1082. END OF THE CREATION.
Vid. [Nos.] 1066, 1142. The glory of the Lord in Scripture seems to signify the excellent brightness and fullness of God, and especially as spread abroad, diffused and as it were enlarged, or, in one word, the excellency of God flowing forth. This was represented in the shechinah of old. Here by "the excellency of God" I would be understood of everything in God in any respect excellent, all that is great and good in the Deity, including the excellent sweetness and blessedness that is in God, and the infinite fountain of happiness that the Deity is possessed of, that is called the fountain of life, the water of life, the river of God's pleasures, God's light, etc.
The flowing forth of the ineffably bright and sweet effulgence of the shechinah represented the flowing out and communicating of this, as well as the manifestation of his majesty and beauty. Joy and happiness is represented in Scripture as often by light as by waters, fountains, streams, etc.; and the communication of God's happiness is represented by the flowing out of sweet light from the shechinah, as well as by the flowing forth [of] a stream of delights and the diffusing of the holy oil, called the fatness of God's house. Psalms 36:7–9, "How excellent is
thy loving-kindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light."
A fountain, in diffusing itself abroad in streams, and the holy anointing oil, in diffusing itself in a sweet odor, are in a Scripture sense glorified and magnified, as well as the lamps in the temple, by diffusing abroad their light.
Happiness is very often in Scripture called by the name of glory, or included in that name in Scripture. God's eternal glory includes his blessedness, and when we read of the glorifying of Christ, and the glory which the Father has given him, it includes his heavenly joy. And so when we read of the glory promised to or conferred on the saints, and of their being glorified, their unspeakable happiness is a main thing intended. Their joy is full of glory, and they are made happy in partaking of Christ's glory.
The fullness of the saints' happiness is the riches of God's glory in the saints. Therefore the diffusing the sweetness and blessedness of the divine nature is God's glorifying himself, in a Scripture sense, as well as his manifesting his perfection to their understandings. The beams that flow forth from the infinite fountain of light and life don't only carry light but life with them; and therefore this light is called the light of life, as the beams of the sun have both light and warmth, and do both enlighten and quicken, and so bless the face of the earth.
This twofold way of the Deity's flowing forth ad extra I.e. pertaining to God's dealings with creation. answers to the twofold way of the Deity's proceeding ad intra, I.e. pertaining to the inner life of the Godhead. in the proceeding and generation of the Son and the proceeding and breathing forth of the Holy Spirit; and indeed is only a kind of second proceeding of the same persons, their going forth ad extra, as before they proceeded ad intra. See [Nos.] 1084 and 1094.
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