Glorification - A Mystery

 

“Therefore when he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.’” John 13:31 – 32.

 

Now that Judas Iscariot has “gone out” we are called to go further in with Jesus. It may take a while to get a sense of what I mean, to experience what I mean – for most of our religious experience is linear, we move through the Scriptures as if we are checking off boxes, as if we are watching a car’s odometer, verse by verse, chapter after chapter, frame after frame of a movie, scene after scene of a play. We are captives of a naturalistic and humanistic approach to Scripture, one that is the antithesis of Biblical “epistemology” and “hermeneutics” – technical words that speak to the questions of how do we “know”? or how “should we know”? and how are we to interpret, receive, and understand what we read? We will encounter these questions of knowing and understanding as we experience the Upper Room; I raise these questions now to prepare us, so that we won’t be surprised (too much) at what we find.

 

(I hope we’ve seen in previous reflections that there is more to feet washing than the natural eye can see).

 

What do we see in John 13:31 – 32? Ponder what Jesus is saying. What do you see regarding His relationship with the Father? What do we see regarding glory and glorification? Allow the play of words, the point and counterpoint, to speak to you – for here the veil is pulled back and we glimpse a Divine mystery, a holy interchange. What do you see? What do you hear?

 

Let’s recall John 12:27 – 28: “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. ‘Father, glorify Your name.’ Then a voice came out of heaven: ‘I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.’”

 

Let us also anticipate John 17:22: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one…”

 

As well as John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”

 

Between John 13:31 – 32 and John 17:24 we will encounter more of the mystery of glory – a mystery that incorporates the sons and daughters of the Living God, that is, a mystery that incorporates us – you and me. How do we respond to John 17:22?

 

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them…”?

 

O dear friends, it was once true that “All have sinned and fell short of the glory of God,” (Rom. 3:23), but such is no longer true of the saints of God in Christ – for the Son has given us His glory and we cry out, “Abba Father!” (Rom. 8:15).

 

Consider that His glory empowers us to be one as the Trinity is one (John 17:22). His glory is to be our biosphere, our breath, our joy – our ever-present experience. And in His glory we glory in Him and in one another in Him.

 

Paul prays that “the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:12). Paul sets forth the vision of God coming to be glorified “in His saints (2 Thess. 1:10). Do we see the similarity between 2 Thessalonians 1:10 – 12 and John 13:31 – 32? The Father is glorified in the Son and the Son is glorified in the Father; God and Christ are glorified in the saints, and the saints are glorified in Christ and God.

 

In Romans 8:17 – 30 Paul writes of the glory of the children of God, of us being glorified with Christ, and of the Father glorifying us.

 

Then in Hebrews 2:10 we see that the Father is “bringing many sons to glory.”

 

How sad that there are many who – intentionally or not – seek to rob the saints of their present inheritance in our Lord Jesus Christ. How sad that the Gospel is truncated and that we are forbidden to claim and live in the glory of our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. What a tragedy that the veil is sown up week after week on Sunday mornings, in books, on the radio, on podcasts – and that the Bride of Christ is thrown rags to wear rather than the glorious glory of her Husband – Jesus Christ.

 

How ironic that many who use the term “grace” do not desire us to live in grace – but in bondage to self-flagellation and a perpetual consciousness of sin – rather than in the fulness of justification, sanctification, adoption, and life in the Holy Spirit.

 

The account of Jesus Christ in the Upper Room is our story too, for we are in Him – and we are explicitly called into the koinonia of the Trinity by the Father and the Son, through the Holy Spirit. We are the sons and daughters of the Living God, we are saints in Christ and no longer sinners – and we are called to be broken Bread and poured out Wine to our generation.

 

And dear dear brother or sister, who protests and ignores this Gospel teaching, insisting that God will not give His glory to another. Can you not see that we are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh? We are one in Trinity. We are the Body of Christ. We are not another.

 

Is this not a mystery?