Last time we started looking at Solo Christo (Christ alone). The philosophical field of ethics is divided into applied ethics and meta-ethics. The latter is an investigation into the concepts and methods of ethics. The two fields, however, are not always easy to keep separate because ethics must be applied. The last post was meta-theological (and this one is as well) since it looked at the deepest level of the concept, which was how Christ alone was rooted in God Himself. In one sense it is a concept when we look at the beauty of a doctrine as it relates to the inner workings of the Trinity and yet it is very practical when we see that the basis and example of our practice comes from the inner workings of the Trinity. Even more, we then see how it is God Himself that must give us love to put into practice what we practice and that is because Christ Himself is to be our life.
Christ Himself is the very outshining of the glory of God (I John 1:14-18; Heb 1:3). When we speak of doing all to the glory of God, we must not just think of doing something that makes God look good. It is, very plainly when we look at it clearly, a very arrogant thing to think of ourselves as being able to make God look good. It is the height of arrogance to think that my good work will in some way make God look good. In fact, if I am doing something in my own strength thinking that it makes God look good or honors Him in some way, then I have just resorted to pleasing God by my own works. It seems that a lot of talk about doing things to the glory of God in our day is really just a biblical way to talk about a works oriented way of sanctification. If I say or think that my joy or my good works are things that I do so that God is honored, then I am saying that there is something that I can do that glorifies God. If by definition Christ is the outshining of the glory of God, then it is by Christ alone that God is truly glorified. But, one might argue, all of nature manifests the glory of God. That is very true, but all things were created through, by, and for Jesus Christ (John 1:1-4; Colossians 1:16).
What we arrive at by looking at things in this way is the utterly glorious thought that God glorifies Himself through Christ alone and in some way creation shines with the glory of God as it shines out in Christ as well. In creation as well as in the Gospel it is God’s glory that shines in Christ alone. Our own works, therefore, cannot make God look good or even honor God in the slightest if they do not come from Christ and are not for Christ. It is not that our works glorify God as man cannot glorify God apart from Christ. In Christ the glory of God is more than just a thought, it is reality. The glory of God is not just a thought about God, it is God Himself expressed in and through Christ. The glory of God is only seen as it shines in and through Christ (John 1:14-18). It is not as if grace is an intellectual concept, it is the glory of God shining out in and through Christ to sinners who have not done one thing to deserve Christ nor can they.
The glory of God is not something that a human being can access by him or herself, it is something that God must do to shine out of Himself. Older theologians have looked at this as the glory ad intra and the glory ad extra. The first is the inner glory of God and the latter is the external expression of the outer glory. No man can reach inside of God and make Him shine forth His glory. It is only if God chooses to express His inner glory that His glory shines outward. The only place or location that His glory shines out of is Christ. In this sense God does nothing but through Christ alone. All of God’s glory that shines out in the world is through Christ and Christ alone.
This leaves us with one question. If man is commanded to do all he does to the glory of God, yet Christ is the only way God is truly glorified, then how is man to glorify God? In some ways the answer is almost self-evident. However, we can know that our joy, works, preaching, and all we do can never reach inside God and force Him or manipulate Him to shine forth in Christ. Nothing we can do will ever glorify God unless God shines forth His glory in Christ. So we know that we must have Christ in us and that Christ must be our life in order for the glory of God to shine through us and so God be glorified in and through us. The true believer only glorifies God when the believer is so broken and humbled that God dwells in that person through Christ who is the outshining of the glory of God and it is Christ that shines through the person. It is only when Christ is truly shining in and through a person that God is truly glorified. It is only when a believer loves with the love that is worked in him or her by the Spirit (love is the fruit of the Spirit) for the sake of Christ that the internal glory of God is manifested or becomes external. This is the way, then, that the believer glorifies God by Christ alone. The believer is the temple of Christ who is the outshining of the glory of God, and by the Spirit the character of God is shared with and then manifested through the believer by Christ. In other words, as those who are one with Christ behold His glory and partake of Him, they are transformed from on degree of glory to another and so God’s glory is manifested through believers.
God Loves... Himself 
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