In the last newsletter we began to look at the purpose for conversion in terms of what God purposes or intends by converting sinners. Conversion is clearly the work of God alone and He only converts sinners by His grace and according to His eternal purposes. So many errors arise when we look at conversion from man-centered or man-focused way. Man desires to be free from hell and have a good life. So if a person says a prayer and seems to be blessed of God, that person will think that s/he is converted. It does not take much to get some people to say a prayer and then to lead something of an externally moral life. When they think of themselves as being blessed of God both now and in eternity, it is easy for them to think of themselves as saved or converted. But if we try to understand conversion as the work of God and its purpose being assigned to it by God, then everything changes.
In the last newsletter one aspect of glorifying God was mentioned that will be the focus of this newsletter. The Bible is clear that we are to live to the glory of God which means that we are to do all to the glory of God. But what is not so clear in our day is the meaning of that. If we think of doing something to His glory and all we mean by that is that we mention His name in what we do, then that is quite easy. If we mean by that we do things in order to make God look good (though we may state it differently), then as long as we do things that we think make God look good we are doing fine. If by that we mean that what we do honors God, then what we do that we think honors Him makes us think we am fulfilling the command quite well. But the problem is that none of those things really make sense in light of Scripture as a whole. It is true that at times we think of God being glorified when someone does something that honors Him, but that is not the pinnacle of partaking in His holiness. How we perceive or understand this has massive ramifications for the Gospel, worship and for daily life.
In the last newsletter I wrote this: “We must not imagine that human beings can glorify God by their own strength and wisdom. We think that we can do things to glorify Him, but we can’t. We may think we glorify God if we are moral and do religious things, but that is the creed of the Pharisees. We must begin to understand that God’s glory belongs to God alone. In the past the glory of God was spoken of as ad intra and then ad extra.” The following quotes are aimed at trying to understand these things more.
“When He is said to seek His own glory, it is, indeed, nothing else but to ray and beam forth, as it were, His own lustre…God does then most glorify and exalt Himself in the most triumphant way that may be, ad extra, or out of Himself, if I may so phrase it, when He most of all communicates Himself, and when He erects such monuments of His own majesty, wherein His own love and goodness may live and reign. And we then most of all glorify Him, when we partake most of Him; when our serious endeavours after a true assimilation to Him, and conformity to His image…The Divine love, according to those degrees by which it works upon the souls of men, in transforming them into its own likeness, by the same renders them more acceptable to itself, mingleth itself with, and uniteth itself to, them.” (John Smith, Select Discourses).
“We cannot see Divine things but in a Divine light; God only, who is the true light, and in whom there is no darkness at all, can so shine out of Himself upon our glassy understandings, as to beget in them a picture of Himself, His own will and pleasure, and turn the soul, as the phrase is, like wax or clay to the seal of His own light and love…Many are apt to misapprehend the notion of God’s glory, and flatter themselves with their pretended and imaginary aiming at the glory of God…A man does not direct all his actions to the glory of God by forming a conception in his mind, or stirring up a strong imagination upon any action, that that must be for the glory of God; it is not the thinking of God’s glory that is glorifying of Him…We rather glorify God by entertaining the impressions of His glory upon us, rather than by communicating any kind of glory to Him… It is His own internal glory that He most loves, and the communication thereof which He seeks… Though God cannot seek His own glory as if He might acquire any addition to Himself, yet He may seek it so as to communicate it out of Himself…As God’s seeking His own glory in respect of us, is must properly the flowing forth of His goodness upon us; so our seeking the glory of God is most properly our endeavouring after a participation of His goodness, and an earnest incessant pursuing after Divine perfection…God seeks no glory but His own; and we have none of our own to give Him…Salvation is nothing else but a true participation of the Divine nature.” (John Smith, Select Discourses).
Isaiah 42:8 might point to a problem: “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another” However, God’s not giving His glory to another is different than His shining out in sinners and making them partakers of His glory. It is still His glory. Conversion is not a person making a change and then working to make God look good, but it is God making the soul a partaker of His Divine glory. We partake as God shines out of Himself into us continually and the sinner becomes like God as s/he is transformed by that glory (II Cor 3:18). God is not giving the sinner something that becomes his or hers, but He is sharing Himself in such a way that the sinner becomes like Him more and more. But the glory is always His. Thus we can see how it is that God opposes the proud and yet gives grace to the humble. The proud want to use the things of God for their own glory and welfare so God does not share Himself with them. The humble see and know that they are to be emptied of self and so receive all from Him and that it is His glory that is shining through them. The glory of God, then, shines in and through these people and He delights Himself and His own glory as it transforms them and shines through them.
“So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. 20 But you did not learn Christ in this way, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Ephesians 4:17-24).
The text above also points us to many things about conversion. Unbelief is to live in the futility of a mind that is darkened and excluded from the life of God. Unbelief has to do with ignorance and hardness of heart which leads to sensuality. But learning Christ (not just doctrine, but to know Him in the depths of the soul) is to lay aside the of the old self and to put on the new self. The new self has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. The new self is created in God or in the likeness of God. This is what John Smith (from above) is referring to when he speaks of a Divine light that begets a picture of Himself. In other words, conversion is not just some mechanical operation that God does upon the soul, but it is the activity of God that takes sinful creatures and makes them like Himself. In the Trinity God shines out the Lord Christ Jesus which is the shining forth of His glory (John 1:14-18; Heb 1:1-3). This is simply how the triune God functions. When God shines out in a sinner’s soul, He shines out in Christ and that glory is a creating glory which takes a sinner and transforms him or her. It is that glory that takes a person and transforms him or her to be like Him from one degree of glory to another (II Cor 3:18).
God is perfectly holy and perfectly beautiful. His great love is within the Trinity and He cannot love another unless it is out of love for Himself. When He sets His love on a sinner, He gives that sinner what is best and that is Himself. But to do that He must change the sinner from the inside out which is conversion. He must change sinners so that they can receive the shining forth of His glory and be changed to where they love His glory and desire that glory to shine forth from them. He must change their minds, their hearts, their loves, and therefore their wills. God’s purpose in saving sinners is to manifest the glory of His grace (Eph 1:5-6; 2:4-10). He does not save them just so they can escape hell, but in order that they would manifest the glory of His grace for eternity. But we must also remember that believers are temples of the glory of God now. When the Bible tells us that we are saved to the glory of His grace, this is not to be understood as meaning that we are inactive. It means that we are now to be those that have the glory of God dwelling in us and that glory is to change us and then shine through us.
As John Smith said, “God seeks no glory but His own; and we have none of our own to give Him.” For a sinner to glorify God it is God that must seek His glory through that person. It is God that changes the sinner to see and love His glory. It means that the sinner is a dwelling place of that glory. It means that the sinner does not seek his or her own way, but the life that they now have (Christ, the glory of God) lives in them and makes them partakers of His glory. As they behold His glory they are changed more and more to become like Him and to partake of the Divine glory. It is then that His glory shines out through them because it really is His glory shining through them. It is always His glory and yet we glorify Him because we are converted to His image of glory. Conversion is God taking a soul and making it like Him in seeking His glory as He shines out in His glory. That is a radical change.
God Loves... Himself 
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