1. His deity was glorified.
have a communion with him in the felicities of his heavenly glory; and to such a confirmation of our faith and hope was an entrance into his glory necessary. This doctrine is the highest comfort in the Christian religion; and without this, and a share in it, what comfort can we expect in the deplorable, and, I may say, stupefying dispensation we are now under?
Second thing. The nature of this glory. It was a great glory. As he was filled with the Spirit without measure above all the prophets, for the performing his mediatory function, so he was instated in a glory without stint above all the angels for the application of the fruits of his mediation; as great a glory as a creature united to the person of the Son of God was capable of receiving. As he had the Spirit without measure, so he had a glory without end. God did super-exalt him, as the word signifies, Philip. 2:9, ὑπερύψωσε, as he was set at the right hand of God, which was granted to no mere creature, and had a name above every name. Christ consisted of two natures, divine and human; let us see how these were glorified.
1. His deity was glorified.
(1.) This could not properly have any addition of intrinsecal glory. To enter into glory doth suppose a temporary exclusion or absence from glory, as to be advanced supposeth some meaner state, as the term from whence that advancement is. Now, the Deity was never empty of any essential glory; nor could that be advanced, because it, being infinite, was not capable of any higher degree, but was above all alteration. The substance and properties of that nature, which always remain the same, are incapable of abasement and elevation. We may as well conclude a diminution of the essence of God, as a decrease of the essential glory of God. The divine nature cannot ascend, any more than it can descend, because of its filling all places by its immensity; so neither can it be humbled or exalted; but the person that consists of both natures may be said to descend and ascend, to be humbled and exalted, because that person which was glorious in heaven manifested himself on earth by the assumption of our nature,
and ascended to manifest himself in heaven in our nature, which he had assumed on earth. The Deity then had no new glory by the entrance of Christ into heaven, as it had no essential disgrace by his humiliation on earth; for that nature is immutable and infinite, free from any change. If the divine nature might be essentially less than it was, it might wholly cease to be what it was; all diminution is a degree of destruction.
(2.) There was a manifestation of the glory of this divine nature of Christ. The divine nature, while it was wrapped up in the rags of our infirm flesh, wanted that reputation which was due to it from man; and in this respect Christ is said to 'empty himself,' as the word ἐκένωσε, which we render 'made himself of no reputation,' signifies,
Philip. 2:7. He that was sovereign became a subject, as the seed of the woman, to the law of nature, subject as an Israelite to the law of Moses, subject as a man and our surety to the penal infirmities belonging to the human nature, as weariness, hunger, thirst, death.
And as the divine nature seemed to be humbled in being obscured under the veil of our flesh, so it is glorified in breaking out with most resplendent rays in the Son. As he was humbled in the form of a servant, so he was exalted in appearing in the form of God. 'In the same sense that we say Christ as God was humbled, in the same sense we may say Christ as God is glorified; but it is certain that Christ, who was equal in regard of his deity with his Father, did humble himself to the form of a servant', Philip. 2:7, 8.* As the divine nature may be said to be humbled by suffering an eclipse, so it may be said to be glorified by emerging out of it, as the sun may in a sort be said to enter into a glory, or reassume its glory, when it scatters a dark cloud which muffled it, and strikes its warm and clear beams through the air. There is nothing here of a glory added to the sun, but a glory exerted by the sun, which before lay in obscurity, under a thick mist; and when God is said to be glorified by men, we must not conceive any addition of intrinsic glory to God, but an acknowledgment of that glory he displays in his works of creation, providence, and redemption. So the exaltation of Christ was not the conferring a new glory upon the divine nature, but the outshinings of
it in the sacred vessel of his humanity, and surmounting those mists wherewith before it had been clouded. It was then a manifestation of him as the Son of God, and a discovery of that relation he had to the Father from eternity, which was not only clouded in the days of his flesh, but all the time of the Old Testament, and was not known, at least in such a measure and clearness, as in the discovery of the gospel. Therefore he prays, John 17:1, 'Father, glorify thy Son;' discover this prerogative of Sonship, that I am the only begotten of the Father, of the same essence with thee, and not a mere man, as the world accounts me. Therefore the resurrection of Christ, which was the first step to his glory, is called a new nativity of him as the Son of God in regard of his manifestation: Acts 13:33, 'In that he hath raised
Christ from the dead, as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee;' as his resurrection was a confirmation of his eternal generation, and consequently of his deity, and therefore Christ adds in his prayer, John 17:5, 'Glorify me with thy own self,' i.e. in a way of equality with thyself. As the Father did not in the time of his humiliation treat him as a son, but as a servant, as a sinner, as one he was angry with, he was exposed to the violences of men, as if he had been utterly neglected and abandoned by his Father; he desires therefore that he might have that glory he had with God before the world was, that he might be treated and declared to be the Son of God, equal to the Father in power and majesty; and that this might be manifested both in heaven and earth, in heaven to the angels, and in earth to Jews and Gentiles. And thus he 'sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,' as 'the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person,'* all which is not an addition of glory, but a manifestation of glory; for Christ, John 17:1, desires the Father to glorify himself as his Son, that he might glorify him as his Father. Now the glory Christ brought to God was not a new accession of any glory to the nature of God, but a displaying the glorious perfections of his nature to the sons of men. So the glory of Christ's deity is the springing of it out of that obscurity wherewith it was masked, and a breaking out from under the cloud of his humanity in a glorious lustre. And after he was clothed with 'a vesture dipped in blood,' his name was manifested to
be 'the Word of God,' Rev. 19:13, i.e. he was manifested to be the Word of God, after and upon the account of his death, and his glory was sensible as the glory of the only begotten Son of God.
(3.) There was a manifestation of the glory of his deity in and through his humanity. As it had been obscured in the humanity while he was humbled, so it breaks out in the humanity when that nature is glorified, as a candle in a dark lantern doth through the transparent horn or crystal, when the obscuring plate is drawn aside. This glory he prayed for: John 17:5, 'Glorify me with the glory I had with thee before the world was.' The glory he had as God before the world was, was not impaired, and therefore is not that which he here desires; his humanity was not glorified before the world was, that had no existence till it was formed in the womb of a virgin. We must therefore understand it of the glory of his deity, to be extended to his humanity, to capacitate it for those offices which were to be performed in it. He was to be the guardian of his church as Mediator, and the Judge of the world; but his humanity could not know the names of all his people he was to guide, unless informed by his divinity. As man, he is to execute judgment, John 5:27, which he could not do unless he knew the inwards of men, and viewed their thoughts; nor could his humanity do this, unless instructed by his divinity. This knowledge is not originally from the human nature, but by revelation from the divine; the government of the world, of angels, and men, could not be managed by him as the Son of man, unless his humanity were enlivened, and thoroughly influenced by the divinity as he was the Son of God; so that Christ here desires another manner of glory in regard of manifestation than was before, a derivation of that glory to his humanity. He doth not say, Glorify me with that glory which my humanity had with thee before the world was; but which I, my divine person, had with thee: that that glory which I had with thee from eternity, according to my divine nature, may be derived upon the human nature, to fashion it for those great ends for which it is designed. I see no reason to understand it of the glory of his humanity, which he had before the world was, by the predestinating decree of God; for then there would be no peculiarity