There has been some little difficulty in connection with the subject of glory, as found in John 17, especially verses 5, 22 and 24. Would you try to help in explaining the difference between these three verses? — Gateshead.
YOUR question relates to matters of extreme profundity. Anything that we can say by way of reply must of necessity be shallow and imperfect.
Verse 5 plainly shows that before the Son entered into manhood, before ever the world was, He was in a glory indescribable to us, which was His jointly with the Father. It was the glory proper to “the form of God,” (Phil. 2:66Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: (Philippians 2:6)), and hence He left it when He took upon Him “the form of a servant.” But now, His work finished, He is about to go back to the Father, and He requests that He be glorified with that original glory along with the Father. The thing that strikes us with wonder is that He was carrying back into heaven His Manhood. In coming forth He came into Manhood. In going back He is the Son in Manhood, and as the Son in Manhood He is glorified along with the Father in the original glory of Deity. Wonderful indeed!
Verse 22 speaks of a glory that has been given to Him of the Father, which is of such a nature that He in His turn can give it to others, and has done so. This, most evidently, is a glory to be distinguished from that of verse 5. If verse 5 is the glory of Deity, this is the glory of redemption. In His humiliation, and by redemption He has acquired a glory which is peculiarly His own, and yet communicable. All this, which He has won, He shares. All those who are His, sharing in the benefits of His redemption, are to share in the glory won as the fruit of redemption. He speaks of it as an accomplished thing, — “I HAVE GIVEN them.” It is ours already by deed of gift, though our actual entrance into it lies yet in the future. Wonderful grace verse 24 indicates that while there is a glory of His in which we share, there is also a glory of His which we shall only behold. This obviously must be so as regards that glory of Deity, which is His. We believe that it is so equally as regards the glory which He has acquired as the result of His work. He is pre-eminent in His Manhood also: pre-eminent in redemption’s glory.
He has truly given glory to us, who have believed on Him by means of the apostolic testimony, but He has done so somewhat after the manner in which the sun gives glory to the moon. The sun loses not one whit of its glory by that which it imparts. The moon constantly speaks to us of the supreme glory of the sun, and is at its brightest to us, when fully beholding the splendor of the sun. So we are to behold His glory, in glory. That which was glimpsed for a brief hour on the mount of transfiguration is to be realized in full splendor throughout an eternal day.
Who can understand what this means? We rejoice to sing,
“All like Thee, for Thy glory like Thee, Lord,
Object supreme of all, by all adored.”
but the reality itself must transcend all human words.