The Outskirts

     Bob: “The Empire State Building is really big!”

     Henry: “Oh yeah? How big?”

     Bob: “Huge!”

     Henry: “Huge like an elephant?”

     Bob: “No, bigger than that. More like 1000 elephants standing on top of one another!”

     Henry: “Wow! That is big!”

     It is difficult to describe the greatness of something in abstract terms. Henry could not understand how tall the Empire State Building was until Bob described it in more familiar, concrete terms. The abstract term, “big” didn't mean as much as the concrete, “1,000 elephants standing on top of one another.” Therefore, it can be concluded that concretes are more effective than abstracts when it comes to describing the greatness of something.

     The Bible declares very clearly that God's glory is great (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, Ps. 138:5), but one very reasonable question would be, “How great is great?” Are we left in the dark as to how great God's glory is? By no means! By comparing it with concrete glories we are more familiar with, we are quite well equipped to gain a greater knowledge of and appreciation for the glory of God. Of course we cannot understand it completely, but we can know more. Therefore, “let us know; let us press on to know the LORD” (Hos. 6:3).

     The first concrete, familiar glory we will use to compare with the glory of God is the glory of mankind. Men have a certain measure of God-given glory. They were the crown of God's work, being made in His very image (Gen. 1:27). One of the most impressive of these God-given glories is the ability to invent and improve. This is a thing animals cannot do. A spider 2000 years ago made the same kind of web that a spider makes now. People are not like that. Hardly anything is made the same way today that it was 2000 years ago.

     As an example of human development through invention, consider the history of the computer. The first digital computer, ENIAC, was built in 1946 and weighed just under three tons (“ENIAC”). The computer I am writing this essay on just 64 years later weighs just under three pounds! That is the change human creativity can bring about in just a few years. It is quite an amazing thing to think about. The improvements humans have made in technology, architecture, medicine, and many other areas are staggering to consider.

     However, as Elihu reminded Job, “God is greater than man” (Jb. 33:12). Men may be intelligent, able to use their highly-developed brains to invent and develop computers, but guess who invented their highly-developed brains: God! Men may be powerful, but their power is nothing to the God who gave them that power. In every way that mankind is glorious, God is infinitely more glorious, because He is the source of that glory. Without Him we are nothing (Jn. 15:5). The glory of man is swallowed up in the glory of God.

     Another glory that we can compare with the glory of God is much bigger and more beautiful than man: our home planet, earth. What a glorious creation! According to one physicist, the earth's volume is 1,097,509,500,000,000,000,000 m³ (Young)! That is enormous! Though not measureless, the size of the earth is unfathomable. That in itself is something glorious to think about.

     However, try to imagine the immense amount of beauty contained in this massive globe, and you will really feel your mind begin to boggle. Two years ago my family and I went to Yellowstone National Park. Beautiful! From the boiling springs to the mountains and everything in between, it was sheer majesty! Or perhaps you've been to the Grand Canyon. I've never been, but I've heard that it too is simply breathtaking. And when you think about it, such glorious beauty is everywhere on this planet.

     But God's glory is higher than this glorious planet: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let Your glory be over all the earth!” (Psalm 57:5). That is not just a prayer request, praying for something that isn't yet fulfilled; it is a prayer that we would see that God's glory is already over the earth, in order that we might exalt Him. The beauty of the earth is astounding, but guess who put it there: God (Rev. 4:11). How much greater than the earth He must be, in order to be able to make it so beautiful! Only a supremely beautiful God could create such an endlessly beautiful planet.

     The earth is massive and beautiful beyond description, yet we find that its glory is swallowed up in the glory of God. If that is true of the earth, how about the universe? Unlike the earth, the universe cannot be measured. The human mind is incapable of fathoming the sheer size of the universe. It just seems to go on indefinitely, forever and ever! They have not found the end of it yet.

     In addition to being measureless, the universe is absolutely beautiful. I remember standing out under the stars one night and looking up, seeing the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. I felt as though I were suddenly lost to a universe that is infinitely bigger than me. It was beauty that surpasses my ability to describe. You have to see it for yourself. It is a powerful sight!

     You could also consider the images we see of stellar nebulae: the Eagle Nebula, the Crab Nebula, the Horsehead Nebula . . . all of them simply stunning in beauty. Surely the heavens contain the greatest physical glories known to men. It is unfathomable, absolutely unfathomable, the amount of beauty that is out there, the amount of power, the amount of space! How the glory of the earth shrinks into nothing when compared to the glory of the universe!

     Could it be that God's glory is surpassed by this glorious universe? No way! His glory is far beyond even the greatest glory we could ever know: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens” (Ps. 8:1). Now that is incredible! How awesome is our immeasurable universe, and yet God has set His own glory above even that. It is unfathomable, absolutely unfathomable.

     We have just had a very brief overview of some of the greatest glories known to men, and seen that God's glory is greater than the greatest of them. This essay has been short, and our attempts to fathom the greatness of God's glory have been feeble at best. What is really needed is a daily, lifelong effort at seeing the greatness of God's glory, a daily realization that His glory infinitely surpasses all the beauty we see on a daily basis. God is infinite, and we will spend eternity learning about Him. Why wait? We can learn more about Him every day as He points us to Himself through His creation. But that is the topic of the next essay . . .

     However, in one final attempt to fathom the absolute greatness of God's glory, I want to close by stretching your imagination a bit. Imagine standing on earth, man's level, noting that human beings are pretty awesome. Some of their technology is quite impressive. Then you begin to fly upward at impossible speeds. When you get a little higher you begin to realize how small those little people are. Soon they are totally lost to sight, and you begin to notice the splendor of the earth. It truly is a beautiful, powerful planet. Look at all of that water! And those mountains. Incredible!

     You pass the moon, and eventually the sun. You go higher and higher, farther and farther. Soon, planet Earth is but a speck in the distance, and then it too disappears altogether. You're far from home now! Soon, you find that you are coming out of the Milky Way Galaxy itself, and you can see the entire galaxy spreading out before you. Not even the sun is visible anymore. It is just a part of one great mass of light, bright and beautiful. Then you look around and see that there are countless more of these galaxies! You keep going up and up, beyond what any human has ever known. You go higher than any satellite has ever reached, beyond what any human or digital eye has ever seen.

     Then you stop. You're very old now. You've traveled at impossible speeds for your whole life, and now you know that you are about to die. No human being could ever go as far as you have gone. No human being could ever behold as much glory and beauty as your eyes have beheld. You have seen all the glory of man, with their ipods, airplanes, and satellites. You have seen the glory of the earth, from the vast, measureless oceans to the tall, towering mountains. You've even seen much of the glory of the universe, from the sun to the Milky Way Galaxy and beyond. But then, you look up—the limit of God's glory is nowhere in sight. Nowhere. It's still up there, infinitely out of reach. In fact, you are no closer to the limit of God's glory there at the limits of the universe than you were when you were on the earth. His glory is eternally above.

     Now read: “Behold, these are but the outskirts of His ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?” (Jb. 26:14).

Works Cited

“ENIAC.” Wikipedia. 5 Sep. 2010. 6 Sep. 2010 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC>.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Wheaton: Crossway, 2007.

Young, Tom. “The Volume of the Earth.” n.d. 5 Sep. 2010 askexperts/ae419.cfm>.