What is glorification?

And glorification is immediately introduced, with no other intervening operation. This is truly worthy of a sovereign Creator and divine workman. The end is as it were secured from the beginning — so fully so that He can speak of the glorifying of believers as an already accomplished work. Does it not remind us of the words of the Lord Jesus in His prayer to the Father — “And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one: and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me” John 17:22-23. There is the perfect dignity of a divine speaker here, who looks upon the whole course of time as lying fully open to His gaze, and the future glory as a present settled thing. We become sharers in the glory God has given Him — not in the glory He had with the Father before the world was; but the glory He has acquired by His humiliation and suffering as Man in the world, and is invested with today at the right hand of God. It is the glory of moral beauty and perfection, of devoted obedience to the will of God; — obedience even unto death, and the spoils He has gained by His blessed sacrifice. In all of this His saints will blessedly share — the fruit of His own wondrous work. What holy joy and sweetness is the calm certainty of all this!

Having justified those whom He has called, there is but one step needed to bring them to conformity to the image of His Son, and that is by glorifying them. Here it is viewed as if already accomplished, for we read, “and whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). Whatever God predestinates He can view as already done; and it is also our privilege to take account of what God is going to do as certain of accomplishment.

Soon, we shall be glorified, brought to the image of God's Son, to be with Him forever before the face of the Father. But God views this as already done, for He says that we are glorified. The God who knows the end from the beginning, and who foreknew us from the beginning, speaks of His great end as already achieved. Whatever may come in during our earthly sojourn cannot in the least affect what lies in the purpose of God. Though our being justified is on the principle of faith, we are justified because God called us in His grace to have part with His own Son.

Therefore it is, that in this beautiful and precious climax, sanctification and the life in us are omitted. The Spirit had instructed our souls on these points at the beginning of the chapter. The Spirit is life, the body dead, if Christ be in us; and now He presents the counsels, the purposes, the acts, the operation of God Himself, which bless and secure us, but are not the life in us. The inward reality has been developed in the previous part; here, the certainty, the security, in virtue of what God is and of His counsels. He has foreknown His children, He has predestinated them to a certain glory, a certain marvellous blessing, namely, to be conformed to the image of His Son. He has called them, He has justified them, He has glorified them. God has done all this. It is perfect and stable, as He is who willed it, and who has done it. No link in the chain is wanting of all that was needful in order to bind their souls to glory according to the counsels of God.

"Whom He did predestinate" in eternity, "them He also called" in time; and whom He called, "them He also justified"; and whom He justified, "them He also glorified" in eternity. Predestinated in the past, glorified in the future, and in the meantime both called and justified. Here there is no uncertainty. The infallible salvation of all believers is divinely secured, and no power of man or Satan can break any one of those four links. So absolutely certain is the divine result of God's eternal counsel respecting each one that it is spoken of as already accomplished — "them He also glorified." Our imperfect state and weakness are not taken into account at all in this divine assertion of eternal security. "God for us" brushes aside every difficulty and is the weakest believer's triumphant answer to every unbelieving doubt (Eph. 1:3-11; 2 Tim. 1:9; 1 Peter 1:2-5).

Passing on to the second Scripture, we read, in Philippians 3:20-21, that "we look for the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour who shall change our body of humiliation that it may be fashioned like to His body of glory." This Scripture throws further light on this momentous event. The Epistle to the Corinthians has told us we shall be changed. This passage tells us we shall be changed into the likeness of Christ. Not only shall we be morally like Him, but we shall have bodies of glory like His own. In the light of this revelation we may well ask ourselves, why this amazing grace? Why are poor sinners such as ourselves going to have these bodies of humiliation fashioned like His own glorious body? Ah! we know the answer, we are going to be like Him that we may be the everlasting witness to the worth of His Person and the efficacy of His work. Think of that poor degraded thief on the Cross, think of the proud Christ-hating Pharisee Saul of Tarsus; then pass on in thought to heaven and as, in the day to come, we gaze upon these men as glorified saints shall we not see the amazing efficacy of the work of Christ, that removes every trace of sin, and enables these men to be changed into the likeness of Christ. And what is true of these men will be true of all the saints in that vast scene of glory. When we come out in His likeness it will be according to the riches of His grace, and to the praise of the glory of His grace.

But he adds something not yet manifested; and what is this? It is not yet manifested what we shall be. What does he mean? That we shall be like Christ even in our bodies. He does not say or mean that it is not revealed to us, for it is set forth in scripture fully and simply. We should err if we understood that there is the smallest doubt about the result. Who can doubt that it is all the same to God, whether a thing be done or only going to be done? It is far from being the same to man as such, but it is to Him. Hence it is equally certain to the believer if he rests on the word of God, because his faith depends not on the things that are seen, but on His assurance as to things as yet unseen. Hence even for our relationship as children of God we do not see but we believe His word. We believe in Jesus according to the gospel sent by God; and as the consequence we know that we are the children of God, the joy and assuring witness of which we have also by the Spirit. But it has not yet been manifested what we shall be. We know however that, when He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Many seem to fancy "it doth not yet appear" means that it is ambiguous, or at least unrevealed. But this is not the sense. For it is fully revealed in the word. It is not yet manifest to every eye: such is the true force. The appearing means the manifestation before the world. Thus when the apostle says, "It is not yet manifest what we shall be, but we know that when he is manifested, we shall be like him," he speaks of our manifestation with Christ before the world. In point of fact we shall have been taken up before the day of manifestation. Hence when He is manifest, we shall be also at the very same time, for we shall appear with Him in glory. We are like Him according to the measure of the simplicity of our faith now; but we shall all be assuredly and perfectly like Him then. If there were a single child of God not perfectly like Christ then, it would be a failure in His victory, and so far would deprive Him of the travail of His soul. But God will not permit this. He will exert and display His own gracious power; so that when the Lord Jesus shall be manifested, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. We see Him now in spirit and are like Him in spirit; we shall see Him then in body and shall be like Him in body.

Creation, inasmuch as it is only physical, could not enter into the liberty of grace; it must await the liberty of the glory of the children of God. When they are delivered, and their bodies which belong to this creation are changed and glorified, and when Satan is bound, then the creature also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption in which it lies enthralled. For we know, we that are instructed in Christian doctrine - that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. We know it yet more because we have the firstfruits of the Spirit; and "we groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Thus we wait to possess that which is saved in hope; not only to possess eternal life as life - that we have already - but to be glorified, by our bodies, which belong to this creation, being changed, and we made like unto Christ the Lord, according to the power whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself (Phil. 3:21).

2) It follows from this truth that holiness according to God will not be fully attained until we are with the Lord. This, indeed, is the precise statement of the word of God. We shall be like Him when we see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). Beholding His glory we are changed into the same image from glory to glory — gradually, that is, from one degree to another, until we see Him face to face, and then His name will be in our foreheads, full likeness to Christ will be displayed on every brow (Rev. 22:4), for all then will be conformed to the image of God's Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Even our bodies will then be transformed, for the apostle teaches that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes, He will change the body of our humiliation into the likeness of the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself (Phil. 3:20-21). It is for this we wait: for the return of our Lord, and then, and then alone shall we be holy according to the thoughts of God.

Thus predestinated of God, the Christian is also called of God (verse 30), — called with an effectual calling, — spoken to by a voice which quickens the dead. The believer is called in a double sense. As a quickened sinner he is called from darkness to light, from death into life. Again, regarding him as the foreknown vessel of God's pleasure, he is called forth from the secret of the Divine purpose into the manifested light of His glory as revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. The called believer answers to the call. Listening to the word of God he obeys that call. For a contrary reason, the natural man, though addressed in the Gospel of God's grace, does not respond to the call. But our business now is with the proper workmanship of God. The calling of the Gospel is to believe in Jesus. The quickened soul hears and obeys. But the effect of faith is justification, as we have seen. Now justification is an act, not of him who is justified, but of him who justifies. The called believer, then, is justified of God: "whom He called He justified." And does the record of the work of God cease with this completed preparation of the vessel of His grace? Nay, inasmuch as the subject in hand is the display of the Divine glory which pertains to God as the fulfiller of His own purpose, the end must be stated as well as the beginning, and so it is added: "whom He justified, them He also glorified."

Such is the work of God. He has called His foreknown vessel of mercy, first, by creation, from nothing into natural life; next, in redemption, from the ruin of nature into the newness of eternal life. He has justified one for whom none on earth or in heaven, and least of all the sinner himself, could truly plead a favourable word; beautifying with salvation those whom He had sought for and found in the filth of their native iniquity and ruin. He has placed such in Christ, opening their eyes to look upon Him as the Lord their righteousness. Last of all, He has glorified them. As we are justified in Christ, so are we glorified in Him. Presently we shall be glorified with Him, wearing those crowns which shall surely rest, in living brightness of eternal joy, on each several head of the brethren of the Lord. But already the same blessed God who of old made promise of life in Christ to His children yet unborn, now sees His purpose effected and complete in the presence of the One in whom that promise was made, now crowned, after the suffering of death, with glory and honour at His own right hand.