Now we need to consider what the glory of God’s grace is. Perhaps you have read the book of Ephesians many times without noticing the phrase “the glory of His grace.” Hebrews 1:3 says that Christ, the Son of God, is the effulgence of God’s glory. God has a glory, and the effulgence, the shining out, of this glory is His Son. If you carefully study the subject of glory in the Bible, you will find that glory is God expressed. Whenever God is manifested, that is glory. We may use electricity as an illustration. Electricity is hidden, but when it is expressed as light, that light is the glory of electricity. Likewise, when God is hidden, we cannot see His glory. But when He is expressed, His glory is made visible. Hence, glory is God expressed. As soon as the tabernacle was erected, it was filled with the glory of God (Exo. 40:34). That glory was the expression of God. In the same principle, the Son of God came as the effulgence of the glory of God, which means that He is the expression of God. No man has ever seen God, but we have seen the glory of the only begotten Son.
The glory of God’s grace is that His grace, which is Himself as our enjoyment, expresses Him. God is expressed in His grace, and His predestination is for the praise of this expression. As we receive grace and enjoy God, we have the sense of glory, although we may not have the words to express this sense. Sometimes after an excellent meeting we are full of grace and say, “That was glorious!” This is God expressed in His grace.
When we realize that we have been chosen to be holy and predestinated to sonship; that we have the Spirit of the Son, the life of the Son, and the position of the Son; and that we shall be conformed to the image of the Son, have the completion of sonship, the redemption of our body, and inherit the full sonship, we shall say, “What a glory!” We need to consider six items prayerfully: the Spirit of the Son, the life of the Son, the position of the Son, the image of the Son, the completion of sonship, and the inheritance of sonship. If you do this, you will be in glory and praise God for the sonship.
We have seen that grace is God Himself as our enjoyment, that glory is God manifested, and that the glory of God’s grace is God expressed in our enjoyment of Him. Now we must come to the most difficult aspect of this message: the meaning of praise in verse 6. What is the praise of the glory of God’s grace? Have you ever praised God for the sonship? We, the sons of God, do not praise God very much. Usually we simply thank Him. When we say, “Praise the Lord,” we often mean, “Thank the Lord.” To thank God means that we have received a certain benefit and thank God for it. But when we praise God, we praise Him primarily for what He is or what He does, no matter whether or not we have received any benefits from Him. In praising God you need to forget yourself and get outside of yourself. When you are truly praising God, it seems that you do not exist. You see only God, what He is, and what He does. Therefore, you praise Him and speak well concerning Him. To use an extreme illustration, could you praise God if He sent you to hell? If you truly knew God, you would be able to say, “O God, even if You send me to hell, I will still praise You because You are God.” Oh, how we need to learn to praise Him!