Sermon Prep Notes - What Is Glory?
Isaiah 61:10-62:5; Galatians 3:23-4:7; John 1:1-18
It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a theologian tasked with preaching on John 1:1-18, but since my sermon has to be around 20 minutes and be connected to the other lectionary passages, I will focus on the theme of glory instead. This has been on my mind lately after reading Conformed to the Image of His Son: Reconsidering Paul's Theology of Glory in Romans by Haley Goranson Jacob. Overall, I thought Jacob’s book was good, and I have been wrestling with her argument that glory primarily refers (“denotes”) to or is “associated with the concepts of honor, power, wealth, and/or authority that come with an exalted status.”1
As an aside, I have two primary criticisms of her book. First, while I understand and appreciate her rigorous distinction between denotation and connotation, I think she draws too sharp a distinction between the meaning of glory as exalted status and the external phenomenon (e.g., light). Because she is so focused on Romans 8, it gives the impression that in Romans, glory merely means exalted status and that we should do all we can to avoid thinking in terms of “light” or other external (or ontological) phenomena. While I don’t think she completely divorces the status concept from the ontological, I think the way she frames it does give the impression that these are completely divorced from each other. This is understandable since she is working so hard to clear away the confusion surrounding the concept of glory, which now has a primary sense of light or ontological change. I think—and I suspect she would agree—that the light phenomenon associated with glory in Ezekiel and some Pauline passages (e.g., 2 Corinthians 3:7-18) is a constituent part of the exalted status. That is, only those with such exalted statuses will have such light phenomena associated with their physical presence. That being said, I do think she makes a good case that glory refers primarily to exalted status, so this criticism isn’t meant to detract from that contribution.
Second, I think her connection of the exalted status in Romans 8 to something like “creation care” is rather thin (though she doesn’t really belabor this point). This isn’t to say that it’s not there at all. If, as she argues, Christ, the Image—another term she connects to exalted status and glory—of God is the new Adam, then one must have a connection to the responsibilities of Adam as “tending” the Garden of God’s good earth. However, the way such creation care gets discussed in current American scholarship often feels reductionistic to me. Adam’s role was not merely to care for creation—though it is not less than that—but to lead creation in the worship of God. This connection between creation and temple has become commonplace thanks to the work of those like G. K. Beale (The Temple and the Church’s Mission), as well as for me, L. Michael Morales (Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?). I’m particularly interested to read Gary Anderson’s newest book, That I May Dwell Among Them: Incarnation and Atonement in the Tabernacle Narrative, which, based on this post, has a lot to say about the role of non-atoning sacrifice. In other words, Adam’s role—and thus Christ’s fulfillment of that role as the Second Ada, and our subsequent role as co-heirs/co-glorified with Christ—must also be sacrificial. My intuition is that the groaning of creation in Romans 8 isn’t merely the futility of decay (as if our role as co-rulers with Christ is now to stop decay), but that futility experienced by the mismanagement of creation by sinful humans means creation cannot worship God the way it should: sacrifice. The role of humanity in creation is primarily to lead creation in worship of God through sacrifice. See this post by Jack Franicevich for more on the continued sacrifice of Thanksgiving in the church.
So with that out of the way, I want to think through the concept of glory in the lectionary passages for the first Sunday of Christmas. Let’s begin with John 1:1-18.
The word “glory” appears for the first time in John at 1:14:
And the Word became flesh and took up residence among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the one and only from the Father, full of grace and truth.
What does it mean for John to see his glory? Taking my cues from Jacob, I will resist assuming it refers to something like an external display of light (N.B., John’s gospel does not include an account of the transfiguration). So what might John mean by saying “We saw his glory, glory as of the one and only/only-begotten from the Father”? There are not many other occurrences of glory in John (19 in total), so it won’t take long to get an idea of what he means.
The next occurrence of glory is in John 2:11:
This beginning of signs Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
Here glory seems to be connected with the signs Jesus performs in the gospel of John. The other time it is used in connection with one of the signs is John 11:4, 40 at the resurrection of Lazarus. But here this sign is connected with the glory of God. There is good reason not to divorce these (see what follows) and they both can be understood in connection to exalted status: God as the creator of all has the authority and power to resurrect Lazarus. Jesus as the only Son of God, likewise has the power and authority as the agent through whom all things were made to turn water into wine. Miracles are evidence of a certain (status/ontological) underlying reality.
The majority of glory occurrences in John, however, distinguish the glory that comes from God from the glory that comes from people and Jesus’s insistence that he is not seeking his own glory or that he wants to receive glory from people (John 5:41, 44; 7:18; 8:50, 54; 12:43). Again, it makes sense to see this in terms of exalted status and not some light phenomena. Jesus is not exalting himself nor is he wanting others to exalt him. Jesus does what the Father tells him to do and God will exalt him to an elevated status.
This may give the impression that Jesus does not possess an exalted status of his own, but John makes it clear in 17:5 that Jesus already had this exalted status from the beginning (as we read in John 1:1-18).2 So, Jesus had an exalted status that was rightfully his as the one and only Son of God, but gave up that status in the incarnation and, as a man, did not seek to establish his own exalted status but, by obedience to God the Father, receives it back again (John 17:24). We shouldn’t be surprised that this sounds a lot like Philippians 2:6-11.
This brings us to the last use of glory in John 17:22:
And the glory that you have given to me, I have given to them, in order that they may be one, just as we are one.
The exalted status that Jesus had, gave up, and then received back again from the Father, is something that his disciples partake in as well. This brings us to our passage in Galatians 3:23-4:7. I’ve written about Galatians 3 elsewhere, so I won’t repeat those observations here, except to note the similarity between what I’ve been describing in John with what Paul says in Galatians 3-4: the one Son promised to Abraham by the one God, and our union to the one Son in our one baptism by which we are clothed with Christ and receive the Holy Spirit.3 Galatians 4:5-7 seems to collect the threads of Galatians 3 and ties nicely into my observations about John’s use of glory:
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Here I see a connection between the concept of glory as exalted status and Paul’s use of “heir” because an heir is the rightful inheritor of a father’s estate and thus possesses a status not had by others (e.g., a slave [Galatians 4:1-3]).
Viewed in this light, it becomes clearer to me why the New Testament has an aversion to earthly glory. It’s not, as some might propose, that such glory in God’s “upside down counter-cultural revolutionary subversive [insert other slogans] kingdom” this kind of glory is inherently bad.4 It’s because
our glory/exalted status is something only God can grant and
all other glory/exalted statuses pale in comparison.
Think about it: if we are co-heirs/co-glorified siblings of the king of the universe (which can only be given by the king of the universe), what value is it to have some exalted status given to us by mere humans? They can’t give us what God can give us, and if God grants that we receive some earthly glory here and now, it loses its ultimate value in light of our true exalted status in Christ. If my network is $449.5 billion USD, I don’t worry about losing a penny. If I lose an earthly exalted status, I lose nothing by comparison to what I have in Christ and so I’m not desperate to hold on to any exalted status I have here and now (Philippians 2:6).
This promise of exalted status for God’s people is not something that begins with Jesus but is deeply woven through the Old Testament, and here is where our Isaiah passage comes in:
10 I delight greatly in the Lord;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
and praise spring up before all nations.62 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,
till her vindication shines out like the dawn,
her salvation like a blazing torch.
2 The nations will see your vindication,
and all kings your glory;
you will be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.
3 You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand,
a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah,
and your land Beulah;
for the Lord will take delight in you,
and your land will be married.
5 As a young man marries a young woman,
so will your Builder marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you.
I’m particularly interested 62:2-3 where the nations and kings will see the glory of God’s people who are a crown/royal diadem. I don’t think this is merely observational as if the nations/kings glance over and say, “Oh look, isn’t that nice.” God, in the salvation of his people, will exalt them to glory above all earthly nations and kings. If we insist that in God’s “counter-cultural” kingdom glory can’t mean actual glory, then, it seems to me, that we can’t make sense of this or other passages which speak of a real exalted status of God’s people over creation.
Because of our current cultural climate, I have to add a note clarifying that I don’t think this means the Church is to become some worldwide empire ruling over the nations now. Instead, as we see in Romans 8, this side of the resurrection is marked not by the Church ruling but by suffering.5 Just like Jesus. And if we persevere in our suffering for being obedient to God, we will be exalted (2 Tim 2:11-13). Just like Jesus (Philippians 2:6-11; 1 Peter 3:17-22).6
Haley Goranson Jacob, Conformed to the Image of His Son: Reconsidering Paul’s Theology of Glory in Romans (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018), 62.
Two uses of glory in John do not fit into my schema. John 9:24 in which the Pharisees are more or less pushing the previously blind man to take an oath and tell the truth (“Give glory to God!”) and 12:41 in which he refers to the event of Isaiah seeing the glory of God (Isaiah 6). I don’t think this takes away from the main use of glory in John that I am outlining.
The oneness theme is, I think, intention, especially when we consider Jesus’s prayer in John 17:22 connects the sharing in the Son’s glory resulting in unity amongst his disciples.
I have a soap box about how these slogans reflect certain American values and not actual biblical values and I think we have confused the possible result of Biblical teaching with the grounds for Biblical teaching. Following Jesus might make us “counter-cultural” but being “counter-cultural” is not the same as following Jesus. Indeed, a certain culture as a whole may adopt values reflected in Jesus’s teaching, and in such a case it would be foolish to continue to be “counter-cultural” because that would put us in opposition to the teaching of Jesus! Some may argue that a larger culture cannot per se ever truly adopt Jesus’s teachings/values, but that just seems like special pleading. The point of Jesus’ gospel isn’t to be revolutionary, subversive, or counter-cultural even if, in certain times and places, following Jesus may make us those things. I hope to write a more detailed post on this at some point.
I’m not an anabaptist, neo- or otherwise, nor a pacifist, and the relationship between the Church and the State is a complex theological debate that I’m not getting into here. If God so grants the Church to have some kind of exalted status here and now, great. If not, great. It means nothing in light of the promised glorification of the resurrection and new creation.
Great Homily!