Glorify Together

 

 

“Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).

 

Jesus’ communion with the Father begins, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (17:1).

 

The glory of the Father is the glory of the Son, and the glory of the Son is the glory of the Father. As we will see in verse 22, the glory of the Trinity is given to us in Christ. Sadly, much of the story of humanity is the story of us, “exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man” (Rom. 1:23). Do we not see this today in our society? Do we not worship the image of man, of ourselves? The conflicts we see within nations and among nations is a conflict about which idol we will worship.

 

Jesus seeks no glory apart from the Father, in fact, the Father is the glory of the Son. Jesus recalls the glory He had with the Father “before the world was.” This not only takes us back to the very beginning of the Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being,” but it also takes us through the Gospel of John.

 

“’My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.’ For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (5:17 – 18).

 

“I Am the Bread of life” (6:35).

 

“I Am the Light of the world” (8:12).

 

“I Am the Good Shepherd” (10:11).

 

“I Am the Resurrection and the Life” (11:25).

 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I Am,” (8:58).

 

One of the mysteries of the “I AM” statements is that, while the glory of the Father was pouring in and through Jesus in the Incarnation, the bestowal of the “glory which I had with You before the world was,” was yet to come.

 

This takes us to Philippians 2:5 – 11 in which we see that “He [Jesus] emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” Hebrews 2:9 – 18 also speaks to us of Jesus being “made like His brethren in all things.”

 

As Jesus Himself asked the disciples on the road to Emmaus, “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26).

 

Jesus is emptied, in a fashion we cannot understand, in the Incarnation, and He is restored to the glory which He had with the Father before the world was through suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. We behold elements of this in Scripture, we see refracted Light through this, we even participate in this mystery ourselves, but I think it beyond our comprehension – such is the greatness of the glory of God and of His Story, for this is truly the Story of the Lamb – He includes us in His Story, but He is the Story, the Message, the Gospel – the Lamb is the Light, not me, not you, not us.

 

We are called to enter into His glory as we participate with Him in His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. This is a Divine koinonia (Phil. 3:10), this is our inheritance (Rom. 8:16 – 18). Mystery of mysteries, in doing so, in touching the eternal glory, in receiving the glory which Christ bestows on us (John 17:22), we touch the I AM THAT I AM, and in touching Him we touch the “glory which I had with You before the world was.”

 

Well, as Paul writes, there are some things which are not lawful to talk about (2 Cor. 12:4). I think this is because of our propensity to profane and make merchandise of the holy, and also because some things are simply too beyond us for human words. But then, what do I really know?  

 

Let’s consider that we are changed into the image of Jesus Christ “from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18) and that this occurs in the liberty of the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:17). This resonates with the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” in Romans 8:21. Let us also consider the progression we see in Romans 8:30:

 

“These whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called,  He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

 

The Father is indeed “bringing many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:10).

 

That which we had lost and fallen short of (Rom. 3:23), is now being restored in us, in Christ, always in Christ (Rom. 5:1 – 11).

 

As we look forward into eternity, we see that the Bride has the glory of God (Rev. 21:10) and that the glory of God illuminates that Holy City (Rev. 21:23).

 

If you ask me what the “glory” is, I cannot answer you. O for sure it is the Presence, the all – enveloping Presence of God. For sure, His holiness and purity and Otherness, His love and mercy and grace, His Essence. But who has words for the Ineffable? We must fall on our face speechless at times, at other times we can but raise our hands and hearts and cry, “Holy, holy, holy.”

 

I think this, that only fools merchandise and sell such things, and for sure there are fools aplenty within professing Christianity. Wise men and women are circumspect in touching and communicating the Holy, they fear to take liberties with holy things, with sacred things, for they are servants and not masters, they follow the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain.

 

I also think this, that one touch of the Shekinah is worth a lifetime of “worship and praise” songs, for when the Other touches you, you know you have been touched – and you know you had nothing to do with it – you were touched because it pleased Him to touch you.

 

You can no more speak of these things than you ought to speak of that which transpires between a husband and wife in their sacred chambers…but we have so profaned our religion and made merchandise of it that it challenges us to conceive of such things…well, the Song of Solomon may help us with this…perhaps.

 

O that we would return to our purity of devotion to Christ! (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3; Rev. 2:4).

 

John 17:1 – 5 is the first movement in the Holy of Holies of Chapter 17. As you mediate on these words of Jesus, allow the Holy Spirit to draw you into the heart of your High Priest, into the Presence of the Lamb, into the glory of the Father.

 

As you read this passage aloud, can you hear the Voice of Jesus?

 

Can you see Him speaking to the Father?