. . . He also glorified.
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Hi Enoch,
This is interesting, your post reminded me of 2 Corinthians 3, and when I went to read it, it came up NIV which I normally don't use, just the same, notice how they translate verse 18:
"And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
Not the most, ahem, literal translation. But in this case I think it still carries the meaning.
But the part I was looking for is this, from Young's Literal Translation:
6 who also made us sufficient [to be] ministrants of a new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit; for the letter doth kill, and the spirit doth make alive.
7 and if the ministration of the death, in letters, engraved in stones, came in glory, so that the sons of Israel were not able to look stedfastly to the face of Moses, because of the glory of his face -- which was being made useless,
8 how shall the ministration of the Spirit not be more in glory?
9 for if the ministration of the condemnation [is] glory, much more doth the ministration of the righteousness abound in glory;
10 for also even that which hath been glorious, hath not been glorious -- in this respect, because of the superior glory;
11 for if that which is being made useless [is] through glory, much more that which is remaining [is] in glory.
I understand this to be saying that the ministration of death, in the giving of the law, is compared to the ministration of the Spirit, and the ministration of righteousness, in the giving of new life, born of the Spirit, recreated in righteousness.
The law ministers death, and the Spirit ministers life.
And if the ministration of death - serving up of death, if you will - came with glory, the ministration of the Spirit, and of righteousness, more abounds in glory.
And vs. 11, "much more that which is remaining is in glory". Remaining . . . Present Active Verb. Happening now.
Even though glorious, the ministration of the death in the Law fades. The ministration of life in the Spirit and in righteousness, does not fade, it remains, in superior glory.
Much love!
Mark
Hi Chris,
I've certainly noticed that!
I think they also go hand in hand in the Christian life.
Anecdotally speaking, I feel I've gained the greatest understanding of God's love for me in the times of greatest suffering. I've also seen God's power to purge me of the wrong things through suffering.
1 Peter 5:10 "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."
1 Peter 4:1-2 "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God."
Be resolved to suffer. Suffering defeats sin. Purged from uncleanness. We become vessels for honorable use.
God uses suffering to renew us.
Romans 8:17-18 "And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
I've spent a long time studying and thinking about glory, and I'm sure I'm not done understanding what it all means.
But here's what I think.
When we are born again, both our 'standing' and our 'state' are the same before God.
I've heard the expression over the years that "God looks at us through Jesus colored glasses", I feel it is greatly misleading.
I don't think God pretends that we are anything we are not. I think God deals in realities, and we should also.
I think the reality is that when we are born again, we are born of God, and now share His nature, righteous and truly holy. This is a new person, who did not exist before, but is now me, in a spiritual resurrection. I am His beloved child, fully accepted by Him because of what Jesus did on my behalf. (1 John 1, 1 Peter 1, Ephesians 4, 2 Corinthians 5, Romans 6, Ephesians 1- I can post any the specific verses I have in mind)
Sanctification, sanctify, holy, sacred, saint, all share their same base in "set apart", that is, to God.
My understanding is that we - the new person - are completely and permanently set apart to God, but our bodies, or more to the point, the corrupt mind of that corrupted body, is God's permanent enemy.
Before we were reborn, we were that enemy of God. Now we are His children, but we have to contend with that enemy still, and wrest control of our bodies to ourselves, the new person.
So we have been sanctified - we are created brand new, righteous and holy, sharing in Jesus' resurrection.
We are being sanctified - This new person is growing in fruit of the Spirit which replaces the works of the flesh, conforming not only our spirit but now also our behavior, thoughts, feelings to become like Christ.
Another way to say this is that we are used to engaging this world through our physical members - what we see, what we handle, our senses, our bodies. But now we live by believing, not by seeing. This training to live by faith - following after God - and not by sight - following after the world, and our flesh - is sanctification.
We will be sanctified - The corruptible will be clothed upon with incorruptibility. At long last the contention will be over!
Being reborn patterned after God Himself, in righteousness and true holiness, is glorious. 2 Corinthians 5 tells us we have an heavenly body, now. We don't see it.
When we say we're born again, what does that really mean? There is a new vaporous spirit put into us? Or we are born from a Celestial God as a celestial being, living in the heavenly realm, seated in the heavenlies, hidden in Christ, in the heavens?
As we are tempted and tested (same thing, trials and temptations), we have opportunity to sin, but we choose to not, relying on Christ's power to make it so for us, and we wait until our deliverence comes. OK, that's what we want, not what we always do. But either way God is faithful, as He continues to work in us.
And as He works in us, 2 Corintians 3:18, His glory is reflected in us, we see it, and we see that this is who He made me, and I'm seeing who that is now. His work through me becomes my work as He plans to reward me for it. The glory of His work becomes my glory as this process conforms my life - my conduct, the representation of 'me' - to His. The life I live, I live by the faith from Jesus. His becomes mine. That's His gift.
My life displays God's work, and the wisdom and beauty of His ways. Just like Jesus, going to the cross, now is the Son of Man glorified.
Much love!
mark
There's a good read in reference to this:
Hebrews 1
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
Much love!
The God of Abraham,
.. and of Isaac,
.... and of Jacob,
...... the God of our fathers,
........ hath glorified His Son Jesus;
Whom ye delivered up,
.. and denied Him in the presence of Pilate,
.... when He was determined to let Him go.
...... But ye denied the Holy One and the Just,
........ and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;
.......... And killed the Prince of life,
Whom God hath raised from the dead;
.. whereof we are witnesses.'
(Acts 3:13-15)
Hello @marks,
Thank you for your response (reply#43), I believe that we are of the same mind, but are expressing it differently.
* I believe that in the very act of raising Christ from the dead, Christ was glorified by the Father. Even so, also, by so closely identifying the believer with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His death, burial, quickening and resurrection, He has also glorified those whom He has saved by grace .
* The believer has shared in His sufferings, and also shares in His glory. God's facts, in Christ, are what are the basis of our faith. What God has accomplished in His Son, is our reckoning of faith. That is faith obedience: - to believe God, and to walk in the light of it. It is a finished work!
* We are already 'complete' in Christ Jesus, our risen and glorified Lord.
Praise His Holy Name!
In Christ Jesus
Chris
.. and of Isaac,
.... and of Jacob,
...... the God of our fathers,
........ hath glorified His Son Jesus;
Whom ye delivered up,
.. and denied Him in the presence of Pilate,
.... when He was determined to let Him go.
...... But ye denied the Holy One and the Just,
........ and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;
.......... And killed the Prince of life,
Whom God hath raised from the dead;
.. whereof we are witnesses.'
(Acts 3:13-15)
Hello @marks,
Thank you for your response (reply#43), I believe that we are of the same mind, but are expressing it differently.
* I believe that in the very act of raising Christ from the dead, Christ was glorified by the Father. Even so, also, by so closely identifying the believer with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His death, burial, quickening and resurrection, He has also glorified those whom He has saved by grace .
* The believer has shared in His sufferings, and also shares in His glory. God's facts, in Christ, are what are the basis of our faith. What God has accomplished in His Son, is our reckoning of faith. That is faith obedience: - to believe God, and to walk in the light of it. It is a finished work!
* We are already 'complete' in Christ Jesus, our risen and glorified Lord.
Praise His Holy Name!
In Christ Jesus
Chris
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Was reminded on a different thread . . . For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The catch-all, none of us aren't a part of that!
What Jesus did . . . closed the gap. We no longer fall short of God's glory?
Hm.
What Jesus did . . . closed the gap. We no longer fall short of God's glory?
Hm.
In the same way that I described sanctification (#43), I see glorification much the same.
We have been glorified - in sharing Jesus' resurrection, in becoming a child of a glorious God, in being born of the Spirit.
We are being glorified - in afflictions and testings which work to our glory, in God working in us to will and do His pleasing, conforming us to the image of the glorious Christ
We will be glorified - in that we do not know what we will be, but when we see Him we will be like Him, shining as the sky, as the stars of heaven forever, sharing forever in the joy and glory of God.
Much love!
Mark
We have been glorified - in sharing Jesus' resurrection, in becoming a child of a glorious God, in being born of the Spirit.
We are being glorified - in afflictions and testings which work to our glory, in God working in us to will and do His pleasing, conforming us to the image of the glorious Christ
We will be glorified - in that we do not know what we will be, but when we see Him we will be like Him, shining as the sky, as the stars of heaven forever, sharing forever in the joy and glory of God.
Much love!
Mark
Hi @marks,
Much as I share your wonder and praise at all of the things that God has done for us in Christ Jesus, I think that the definition of what 'glory' is can be lost by encompassing all of these glorious things into it. For we are glorified in Christ Jesus by being identified with Him, in His resurrection, aren't we? and will enter into that glory by the resurrection from the dead. For what we have by faith now, in Christ, is promissory, isn't it? We, like our Lord endure by looking ahead to the joy that is set before us: for while in this earthly body we do not possess it yet; except in promise, by faith. We are sealed: and 'it' is ours; but requires resurrection out from among the dead, to enter into and possess it, in Christ Jesus, in that day of God's choosing.
Praise God!
Thank you.
Within the love of Christ Jesus
our risen and glorified
Saviour, Lord and Head.
Chris
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Hi Chris,
Yes, I'm thinking the same thing, I don't want to muddle the meaning of glory with all my meandorings.
But I think what we have by faith now is much more substantial and current.
For instance, we've died to sin, and, like Jesus who died to sin, once for all time. We only die to sin once. And it's happened.
We've been born again. That also happens only once, and it's already happened.
So then what remains is to receive the redemption of our bodies, our physical resurrection. But in the spiritual sense, and in the heavenly realm, we are who we are going to be. Just waiting for that new body.
And in the meantime, trying to bring this ole body to heel!
Much love!
mark
Our whole salvation from election to glorification is a finished work already. We however are walking and experiencing it, but it is a finished work that we are walking in. Thus God can call us glorified because He has glorified us, though in experience we are not there. God does that quite often, "calling those things which be not as though they were". (Rom. 4:17) Because He has made them such.
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Helen
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Yes, love it.
I am always quite jealous when someone says things much better and clearer than I ever can. :)
Well said.
Davy
Well-Known Member
You have stepped into the Bible territory of Predestination.
It is about the difference between those who are 'chosen' elect, vs. those who have been called and become one with Christ's elect.
The meaning of the word 'apostle' is a chosen one. Those have already been sanctified and glorified.
There is a difference between us and Christ's Apostles that The Father already owned and gave to Jesus per John 17. His Apostles, like Him, He said were not of this world. He sent them, even as The Father sent Him. And Jesus said He sanctified Himself so they might be sanctified. This is all written in His Prayer in John 17.
John 17:6
6 I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me; and they have kept Thy word.
KJV
John 17:14
14 I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
KJV
John 17:16
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
KJV
John 17:18
18 As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
KJV
John 17:19
19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
KJV
John 17:20-21
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.
KJV
Those who shall believe on Jesus through their word are us who have believed and that have been called.
Hi Davy,
Not sure where you are getting this, apostle is "sent one".
But I agree, predestination is about, in part, glorifying those He foreknew.
Much love!
Mark
Davy
Well-Known Member
It is where the idea of being 'sent' comes from. You'll see it in many Bible dictionaries. It is the phrase 'sent' or 'sent forth' in many KJV phrases. If you have an Englishman's Concordance, or a Strong's Concordance, look up the New Testament no.649
NT:652
apostolos (ap-os'-tol-os); from NT:649; a delegate; specially, an ambassador of the Gospel; officially a commissioner of Christ ["apostle"] (with miraculous powers):
KJV - apostle, messenger, he that is sent.
(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
