The Pinnacle of God’s Glory
- Message Excerpt by
- Topic: The Grace of God
Audio Transcript
There is an unbreakable connection between the glory of God, and the grace of God, and the Son of God, and the death of the Son of God. The glory of God, the glory of grace, the glory of the Son, and the glory of the cross — an unbreakable connection. I want to make sure you see that connection.
1. The apex of the glory of God is the grace of God. If the glory of God is Mount Everest, the grace of God is the peak.
It’s all going there, it’s all supported there. This is the most magnificent aspect of God’s glory, and here’s why I think that:
God predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of the glory of his grace. (Ephesians 1:5–6)
“To the praise of the glory of his grace.” He predestined us, unto sonship and holiness, so that praise would come not just to his glory but to the pinnacle of his glory, the glory of his grace, or as he calls it in Ephesians 2:7, “the riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” The aim of predestination, he says, is to live for the praise of the glory of his grace. That’s the end point. Everything else about God supports that and serves that, including his wrath.
I’ll just read you this passage from Romans 9:22–23:
God, desiring to show his wrath, and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy.
“The apex of the glory of God is the grace of God. If the glory of God is Mount Everest, the grace of God is the peak.”
Wrath and mercy are not coordinate. Wrath is subordinate and serves mercy. God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power — and do it with much patience — endures vessels of wrath in order to make known the riches of his glory to the vessels of his mercy. God’s wrath serves the revelation of the riches of his glory to the vessels of mercy.
This is why I’m calling grace the pinnacle of the mountain of his glory because wrath is part of his glory. It’s not an unglorious aspect of God to be angry at sin. It’s a glorious thing, but it’s not the main thing. It’s part of the mountain, but the top of the mountain is grace. That’s point number one of the five, that the apex of the glory of God is the grace or the mercy of God.
2. God planned this — the praise of the glory of his grace — before creation.
God planned that grace would be the pinnacle of his glory and God planned that before creation. Because it says in Ephesians 1:4:
God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, to the praise of the glory of his grace.
Grace was not an afterthought when he looked and saw Adam and Eve sin, like, “There goes my purpose. I will now do grace to reclaim creation.” That is totally not the way to think about it.
The Fall did not catch God off guard. He did not scratch his head and wonder what to do next. It says, “God chose us in Christ — in a redeemer — before the foundation of the world to the praise of grace.” Grace was the point of the creation.
3. God’s plan was that the praise of the glory of his grace would happen through the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Through the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, he planned before the foundation of the world that this would happen through Jesus. Grace would come to us through Jesus. Let me read verse 5 again from Ephesians 1:5:
He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to the praise of the glory of his grace.
Grace comes to us planned before the foundation of the world, through Jesus Christ. It’s not, I think, unwarranted to ponder the fellowship of the Trinity, and the Father, and the Son conceiving together, in no coercion whatsoever, a plan, whereby the Father consults with the Son out of his willingness, and the Son consults with the Father out of his intention, and a most magnificent agreement is reached: that the Son will die. After the universe is created and has fallen, and God has shown everything he wants to show about his holy self for 2,000 years of Jewish history — the Son would then enter and he would die. That was the plan.
God called us to a holy calling not because of works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. (2 Timothy 1:9)
Grace was given to you, Christian, before the universe was made, and it was given to you in Jesus Christ.
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