Defining the glory of God is impossible, I say, because it is more like the word beauty than the word basketball. So if somebody says they have never heard of a basketball, they don’t know what a basketball is and they say: Define a basketball. That would not be hard for you to do. You would use your hands and you would say: Well, it is like a round thing made out of leather or rubber and about 10 or nine inches in diameter and you blow it up. You inflate it so it is pretty hard. And then you can bounce it like this and you can throw it to people and you can run while you are bouncing it. And then there is this hoop at the end. It used to be a basket. And you try to throw the ball through the hoop and that is why it is called a basketball. And they would have a really good idea. They would be able to spot one, tell it from a soccer ball or a football.
You can’t do that with the word beauty. There are some words in our vocabulary which we can communicate with not because we can say them, but because we see them. We can point. And if we point at enough things and see enough things together and say: That’s it, that’s it, that’s it. We might be able to have a common sense of beauty. But you try to put the word beauty into words, it would be very, very difficult.
John Piper
Website: http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-is-god-s-glory