Is the Earth really "full" of God's glory?

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In Luke 1:28 Mary is said to be “full” of grace, we take this as a sign of her sinlessness. If she is full of grace, there is no room for sin. Isaiah 6:3 says (quoting from Douay Rheims) “all the Earth is full of His glory” which we repeat in the Sanctus during Mass.

If Mary’s being “full” of grace makes her sinless, wouldn’t Earth’s being “full” of God’s glory make Earth sinless? Which of course it is not. Obviously Isaiah didn’t have a vision where the angels glorifying God said “the Earth is filled with much of your glory, except where people are sinning in which case your glory is not present” or he would have said that. Or is it meant that God’s glory is present while people are sinning? Were the WWII concentration camps “full” of God’s glory? That seems blasphemous. How to reconcile?

Thanks in advance for ideas and answers.
 
Isaiah 6 is a vision of an ultimate destination, Isaiah is seeing future in the present.

Numbers 14:21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled (future) with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory (which is the brightness etc on Mt Sinai) … (A manifestation)

Habakkuk 2:14 For the earth will be (future from Habakkuk) filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (A manifestation).

Glory is a brightness, and while it is not just brightness it produces brightness. 1 Corinthians 15:40-41 describes a differing glory, brightness of the sun and moon.

Revelation 21:22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

Revelation 22:5 They shall see his face, and night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.
 
So when we say “Heaven and Earth are full of Your glory” what we really mean is “Heaven and Earth will be full of Your glory” Yet in the next line “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” the present is actually the present.
 
Hi johnrcornell. Yes but no. God exists outside time, so while it’s absolute fulfillment is future to us, it is also present to Him. The glory of God does fill the whole earth present, but is is veiled from the descendants of Adam, the first one. In Acts 7:54 Stephen gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Stephen could see the glory of God, but it was veiled to all the non-believers. That is why the veil was in the temple. So it is the veil that is gradually being removed, first through Jesus Christ. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Not sure I am making myself clear, The Glory of God does fill the whole world present but it is veiled to varying degrees and being unveiled to the complete unveiling in the future.

I believe the Holy Spirit through the Church is a manifestation of the Glory of God in this age.
 
I understand your idea, that interpretation occurred to me. However I don’t think that’s clear to 99% of Catholics who are repeating this during the Mass, that when we say “Heaven and Earth are full of Your glory” that’s actually not true for us, but was true in the context of a future prophetic vision, or from a timeless perspective of God which we have no way to grasp. I think when almost anyone repeats it in the Mass they’re taking it at face value, which is interesting since taken that way it’s actually not true. There’s also still an incongruity there since we’re jumping back and forth between present-present and only-present-to-God-present. I’m not sure if there are any other examples in the liturgy where we refer to conditions that are strictly in the future from our perspective as if they’re in the present.

And if the statement is from the perspective of God’s timelessness, we could just as easily sing “Heaven and Earth are not full of Your glory” since our present/past would also be included in God’s composite-of-all-times-at-once present.
 
I think from a Catholic perspective, it is absolutely correct that it is present tense. They are the children of the Kingdom (which is also a present reality on earth in the Church but it is not a complete fulfillment of the Kingdom). It is also like “are saved, being saved, will be saved”.

The world however who rejects Jesus Christ, the glory of God, the light of the world, is in darkness.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.

2 Corinthians 3:12-18. The veiling that prevents the manifestation of the glory of God.
 
I am confused that you are positing that “Glory” == “Grace” when semantically they are NOT.

The Glory of God is manifested in different ways and it can sometimes give us hints of Him. We know we cannot see God directly but we can get indirect knowledge of Him through His manifestations on earth and the cosmos (His Glory)
These manifestations do not necessarily have any thing to do with sin.

Grace on the other hand is an infusion of His Glory that helps us avoid sin.
So we could say that Grace is the response of the human soul to the infusion of God’s Glory but we call this response “Grace”.

When Isaiah 6:3 says “all the Earth is full of His glory” he is merely telling us that we cannot deny Him precisely because we CAN see Him through His manifestation all over the earth.

👍
 
johnrcornell said:
In Luke 1:28 Mary is said to be “full” of grace, we take this as a sign of her sinlessness. If she is full of grace, there is no room for sin. Isaiah 6:3 says (quoting from Douay Rheims) “all the Earth is full of His glory” which we repeat in the Sanctus during Mass.

If Mary’s being “full” of grace makes her sinless, wouldn’t Earth’s being “full” of God’s glory make Earth sinless? Which of course it is not. Obviously Isaiah didn’t have a vision where the angels glorifying God said “the Earth is filled with much of your glory, except where people are sinning in which case your glory is not present” or he would have said that. Or is it meant that God’s glory is present while people are sinning? Were the WWII concentration camps “full” of God’s glory? That seems blasphemous. How to reconcile?

Thanks in advance for ideas and answers.
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It is full of it alright.
 
The glory is present, though we may not understand it. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, two hastily-chosen selections:
Providence and the scandal of evil…
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314 We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God “face to face,” will we fully know the ways by which—even through the dramas of evil and sin—God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest for which he created heaven and earth.
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412 But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, “Christ’s inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon’s envy had taken away.” And St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “There is nothing to prevent human nature’s being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, ‘Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more’; and the Exultet sings, ‘O happy fault,… which gained for us so great a Redeemer!’”
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HI,

I look up the meaning of the word Earth, and found the Hebrew word which is, and means

ארץ
‘erets
eh’-rets
From an unused root probably meaning to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land): - X common, country, earth, field, ground, land, X nations, way, + wilderness, world.

It is used also in:

Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

Gen 1:9 God also said; Let the waters that are under the heaven, be gathered together into one place: and let the dry land appear. And it was so done.

The same Hebrew word is also used for “land”.

The word earth must not be considering people, as people is what would make the earth not not full of Glory, as people have the free will to be Glorious or not. Earth on it own, would just do what God has intended it to do from the begining of time. Show the Glory of God.

Bill
johnrcornell said:
In Luke 1:28 Mary is said to be “full” of grace, we take this as a sign of her sinlessness. If she is full of grace, there is no room for sin. Isaiah 6:3 says (quoting from Douay Rheims) “all the Earth is full of His glory” which we repeat in the Sanctus during Mass.

If Mary’s being “full” of grace makes her sinless, wouldn’t Earth’s being “full” of God’s glory make Earth sinless? Which of course it is not. Obviously Isaiah didn’t have a vision where the angels glorifying God said “the Earth is filled with much of your glory, except where people are sinning in which case your glory is not present” or he would have said that. Or is it meant that God’s glory is present while people are sinning? Were the WWII concentration camps “full” of God’s glory? That seems blasphemous. How to reconcile?

Thanks in advance for ideas and answers.
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Beryllos said:
The glory is present, though we may not understand it. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, two hastily-chosen selections:
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1 Corinthians 13:12 is a good passage which I was going to mention on this subject. (I love the CCC). We see in a mirror dimly (ie only partially the glory) but finally face to face.

I was also going to mention the healing of the blind man in steps, “I see people as trees walking”, Jesus did this for a reason. Mark 8:24.

I was also going to mention 2 Kings 6:17-19.

The glory of God is there but veiled, we can either not see it at all or see it partially, but only future fully.
 
The earth is full of God’s glory…people are another story altogether due to free will. Each human person is made in the image and likeness of God, therefore a glorious creation in each and every molecule and spirit. One need only look at an infant to see the glory of God. Our greatest challenge is our greatest gift… Free will to choose good or evil to varying degrees. Heaven and earth are full of God’s glory. Recalling that our physical life here is only a tiny fragment of our own eternal life and our limited abilities in comparison with Gods almighty wisdom and power can help us to realize our almost laughable attempts to “understand” God. In God’s design, this part of our journey is perhaps comparable to the abilities of a new life in utero, understanding really nothing, just feeling.
 
johnrcornell said:
In Luke 1:28 Mary is said to be “full” of grace, we take this as a sign of her sinlessness. If she is full of grace, there is no room for sin. Isaiah 6:3 says (quoting from Douay Rheims) “all the Earth is full of His glory” which we repeat in the Sanctus during Mass.

If Mary’s being “full” of grace makes her sinless, wouldn’t Earth’s being “full” of God’s glory make Earth sinless? Which of course it is not. Obviously Isaiah didn’t have a vision where the angels glorifying God said “the Earth is filled with much of your glory, except where people are sinning in which case your glory is not present” or he would have said that. Or is it meant that God’s glory is present while people are sinning? Were the WWII concentration camps “full” of God’s glory? That seems blasphemous. How to reconcile?

Thanks in advance for ideas and answers.
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A consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin is that both good and evil would be known. The first and ultimate evil is separation from God, aka death of the soul, spiritual death, which Adam and Eve experienced-or knew-immediately. They were exiled from the Garden, outside God’s immediate presence, no longer in communion with Him as is the right order for man, i.e. as justice requires. Now man was lost, cut off from his Creator, surrounded by the sin that flourished in his world as a result of this division. He would now know both good and evil experientially: the good inherent in God’s handiwork, His creation, expressed in the power and beauty of nature, in order and design, in love and other virtues such as courage and nobility and kindness which fallen man still possesses by virtue of being made in God’s image and which he reveals from time to time, the goodness of existence itself-and the evil which we experience everyday that results from man’s preference for himself over God, a preference that results in compromising the goodness inherent in His creation, that seeks to negate beauty and order and love and any other virtues, which seeks to ultimately negate existence itself, which opposes God’s will in one way or another IOW.
 
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is in your midst.” (best I can recall the verse). Also, “I will be with you until the end of time.”

Also, in the OT, God says From the rising of the sun to its setting, my Name is honored throughout the Earth.

So, yes, the Earth is full of God’s glory.
 
johnrcornell said:
In Luke 1:28 Mary is said to be “full” of grace, we take this as a sign of her sinlessness. If she is full of grace, there is no room for sin. Isaiah 6:3 says (quoting from Douay Rheims) “all the Earth is full of His glory” which we repeat in the Sanctus during Mass.

If Mary’s being “full” of grace makes her sinless, wouldn’t Earth’s being “full” of God’s glory make Earth sinless? Which of course it is not. Obviously Isaiah didn’t have a vision where the angels glorifying God said “the Earth is filled with much of your glory, except where people are sinning in which case your glory is not present” or he would have said that. Or is it meant that God’s glory is present while people are sinning? Were the WWII concentration camps “full” of God’s glory? That seems blasphemous. How to reconcile?

Thanks in advance for ideas and answers.
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In order to answer your question, you have to comprehend the difference between God’s grace and his glory. Obviously they are not the same thing from a human perspective, so that in theology, we have different words to describe differing aspects of God. We attribute grace with God’s life as something that frees us from sin. God glory is different.
 
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