'THAT THEY MAY BEHOLD MY GLORY"
‘THAT THEY MAY BEHOLD MY GLORY”
John 17:24
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Sunday, January 18, 2014, the Year of Our Lord
John 17:24: “Father, I will that they also, whom You have give Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”
One of Jesus’ greatest desires expressed in his prayer was that his people might be with him to behold His glory. It is clear in this prayer the Lord Jesus was referring to his own glory and the actual sight of it.
The Lord desired that his disciples should see his glory in order that they might be filled with joy and happiness forevermore.
A believer magnetized by the love of Christ will always seek and press in until he or she comes to Christ and beholds his glory. When Jesus prayed for us in John 17:26, He also secured the love of Father God: “that the love wherewith God loves Jesus, may be in us and Christ in us”.
One of our greatest privileges in Christ and we have many great privileges in Him is He secured for us in His prayer both in this world and for eternity that we may behold His glory and have the love of Father God as God loved Him.
This glorious privilege is not limited to the heavenly state only, but is for believers in the world.
There continues in this world many doctrines of heretics who oppose the person and glory of Christ. There are those who do not believe in the Trinity or the incarnation of the Son of God. These truths are foundational to Christianity. Jesus said that we are sanctified through the Truth of God and His word is Truth. (Jn. 17:17)
It is our privilege and honor as Christians to testify to the divine person and glory of the Son of God.
As believers, we are all given the grace to behold the glory of Christ. It is by beholding the glory of Jesus that we are gradually transformed into his image, and brought into the eternal joy of it. “They shall be forever like him, for they shall see him as he is.” (2 Cor. 3:18, 1 John 3: 1-2)
On this promise we own our present treasures and future blessedness.
2 Cor. 4:6: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We have this treasure in earthen vessels…”
John writes in his gospel of himself and his fellow apostles, “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Peter, James and John saw the visible glory of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. There are many who have seen Christ in visions and He is glorious!
However, he had no outward glory that unbelievers in the world would desire. He had no earthly glory or grandeur by the world’s standards of his day or of ours. He kept no court. Even though He created all things, He had no where to lay his head. He appeared to others as a “man of sorrows”.
John describes a measure of His glory as “grace and truth”. How did they see this glory? It was by faith and no other way, because this privilege is given only to those who are His. John 17:9-10: “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for them which You have given Me; for they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them…(Vs22) “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one.”
The beholding of the magnitude of Christ’s glory is too high, glorious and marvelous for us in our present condition. However, by visitation I have seen a measure of the Shekinah glory as have many others.
In our worship service, we experience the Parousia of Jesus’ presence. We have felt the touch of His Holy Spirit in healing, deliverance, and our salvation. We behold His Glory in the Word of God; in the birth of a child; the sun set and sun rise; creation; conscience; gifts of the Holy Spirit; and not least, the redemption from sin. In John 17:22, Jesus affirms His glory is found in unity with Him, the Father and one another.
In Isaiah 52:8, the Word of God says there will come a day that all the watchmen will see “eye to eye”. There will no longer be doctrines and revelations presumed by men. The Word of God is the revelation of Jesus Christ. I have been reading words of Godly ministers who preached 200—300--400 years ago. The Lord has always had evangelicals who believed His Word and preached it just as it is written.
2 Cor. 3:18: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
By beholding the glory of Christ, we will enter into His rest. Our carnal minds are apt to be filled with troubles, fears, cares, dangers, distresses, ungoverned passions, and lusts. By these our thoughts and lives are filled with chaos, darkness and confusion. When our soul is fixed on the glory of Christ, then the mind, will and emotions enter the rest and peace of God. “For to be spiritually minded is peace.”
By beholding the glory of Christ we shall experience what it means to be everlastingly blessed. “We shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). “We shall be with Christ, which is best of all. (Phil. 1:23) “For there we shall behold his glory (Jn. 17:24); “By seeing him as he is, we shall be made like him” (1 Jn. 3:2). This is our everlasting blessedness.
The enjoyment of God by sight is commonly called the “Beatific Vision’. There is the song, We can Only Imagine of how we will react to a visitation. The sign we shall have of God will always be in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4:6: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
The foundation of our Christian faith, the rock on which the church is built, the ground of all our hopes of salvation, of life and immortality is the revelation of God’s nature and will by Jesus Christ.
This Rock stands firm. The church is safe and shall be triumphant forever.
The one who does not see the wisdom, power of God, and all the other holy properties of the blood of Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation is an unbeliever. It is only by Christ that we can glorify God rightly and acceptably.
The great purpose of the devil is to blind the eyes of men’s understanding and to fill their minds with prejudices so that they might not behold the glory of Christ.
2 Cor. 4: 3-4: “For if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, less the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to them.”
By various and deceitful ways the devil has attempted to hold on to his title, ‘god of this world’. By counterfeiting supernatural appearances of power, he has labored to prejudice the minds of men and turn them away from the glorious light of the gospel which proclaims to all that the Lord Christ is perfect and the only true revealer of God’s image.
As we continue to watch the horrific spread of Islamic terrorism, let us be assured their blindness is taken away from their minds only by the almighty power of God. Paul tells us that it is God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness and has shone in our hearts with the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The unbelieving world perished under this darkness as do all present day unbelievers who deny that Jesus is truly God as well as truly man.
But to the believer, we have this promise, “Behold darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.” (Isa. 60:2)
In 1989, the Lord Jesus stood beside my bed as light and glory. He covered me with a blanket of light and spoke these words to me.
Concerning this world’s darkness, that is the ignorance of God in men’s minds, Christ is called and indeed is the “Light of men”, the “Light of the world”, because in him and by him alone this darkness is dispelled.
This ignorance of God, of his nature and will, was the reason why evil entered the world and why it continues to prevail in the world. On this ignorance of God, Satan set up his kingdom. He exalted himself, by virtue of this darkness, in the place of God as the object of all religious worship.
“For the things which the Gentiles sacrificed, they sacrificed to devils, and not to God.” (1 Cor. 10:20) This is how the devil wields the power and scepter of his kingdom in the minds of the “children of disobedience”.
Ignorance of God is the source of all wickedness and confusion among men.
Of his own will, and by His own powerful grace alone, he has translated us out of darkness into his marvelous light. But the horrible ingratitude of men for the glorious light of the gospel, and the abuse of it, will bring on us severe judgments.
David longed and prayed for a sight of the glory.
Psalm 63:1-2: “ O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see Your power and Your glory so as I have seen You in the sanctuary.”
Moses also desired to see the glory of God. He had seen the works of God, but oh his heart desired to see His Glory.
It is in Christ alone that we may see the glory of God. The Father appointed him to be the true representation of his glory. This glory is wonderfully displayed in both his wisdom and his love.
Infinite wisdom is one of the glorious properties of the divine nature.
Eph. 3: 9-10: “To make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ; to the intent that now to the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.”
Love is another glorious property of the divine nature. John tells us that “God is love”. Love casts out envy, hatred, malice and revenge with all the rage, fierceness, implacability, persecution and murder that these evil passions produce.
These do not belong to God, for “God is love”. For this reason alone, “Allah Akbar” cannot be our God of love. Even though “God is love”, his wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men”.
How do we behold the glory of God’s love? “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). This is the sure evidence that God is love. So the divine nature is made known to us in the mission, person and offices of the Son of God.
He who does not behold the glory of Christ as the representation of God’s love is utterly ignorant of these heavenly mysteries. He does not know either God or Christ. He has neither the Father nor the Son.
The teaching of Islam looks on Christ merely as a teacher. They do not see that He is the great and only representative of the Glory. This glory of Christ they despise and reject because they do not believe that he is truly God as well as being truly man.
It is our duty, our privilege and our blessedness to behold the glory of Christ. Today there are many who call themselves Christians who are strangers to this privilege. That is present company excluded.
Our Lord Jesus Christ told the Pharisees that in spite of all their boasting, they did not know God. They had no real acquaintance with him, no spiritual view of his glory.
If we regularly beheld the glory of Christ our Christian walk with God would be more sweet and pleasant. Out spiritual light and strength would grow stronger. Our lives would gloriously represent the glory of Christ.
According to 2 Cor. 4:6, the light of faith is given to use chiefly to enable us to behold the glory of God in Christ. If we do not have this light which is given to believers by the power of God and is part of our inheritance procured for us by Christ, we are still strangers to the whole mystery of the gospel. When we behold the glory of God in Christ, we behold Christ’s glory also. This is how the image of God is renewed in us and how we are made like Christ.
Make up your mind that to behold the glory of God by beholding the glory of Christ is the greatest privilege which is given to believers in this life. It is the first taste of that heavenly glory which God has prepared for us and Jesus procured for us.
Pray with Paul that the eyes of our understanding may be enlightened to behold the glory of God in Christ. Pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Fill your minds with spiritual thoughts of Christ.
Then when we actually see him we shall behold him without any interruption and we shall never cease to delight in him and to love him.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. The invisible things of God are understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.
John 17:24: “Father, I will that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me; for Your loved Me before the foundation of the world.”
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. I entered into the labors of John Owen, The Glory of Christ. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Rev. Owen who went to be with Jesus in August 1683.