Glorified

When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once (John 13:31-32).

This text makes no sense unless we can define and understand what ‘glorified’ means. The Greek word is doxazo. It means to make, or be full of glory and honor; to magnify; to make excellent. Joseph Henry Thayer defines this word as, “to cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged.”

In this text Jesus spoke of His coming crucifixion in terms of His ultimate glorification; He saw His death as the culmination and completion of God’s eternal plan of salvation. As such, God would raise Him from the dead after 3 days, and exalt Him in heaven after 50 days. (Philippians 2:5-11) Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

It is interesting to note that Jesus spoke of His glorification as an event already completed. This is the way prophecy works in Scripture. Why? Because what God speaks to us in terms of the future has been already settled in the plan God has for the future - it is ‘set in time’ and cannot be changed. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). He was the ‘seed’ of the woman that would ‘bruise’ the head of Satan (Genesis3:15). Everything given by God to the Hebrew people, in terms of their worship, pointed to the finished work of Jesus on the cross - He fulfilled it all. It was this work for which He is ultimately glorified. (John 17:4-5) I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. His whole life was lived in the shadow of the cross. (Mark 10:45) For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

While we may adorn our physical bodies, our homes, our churches with symbols of the cross to testify to our devotion to Jesus, the cross was our Lord’s glory; it was the symbol of death to the Romans and the Jews, but it was the symbol of Jesus’ glorious victory. (Acts 3:13) The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. Amen.

Pastor