Glorifying God

Glorifying God is the creaturely act of ascribing glory back to him. The UPDV gathers it under three movements: the duty owed by God's people, examples in which it is actually rendered, and the way that, in the New Testament, it is routed through Christ. The verb is consistently imperative or doxological; the speakers are congregations, individuals, and heavenly choirs; the content is praise, fear, fruit, offerings, and the ascription of greatness, holiness, salvation, and power to God.

The Duty Owed

The Psalter casts glorifying God as a triple charge to the covenant assembly. "You⁺ who fear Yahweh, praise him; All you⁺ the seed of Jacob, glorify him; And stand in awe of him, all you⁺ the seed of Israel" (Ps 22:23). The plural-you imperatives bind praise, glorifying, and awe together as one duty owed by Jacob's seed.

In the Gospels, that same duty is folded into discipleship and into prayer. "In this is my Father glorified, that you⁺ may bear much fruit and may be my disciples" (John 15:8). The Father's glory is the end of the branches' fruit-bearing.

Paul lays the duty on the corporate body and on the personal body. He prays "that with one accord you⁺ may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 15:6) — unity of mind and unity of speech as the manner of the duty. To the Corinthians the same duty is grounded in the purchase: "for you⁺ were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your⁺ body" (1 Cor 6:20). To the Thessalonians it is mutual and grace-measured: "that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you⁺, and you⁺ in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess 1:12).

Sirach voices the duty in cultic terms. "Glorify God and honor the priest. And give their portion as you were commanded" (Sir 7:31), with the catalogue of priestly portions following — first-fruits bread, the heave-offering of the hand, the sacrifices of righteousness, the heave-offering of the holy things. The duty is enjoined again under the discipline of generosity: "With a good eye glorify the Lord, And do not hold back the offerings of your hands. In all your works let your countenance beam, And with gladness sanctify your tithe" (Sir 35:10-11). The inward disposition (good eye, beaming face, gladness) is bound to the outward act (offerings, tithe). Sirach also frames the duty as the very reason humanity was equipped at creation: man was made "And might declare the fear of him in the world, And praise his holy name" (Sir 17:9-10).

The Living Praise the Lord

Sirach extends the duty by pressing the point that praise is a function of the living. "For what pleasure does God have in all who perish in the world, Instead of those who live and give him praise? Thanksgiving perishes from the dead as from one who does not exist, [But] he who lives and is in health praises the Lord" (Sir 17:27-28). The duty is discharged while breath remains: "And now sing praises with all your heart, And bless the name of the Holy One" (Sir 39:35). The whole-heart register is matched by an instrumented, corporate one: "O magnify his name, And give utterance to his praise, With songs of the harp and of stringed instruments, And thus will you⁺ say, with a shout" (Sir 39:15). The closing benediction of the Simon-hymn supplies the model: "Now bless the God of all, Who does wondrously on earth, Who exalts man from the womb, And does to him according to his good pleasure" (Sir 50:22) — imperative blessing grounded in three remembered acts of God.

Examples Rendered

The Old Testament supplies a paradigm doxology in David's assembly-blessing. "Yours, O Yahweh, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the grandeur: for all that is in the heavens and in the earth [is yours]; yours is the kingdom, O Yahweh, and you are exalted as head above all" (1 Chr 29:11). Each attribute is yours-O-Yahweh ascribed; the totality clause sweeps all heaven and earth into the ascription.

Isaiah catches a heavenly counterpart in the seraphic antiphon. "And one cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isa 6:3). Threefold holiness and earth-filling glory join in a single Yahweh-of-hosts cry.

The Apocalypse multiplies the heavenly examples. The twenty-four elders fall before the throne and say, "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for you created all things, and because of your will they were, and were created" (Rev 4:11). The innumerable palm-bearing multitude "cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb" (Rev 7:10) — the ascription is offered jointly to the throne-God and to the Lamb. The conquerors of the beast sing, "Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you only are holy; for all the nations will come and worship before you; for your righteous acts have been made manifest" (Rev 15:4) — fear and name-glorifying drawn out by holiness, nation-drawing worship, and manifest righteous acts. And the great heaven-multitude opens the wedding-vision with a Hallelujah: "Hallelujah; Salvation, and glory, and power, belong to our God" (Rev 19:1).

God Glorified in Christ

The Fourth Gospel locates the Father's glorifying specifically in the Son. At the moment Judas departs, Jesus declares, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him" (John 13:31): the place of God's glorification is named as the Son of Man. The Son frames answered prayer the same way: "And whatever you⁺ will ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13). And he reports the work as completed: "I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work which you have given me to do" (John 17:4) — the glorifying is traced to the accomplished commission.

Peter generalizes the Johannine pattern into a universal channel: "if any man speaks, [speaking] as it were oracles of God; if any man serves, [serving] as of the strength which God supplies: that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen" (1 Pet 4:11). Every speaking and every serving is to be carried back to God along one channel — through Jesus Christ — to whom the closing doxology assigns the glory and the dominion.