THE BASIC meaning of this verse and the next is clear in that it is bound up with the completing of Christ's great work on earth and the result for Christ which follows from it. In our verse for this meditation, Jesus speaks of the completion of his work to make full atonement for sin, and his petition in the next verse is that God may give him the full reward of that completed work, which is to return to his home in heaven and reign with the Father and pour out on the world the great blessings of his work done on earth. Christ's prayer in verse 5, that he may be glorified, is asking that he may ascend and reign. The asking includes a new thing in his return. He left heaven as the divine Word. He returns to heaven as the God Man. He still is the divine Word, but now he takes into heaven his risen humanity, and this marks the opening of heaven to a redeemed humanity. The blessing Adam lost, Christ, the second Adam, restores If this is the basic meaning of what Christ is saying here in his prayer, there is still great depth of meaning in each verse which I hope we shall discover together, both in this meditation and the next. STRIKING THINGS It is so striking that in this verse Jesus is speaking before he has died and made atonement, yet he says he has completed the work he was sent into the world by the Father to do. If we were in his position just coming to the hardest event and action of our lives, we could say only that we hope that we would complete the work, and would feel it presumptuous to claim any certainty until the victory was won. The top players at Wimbledon look forward to winning the final, but it is only after the final is over and the winner has been proved that any claim to victory can really be made. Here we have the glorious certainty that the Saviour possessed, that he would not fail in doing all that he had been given to do, in order to completely save all who would believe on him. We can take comfort from this certainty, as it assures us that the application of his redemption to us who believe is just as certain, even though we still have sometime to go before we are called to heaven. Further there may be something in our lives that we have no doubt that we are able to complete and complete successfully. It may be the building of a house, or the doing of some improvement to our property. We know that we are able to do this and to do it well. However we would never say that it was completed until the last thing had been done, and all was truly finished. In Jesus' words here we see the timelessness of his work. Redemption was conceived in eternity. In this sense it had no beginning; it was always in the plan of God. So in the same way, as all God's plans are unfailingly accomplished, to plan it, is to have executed it. So Christ was crucified from the foundation of the world (Hebrews 4:3), and his atonement was always effective, even before Calvary in time, for the saving of his believing people. It was certain because although in time it took place around 33 AD at Calvary, outside Jerusalem, yet in the timelessness of God, it had always happened. JESUS GLORIFIES GOD IN A UNIQUE WAY The purpose and reason for all creation and creating by God is to set forth his glory, thus God is glorified on earth by and in creation. (Psalm 19:1). The Heavens declare his handiwork. God is also glorified in his providences. (Exodus 15:6,7). These and in other ways God is glorified on earth, because the world is his and the fulness thereof. When sin entered the world the glory of God was obscured as Satan became the God of this world as far as humanity is concerned. When Jesus became incarnate he made the glory of God visible on earth again in a way that was not visible before. Jesus glorified God in his person. He could say to Philip in John 14 that he that had seen him had seen the Father. In Hebrews 1:3 we are told that Jesus is the radiance of God and the exact image of his person. By looking at Jesus in the Bible we can see in a way impossible without the presence of Christ, exactly what God is like in his character and in his dealings with humanity. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Then again when we behold the miracles of Christ in the Gospels, we see God in action. We see a display of God's power and his compassion. (Matthew 9:8). Then again we read that people said of Jesus as he taught, that no one spoke like this man. There was a divine quality about his words, an essential authority which none but God has. Thus his words declare the praise of God (Matthew 11:25). Then there was no life lived on earth like the life of Christ. Sin has so corrupted human understanding as well as human action, that what is the holy life of God has been well nigh obscured. What is true holiness? What is the way of living that is Godlike? Jesus brought glory to God because in his life he perfectly lived the holiness of God, and in his living we see clearly what holy godlike living should be. Galatians 4:4 tells us that Jesus yielded perfect obedience to the law for his people. THE SPECIAL GLORY CHRIST BRINGS TO GOD The words of Jesus in our text speak of a special way in which Jesus brought glory to God on earth. It was by the work he did and by completing it, so that people could know God in a new and glorious way. It is this glory which Christ brings to God which is the subject of Jesus' words. What is this glory? The purpose behind glorifying God on earth. It is worth specially noting that Jesus says in our text that he had 'glorified God on earth'. In other words Jesus was showing forth God's glory to fallen human beings and this was the purpose of his action and work. God purposed that we should see his glory; this glory which is uniquely set forth by Christ in his living and dying and rising again. We have already said that God's glory is seen in creation, but because of sin and the guilt that sin inevitably produces, the vision of God outside of Christ in his dying and rising must always be terrifying. This is seen in the perversions of true religion found in heathen cultures. All have a sense of deity, and all feel that the deity is to be feared and appeased in some way. This comes from the essential understanding that all humanity possess that we owe God obedience and as we fall short of the obedience required, we place ourselves under the displeasure of God. The Glory of the majesty and holiness of God, therefore, which comes through general ways in creation, must terrify if we consider it faithfully, and the sense of the almightiness of God can only make this terror more acute, as we realise that there is no way we can escape God and that we have to face him one day and answer before him for our lives. The glory of God which Jesus reveals by his dying and rising is a glory which we would never know or imagine was there unless Jesus had glorified God on earth. Jesus glorifying God on earth is a revealing of the wonder of a saving God which brings hope and joy. The glory of the wisdom of God. The first way Jesus uniquely glorifies God on earth is in the showing the glory of his wisdom. We can see the wisdom of God in general way in the wonder of the created order and the amazing way all things work and fit together. What we would never be able to see outside of the work of Jesus is how a holy God who abhors sin and must in justice punish the sinner, can forgive and save a sinner. To forgive would be to deny his justice and holiness. To execute rightly his justice the sinner must die. This is the dilemma. How can God be both just and forgiving? Human wisdom can find no way out of this dilemma. The best we can do is to imagine that God in some way can deny his justice if sin is not too great. But still sinners find in this no hope at all. This human solution, however, will not do. God must judge all sin to be truly just. In Jesus is an amazing way whereby God upholds his justice completely and is still able to forgive and save the sinner. This wisdom is hinted at in the Old Testament sacrificial system, but the question there is, where can God find a perfect and sufficient substitute to pay the price of sin in the place of a sinner. Animals are not sufficient. There is no human being who is sinless and so able to receive punishment in the place of others. There is no human being who is of sufficient value to account for all the sin of mankind. God's wisdom found the way. He took our nature. As the one who has sinned must be the bearer of the guilt of sin, so only a human being can atone for the sin of human beings, so God must become incarnate. He became the only sinless man and so could die for others. He was God, so his offering had infinite value. God, in Christ, thus bore the guilt of those who had sinned and so justly upheld his holy law, and on the basis of the just fulfilling of his law he could freely forgive and justly forgive the penitent sinner. Oh! the wonderful glory of the wisdom of God revealed on earth in Jesus Christ. The glory of the power of God. Again the glory of the power of God is seen in creation and other ways. This glory is a terrifying glory as it shows an all-powerful God, but without any comfort that he is favourably disposed towards us. The glory of the power of God shown by the dying and rising of Jesus is a power that is wonderfully unique and reveals itself as engaged solely for the benefit of humanity in order to save them. To appreciate this enormous power of God we have to consider the dreadful and impossible task it is for atonement to be made for the sins of the world. When we consider our own sin and what it deserves, we see that we are under the just wrath of God and the eternal penalty of death. We further see that there is no way by which we can atone for our sin or even turn over a new leaf so that we live justly as far as God is concerned in the future. God had to succeed not only in the impossible task of atoning for my sin, but also to atone for the sins of every person who has ever lived on this earth. The power need for this task of bearing the sin of all the world, and successfully carrying all the just wrath of God for them, and exhausting the debt and punishment due for them, is beyond imagination. Yet this is the glory which Jesus obtained for God on earth in that he did, by divine power, achieve this great task and achieved it completely and fully. How glorious is the glory of the power of God revealed in Jesus dying for us. The glory of the mercy of God. In all the glory of God revealed in other ways than the dying of Jesus there is no mercy revealed. There was no place for God to look with favour on sinners. In the dying of Jesus a glory of God is revealed on earth which is set forth and made known in no other way. We see the glory of infinite mercy; mercy that was willing to go to such cost and trial as the death of the Son of God and the forsaking of the Son of God, rather than God should visit his wrath and justice on corrupt sinners. God's mercy was ready to go to these infinite lengths in order to provide a way of forgiveness for sinners that was real and permanent. How glorious is the glory of the mercy of God revealed on earth by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a glory that is all blessing for us. The glory of the grace of God. There is nothing so vile as the continual way we fallen human beings continue to sin against God, and in sinning refuse to fully acknowledge the awfulness of our sin. This vileness is compounded in that even when we have sought to repent we sin in exactly the same way again and again. There is nothing in us deserving of any mercy or good. All we do is to provoke God to anger by our miserable behaviour. The glory revealed on earth by the Lord Jesus is one totally amazing. God knowing the worst about us still loved us, and provided at so great cost to himself, even the sending to hell of his only begotten and well-beloved Son, the saving of vile rebellious sinners. This is true grace - favour that is totally unmerited, and solely coming out of the heart and mind of God. This grace was that God was to meet the debt for our sins himself in Jesus. The cross of Jesus shouts forth the grace of God. This grace is not withdrawn even now or when we continually cause provocation by our continual sinning. His grace has paid the price, not only of the sins of the past, but also the sins of the future. When Jesus died for the sin of the world, God in his infinite fore-knowledge, took into account all the sins throughout time humanity had and would commit, and visited the punishment for them on the Lord Jesus, so that he may show to us who believe favour that costs us nothing - truly unmerited favour. How glorious is this glory of the grace of God seen in the death of Jesus. It is a glory we could never know or realise if Jesus had not glorified God on the earth, as he says in our verse. The glory of the love of God. There is nothing so wonderful as the glory of the love of God which shines forth from the dying of Jesus for our sins. Well does Isaac Watts in his hymn express this love - "Love so amazing, so divine". Love is a quality which perhaps takes up more of human attention than any other in life, yet the best of our loving cannot compare to the glory of God's loving. Jesus, by his dying for us, reveals a glory of God which we would never imagine without this revelation. It is a love which has been and is constant from all eternity. It is a love that has been sustained even with the fullest knowledge of the hatefulness of mankind. It is a love which counted no cost in order to save hatefulness from the consequences of that hatefulness. The love acted when there was no reason for loving and no indication that humanity was worthy of such loving. It is a love which gives and does all, so that we poor sinners, who if we were left anything ourselves to do to be saved from the consequences of our sins would fail, should have nothing whatsoever to contribute, so that our safety in God's love may be sure and eternally secure. We see this love in the face of Jesus Christ as he takes our place and goes to death and hell, and suffers the forsaking of the Father in order to fully and justly atone for our misdoings. Words cannot describe this love. We must look at Jesus and his work for us and then we will both see, begin to understand and feel this love as the wonder of our salvation and the gift of eternal life, which is renewed fellowship with God, increases in our experience. The glory of a completed work The whole of this glory of God which Jesus has set forth on earth is in the fact that he completed all that God, the Father, gave him to do, and so made the love of God able to be poured out unstintingly upon all who respond to it by faith. The glory of God shines with splendour in Jesus risen from the dead, declared thus by God as the victor and perfect Saviour. We cannot do better than to end this meditation with the words of Isaac Watts who puts our response so well - "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all". Such glory is the reason for our love and worship and adoration of God forever and forever. |