The mysteries and the paradoxes seem to deepen as we advance. 'If God
be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall
straightway glorify Him.' Do these words sound to you as if they
expressed no more than the confidence of a good man, who, when he was
dying, believed that he would be accepted of a loving Father, and would
be at rest from his sufferings? To me they seem to say infinitely more
than that. 'He shall also glorify Him in Himself.' Mark that 'in
Himself.' That is the obvious antithesis to what has been spoken about
in the previous clause, a glorifying which consisted in a manifestation
to the external universe, whereas this is a glorifying within the
depths of the divine nature. And the best commentary upon it is our
Lord's own words: 'Father! glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had
with Thee before the world was.' We get a glimpse, as it were, into the
very centre of the brightness of God; and there, walking in that
beneficent furnace, we see 'One like unto the Son of Man.' Christ
anticipates that, in some profound and unspeakable sense, He shall, as
it were, be caught up into the divinity, and shall dwell, as indeed He
did dwell from the beginning, 'in the bosom of the Father.' 'He shall
glorify Him in Himself.'
But then mark, still further, that this reception into the bosom of the
Father is given to the Son of Man. That is to say, the Man Christ
Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Brother of us all, 'bone of our bone and
flesh of our flesh,' the very Person that walked upon earth and dwelt
amongst us is taken up into the heart of God, and in His manhood enters
into that same glory, which, from the beginning, the Eternal Word had
with God.
And still further, not only have we here set forth, in most wondrous
language, the reception and incorporation, if we may use such words,
into the very centre of divinity, as granted to the Son of Man, but we
have that glorifying set forth as commencing immediately upon the
completion of God's glorifying by Christ upon the Cross. 'He shall
straightway glorify Him.' At the instant then, that He said, 'It is
finished,' and all that the Cross could do to glorify God was done, at
that instant there began, with not a pin-point of interval between
them, God's glorifying of the Son in Himself. It began in that Paradise
into which we know that upon that day He entered. It was manifested to
the world when He 'raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory.' It
reached a still higher point when 'they brought Him near unto the
Ancient of Days,' and ascending up on high, a dominion and a throne and
a glory were given to Him which last now, whilst the Son of Man sits in
the heavens on the throne of His glory, wielding the attributes of
divinity, and administering the laws of the universe and the mysteries
of providence. It shall rise to its highest manifestation before an
assembled world, when He 'shall come in His glory, and before Him shall
be gathered all nations.'
This, then, was the vision that lay before the Christ in that upper
room, the vision of Himself glorified in His extreme shame, because His
Cross manifested His love and His saving power; of God glorified in Him
above all other of His acts of manifestation when He died on the Cross,
and revealed the very heart of God; and of Himself glorified in the
Father when, exalted high above all creatures, He sitteth upon the
Father's throne and rules the Father's realm.
And yet from that high, and, to us, inaccessible and all but
inconceivable summit of His elevation, He looks down ready to bless
each poor creature here, toiling and moiling amidst sufferings, and
meannesses, and commonplaces, and monotony, if we will only put our
trust in Him, and love Him, and see the brightness of the Father's face
in Him. He cares for us all; and if we will but take Him as our
Saviour, His all-prevalent prayer, presented within the veil for us,
will certainly be fulfilled at last: 'Father, I will that they also
whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold
My glory.'