Glorified By God

It is a matter of great importance that the Bible speaks to sinful men and women about the possibility of eternal life, eternal glory and everlasting happiness in the divine presence. In the mercy of God He has secured atonement and granted forgiveness from sin by the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In His goodness and grace He encourages hope amongst fallen creatures for more and better than we deserve.  

All of God

It is the church’s eternal glory Paul is speaking about in our verses and again we note the apostle’s emphasis that glorification is the work of God alone. It is God who glorifies His people. He does so by endowing them with all the blessings He has prepared for them that love Him. We often use glory as a synonym for heaven but it is useful to remember glory for believers is more than the place prepared for us. It is the state of everlasting blessedness we have already entered into as the church of Jesus Christ.

The success of the cross

Glory as the God-man was given to the Lord Jesus when He successfully fulfilled the terms of the covenant of grace and redeemed the elect from their sins. All who are united to Christ as His body share the victory and inheritance of Christ who is the Head of the body. In this sense glory for believers has already begun. It will continue and increase when we enter more fully into the Lord’s presence and into the mansions prepared in heaven.

No glory in our works

We should not, as some do, imagine glory to be earned by believers based on our good works, obedience and sacrifice. All our glory is derived from the Lord Jesus with whom we are heirs and joint heirs together. Glory is not our reward but Christ’s reward in us. Glory in Christ is given to all whom God loved, set apart and purposed to save from eternity. Glory is what the elect are predestinated to enjoy and called to possess. It is what our justification gives us a right and title to. It is our likeness to Christ and conformity to Him.

Like ‘The King’s daughter’

Enjoyment of heavenly glory is the present experience of that part of the believing church already ascended into the presence of the Saviour. The promise of heavenly glory assures those who are yet alive and remain on earth of imminent joys ahead. Though still in this world of sin believers are ‘all-glorious within’. We are so by the grace of God, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the robe of Christ’s righteousness. Our glory, in the hands of Christ, is certain, sure and to be anticipated eagerly in faith and hope.

A place prepared

The prospect of heaven and the glory to follow is a great comfort to the Lord’s people here on earth. Heaven is the place of everlasting blessedness where the dead in Christ already reside and wait for us. The scriptural names of this place arouse great expectation. Christ calls it His ‘Father’s house’. It is ‘paradise’, a ‘better country’ where the redeemed of the Lord sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God and the new Jerusalem. There will be there no sin, sickness, pain, tears or loneliness in that place.

Eternal life in Christ

In heaven the joy of the righteous consists in the possession of everlasting life which Paul calls ‘an eternal weight of glory’. We do not yet know the fulness of this glory for, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him’. Nevertheless, we may be sure, He to whom, properly speaking, all glory belongs, both knows how to give and delights to dispense, all good and perfect gifts to His children. 

A light shining in darkness

It is a great chain of grace the apostle lays before the church in these verses. The divine links have their origin in the eternal purpose of God and stretch from foreknowledge and election to justification by blood and eternal glory in the Lord Jesus. Christ is the Bringer, Giver and Revealer of God’s glory to the church. The gospel of God’s grace ‘hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’.

Good things to come

Tomorrow we shall reflect upon the source of our glory, the nature of our glory, the experience of glory and the comfort these truths bestow on the tried and tested people of God.

Amen.