Where does the Bible talk about glory? 

The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, pastoral care, or worship planning focused on glory. 

• Exodus 24:15-17, glory of the Lord (God's glory on Mount Sinai)
• Psalm 8:4-5, humans crowned with glory (God crowned us with glory and honor)
• Psalm 19:1, glory of God (the heavens tell of God's glory)
• Psalm 24:9, the King of glory (the Lord of hosts)
• Isaiah 6:3, earth is full of God's glory (the Lord of hosts is holy and glorious)
• Isaiah 60:1-2, God's glory has risen upon you (the Lord's glory will appear over you)
• Luke 2:8-9, glory of the Lord shone (God's glory terrified the shepherds in the fields)
• John 1:14, seeing Christ's glory (the glory of the Father's only Son)
• John 2:9-11, Jesus' glory revealed (miracle at Cana revealed Jesus' glory)
• John 12:23-24, Jesus glorified (the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified)
• John 13:31, God glorified in the son (after Judas left, Jesus said the Son of Man had been glorified)
• John 17:22, glory given (God passes his glory to Jesus, who passes it to his disciples) 

When Moses went up Mount Sinai, the glory of the Lord hovered over the mountain like a bonfire inside a cloud of smoke. The cloud and the fire were already familiar to the Israelites because God had led them out of Egypt by means of a mysterious pillar of cloud each day and a mysterious pillar of fire each night. 

When the fourth gospel wants to describe the Word made flesh, it says that he "became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory." When John says, "we have seen his glory," a Jewish reader would think at once of the tabernacle and the temple. Of course, glory is all over the place in the Old Testament. God's glory hangs over Israel in the open air. It settles over Mount Sinai inside a cloud, so that you have this eerie atmospheric combination of a smoky haze covering a fierce fire. Glory is in the stars because the heavens declare the glory of God. Glory is on human heads because we are made in God's image. God has crowned us like kings and queens, crowned us with glory and honor. Sometimes a prophet will claim that the whole earth is full of God's glory. 

Sermon ideas about glory 

Consuming fire 

In a sermon on glory, how can we explore what it refers to? Glory is everywhere, but in a Jewish mind the glory is especially in the tabernacle and then the temple. It's, once more, a fire inside a cloud, almost a consuming fire, and there are times when Moses in the Tabernacle or the priests in the temple have to back away from their worship. God's glory is too bright. The glory is too hot today. You might say that we human beings are like moths drawn to the flame of God's glory, but it's a consuming fire. You have to watch yourself around glory. So Luke's account of the shepherds outside Bethlehem when Jesus was born: when the glory of the Lord shone around them, they were terrified. 

A radiant, weighty presence 

Glory is theophanic luminosity, which is a fancy way of saying it is radiant presence. Radiance, splendor, magnificence, light, brilliance — all are in the cognitive field of glory. But glory, both in Hebrew and Greek, also conveys a sense of weightiness, worthiness, gravitas. When the King of glory comes in, he's too big and too heavy for the gates and doors. They have to rise right up off their hinges to admit him. 

Human beings themselves have great dignity because they are crowned with God's glory. We may be nobility in ruins, but we are still nobility. But glory is especially recognized weightiness and worthiness. In Isaiah 60, the nations of the world bring their national treasures into the city of God. Lebanon brings its lumber because that's its glory. Lumber is what Lebanon is known for. 

Excerpts about glory 

Following are sample excerpts from Zeteosearch.org sermon resources about glory: 

• "Yet the gospel wants us to find glory in this disaster, and we want to know what this mysterious glory is and why we should see it in Jesus' terrible suffering." Article about Theology by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. from The Banner  

• "Our text tells us that God has 'called us unto his eternal glory? 'Glory!' does not the very word astound you? 'Glory!' surely that belongs to God alone! Yet the Scripture says 'glory,' and glory it must mean, for it never exaggerates." Scripture Meditation or Sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon from Spurgeon Center for Biblical Preaching  

• "By now, 'gloria' has made its way into French ('gloire') and from there into English, where it lives the same dual life that 'kabod' and 'doxa' did: 'glory' meaning 'fame' ('Days of Glory') and 'glory' meaning transcendent splendor ('the glory of the sunrise')."Article about Scripture by Nathan Bierma from Calvin Institute of Christian Worship