The Majesty of God: His Kingly Greatness

Question 2092

The majesty of God is His kingly greatness, the exalted dignity and grandeur that belong to Him as the highest and most honoured Being in all reality. Where we speak of His glory as the shining out of His worth, the majesty of God draws attention to His elevation, His enthroned authority, the towering height of His station above every creature. To meet the majesty of God is to feel small in the best possible way, to sense that you have come into the presence of a King whose greatness is not borrowed and whose throne was never granted to Him by anyone.

Scripture is full of this note, and it is not a cold or distant one. The same Bible that calls God high and lifted up also tells us that this exalted King stoops to dwell with the lowly. So the majesty of God is not a barrier to fellowship but the very thing that makes fellowship with Him so astonishing. We want to understand what the word means, how the Bible pictures this greatness, why it draws worship out of every creature that truly sees it, and what difference the majesty of God makes to the way an ordinary believer walks through ordinary days.

What the Bible Means by the Majesty of God

The Hebrew words gather around the idea of height and grandeur. One is hadar (הָדָר), splendour or magnificence, the kind of impressive dignity that belongs to a great king on his throne. Another is gaon (גָּאוֹן), exaltation or loftiness, the sense of being raised high above all rivals. When the New Testament reaches for the same idea it uses megalosune (μεγαλωσύνη), greatness, a word the writer to the Hebrews uses when he says that the Son sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The majesty of God, then, is His exalted greatness, the grandeur of a King who has no equal and no superior.

It helps to set the word beside its near neighbours. The holiness of God speaks of His purity and separateness. The glory of God speaks of His worth made visible. The majesty of God speaks of His greatness in terms of rank and elevation, the height of His throne above all thrones. These are not separate gods but facets of one God, and they are felt together. When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, he was overwhelmed at once by majesty and holiness, and he cried out that he was undone.

This is worth saying clearly, because a tame view of God is the root of much shallow religion. If we lose the majesty of God we are left with a deity who exists to serve our preferences, a helpful presence who fits neatly into a busy life. The God of the Bible will not be managed in this way. He is great, and the proper response to greatness is not negotiation but reverence. To recover the majesty of God is to recover a worship that actually trembles and adores.

We feel the loss of this whenever God is spoken of carelessly, as though He were a slightly larger version of ourselves. The Bible never lets us settle there. It keeps lifting our eyes to a King whose greatness is of a different order altogether, before whom even the angels veil their faces. To recover a sense of the majesty of God is to recover the wonder that ought to mark every creature who remembers what its Maker is truly like and how far above us He stands.

The Majesty of God Pictured in Scripture

The Bible rarely defines the majesty of God in the abstract. It shows it. Again and again we are given the picture of a throne. Isaiah sees the Lord seated, high and lifted up, with the train of His robe filling the temple and seraphim covering their faces as they cry out that the whole earth is full of His glory. Ezekiel sees a throne of sapphire and a figure of gleaming brightness, and he falls on his face. John, in the Revelation, sees a throne set in heaven and One seated on it with the appearance of precious stone, surrounded by a rainbow and by living creatures who never cease their praise. The majesty of God is consistently shown as enthroned splendour.

The Psalms turn this seeing into song. The Lord reigns, they declare, and He is robed in majesty. He has put on strength as His belt, and the world is firmly established. The pictures pile up, of a King clothed in light, riding on the clouds, attended by thousands. These are not childish images to be outgrown. They are inspired pictures meant to lodge the greatness of God in our imagination so that it shapes our affections. We were made to be moved by grandeur, and the majesty of God is the grandeur for which the longing was placed in us.

Creation joins the witness. The mountains, the thunder, the sea in storm, the night sky thick with stars, all of these were set in place to give us a felt sense of bigness that points beyond itself. When the Psalmist looks at the heavens and asks what man is that God should be mindful of him, he is letting the majesty of God put humanity in its proper place. We are small, and yet we are loved by the One whose greatness fills the heavens. Both truths are meant to be held at once, and the holding of them is the beginning of worship.

There is a reason these pictures are given to us in such concrete form. We do not worship ideas, and a bare definition of greatness leaves the heart cold. We worship a living God, and the inspired imagery of robe and throne and attending host is meant to fasten the majesty of God to something our affections can take hold of. The sight of the King in His splendour moves us to bow in a way that a careful argument never could. This is how the Bible so often teaches the truth about God, not by handing us a tidy collection of propositions to memorise but by setting His greatness before our eyes in vivid colour until wonder is born and praise begins to rise. The majesty of God was always meant to be felt and not only understood.

The Majesty of God and His Throne Over the Nations

The majesty of God is not a private grandeur shut up in heaven. It reaches out over history. The God of the Bible reigns as King over the nations, and the rise and fall of empires runs within the bounds He has set. When Nebuchadnezzar was humbled and then restored, he confessed that the Most High does according to His will among the host of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth, and that none can stay His hand. The proud king of Babylon had to learn the majesty of God the hard way, and his testimony stands as a warning to every power that imagines itself ultimate.

This is a great comfort to the people of God in unsettled times. Thrones that look immovable are not. The King whose majesty fills heaven is steering all things towards the day when His Son will reign visibly from Jerusalem and the kingdoms of this world will become His. The dispensational hope is not vague optimism. It rests on the unchanging greatness of a King who has already announced the end from the beginning. The majesty of God guarantees that history is going somewhere, and that the somewhere is the open reign of Jesus.

History bears this out in the long view. The empires that once seemed unshakeable, of Egypt and Assyria and Babylon and Rome, have risen and fallen, while the worship of the God of Abraham continues among every nation under heaven. The majesty of God is not a claim that has weakened with the passing of the centuries. It has only grown clearer as the proud powers that once defied Him have crumbled into dust and museum cabinets. The believer who feels overwhelmed by the strength of godless governments can lift his eyes and remember that the throne above all thrones has never once stood empty, and that the King who sits there knows the name of every ruler and has numbered all their days.

Because His greatness is real, His promises carry weight. A small god could make large promises and fail to keep them. The majesty of God means that when He pledges to keep His people, to raise the dead, and to make all things new, the One making the pledge has the height and the strength to perform it. His exalted station is not far off and irrelevant. It is the ground beneath every assurance the believer leans on.

The Majesty of God and the Humility of Jesus

Here the gospel sets up its deepest wonder. The majesty of God did not stay on a distant throne. In Jesus the King came down. The One through whom the worlds were made was laid in a feeding trough, grew up in an unimportant town, and washed the feet of fishermen. The same Person of whom Hebrews says He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high had first emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. The greatness was never lost, but for a time it was veiled, so that sinners could draw near without being consumed.

This is what makes the majesty of God so different from human grandeur. Earthly greatness hoards itself and demands to be served. The greatness of God expressed itself in self-giving. On the night He was betrayed, the Lord of glory knelt with a towel. At Calvary the King wore a crown of thorns. Far from contradicting His majesty, this is its highest expression, for only a truly great God could stoop so low without ceasing to be God. The cross does not lower the majesty of God. It reveals a majesty that has love at its centre.

And the story does not end at the cross. The risen Jesus has been exalted to the highest place, given the name above every name, so that every knee will bow. The humility was for a season. The majesty is for ever. When we worship Him now we are bowing to the One who once bowed to serve us, and who will one day be acknowledged as King by all. This is why the worship of the triune God is the natural air of the redeemed heart.

This rhythm of height and lowliness runs right through the gospel. The majesty of God is displayed most fully not when He overwhelms but when He stoops to save, not in raw force but in greatness bent to the service of love, which is a thing no earthly king has managed and no human story ever imagined on its own. The grandeur we meet in Jesus is real grandeur, yet it is grandeur with scars in its hands.

Does Talk of the Majesty of God Make Him Cold and Distant?

Some worry that dwelling on the majesty of God will produce a religion of fear, a God too high to be loved. The worry is understandable, because grandeur in human beings often does feel cold. Yet Scripture refuses to let the height of God and the nearness of God fall apart. The same Isaiah who saw the Lord high and lifted up also heard Him say that He dwells in the high and holy place, and also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit. The majesty of God and His tenderness towards the broken are spoken in the same breath.

Indeed it is the height of God that makes His nearness so precious. If He were only a little greater than we are, His attention would mean little. Because He is infinitely exalted, His care for the lowly is the most moving fact in the universe. The Psalmist marvels not despite the majesty of God but because of it, asking who is like the Lord, seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth, and yet raises the poor from the dust. The greatness and the gentleness are not in tension. The greatness is what gives the gentleness its glory.

So the proper response to the majesty of God is not cringing terror but reverent love. We come boldly, because of Jesus, yet we come bowing, because of who He is. A faith that has lost its trembling has usually lost its God along the way. A faith that trembles without loving has not yet understood the gospel. The majesty of God, rightly seen, holds the two together, producing worshippers who are at once near enough to call Him Father and low enough to fall at His feet.

For Further Study

Those wishing to study further will benefit from Charles Ryrie’s Basic Theology and Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology, both of which treat the greatness of God among the divine attributes with care and warmth. Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology handles the relationship between transcendence and immanence in a way that protects both the majesty of God and His nearness. J. Dwight Pentecost and John Walvoord write helpfully on the present session and coming reign of the enthroned Jesus. Readers may also find our articles on the omnipotence of God and the fear of the Lord a natural next step.

So, now what?

Let the majesty of God recalibrate your week. We drift into treating God as small, a helper to be consulted when other plans fail. Set aside time to read the throne scenes of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the Revelation slowly, and ask the Lord to restore your sense of His greatness. A recovered vision of the majesty of God tends to quiet anxious hearts, because it puts every trouble in its true proportion before a King who reigns.

Let it also shape your worship. Reverence is not the enemy of joy but its deep root. When the majesty of God is felt in a gathering, praise stops being mere enthusiasm and becomes adoration. Come to Him with the gladness of a child and the awe of a creature, refusing to surrender either. The God who is high is also the God who is near, and worship is where both are honoured.

And let the humility of Jesus keep your awe from turning cold. The King who reigns on high is the same Lord who knelt with a towel and died on a cross for you. Draw near with confidence because of Him, and bow low because of who He is. To live before the majesty of God is to walk through the world unafraid of lesser thrones, certain that the greatest throne of all is occupied by One who loves you.

“The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.” Psalm 93:1 (ESV)