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Glory in John
by
Fleur Hodge
This paper will discuss the
theological theme of glory in the Gospel of John. It is a
theme inextricably woven into the fabric of this Gospel. We
will begin by looking at a definition of glory, and then we
will take a brief look at how it was used in the Old Testament
and the Synoptic Gospels. The paper will then move on to
discuss how John uses the term “glory” and how it is revealed
in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, His signs and
pre-eminently in His death and exaltation on the Cross. We
will then turn to John’s contrast between worldly glory and
God’s glory, finishing with a discussion on glory and the
community of Believers.
A secular dictionary defines
glory as “great honour, praise or distinction accorded by
common consent; renown; something conferring honour or renown;
a highly praiseworthy asset; adoration, praise and
thanksgiving offered in worship; majestic beauty and
splendour, resplendence; the splendour and bliss of heaven,
perfect happiness; a height of achievement, enjoyment or
prosperity” (Yourdictionary.com 7/6/04). We need to add to
this to make it complete. Glory is the revelation of God, the
visible disclosure of the divine presence in nature and
significant actions within history (Smalley 1978:220).
In the Old Testament, the
Yahweh Kabod, that is, the glory of God, was seen both in His
saving acts and covenantal relationship with Israel. God
revealed His name, “I AM”, to Moses. He brought His people out
of bondage in Egypt. He travelled with them through the
wilderness providing for them and protecting them. His glory
even came to dwell among them in the tabernacle. These things
revealed the “Great I AM” to be mighty to save, powerful, holy
and faithful to His promises.
When Moses asked to see
God’s glory the Lord said,
“I will cause all of my
goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name,
the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have
compassion. But you cannot see my face, for no one may see me
and live” (Exodus 33:19-20).
God covered Moses with His
hand and took it away only when He had passed by so that Moses
saw only His back. As He went in front of Moses, God
proclaimed,
“The Lord, the Lord, the
compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in
love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and
forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7).
Yahweh revealed Himself to
His people in the Old Testament in this instance and many
others, but it was only a partial revelation. Only Jesus, the
Son of God, who leans on the Father’s breast, could give a
full exegesis of the Father. John 1:18 says,
“No one has ever seen
God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has
made him known”.
The whole of the New
Testament resounds with the news that the glory of the Father
has been fully revealed in the incarnate Son of God.
Interestingly, the Gospel writers do not agree as to when this
glory is revealed. Mark’s Gospel speaks about Jesus glory in
reference to the future coming of the Son of Man (Mark 8:38;
10:37; 13:26). Alternately, the Gospel of Luke associates
Jesus’ glory with His transfiguration (Luke 9:32). The Gospel
of John takes a different path, choosing to revel in the
multi-layered meaning of the term “glory”. He makes full use
of the fact that in the Biblical world, glory (doxa) refers to
both the social acknowledgement of greatness and prestige, and
to the unique saving revelation of God in the world. Certainly
it is no mistake that the story of the transfiguration of
Christ does not occur in John’s Gospel, for Jesus is the
revealer of God, the locus of the divine presence in the
world. Jesus manifests the glory of God in His incarnation,
His signs and above all in His death on the cross, where God’s
true being is disclosed in all its fullness. We will now move
on to look at each of these things in more detail (Talbert
1992:230, Lee 2002:35, Kelly and Maloney 2003:12, Painter
1975:13,50).
At the most basic level, the
incarnation of the Son of God revealed the glory of God. John
1:14 says,
“The Word became flesh
and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the
glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full
of grace and truth”.
This language is steeped in
Old Testament imagery; the incarnate Logos pitched his tent
among us in the same way that the tabernacle and then the
temple were the earthly dwelling places of God. Indeed in John
2:21, the writer makes it clear that Jesus is the new temple.
This revelation of glory is not impersonal like a pillar of
cloud but personal in terms of a father-son relationship. In
Jesus we discover a perfect demonstration of the self-giving,
loving nature of God in the same way that a son reflects the
nature of his Father. He is the living exposition of God
because He is unceasingly turned toward the heart of His
Father (John 1:18). Kysar states,
“It is in the person of
Jesus that we humans find ourselves in contact with the divine
glory itself, that is, in contact with God abiding in our
midst” (1984:90).
The Gospel of John wants us
to understand that the Son of God reveals God’s glory by
living and moving among us as a human. This is part of the
paradox of the Gospel, that glory (doxa) is not to be seen
alongside the flesh (sarx), nor through the flesh like a
window, but in the flesh as flesh (Painter 1975:57, Lee
2002:35, Kelly et al 2003:260).
Everything Jesus said and
did revealed something of the glory of God. Jesus signs, or
work as he preferred to call it, expressed his divinity. This
evoked faith in some. For instance after his first miraculous
sign, that of turning water into very good wine, the Gospel
narrator tells us “He thus revealed his glory, and his
disciples put their faith in him” (2:16). But not all saw the
glory of God in His signs. The Jewish authorities are
characterised in the Gospel as those who refuse to believe.
After Jesus heals the man born blind, the authorities refuse
to believe that he had indeed been born that way (9:18). When
they establish from his parents that this is true, they then,
in true Johannine style, tell him to “Give glory to God” and
tell them the truth about the man who performed the miracle.
Ironically he is already giving God glory by witnessing to the
miraculous sign.
The crowd also miss the
glory of God in the signs. Actually, Jesus points it out after
the feeding of the five thousand. He said,
“I tell you the truth,
you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs
but because you ate the loaves and had your fill (6:26).
(Painter 1975:51, Kysar 1984:24).
Jesus fully revealed the
real presence and nature of God both generally in His life and
particularly in His signs. The pre-existent glory of the glory
of the Son radiated throughout the life and actions of Jesus,
making Him the decisive communication of the nature and
presence of God Himself to man. But for John, Jesus’ life and
death need to be understood together; Christology and
Soteriology cannot be separated. What began in the incarnation
is completed in the crucifixion; that is to say, Christ’s
death on the cross is the key to recognising the glory of God
throughout Jesus’ ministry, in that it was only after the
resurrection that the eye witnesses were able to look back and
recognise His glory (Painter 1975:55, Smalley 1978:220-221).
To prepare the reader for
the full meaning of the cross, the writer of the Gospel
includes three “lifted up” sayings. Here he revels in the
nuances of the Greek language by taking full advantage of the
ambiguous nature of the Greek verb hupsothenai (lifted up). It
can mean either the act of crucifixion or the exaltation or
honouring of a person like a king on a throne (Kysar 1976:36,
Senior 1991:34, Kysar 1984:26).
The first occurs in 3:14-15,
“Just as Moses lifted up
the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”.
Jesus’ crucifixion is
likened to the event in Numbers 21, where the Israelites
received healing by looking up at the bronze snake on the
pole. But when Jesus is lifted up on the cross he brings not
only healing but eternal life. The next occurs in 8:28,
“When you have lifted up
the Son of Man, then you will know who I am and that I do
nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught
me”.
Here we see that Jesus’
crucifixion is going to reveal his true identity and
“proclaim” the message of a self-giving God. The third “lifted
up” saying comes in 12:31-33,
“’Now is the time for
judgement on this world; now the prince of this world will be
driven out. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men to myself’. He said this to show the kind of
death he was going to die”.
The crucifixion is portrayed
as both the means to His death and His exaltation (Senior
1991:35-36, Painter 1975:51).
In the Gospel of John, Jesus
talks about “the hour” or “time” in relation to His
glorification. At the beginning His time had not yet come
(2:4; 7:30; 8:20) but by 12:23, “The hour has come for the Son
of Man to be glorified”. The hour is the climax of the
mission, where the Father is fully revealed. The way of
glorification is laid out in the verses that follow,
“I tell you the truth,
unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it
remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many
seeds” (12:24) (Dumm 2001:5).
The passion narrative is
told in terms of the enthronement of Jesus as King and the
ascent and glorification of Jesus as the Son of God. It is
certainly spoken of in terms of suffering (cf Mark 15:34, 1
Corinthians 1:18-25) but we are to see Jesus as having power
on the cross.
“No one takes it from me
[life], but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority
to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command
I received from my Father” (10:18).
It is power given for
self-surrender and giving, not for feeding the ego (Kysar
1976:37, Lee 2002:125).
The “lifted up” sayings
prepared the readers to understand the crucifixion as a
coronation and this theme continues throughout the passion
narrative. Jesus is very much in control. He permits the
humiliation because it is a means to His glorification. Even
in the mockery of the soldiers, the crown of thorns and the
purple robe, we see His royalty. He carries his own throne to
Golgotha, where they crown Him “Jesus of Nazareth – King of
the Jews” (19:19). The sign is written in Aramaic, Latin and
Greek, the major languages of the known world and at Pilate’s
insistence, the sign had to remain. Finally Jesus says, “It is
finished”, bows His head and gives up His spirit (19:30). But
it is a word of victory not defeat. Ironically, it is the very
act that humanity uses to rid itself of the one who claims to
be sent from God, that exalts Him as the King of Creation. It
is important to note here that it is not humanity that lifts
Jesus up; it is the Father Himself. He lifts up His Son, whom
He has given, because Jesus’ self-sacrifice reveals the
Father’s giving love (3:16) (Kysar 1976:52, 1984:83, Kelly et
al 2003:256).
There is a spatial dimension
in the description of Jesus in the Gospel of John and so the
passion narrative is also told in terms of the ascension and
glorification of the Son of God. Jesus, the Son of Man, comes
down from Heaven, is sent from God, enters the world in the
incarnation and abides there. In His death on the cross, He is
exalted and glorified and through it, returns to the Father,
that is, He ascends to His former place. The cross becomes a
ladder to Heaven, to His former abode and former glory (Senior
1991:34, Kysar 1976:52-53).
The cross is the climax of
the theme of glorification but it is not concerned with
increasing the divine status of God but with unfolding the
manifestation of the Father’s love and handing it on. It is
here that the Father’s true innermost nature is revealed.
“For God so loved the
world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes
in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (3:16).
The unlimited love of the
Father for humanity and His radical self-giving is the source
of life and salvation. This is what Jesus reveals when, in
loving obedience, He gives Himself on the cross. When He says,
“It is finished”, He is referring to the work that the Father
sent Him to do, that is, to make known the radically loving
heart of God. This reciprocal glorification is seen in 17:1,
where Jesus prays, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your
Son, that your Son may glorify you”. The glory of the Father
is bound up with the glory of the Son. They are one in
purpose, that of saving sinners. The glory of Jesus, as He
stoops down to save us, is the glory of the Father, whose will
He is doing. Thus the scandal of the cross reveals both the
heart of the Father and of the Son (Morris 1971:569, Kelly et
al 2003:256).
As has been seen, the Gospel
of John uses the category of glorification in a timeless way.
The Father is glorified when the Son honours the Father with
obedience. Jesus is glorified before the crucifixion, as well
as in His death and exaltation. The Father is also glorified
in these things. Glorification even reaches into the future,
where the Father is glorified by the discipleship of Christ’s
followers, as they share in the glory of God. It is to this
subject that we now turn (Smalley 1978:21).
John distinguishes between
two radically opposite forms of glory, the glory of men and
the world and the glory of God. In 5:44 we read,
“How can you believe if
you accept praise (glory) from another, yet make no effort to
obtain the praise (glory) that comes from the only God?”
Again in 12:42-43 we read,
“Yet at the same time
many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of
the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they
would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise
(glory) from men more than praise (glory) from God”.
There is a wide gulf between
the glory of the world, with all its public reputation and
ceremony, and that of the glory of God. The former seeks its
own glory but the latter seeks to glorify another (7:18). John
makes it clear that loving the glory of men more than the
glory of God is the supreme disaster because it numbs you to
the realities that make faith in the Son and obedience to the
Father possible (5:37b). The paradox of the cross, that death
equals glory, remains a contradiction to all worldly glory
(Kelly et al 2003:13, Morris 1978:538).
The cross and its
humiliation was a long way from the Triumphal Entry, with its
palm branches and “hosannas”. Yet this is where Jesus is
glorified. The death that He died resulted from God’s refusal
to act in any power other than that of self- giving love.
“Whatever the splendour
of divine revelation, it has allowed for rejection, betrayal,
hatred and violent killing” (Kelly et al 2003:13).
Glory cannot be won from God
to be used as personal decoration or possession like it can be
from the world. Jesus received glory from the Father because
He surrendered completely to the Father’s will. He was
unreservedly dedicated to the work the Father had given Him.
The glory given Him was purely a gift from the Father. In
Jesus’ prayer for all Believers (17:20-26), the Father’s realm
is revealed in terms of a continual exchange of gifts. Here
there is no holding on to what is ones own; the Father has
given glory to Jesus, Jesus gives that same gift to the
Believers of the future. Thus God models the community of true
glory, where self-surrender is inspired for the sake of others
(Kelly et al 2003:346).
Jesus prays, “That all of
them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in
you” (17:21). The indwelling of the Father in Jesus and Jesus
in the Believers unifies this new community and replaces the
external and limited places of sacred worship (4:21). This new
intimacy and freedom of access to God enables the Believers to
follow Jesus, to be sown in the ground of the Father’s will,
dying to self and producing much fruit. It also empowers them
to hate their life in this world of false glory and keep it
for eternal life (12:24-25). Because they are united with
Jesus in the glory of self-giving love, Believers are honoured
by the Father (12:26) and share in the oneness of life and
community existing between the Father and the Son (Dumm
2001:6, Kelly et al 2003:347).
The wonderful thing about
the glory of the perfect communion between the Father and the
Son is that it is not turned inward, self-sufficient and
exclusive. Instead Jesus’ self-giving looks beyond the present
to an ever expanding circle of communication where the world
comes to know that the Father has sent the Son; for both the
sending of the Son and the consequent sending of the disciples
into the world are an outcome of the Father’s unreserved love
for the world (3:16) (Kelly et al 2003:345-346).
The disciples are not
involved in any actual missionary activity in the Gospel of
John like they are in the Synoptics, but it is a
presupposition. They are sent into the world to continue the
mission of the Son, which is to testify to the intimate and
unreserved character of God’s love for the world. The world is
not abandoned to the darkness. The witness of the Believers
will call the world to the light (Kelly et al 2003:345-346).
The community of Believers
is now the locus of the manifestation of God. The Father gave
Jesus glory and He gives it to the Believers, thus the
Believers manifest the glory of God. But this glory is not
honour it is the divine presence. Now the community of
Believers has become what the mighty deeds of God in history
were to the Old Testament world. Because the Holy Spirit, the
Paraclete, is active among Believers, the glory of God resides
in the Church, displaying the continuing incarnation of the
Son of God (Kysar 1976:100, Talbert 1992:229).
The theme of glory is the
heartbeat of John’s Gospel. For John’s Good News is that the
Father sent His One and Only Son into the world to live among
us and show us His glory, His radical self-giving love. The
Son does this through His incarnation, His signs and
conclusively on the cross, where His heart is also revealed as
radically self-giving. The Gospel makes known God’s fulfilled
plan to save the world and bring it into the intimate,
self-giving relationship of the Trinity. Kelly et al states
that in the Gospel of John,
“the meaning of God is
not simply read off from a text, but a reality to be
discovered, by entering into the realm of life and love that
emanates from the Father” (2003:15).
This paper has endeavoured
to discuss the theological theme of glory in the Gospel of
John and to establish its centrality to the message of the
book. This has been achieved by first looking at the way John
uses the term “glory” in contrast to the Old Testament and the
other Synoptic Gospels, then by examining his use of “glory”
in relation to the incarnation of the Son of God, His signs
and pre-eminently His glorification and exaltation on the
cross. Finally “glory” was established as a central theme of
John’s Gospel by discussing how Believers are now included in
that glory and how the community of Believers, through the
Holy Spirit, continue to display the incarnation of the Son of
God.
Bibliography
Dumm, D.R., A
Mystical Portrait of Jesus, (Liturgical Press,
Collegeville, Minnesota, 2001).
Kelly, A.J.,
Moloney, F.J., Experiencing God in the Gospel of John,
(Paulist Press, New York, 2003).
Kysar, R.,
John: the Maverick Gospel, (John Knox Press, Louisville,
Kentucky, 1976).
Kysar, R.,
John’s Story of Jesus, (Fortress Press, Philadelphia,
1984).
Lee, D., Flesh
and Glory: Symbolism, Gender and Theology in the Gospel of
John, (Crossroad Publishing, New York, 2002).
Painter, J.,
John: Witness and Theologian, (Beacon Hill Press, Mitcham,
Victoria, 1975).
Senior, D.,
The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of John, (Liturgical
Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1991).
Smalley, S.S.,
John: Evangelist and Interpreter. (Paternoster Press,
Granville, New South Wales, 1978).
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