Made to Be Breathtaking

Soli Deo gloria to God alone be the glory. Six words that rescued the gospel at the Reformation and still confront our self-absorbed age. But this rallying cry doesn’t mean God will shine while his people fade. It means God will be magnified precisely by making us radiant with him. You will be breathtaking.

To God Alone, Not to Us

Sin is the great exchange of God’s glory for our own (Romans 1:23). We crave credit, applause, recognition anything but God himself. It was this disease the Reformers diagnosed in the medieval church. Salvation had been twisted into a joint project: partly God’s grace, partly our work. Which meant some glory went to him, but plenty was siphoned off for us.

But Scripture refused the theft:

• “My glory I give to no other” (Isaiah 42:8).

• “For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it” (Isaiah 48:11).

• “To the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14).

The gospel is God’s work from start to finish and therefore his glory from start to finish. Soli Deo gloria guards the truth that God alone saves.

Does That Leave Us With Nothing?

If all glory goes to God, do his people get any? Romans 8:30 answers with a thunderclap: “Those whom he justified he also glorified.” God shares glory. The world itself longs for the day when the children of God are revealed in splendor (Romans 8:18–21).

Why? Because only glorified people can survive the ocean of God’s joy. “You can’t fit the volcano of God’s joy in the teacup of my unglorified soul” (Piper). So he will enlarge us. He will make us radiant enough to swim in the wells of everlasting delight.

Glimpses of Coming Glory

Even now, Paul says, we are being transformed “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). And one day the veil will lift entirely:

• “We shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

• “What is sown in dishonor… is raised in glory” (1 Corinthians 15:42–43).

• “This mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Resurrection life will feel familiar real bodies, real earth, real beauty yet transfigured. No weakness. No decay. No sin. You, but glorious.

Candles Lit by a Greater Light

One of Christianity’s most staggering truths is this: the God who saves not only forgives undeserving sinners but crowns them with his likeness. He makes us shine like his Son.

And yet even in our glory, God’s supremacy remains unthreatened. Our radiance is derivative, always a reflection. “Filled with the fruit of righteousness… to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11). Like stars blazing across galaxies, our beauty will only magnify the greater brilliance of the One who lit them.

Why This Matters Now

In an age bloated with self-esteem yet starving for wonder, soli Deo gloria corrects us. We exist to exalt God, not ourselves. But here’s the irony: the more we marvel at his glory, the more we glimpse what he has destined us to be. His plan is not to erase us into nothing but to raise us into breathtaking mirrors of his majesty.

At our most glorious sinless, fearless, painless we will still be candles. But oh, what candles. Lit forever by the Glory of glories himself.

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