There are things that easily roll off of the tongue because of our contact with religion, Christianity, and church such as when we say that God is a "God of glory" or He is "glorious" or "give glory to God." I grew up in a Christian home so those words do not shock me. But, if we go back and consider what glory really means, it should pack a punch.

If we say that God is a "God of glory" or "glorious", there are two great categories that we can use to describe that: the Old Testament Hebrew word and the New Testament Greek word. While they are connected they can also give us different flavors.

The Hebrew word for "glory" means weight or weightiness. In the ancient world weight was connected with value. Nowadays you might have a conversation with someone and say, "That was kind of a heavy conversation." There are topics that we think of as "heavy" topics.

God is weighty. He has substance and worth. Think of it like a mountain. If you are traveling and come to a mountain range, it is not something that you can easily push aside and ignore. It changes all of your plans. When we think of God, we may think of Him as a weightless being who can be pushed aside when He does not fit the way we want to live. But in reality God is infinitely weighty. He is glorious.

The Greek word means reputation or honor or the expression of an inward reality. Think of the sun in the sky and the rays that come from it. The rays would be the "glory" or "expression" of the sun's energy or light. Christ is the radiance of God's glory! (Hebrews 1:3)

When we say that God is a God of glory, or He is glorious, or we talk about giving glory to God, those are things that just easily roll off the tongue because of our contact with religion, with Christianity and church. I grew up in a Christian home, so those words don't shock me. But in a sense, I think if we go back and consider what glory really means, it ought to pack a punch for us that helps us. When we say that God is a God of glory or He's glorious, Really there are two great categories that we can use to describe that. There is the category that comes from the Old Testament word, the Hebrew word for glory, and the New Testament word, the Greek word for glory, because while they are connected, they do give us kind of different flavors.

So when we think of the glory of God think of the Hebrew word it means weight, weightiness. Weight in the ancient world often was connected with value because of substance. We have a conversation with someone and we say that was kind of a heavy conversation, you know. So if your mom or dad say to you, I need to talk with you. So when your brothers and sisters go to bed you come and talk with mom and me and you think this is going to be pretty heavy.

It was weighty. There are certain topics that we think these are heavy topics. When we hear someone speak we can say they had weighty words or the opposite they had weightless words. Think about that. God is weighty.

He has substance. He has worth. He is the opposite of weightless. Think of it also in the sense of substantial, like a mountain, which the Hebrews would use that word glory for a mountain. It's a weighty substantial thing.

When you're traveling and you come up to a mountain range, it's not something you can easily just push aside and ignore. It changes your whole plans. How are we going to deal with this? When we think of God, we might think of God as a weightless being, a weightless concept, and we say, well it doesn't matter, I can just kind of shove this concept aside when it doesn't fit the way I want to live. But in reality God is infinitely weighty.

He has mass, spiritual mass, substance, worth. He is glorious. The New Testament word, the Greek word means reputation or honor or the outshining, the expression of an inward reality. Think of the sun in the sky and the rays that come from it. The rays of the sun would be the glory of the sun, the expression of the sun's energy in its light.

We're seeing the inward reality shining outwardly. Or we're seeing the reputation, the honor perhaps, the glory of God. That's most perfectly seen in the Son. Christ is, Hebrews 1 says. He is the radiance of God's glory because He is the exact representation of His nature.

In other words, looking at the humanity of Jesus Christ. You