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| Good Friday Service, 2018, Reenacting John 17 See its dramatic inspiration here |
Those who know me
know that I love the Gospel of John and most of all I love the “High Priestly
Prayer” of John 17. In that prayer, one of the first requests from Christ to His
Heavenly, Holy, and Righteous Father was “Father, glorify Your Son.” The following was adapted from the 19th Century book The Lord Prays for His Own by Marcus Ransford.
If only we could enter more fully
into the thoughts of His Father and now our Father, as to the core essence and the
real consequences of sin as well as His boundless love for sinners, which was
manifested in the gift of His precious Holy Son, who descended from heaven into
our natural world in order to effect our salvation, to correct the practice of
the broken law and commandments by truly fulfilling them, to declare the
righteousness acts of God by truly living them, that Christ might be truly just,
and that the same time be the Justifier of those who believe on Jesus,
THEN only could we understand what a glorious position Christ did really occupy,
and what a marvelous grace Jehovah bestowed upon Him in appoint Him to be the manifestation
and incarnation of His Father’s Everlasting Love, indeed becoming Job’s “daysman,
able to lay his hand upon both” the righteousness of God and the fallenness
of humanity.
The death of Jesus
Christ, God’s one and only begotten Son, was indeed glorious by God’s
glorifying Him. Satan, the avowed enemy of God and adversary of humanity, was
to be overthrown, the very head of this Goliath giant, who defied the armies of
the living God, was soon to be crushed under the foot of the promised seed of
the woman, with the wages of sin, Death itself, to be fully paid by God’s Sinless
Son, destroying him who had the power of death, abolishing the eternal separation,
extracting its sting, swallowing up its victory, rising again, once for all
that all would die no more, imparting authority through His own risen life to all
who would become His people by calling upon His name in faith. To accomplish
all of this was indeed HIS glory.
The prayer by Jesus to
His Father to “Glorify Your Son,” was, as Hebrews 5:5 states, “Christ glorified
not Himself to be made a high priest, but so that the Father would say unto
Him, You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” The hour had come for His
death, burial and resurrection, enthroning Him to be forever at the Right Hand
of the Father, crowning Him as Head of the church, glorifying Him as He sent
down the Holy Spirit to those on whose behalf He had suffered in this natural
life, but even more as He would supernaturally suffer in vanquishing the eternal
deaths of those who place their faith in His work. By this He would comfort
them, He would quicken them, He would unite them to their risen Head and be in
them “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
Yes, this glory on
the Son would put all their foes under His footstool, this glory would gather
together God’s people to Himself, this glory would grant the Son to receive as
Revelation 5:12 says, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power
and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” Such exaltation
was gloriously prayed by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 1:19-23, “the
exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the
working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from
the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all
principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named,
not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things
under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is
His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Paul again extolled in
Philippians 2:9-11, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him
the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and
that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father.” James, who rejected his own half-brother prior to the
resurrection, called his risen Savior, “the Lord of GLORY.” Peter
proclaimed that by His death and resurrection, “God raised Him from the dead
and gave Him glory, so that your
faith and hope are in God.”
