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208 How Are the Christian Scriptures Confirmed by the Peculiar Glory of God?
There is a difference between the way the sun reveals the glory of God
and the way the book of Romans reveals the glory of God. In Romans,
what reveals the glory of God is the meaning of the writing, not the
material parchment and ink and letters. God’s aim is not that anyone
would look at Paul’s original letter and say, “What a glorious and good
God must lie behind such penmanship!” Rather, the words that God
guided Paul to write are revelatory because these are the chosen instruments
of God’s meaning. The sun, on the other hand, is not like the
parchment and ink and letters. Only they have such blazing magnitude
and beauty that they reveal the glory of God directly, and that is its
meaning. God does expect us to look at the “solar writing” and say,
“What a glorious and good God writes with such fire!”
God’s World and Word Reveal His Glory
In spite of the differences between God’s revelation in nature and his
revelation in Scripture, the comparison is important and illuminating.
That is what this chapter has been about—the way God’s world and
God’s word both reveal the glory of God. There are three reasons why
the comparison is illuminating.
First, the comparison shows that the “scope of the whole” in both
cases—the natural world and the inspired word—is the glory of God.
The Larger Catechism says, “The Scriptures manifest themselves to be
the word of God, by . . . the scope of the whole, which is to give all
glory to God.” This points to the link between Scripture and nature.
Both carry the same self-authenticating message: All things exist for the
glory of God. This makes the world and the word self-authenticating
(as God’s world and God’s word), because it corresponds to the deepseated
knowledge of our souls (Rom. 1:21).
Second, the comparison shows that the glory of God is meant to be
seen by means of things that are not his glory. A cloud, a star, a galaxy
are not the glory of God. God manifested his glory in them (Rom. 1:19).
We see the glory of God “by the things that are made” (Rom. 1:20
NKJV). This is possible because we ourselves know God (Rom. 1:19,
21). We have suppressed this knowledge. But deeper than all our suppressing
is a primordial template designed to fit perfectly with the glory
of God. We know from this template—this design—that we were made