Romans 5:4 - Glory of God - by Ken Clezy

Ro 5:4 And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Paul has a number of favourite words: love, joy, peace and hope.

I Cor 13 deals with love; Ro 5:1 is a major statement about peace with God and Ro 5:4 uses rejoice, the verbal form of joy. We are to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

In ordinary English usage the word hope implies uncertainty, as in hope about the weather, but there is nothing uncertain about Christian hope. Ro 8: 24-25 says Hope that is seen is not hope at all; who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it patiently.

So here Paul is telling us that in due course we will see the glory of God. We already see some of it in creation (Ps 19:1) and it has been revealed in Jesus Christ (John 1:14) and in due course the glory of God will be made plain.

First, Jesus Christ himself will be revealed in power and great glory (Mark 13:26).

Second, we will not only see his glory but we will be changed into it (1 John 3:2) so that he will be glorified in his holy people (2 Thess 1:10.) Right now we fall short of the glory of God (Ro 3:23) but eventually we will share in his glory (Ro 8:17).

Finally, the whole creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Ro 8:21).

The whole universe will display God’s glory. This suggests that Paul would be a greenie (of the best kind) if he were alive today. So why do so few Christians have greenie tendencies?