“It is fitting that we end the year, looking forward to the Christmas holiday, with an issue on soli Deo gloria. Not only do the familiar Christmas carols and stories of angel voices singing “glory” to the Lord remind us of our celebration of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, but the entire Christmas story is of glory shrouded in weakness and hidden from the powerful. Far from being the triumphant last note of a Christmas cantata, soli Deo gloria is the underlying counterpoint directing our eyes and thoughts thirty-three years into the future when the babe in a manger hangs on a cross. Soli Deo gloria reflects the Reformation’s emphasis on a theology of the cross as much as any other sola.
But American Christians, particularly, have rejected the theology of the cross-of glory hidden in meekness, of wisdom revealed through foolishness, of power made powerful in weakness-in favor of a theology of glory that does not worship God so much as it uses God. Reformed pastor and co-host of the White Horse Inn radio show Kim Riddlebarger exposes the folly of so much of our own thinking about God in his piece titled, “Using God.”
The question must be asked, however, is it possible for a human to give the transcendent God glory? Does God lack something that only we can provide? What does such thinking do to our understanding of the great distinction between God as Creator and ourselves as creatures? Editor-in-chief and Reformed theologian Michael Horton tackles these questions and takes us to the Old Testament prophet Isaiah for answers-and along the way also gives us an astronomy lesson!”
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