“God’s attributes, especially His majesty, should in some sense cause great fear and awe among His people. Job chastises his friends for misunderstanding God: “Will not his majesty terrify you, and the dread of him fall upon you?” (Job 13:11).
Here Job connects God’s majesty with our response to it. Later in the book, Elihu grasps this appropriate reverence:
Out of the north comes golden splendor;
God is clothed with awesome majesty.
The Almighty—we cannot find Him;
He is great in power;
justice and abundant righteousness He will not violate.
Therefore men fear Him;
He does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit. (Job 37:22–24)
God’s majesty should strike a holy fear into the hearts and minds of God’s people. Why? Because we know that His majesty is His power is His justice is His dominion.
The majestic God cannot dwell with or tolerate the proud, and His dominion over them means He can and will judge them. Thus God challenges Job to act like God:
Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity;
clothe yourself with glory and splendor.
Pour out the overflowings of your anger,
and look on everyone who is proud and abase him.
Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low
and tread down the wicked where they stand.
Hide them all in the dust together;
bind their faces in the world below.
Then will I also acknowledge to you
that your own right hand can save you. (Job 40:10–14)
Of course, Job cannot do this, but God can. He does not merely judge the proud; He majestically judges them in his dominion over them. He shows the vast difference between himself and them. He challenges Job to perform that which is impossible.
God highlights his majesty by the fact that he alone is clothed with “glory and splendor.” The psalmist praises God: “O LORD my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent” (Ps. 104:1–2). When Job does what God (alone) can do, then Job may compare himself with the Majestic One…
What makes Christ majestic? His gracious speech (Psalm 45:2), military power (vv. 3–5), eternal throne (v. 6), Spirit-anointed moral holiness (v. 7), and adored position (vv. 8–9) do so. God has given him the name that is above every name (Phil. 2:9).
Thus, he can command his disciples to bless the nations, because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him (Matt. 28:18). As the receiver of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33), Christ can subdue the hearts of sinners, a work more powerful and majestic than creating a thousand worlds of loving creatures.
When the officers came to arrest Christ, they were unsuccessful. Why? In part because, as they recognized, “no one ever spoke like this man!” (John 7:46).
In Christ’s words was a majesty that confounded his enemies to the point that he caused them to fall back: “When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground” (John 18:6). These words of Christ connect to Psalm 9:3, “When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before your presence.”
Peter was an eyewitness of Christ’s majesty: “But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’ ” (2 Pet. 1:16–17), Peter tasted what we shall one day experience from God through his Son.
In other words, we shall experience God’s majesty in Christ one day by sight, just as Peter did but in a better way, because we will sinlessly and ceaselessly gaze on that majesty for all eternity.
As we contemplate the one clothed with majesty (Ps. 93:1), we must be filled with awe—indeed, a submissive awe. When we worship, we must do so with “reverence and awe” (Heb. 12:28). In the Christian life, God does not settle for second place. Sometimes we may intellectually assent that he should be first, while our actions betray our true theological convictions, which lack the awe God deserves. We must prefer God above all things, because he is above all things. His majesty demands such reverential preference.
When we consider the infinite demerit of our sin against an infinitely majestic God, we should be totally humbled that we are utterly unable to remedy this problem in ourselves. We cannot make satisfaction or restitution for the smallest sin we have committed against such a God. Calvin beautifully expresses the humility that should come over us when we consider God’s majesty:
Hence that dread and wonder with which Scripture commonly represents the saints as stricken and overcome whenever they felt the presence of God. Thus it comes about that we see men who in his absence normally remained firm and constant, but who, when he manifests his glory, are so shaken and struck dumb as to be laid low by the dread of death—are in fact overwhelmed by it and almost annihilated.
As a consequence, we must infer that man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty.
Anselm famously affirmed concerning God, “We believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Such remains true not only in regard to God’s majesty but also in regard to his works toward us in Christ. God does such majestic works through his Son that none greater can be conceived. His majesty is stamped all over his works of redemption through Christ, the God-man.
Through the necessary path of humiliation, Christ arrived at the place of glory and honor (Heb. 2:9).
We too come to the place of glory and honor through the path of suffering. We share in Christ’s majesty as the King of kings. We are “more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37).
Thus, our faith leads us to hope in our future reward of being crowned with glory and honor in Christ’s kingdom.
When God challenged Job to adorn himself with majesty, he absolutely could not rise to the occasion. But when God grants to us the gift of his Son, we are then blessed with a share in Christ’s majesty. What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
–Mark Jones, God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 110-115.
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