God’s Glory: “The Final Goal”

November 3, 2025/Le Ann Trees/Faith

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When we talk about God’s glory, we are talking about everything that comes from God and everything God is. For example, God’s greatness, goodness, power, and love are all part of his glory and are called “attributes” (Isa. 42:8; Rom. 11:36). While we can’t see God, we can see at least some of his glory in what he does in the world. God’s glory can be overwhelming to experience because it is so beautiful and amazing. God rules from heaven, and heaven is filled with his glory (Ex. 24:17; Ps. 19:1; 72:19; 1 Tim. 1:17).

What is the glory of God?

Author Christopher Morgan gives a succinct definition of God’s glory:

The glory of God is the magnificence, worth, loveliness, and grandeur of his many perfections, which he displays in his creative and redemptive acts. (Morgan, “The Glory of God,” The Gospel Coalition)

God’s attributes include both his incommunicable attributes, such as his self-existence, self-sufficiency (aseity), eternality, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and unchangeableness (immutability), and his communicable attributes, in which humans image God imperfectly, such as his love, truth, mercy, holiness, and goodness. So God’s glory manifests his perfections, and this display of God’s glory is beautiful.

According to Jonathan King in his book, The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics,

“…everything God does is, by definition, beautiful (i.e., God-glorifying)….And the more perfectly you delight in that thing, the more you realize its beauty.” (p. 30)

In beauty we take delight in God’s revealed glory. King cites author David Bentley Hart, who states,

“In the beautiful, God’s glory is revealed as something communicable and intrinsically delightful, as including the creature in its ends, and as completely worthy of love.” (p. 61)

We see God’s glory in creation and his redemptive acts in Christ.

Everything God is and does is glorious because he is perfect in every way. God made the world, including people, to glorify him, and he sent his perfect Son Jesus to help us and make us glorious like him (John 1:14; Rom. 8:29-30; Phil. 2:10-11).

We get an idea of God’s glory from seeing the beauty and majesty of his creation. Another way we know about God’s glory is by reading the Bible and learning about him and all he has done and is doing because of his love for the world, most of all by redeeming us in Christ.

In his book God’s Glory Alone—The Majestic Heart of Christian Faith and Life, theologian David VanDrunen points out that the Bible’s references to divine glory “tell us something about who God is.” They illustrate that God is “the one worthy of all honor” and that his glory is revealed in the created order, which “we can really only perceive…as he manifests it in the world” (pp. 44-46).

The manifestation of God’s glory can be so majestic that it can also be terrifying, but Christians don’t have to be afraid.

We find God’s glory on display in Scripture in two key biblical events. In Exodus 19, before Moses went up the mountain, “there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled” (v. 16), and “Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly” (v. 18).

We also read about the fear the three women experienced in Mark 16:8 upon seeing the stone rolled away from the tomb and having an angel tell them Jesus had risen from the dead. The manifestation of God’s glory in the resurrection caused the women to be seized with trembling and astonishment, and likely most of us here would respond in the same way!

Christians don’t have to fear the display of God’s glory, though. In God’s glorious redemption in Christ—in the gospel—God comes near, indwelling his people by the Spirit, pouring out his blessings and favor, and preparing his bride, the church, for New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2).

We find God’s glory on display in its highest form in his love poured out in the shame of the cross.

Paradoxically, we find the greatest manifestation of God’s glory at the shameful cross where the Son of God was reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). According to VanDrunen,

The climactic work of Christ at Calvary was the ultimate in humiliation, shame, and reproach. Yet the Father gave him this work to do, Christ did it by the Spirit, and the persons of the Holy Trinity glorified themselves through it. The immeasurable love of God is on full display, for Christ’s obedience unto death—“even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8)—was precisely what we sinners needed for salvation. We observed earlier how God wills to be glorified through his works in this world and even in and through us. Here the Lord displays this in stark beauty: God wills to be glorified precisely through reconciling us to himself, and he does so through the cross (cf. Rom 5:10; 2 Cor 5:18–21; Col 1:21–22). (p. 77)

Take a moment and think about the attributes of God we see on display at the cross, and marvel at what a good, holy, loving, just, and merciful God we have. We can always trust God to uphold all his glorious attributes, and the greatest proof of this is the finished reconciling work of Christ, which is counted to all who trust in him alone for salvation.

Christians glorify God not only in their obedience but also in their sufferings.

In their sufferings Christians share in Christ’s sufferings and bring glory to God:

For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. (2 Cor. 1:5-7)

That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. (Phil. 3:10)

Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. (1 Pet. 4:16)

God’s glory is “the final goal of all God’s works.”

The apostle Paul encourages believers that their sufferings will pale in comparison to the glory that awaits them:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Rom. 8:18)

Instead of giving us the righteous judgment humankind deserved, God chose instead to take our just punishment upon himself and renew us, his image-bearers, so that we would be glorious with him. And if you belong to Christ, God is transforming you, even in the midst of the ugliness of this sinful and cursed world in which we live. As Paul writes,

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Rom. 8:29-30; emphasis added)

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:18; emphasis added)

The more we comprehend the revealed glory of God’s perfections in creation and his redemption in Christ, the more we delight in God. God is bringing his plans to fruition, and he knows far better than us what we need and what is for our good and his glory.

Indeed, God’s glory is the basis of our existence. As theologian Herman Bavinck so beautifully states in his book, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation,

God gives his glory to no other (Isa. 42:80. The final goal is that all kingdoms will be subjected to him and every creature will yield to him (Dan. 7:27; Isa. 2:2-22; Mal. 1:11; 1 Cor.15:24f.). Even on earth already he is given glory by all his people (Psalms. 115:1; Matt. 6:13 KJV). Someday God alone will be great (Isa. 2:2-22) and receive glory from all his creatures (Rev. 4:11; 19:6). He is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega (Isa. 44:6; 48:12; Rev. 1:8; 22:13). Of him, through him, and to him are all things (Rom. 11:36). On this basis Christian theology almost unanimously teaches that the glory of God is the final goal of all God’s works. (p. 433)

In summary, God deserves all glory for he alone is worthy to receive it. God deserves all glory for everything we have since it has been given to us from him—including life itself. God deserves all glory for he gave his only Son so that we would be glorious with him for all eternity.

Praise God that our joy and worth come not from our own accomplishments but instead from all Christ has accomplished on our behalf.

This article is adapted from “God’s Glory: ‘The Final Goal’” in BCL’s July 2025 monthly newsletter “Glory.”

Le Ann Trees is a writer, editor, speaker, wife, mom, and grandma. She is the former managing editor of White Horse Inn’s Core Christianity website and Bible studies and the former dean of women for Westminster Seminary California from where she also earned a Master of Arts in Theological Studies in 2014. Le Ann is managing editor of Beautiful Christian Life.