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A Biblical and Theological Examination of the Glory of God

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A Biblical and Theological Examination of the Glory of God The Journal of Ministry & Theology 5 A Biblical and Theological Examination of the Glory of God Bruce A. Baker Ryrie’s Sine Qua Non “What marks off a man as a dispensationalist? What is the sine qua non of the system?”2 In 1965, Charles Ryrie answered these questions in what is arguably his greatest contribution to the development of dispensationalism. In his book Dispensationalism Today, Ryrie listed for the first time his evaluation of the essentials (the sine qua non)3 of dispensationalism. These essentials were (1) A distinction between Israel and the church, (2) the use of a consistent literal hermeneutic, and (3) a doxological purpose of history.4 Ryrie’s sine qua non gained almost immediate acceptance throughout dispensational circles5 and rapidly became the standard Bruce A. Baker, Ph.D., is pastor at Washington County Bible Church in Brenham, Texas. Bruce can be reached at pastorbaker@washington countybible.org. 2 Charles Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, with a forward by Frank E. Gaebelein (Chicago: Moody, 1965), 43. 3 Sine qua non is a Latin phrase that strictly translated means “without which none” and is used to refer to the essential element or elements of something. Thus, according to Ryrie, the sine qua non of dispensationalism are those elements without which dispensationalism could not exist as a coherent theological system. 4 Ibid., 43–47. 5 The immediate acceptance of Ryrie’s sine qua non was due, at least in part, to the fact that these three propositions could be found individually in many previous dispensational writings. Walvoord’s interaction with Ladd provides just one example: “The reviewer believes a more tenable position is that the larger purpose of God is the manifestation of His own glory. To this end each dispensation, each successive revelation of God’s plan for the ages, His dealing with the nonelect as with the elect, and the glories of nature combine to manifest divine glory.… These issues have frequently been discussed from the dispensational point of view in 6 The Journal of Ministry & Theology definition for dispensationalism as a system for the next twenty years.6 Blaising correctly observes, “The importance of this work for the self-understanding of late twentieth-century dispensationalism cannot be overstated.”7 Still, a weakness of Ryrie’s third point is in the area of definition.8 Even though Ryrie discusses at great length the importance of a doxological purpose of history,9 he uses only Bibliotheca Sacra during the last ten years” (John F. Walvoord, “A Review of ‘Crucial Questions about the Kingdom of God,’” BibSac 110 [1953]: 3– 4. 6 These twenty years mark off the time from the original publication of the sine qua non to the advent of progressive dispensationalism in 1985. Forty-two years after Ryrie’s original publication, his belief in the importance of a doxological purpose of history had not changed: “The unifying principal of normative dispensationalism is doxological, or the glory of God, for the dispensations reveal the glory of God as He manifests His character in the differing stewardships given to man” (Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Dispensationalism, rev. and exp. ed. (Chicago: Moody, 2007), 107. 7 Craig A. Blaising, “Dispensationalism: The Search for Definition,” in Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church: The Search for Definition, ed. Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 23. 8 Interestingly, Ryrie does not broach the subject at all in his Basic Theology (Basic Theology: A Popular Systemic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth [Chicago: Moody, 1999]), an oversight he readily admits. See Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Transformed by His Glory (Wheaton, IL.: Victor, 1990), 9. 9 It appears that Ryrie included the doxological purpose of history in his sine qua non primarily to draw a distinction between dispensationalism and other theological systems: “The covenant theologian, in practice, believes this purpose to be salvation (although covenant theologians strongly emphasize the glory of God in their theology), and the dispensationalist says the purpose is broader then that; namely the glory of God. Progressives have a Christological center, apparently to undergird their emphasis on the Davidic covenant and on Christ as the already reigning Davidic ruler in heaven” (Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 48). But in drawing this distinction with covenant theology, it is possible that Ryrie overstates his case. Packer, for example, argues, “All serious Christian thinkers acknowledge that glorifying God is at once man’s divine calling and his highest joy, both here and here-after. Reformed theology goes A Biblical and Theological Examination of the Glory of God 7 one sentence to define it. Although Ryrie expands upon this definition in Transformed by His Glory, nowhere does he provide a detailed exegetical basis for it. An Historical Dispensational Understanding10 Ryrie understands the glory of God as follows: “The glory of God is manifesting God for who He is.”11 “Glory concerns what people think about something or someone, and thus refers to the reputation the person or object has. The glory of God is what He seems to be, which in His case is what He really is. It is God seen in some or all of His characteristics.”12 Walvoord’s definition is similar. He defines the glory of God as “the manifestation of God’s infinite perfections.” 13 This beyond other views, however, in emphasizing [that] … God’s goal in all that he does is his glory….” (“The Glory of God,” in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright [Downers Grove, IL.: InterVarsity, 1988], 272). Likewise, Jonathan Edwards argues that the glory of God is “God’s end in his works” and the end “which God had ultimately in view in the creation of the world….” (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 vols. [Peabody, MA.: Hendrickson, 2000], 1:116). Similarly, Piper argues that “God’s ultimate goal in all that he does it is to preserve and display his glory,” and reduces redemptive history to evidence for that claim (Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist [Sisters, OR.: Multnomah, 1996], 255). Piper also writes, “Redemption, salvation, and restoration are not God’s ultimate goal. These he performs for the sake of something greater: namely, the enjoyment he has in glorifying himself” (Ibid., 33). 10 I fully understand that a sample size of three is hardly determinative. This being said, in my search throughout dispensational writings, I discovered that although nearly everyone speaks of the glory of God, almost no one defines it. 11 Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 106. 12 Ryrie, Transformed by His Glory, 18-19. In this definition, Ryrie echoes, at least in part, what seems to be a popular understanding concerning the glory of God. Packer, for example, defines God’s glory as excellence and praiseworthiness on display as well as honor and adoration expressed in response to this display (Packer, “The Glory of God,” 271). 13 John F. Walvoord, The Prophecy Knowledge Handbook (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1990), 476. 8 The Journal of Ministry & Theology definition is given in a discussion of the glorious resurrection bodies awaiting the believer. These bodies are glorious in that they “reflect God’s perfections.”14 So, like Ryrie, Walvoord limits the glory of God to the manifestation of who he is. Upon reflection, however, limiting the glory of God to “the manifestation of God’s infinite perfections” may be too restrictive. For under this definition, it appears that God must be able to manifest himself to someone external to himself in order to be glorious. Put another way, this definition appears to depend upon a created order so that God might manifest his perfections. Thus, one would be forced to conclude that, prior to the creation of the existing order when only the Godhead existed, God’s infinite perfections existed, but his glory did not. Chafer’s definition seems more complete. He regards the glory of God as “both essential or intrinsic and declarative.”15 Chafer argues that God’s glory is essential because it is “concentrated in Himself. It is because of what He is that glory belongs to Him and only Him.”16 “Regardless of any 14 Ibid. 15 Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 8 vols. (Dallas: Dallas Seminary P, 1947-48; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1993), 7:172. It should be noted that this understanding of the glory of God is not limited to dispensational writers. Allen Ross, as just one example, argues that the word glory, when applied to the LORD, “is basically saying that he is the most important or preeminent person in this or any other universe. And when the Bible refers to the ‘glory of the LORD,’ it is usually referring to all the evidence of God’s preeminence” (Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the Garden to the New Creation [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006], 47). Drawing a distinction between holiness and glory, Ross continues, “To speak of God’s ‘holiness’ is to say that there is no one like him, that he has absolute power and perfection; to speak of God’s ‘glory’ is to say that he is preeminent in existence and that the whole universe is filled with evidence of his importance and sublimity” (Ibid., 48). Similarly, Herman Bavinck defines “the glory of the LORD” as “the splendor and brilliance that is inseparably associated with all of God’s attributes and his self-revelation in nature and grace, the glorious form in which he everywhere appears to his creatures” (Reformed Dogmatics, trans., John Vriend, 3 vols. [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004], 2:252). 16 Chafer, Systematic Theology, 7:173. A Biblical and Theological Examination of the Glory of God 9 recognition of it on the part of creatures, God is Himself a glorious being.”17 In contrast to the essential glory of God, the declarative glory of God “is that which His creatures may accord to Him.” 18 In one respect, all of the created order declares “a certain degree of that glory,”19 although not all of creation does so willingly.20 Still, it should be noted that the essential glory of God demands the declarative glory of God from his creation.
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