To Glorify and Be Glorified

 

“Glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (John 17:1).

 

As we enter into the Holy of Holies we encounter the glory of God, a glory that flows from the Father to the Son to the Spirit, from the Spirt to the Son to the Father; indeed it flows within the mysterious Godhead in Divine Oneness and Unity and Koinonia – beyond what we can understand, but not beyond what we can touch and in which we may participate. Indeed, this is our destiny in Jesus Christ. We will have occasion to touch on “glory” more than once in the Holy of Holies – see for example 17:22 – 24.

 

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23).

 

“Father, glorify Your name” (12:28).

 

“I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (12:28).

 

The Name (Nature, Essence) of the Father is glorified in the Son, and the Name of the Son is glorified in the Father.

 

The Son’s glorification of the Father is found in the Son giving eternal life to those whom the Father has given Him:

 

“Even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life” (17:2).

 

Here is a thread of the tapestry of the Holy of Holies, that of the Father giving men and women and young people to the Son:

 

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave me out of the world” (17:6).

 

“Those whom You have given me” (17:9).

 

“They also, whom You have given me” (17:24).

 

The Holy of Holies, this intimate communion of the Son and the Father in John 17, includes you and it includes me, it includes us; it encompasses those whom the Father has given to Jesus, those to whom Jesus gives eternal life. This prayer is not only about the Father and the Son, it is about us in the Father and the Son and about the Son and the Father within us (17:21 – 23).

 

This is not about information my dear friends, nor is it about right doctrine (though make no mistake, what we believe is vital), it is about relationship, friendship. Sonship, intimacy, and eternal life in the Trinity and the Trinity in us. Right doctrine that does not lead to intimacy with God is amiss, it has gone awry, and we must ask whether it is truly “right” in a Biblical sense, in a holistic healthy sense. Let us not forget what Jesus says in John 5:39 and 6:63.

 

“Glorify Your Son, that the Son many glorify You,” is not only the destiny of the Firstborn Son, but it is the destiny of all the sons and daughters of God, indeed, it is the destiny of the corporate Son, the Body of Christ. We see in Hebrews 2:10 that the Father is “bringing many sons to glory” through Jesus Christ. In 2 Thessalonians 1:10 and 12 Paul writes of Jesus being “glorified in His saints” and that “the name (the Essence, the Nature) of our Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified in you, and you in Him.”

 

In Romans Chapter 8 we read of being “glorified with Him,” of the “glory that is to be revealed in us,” of the “freedom of the glory of the children of God,” and of the Father having “glorified” us. To be sure, we can only experience glory, we can only be glorified, in Jesus Christ, only in Jesus Christ.

 

If Jesus glorifies the Father by giving eternal life to those whom the Father has given Him, then ought not we also to glorify the Father by sharing eternal life with others? In fact, does not Jesus give eternal life to others through His Body, through the unity of Word and deed through His Body?

 

If you know Jesus Christ, it is because someone has prayed for you, talked to you about Jesus in some fashion, demonstrated grace and love to you, translated Scripture for you – somehow and some way the Body of Christ has communicated Jesus and His eternal life to you – you did not encounter Jesus Christ in a vacuum. Shall you and I not continue to glorify the Father by giving (in the sense of sharing) eternal life with others?

 

It is also likely that, even beyond the glorious death and resurrection of Jesus, that somewhere along our spiritual genealogies others have suffered and possibly died that we might know Jesus. People have been paying a price that we might know Jesus in generation after generation, ought not we to be a people who also pay a price for others to know Jesus?

 

The Father glorifies the Son that the Son may glorify the Father. The Son which the Father glorifies is both the Firstborn, Jesus Christ, and also His Body.

 

Has the hour arrived in our lives in which we are glorifying the Father?

 

Are we living as the sons and daughters of the Living God?

 

Are we living in John Chapter 17?

 

NOTE: The Upper Room, and especially John 17, is so foreign to our thinking and religion and experience that it can be disorienting, after all, intimacy with God and with one another is not something we are accustomed to thinking about and living within. We are accustomed to being oriented to our great ongoing need, rather than God’s grand provision and call to live as His saints today, sharing the Life of the Trinity with others. The Gospel is truly “Good News,” if we will only believe it. I hope you will read and reread and reread the Upper Room (John chapters 13 – 17), and that you will especially meditate on John 17 and allow your Father to draw you into His Presence. As you learn to live within John 17, you will hopefully know the joy of inviting others to come along with you.