Dale Partridge - Who Are the Image and Glory of God？ - Dale Partridge

00:00:00.000 On this episode of Real Christianity, we're going to be talking about man as the glory of God. What

00:00:05.400 does that really mean? All that and more coming up right now. Welcome to this episode of Real

00:00:27.660 Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge. We are excited to have you back. Honestly, we have been

00:00:33.000 a little bit absent, have missed a couple of weeks. We're still transitioning up to our new

00:00:38.220 location up in Prescott, Arizona, and our office is actually headquartered down the mountain. So

00:00:45.140 it's been a bit for us to get down to the studio. I also don't have, if you're watching the video,

00:00:49.580 I don't have the same mic that I'm usually using, and we're going to be using a different mic today,

00:00:53.360 and that's okay. But this episode, I think, is going to be a really important episode. We're

00:00:56.700 talking about man as the glory of God. What does that really mean? In fact, what is glory and how

00:01:04.000 do we define glory according to scripture? And so if you're a regular listener, I want you to know

00:01:10.820 that we appreciate you spending time and your commitment to listening to this podcast. One

00:01:16.660 thing, we just finished our brand new book, Simple Theology, A Gospel Catechism for Kids.

00:01:21.900 it's now available. In fact, sitting from me, maybe, I don't know, Trevor, why don't you go

00:01:27.020 grab one of these books and I'll actually show it to people that are watching the video here.

00:01:30.960 We got four pallets of these books, which is a beautiful, beautiful book. And you can see this

00:01:37.600 here in the video, Simple Theology, A Gospel Catechism for Kids. It is, if you're listening

00:01:43.060 to this, I'll give you a description. It's got this beautiful gold foiling cover on this burgundy

00:01:46.720 a hard case book with cream paper. It's got a satin ribbon marker, a smithstone binding.

00:01:53.160 And what it is, it's a hundred questions to teach your kids the gospel. A hundred questions

00:01:58.240 that'll walk your kids through what it means to believe in Christ. And you can talk through

00:02:05.400 church and anthropology and systematics and all these things in a hundred steps,

00:02:11.720 100 questions. It also is set up so that you can have answers for little kids,

00:02:17.640 medium kids, and older kids. I don't know what we call medium kids, right? But you know what I'm

00:02:21.740 saying. So you can pick up a copy of that, Simple Theology, at our store at shop.relearn.org,

00:02:29.540 or I think the URL is relearn.org forward slash simple, and that'll take you there. Great,

00:02:36.320 great present for Christmas if you're watching it in the pre-Christmas months, but that would

00:02:41.880 be a great gift to have to your family or to some other family. So again, let's jump into

00:02:47.040 this episode of Real Christianity, Man as the Glory of God. I'm going to read 1 Corinthians

00:02:57.480 11, 7 through 9. It says, for a man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory

00:03:06.000 of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.

00:03:13.920 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." Okay, this might be one of the more

00:03:20.000 controversial passages of scripture. And yes, I did write an entire book on this passage of

00:03:24.060 scripture, a book called A Cover for Glory, speaking about head coverings. I'm not going

00:03:29.060 to be talking about head coverings in this episode. So we're going to just be going on

00:03:32.800 the conversation more with the men here. But a couple of things is that this is a controversial

00:03:37.200 passage of scripture because it claims that men are the image and glory of God,

00:03:44.760 but woman is the glory of man. Really what this is saying is that a woman is not the glory of God.

00:03:53.920 She's the glory of man. And it doesn't mean that she's not made in the image of God. She certainly

00:03:59.060 is made in the image of God. We know that from Genesis, but we are different and truly we are

00:04:06.640 different in the sense that we have different glories and we will understand what that means

00:04:11.240 here in a second. Glory being defined really is the rightful radiant substance of a particular

00:04:22.580 object. That's what it means to be glorious or what glory is. And I'm going to explain just to

00:04:29.780 give you a better grasp of what I mean by that. It's the correct and true expression of something.

00:04:36.640 That is what makes it glorious. To be glorious is the correct and rightful expression of a

00:04:43.240 particular object. And so everything has a corresponding glory, but all glories are

00:04:51.120 essentially sub-glories of God because we don't define what is glorious. God is the one that

00:04:57.280 defines what is glorious. So let me give you an example. This table, if you're watching this on

00:05:01.580 video, is glorious because it upholds my computer and this microphone. It's fulfilling its God-designed

00:05:10.260 purpose or its man-designed purpose in this particular instance. But if we're talking about

00:05:14.980 a glorious man. It's that a man is walking out what he's been designed to do. And to be a

00:05:25.120 glorious woman is to be a woman that is doing and carrying out what she is designed to do. That's

00:05:32.900 what makes her glorious. And so you can have a glorious son and a glorious daughter, and you can

00:05:37.940 have a glorious worker and you can have a glorious employee. You can have a glorious

00:05:45.320 boxer, a glorious pie, a glorious living room. Whatever it might be, these glories are,

00:05:57.540 to be glorious, we essentially need to understand how God intended those things to be.

00:06:04.200 And so when we give glory to things that are not glorious or are operating under different

00:06:10.200 definitions of glory, we pervert God's glory.

00:06:14.660 We pervert the gloriness of a particular object.

00:06:17.680 And so we want to understand God's design for particular things, for men, for women,

00:06:25.120 for children, for sons, for daughters, for grandparents, for employees, for church, for

00:06:32.000 worship, for pastors.

00:06:33.420 Because when we have a clear understanding of what those things are, according to God's word,

00:06:38.160 we can determine if they are glorious or they are not glorious. And so to understand

00:06:47.320 God's glory, like his specific glory, I would say that the most purest form of God's glory is his

00:06:57.340 holiness, right? It's what makes him totally separate from us. His glory is something that

00:07:03.460 we recognize in his perfectness. And we try to explain his glory. First Chronicles 29, 13 says,

00:07:11.380 and now we thank you, our God and praise your glorious name. So the author is attempting to

00:07:18.520 assign a human-made attribute to capture the weight, the glory, or holiness, or magnificence

00:07:27.520 of God's name. And again, to the degree we grasp glory is the degree we grasp God. Because

00:07:36.420 if you don't grasp God or truth or the scriptures, we won't grasp what is glorious. In fact, we

00:07:44.540 will call things that are not glorious, glorious, and we will miss things that are glorious and

00:07:50.100 calling them something else. And so glory needs to be carried. It's a substance that can be

00:07:58.540 beheld by the person observing it. C.S. Lewis's book, The Weight of Glory, he says,

00:08:04.640 quote, the load or weight or burden of glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy

00:08:12.960 that only humility can carry it

00:08:15.440 and the backs of the proud will be broken, end quote.

00:08:19.300 He might be talking about the glory of the gospel here,

00:08:22.860 the load or weight or burden of glory,

00:08:26.760 of what it is, like what is the gospel?

00:08:30.740 What is a glorious gospel?

00:08:32.180 It's a glorious gospel is one that saves,

00:08:34.860 it accomplishes what it was designed to do.

00:08:38.640 And this load is so heavy when you understand the gospel

00:08:41.700 that Lewis says that the only way to carry it is humility

00:08:45.840 and it'll break the backs of the proud.

00:08:49.340 And so to be glorious is essentially to do

00:08:52.240 what you were designed to do.

00:08:54.240 And glory radiates from the one

00:08:57.580 that walks out their divinely appointed duty,

00:09:02.940 being, and role.

00:09:05.160 So it's not just being, right?

00:09:08.180 I'm being a man, just being here, right?

00:09:10.600 And that's glorious in some degree. Now, so that's why a perversion of the transgender movement is not glorious. It's perversion of glory. But I also, not just as a man, I'm also a husband and I'm also a father and I'm also a pastor. 1.00

00:09:25.820 And so there are particular glories that can be had.

00:09:30.460 Glory is out there to be taken, to be grasped, to be a glorious individual in whatever particular role you may be playing.

00:09:42.640 Jesus does this perfectly.

00:09:43.980 Hebrews 1.3 says, quote,

00:09:46.180 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

00:09:55.280 And so Jesus is the radiant expression, the radiant substance of God's glory because he is perfectly carrying out what he was designed to do as the God-man on earth. He's also perfectly God. And so he is perfectly glorious as a savior. He's a glorious savior. He's a glorious sacrifice.

00:10:14.720 And so a glorious man or woman is one who embodies the biblical manhood and womanhood in submission to their particular roles.

00:10:28.740 So men are glorious because, I'll say this, let me explain this, men are the glory of God because they were created by God and from God.

00:10:41.820 women were created from man out of man's side and by God. So they're holding the glory of man.

00:10:54.980 They reflect the one that they represent and men reflect the one that they came from and represent.

00:11:03.400 And so men come from the dust, but made from God. And we have the glory of God upon men

00:11:13.080 because we're reflecting the one whom we came. And then a woman is glorious in the sense that

00:11:21.240 she is the glory of mankind, of humanity, because she came from Adam. And so she's reflecting the

00:11:29.580 glory of man. In fact, this is the whole purpose of my book, A Cover for Glory, is that the reason

00:11:34.980 that a woman would cover her hair or cover her head, glory radiates and shines through the head. 0.53

00:11:42.400 This is all over scripture and through Paul's teachings of 1 Corinthians. And when a woman 0.99

00:11:49.260 is worshiping, she is radiating the glory of mankind in the presence of God. And we are not

00:11:59.620 to glory as men in the presence of God. And so women are to cover that glory and men are to

00:12:10.360 uncover their heads so that they can, because they radiate the glory of God, they will essentially

00:12:18.240 be representing a glorious act being uncovered. And a woman should cover the glory of mankind 0.99

00:12:26.100 so that she's not essentially boasting her glory in the presence of God's glory. 0.99

00:12:31.380 So a lot there. You can pick up a copy, relearn.org forward slash glory,

00:12:36.340 if you want to learn more about that reality there. And so as we know, again, Adam and Eve,

00:12:43.480 have different glories. They're both made in the image of God, but they're imaging different

00:12:51.500 aspects of God. So Adam's glory is imaged in the authority given to him through creation,

00:12:59.380 order, and dominion. So Adam is to be a ruler like God. And so when he rules according to God's

00:13:08.700 will, he's glorious because he is like God in the sense that he is ruling. He's a ruler like God.

00:13:17.380 Eve's glory is imaged in submitting and helping Adam. That's what she was designed to do. Charles 0.89

00:13:22.800 Hodge put it this way. He says, quote, woman is not designed to reflect the glory of God as a ruler,

00:13:29.080 end quote. So Eve's purpose was never to rule or to be like a side-by-side ruler 0.98

00:13:38.540 with Adam, but to help Adam rule. And through the covenant nature of their marriage and the work,

00:13:46.080 yes, there is a sense where they are ruling as one. But in terms of roles and duties and being,

00:13:54.480 she is to ornament her husband, who is the ruler and the primary ruler in this narrative. And this

00:14:02.080 is something that's very important. So we talk about, actually, I'll give you an explanation

00:14:08.920 here. This is a, I don't know who originally said it, but I thought it was helpful.

00:14:13.400 He said, the woman is like the glory of the moon. While she is made by the same creator who made

00:14:19.480 the sun, her purpose is not to be the sun, but to reflect the sun. The late theologian GW Knight

00:14:27.240 It says, quote, the man reflects the one who directly created him, and thus also the woman

00:14:32.760 will inevitably reflect the one whom she was created, namely man.

00:14:36.960 I kind of already said that, but there's another version of that.

00:14:39.940 Another way to understand glory is to understand it as an expression of pride and joy.

00:14:46.020 So this is, again, it's essentially the recognition.

00:14:49.760 I'm so proud because I see that gloriousness that's occurring before my eyes.

00:14:56.280 you're operating according to your design. And so it's the substance of a thing that makes

00:15:00.940 us proud or pleasant or according to God's will, righteous, upright. 1 Corinthians 11, 15

00:15:09.240 sees that a woman's hair is a glory to her. That is that it is the particular substance on her body

00:15:17.100 that shows that she is a woman.

00:15:22.700 It's a glory to her. 0.99

00:15:23.780 It makes her take a woman's long hair away. 1.00

00:15:27.700 And it is a shame to a woman.

00:15:30.460 Now, I'm not saying that there's all these circumstances 1.00

00:15:33.200 that are unique and sicknesses and all those things, 1.00

00:15:35.540 but I'm talking about generally these women 1.00

00:15:37.880 that are maybe lesbians that want to cut their hair off 1.00

00:15:40.880 or look like boys or whatever it may be. 1.00

00:15:43.880 A woman's hair is glorious to her 0.98

00:15:46.020 because it's actually the thing that helps identify her gloriousness as a female.

00:15:53.700 And we look in Proverbs 20, 29, it says,

00:15:57.600 the glory of young men is their strength, end quote.

00:16:01.340 And so when you see a young man,

00:16:03.960 their strength is the recognizable substance of what is glorious,

00:16:09.340 is they're strong.

00:16:11.140 And their strength is the representative reality of their rightful design,

00:16:15.720 that they are men and strong. It's what they are to be. And so these are just basic fundamentals

00:16:22.480 around what is glory and why it's important. And so you want to teach your children and teach

00:16:30.120 yourself what is a glorious man and what is a glorious woman and what is a glorious church

00:16:37.320 member? And what is a glorious coach? And what is a glorious prayer life? And what is a glorious

00:16:48.360 parenting regimen? What's a glorious schedule? You can see how deep this goes in the sense that

00:16:57.160 we are truly lost to define glory

00:17:03.400 if we don't know the truth about particular realities.

00:17:08.320 And so the more you know scripture,

00:17:10.480 the more you know the gospel,

00:17:11.720 the more you know God's will for particular realities

00:17:15.280 all around creation,

00:17:17.760 the more you have an opportunity to be glorious for God.

00:17:22.040 And so glory is something

00:17:23.040 that should be talked about in your home.

00:17:24.700 It's something that I believe is very helpful for families and for children. These are languages

00:17:30.840 that are words and a glossary of terms that we should be implementing into our home. They should

00:17:37.220 be familiar topics. These are Bible words. These are good words. We shouldn't shy away from words

00:17:43.880 like propitiation and majesty and glory and honor and atonement and sacrifice. I mean,

00:17:52.040 these are biblical words. And so we want to understand what those words mean. And so my

00:17:56.280 encouragement to you guys, as we kind of close out this episode here is that you would essentially

00:18:00.980 fight to understand glory and teach your family what it means to be a glorious family so that

00:18:08.660 you guys can be recognized that the rightful radiant substance of your life or your lives

00:18:14.740 would be seen and that others would be curious. We know it's, what is it? First Peter

00:18:20.620 you know, always be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in you and do so with

00:18:28.480 meekness and fear. And this means that there's a recognizable reality that evangelistic isn't,

00:18:37.660 sometimes it's actually recognized. People come up to you with a curiosity. Hey,

00:18:42.240 tell me about why you live this way. They're recognizing glory. They're recognizing peace.

00:18:48.760 they're recognizing hope. You need to be ready. And so glory is what actually radiates to the

00:18:55.800 world. And it's something that we should be aiming for. So hopefully this was a helpful,

00:19:00.860 quick episode on glory. And we're going to continue that conversation between glory and

00:19:05.380 authority on the next episode. If you haven't left a review on the podcast, those reviews really do

00:19:10.440 help our podcast continue to find new listeners. If you just go to your podcast app, you don't

00:19:16.580 even have to write anything. You can just tap the stars, but it really does help the exposure of our

00:19:20.720 show and more people get to hear biblical truth and hear the gospel through this show. And so we

00:19:27.820 thank you guys for your support. My name is Dale Partridge. This is Real Christianity. We'll see you next time.

Dale Partridge - December 04, 2023

Who Are the Image and Glory of God？ - Dale Partridge

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript