What does the Bible say about the majesty of God?
Oct 12th, 2014 / Salt and Light
The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed, He has girded Himself with strength. Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved. Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting. (Psalm 93:1–2—NKJV)
There are many awesome sights to see in this natural world. After all, God’s Word plainly teaches that the created world serves as “natural revelation” concerning God Himself (Romans 1:20). Every time you have the privilege of seeing an awe-inspiring piece of His universe, you are reminded and reintroduced to the sense that God, the Creator, is Majestic!
For Americans, a people whose land is particularly blessed with natural wonders, a temperate day filled with the deep greens of summer offset by the waters of a deep blue lake mirroring an azure sky, or a day spent driving on the Great Plains watching the Rockies rise higher and higher above the horizon, or a clear, star-sprinkled night overspread with the northern lights, or even feeling the thunder of Niagara Falls resonating in your chest—any one of these experiences causes all mere mortals to study what is before us with contemplative reflection.
These things, these sights, feelings, and experiences, cause a thoughtful man to entertain emotions of wonder, power, awe, immensity, permanence, as well as personal insignificance, finiteness, submission, and transitoriness. This is what is felt in the presence of majesty. Our God is clothed with majesty.
Majesty is the word in our text. Majesty is defined as dignity or power of a sovereign, grandeur, stateliness, and nobility. We call all the grand experiences of the eye and life, majestic and awesome for lack of adequate words to describe such momentous interludes. Like so many say, when trying to describe the Grand Canyon to someone who has never had the privilege, “You have to see it for yourself; words just cannot describe; it is simply breathtaking!”
No wonder the psalmist uses the word in connection with God’s holy court. What an overpowering sense of knee-shaking awe and suspended horror must fill the soul of any mortal standing in the timeless presence of unbounded Majesty on high! Notice that the indescribable wonder of His majesty is styled as His clothing, and He has girded Himself with strength. The impression that will always linger when one encounters the Almighty is always going to be majesty. Psalm 29:4 reads, “The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.” Even the Son of God when He comes to establish His Kingdom, as recorded in Psalm 45:3, 4, is awe-inspiring, “Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Mighty One, with Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty ride [on] prosperously [in the cause] of truth, humility, and righteousness; and Your right hand shall teach You awesome things [lead You to awesome deeds].”
The book of Revelation gives imagination teasing descriptions of the majestic throne room of God. In chapter 4 verse 2 John states, “Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald.” Near the end of the book, chapter 20 verses 11–15 record, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life…. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” It is difficult to comprehend the raw sense of personal unworthiness that will be known by every single person one day in the presence of “the totality” of holy and infinite majesty! Only through faith in the sinless blood of Jesus Christ is anyone shielded from the horror of that day while being granted sublime peace in the presence of the Father (Ephesians 2:13–18, Hebrews 10:19–22)!
Godliness can be defined as standing and acting in awe of God and His superlative majesty. The humbling that you sense when in His convicting majestic presence ought to remain within you all day, as if you have just returned from viewing some awe-inspiring natural wonder. Isaiah 57:15 declares, “For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose Name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” Live in holy awe of God. Trust and obey.