The Holy of Holies (2)

 

 

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one” (John 17:22).

 

How is it that Jesus says that He is giving His glory to us, and yet in Isaiah 42:8 God says, “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images [idols]”?

 

For sure our God does not give His glory to idols, but do we really believe that He doesn’t? Are we asking God to give His glory to the idols we have made in life and in religion? Do we not have household idols (as ancient peoples did), community idols, national idols, professional and vocational idols? Are we honest enough to consider that we just might have religious idols, Christianized idols? Have we crafted our brand of Christianity into an idol?

 

 Does our speech and teaching reveal our idols?

 

As to the idea that God does not give His glory to another, this can help us understand what Jesus says about giving His glory to us – for in giving His glory to us He does not give His glory to another for we are One in the Father and the Son and in the Holy Spirit. We have no oneness apart from the Oneness of the Trinity. There are not two onenesses.

 

That is, we do not look at the Trinty and see Oneness and then look at ourselves and see oneness; for we cannot have oneness with a lower case “o,” such oneness is impossible. Hence, in Christ we know koinonia in the Trinity, and knowing koinonia in the Trinity is knowing the Oneness of the Trinity; this is ineffable, it is the Holy of Holies.  

 

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

 

Jesus also prays, “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” (17:24).

 

As the Father gives His glory to Jesus, so Jesus gives His glory to us; so that the world may know that the Father sent the Son and that the Father loves us even as He loves Jesus.

 

O dear friends, let us not forget that we “are all from one Father” (Hebrews 2:11) and that our Father is “bringing many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:10).

 

As Jesus comes to us, as He comes into the world, He comes “to be glorified in His saints,” He comes that “the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him” (2 Thess. 1:10 – 12).

 

Let us remind one another that we are “heirs of God and coheirs with Christ,” that there is a glory “being revealed in us,” and that we are in the process of glorification in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:17, 18, 30).

 

We are the Body of Christ, we are the Bride of Christ; one with Him. Being one with Him, when He gives His glory to us He does not give His glory to another, for we are in the Us of John 17:21.

 

We have seen this coming in our approach to John 17. Jesus gives us a glimpse in John 14:23 in the Upper Room, “My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

 

Jesus emphasizes our unity in Him with the Vine and the branches, “Abide in Me, and I in you…apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:1 – 5). The Vine, Jesus Christ, is our sole source of life.

 

There is only one person who can live the Christian life, that Person is God.

 

All of our little self-help idols which demand worship, all of our idols crafted into religious images (as Christianized as they may be), all of our pragmatic programs, lead us deeper and deeper into bondage and away from the liberty of Jesus Christ, away from the koinonia of the Trinity, away from glorious Oneness with one another in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

No wineskin can contain the glory of the Holy Trinity, no wineskin can contain God’s unfolding glory; how foolish to force others into straightjackets, how silly not to desire God’s glory rather than glory for our fiefdoms and images.

 

I heard a denominational leader saying that he hoped that 200 years from now his denomination would still be going strong. How much better to hope that 200 years from now God’s glory will be inhabiting His People who have been perfected into One in Jesus Christ? How much better to desire a creditable testimony to the world of the Father’s love for the Son?

 

Now for the dear reader who thinks I’m being a bit harsh, I only ask you to look around you. What do you see? Do you see Christians with a vision of the Church of Jesus Christ? Do you see Christians with an understanding of the Body of Christ? Do you see a People speaking of Jesus, speaking of Jesus to one another, to their coworkers, to their neighbors? Do you see a People whose hearts have been captured by a love for Jesus?

 

Do you see a People for whom the Body of Christ is more important than their denomination, their movement, their doctrinal distinctives? (Please understand, whether someone is in a denomination or is so-called nondenominational is irrelevant.) Do you see pastors in fellowship and in ministry and friendship across organizational lines?

 

Since we do not know who we are, we allow others to define who we are and to enslave us to their idols. Political idols, economic idols, national idols, sports idols, entertainment idols, racial idols, idols of pleasure, idols of possessions, worldview idols (including so-called “Christian” worldviews). We even craft idols from the Bible, such as “End Times” idols.

 

Revelation 11:2 speaks of the nations treading under foot the court outside the temple, the holy city. I wonder if “we” are the perpetrators, if “we” aren’t desecrating the holy city with our foolishness, with our pollution.

 

Are we not like the people in Haggai? These people were released from Babylon for the express purpose of rebuilding the Temple of God, and yet when they arrived in Jerusalem they were only concerned with their own houses (see Haggai).

 

We have been saved from sin and death to follow Jesus, to belong to Him, to be the Holy Temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:19 – 22; 4:1 – 16; 1 Peter 2:4 – 10), to be the Presence of God in the earth.

 

Now I realize that there are exceptions to our self-destructive behavior, but they are exceptions. Thank God for the exceptions, for I think they hold back a measure of the tsunami.

 

Only the Holy Spirit can bring us into the unity that Jesus prays for, we cannot organize this, we cannot program this, in fact, we must come to the end of ourselves, we must confess that “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1).

 

To lay down our lives for one another (1 John 3:16; John 15:12 – 13), includes laying down our preferences, our little religious houses, our theological and religious idols…our self-interest.

 

Is this possible?

 

The measure of a man, a woman, a family, a local church, a movement or denomination, an institution, is the measure in which it gives itself for others, the measure in which is lays down its self-interest, it’s life. This is the measure of Jesus Christ.