The glory of God
The glory of God
According to John’s Gospel Jesus referred to his death as a ‘glorification’, the event through which he and his Father would be supremely ‘glorified’ or manifested. This comes to many people as a surprise. In the Old Testament God’s glory or splendour was revealed in nature and history, that is, in the created universe and in the redeemed nation. On the one hand, heaven and earth were filled with his glory, including (Jesus added) the flowers of a Galilean spring, whose glory exceeded even Solomon’s.1 On the other hand, God showed his glory in delivering Israel from their Egyptian and Babylonian captivities, and in revealing to them his character of mercy and justice.2 Thus God displayed his majesty in his world and in his people.
It is not in the least surprising that, when the New Testament opens, glory should be associated with Jesus Christ. As Lord Ramsey of Canterbury has written, ‘in so far as doxa is the divine splendour, Jesus Christ is that splendour’.3 According to the Synoptic Gospels, however, although Jesus’ glory was glimpsed at his transfiguration, its full manifestation would not take place until his Parousia and the kingdom which would then be consummated.4 It would be a revelation of ‘power and glory’. What is striking about John’s presentation is that, although his glory was manifested powerfully in his miracles or ‘signs’,5 it was above all to be seen in his present weakness, in the self-humiliation of his incarnation. ‘The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). One must not miss the Old Testament allusions. God’s glory which overshadowed and filled the tabernacle in the wilderness was now displayed in him who ‘lived for a while’ (eskēnōsen, ‘tabernacled’) among us. And as Yahweh showed Moses his glory by declaring his name to be both merciful and righteous, so the glory we have seen in Jesus Christ was ‘full of grace and truth’. More important still is the deliberate antithesis between ‘flesh’ and ‘glory’, and so ‘the fundamental paradox of the glory of the divine humiliation’.6
The self-humiliation of the Son of God, which began in the incarnation, culminated in his death. Yet in that very abasement of himself he was ‘lifted up’, not just physically raised on to the cross, but spiritually exalted before the eyes of the world.7 Indeed, he was ‘glorified’. The cross which appeared to be ‘shame’ was in fact ‘glory’. Whereas in the Synoptic Gospels suffering is the path to future glory,8 to John it is also the arena in which the glorification actually takes place.9 On three separate occasions Jesus referred to his coming death as the hour of his glorification. First, in response to the request of some Greeks to see him, Jesus said ‘the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’, and went on immediately to speak of his death in terms both of a kernel of wheat falling to the ground and of the Father’s glorifying his own name. Secondly, as soon as Judas had left the upper room and gone out into the night, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.’ Thirdly, he began his great prayer, which terminated their evening in the upper room, with the words: ‘Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.’10 What is notable about all three passages is first that each is introduced by either ‘now’ or ‘the time has come’, making the reference to the cross indisputable, and secondly that the glorification will be of the Father and the Son together.
So Father and Son are revealed by the cross. But what is it which they reveal of themselves? Certainly the self-humbling and self-giving of love are implicit there. But what about the holiness of that love, which made it necessary for the Lamb of God to take away the world’s sin and for the Good Shepherd to lay down his life for his sheep, and which made it more expedient (as Caiaphas correctly prophesied) ‘that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish’?11 These statements were integral to John’s understanding of the death by which the Father and Son would be glorified. The glory which radiates from the cross is that same combination of divine qualities which God revealed to Moses as mercy and justice, and which we have seen in the Word made flesh as ‘grace and truth’.12 This is God’s ‘goodness’, which Calvin saw displayed in the ‘theatre’ of the cross:
For in the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theatre, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world. The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross ....
If it be objected that nothing could be less glorious than Christ’s death..., I reply that in that death we see a boundless glory which is concealed from the ungodly.13
When we turn from John to Paul the concept that God has revealed himself in and through the cross is yet more explicit. What in John is the manifestation of God’s glory in Paul is the demonstration, indeed the vindication, of his character of justice and love. It may be helpful, before we study the two key texts separately, to look at them side by side. They both occur in the letter to the Romans:
God...did this (sc. present Christ as an atoning sacrifice) to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies the man who has faith in Jesus (3:25–26).
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (5:8).
The Greek verbs rendered ‘demonstrate’ in chapters 3 and 5 respectively are different. But it was a true instinct of the NIV translators to use the same English verb. For they mean the same thing, and Paul is declaring that in the death of Christ God has given us a clear, public demonstration of both his justice and his love. We have already seen how God ‘satisfied’ his wrath and love, justice and mercy, by giving himself in Christ to bear our sin and condemnation. Now we are to see how, in satisfying these divine attributes in the cross, he displayed and demonstrated them.