His manifested holiness; God’s holiness is His hidden glory.”
Jesus came to earth that He might glorify the Father, and so that He might again show forth that glory that sin had so entirely hidden from man. Man himself had been created in the image of God, so that God might lay His glory upon him—that God might be glorified in him. Jesus came to restore man to his high destiny. He laid aside the glory that He had with the Father, and came in our weakness and humiliation, so that He might teach us how to glorify the Father on earth. Man cannot contribute any new glory to God, above what He has: he can serve only as a mirror in which the glory of God is reflected. God’s holiness is His glory. As this holiness of God is seen in mankind, God is glorified.
Let us take time to take in this wondrous thought: our daily lives, down to their most ordinary acts, may be transparent with the glory of God. Let our whole life be animated by this principle, growing stronger until our watchword has become: all to the glory of God.