VIII. THE GLORIFICATION
—
HAVE we not shown that the soul-form which manifested itself through human birth to men as Jesus of Nazareth was true man, for it had all the planes of life that man has, with God dwelling within? Jesus of Nazareth was perfect man, with a rational soul, for on the merely human plane he was tempted, grew tired, and manifested other limitations of the human taken on from Mary.
But do we not perceive that he was true God, not indeed at the first as to the outward form taken on from Mary, or in the limitations taken on from the angelic life, but nevertheless he was God, essentially, even from the first, God manifesting Himself, God dwelling in His own things within the flesh, within limitations voluntarily accepted, in order that He might later be present on the plane of the natural in all His fullness?
Now upon the assumption of the human planes began that process to which Jesus referred as his glorification.
Let us see what glorification means.
To "glorify" means, according to the Standard Dictionary, "to exalt to a state of glory; raise to power and happiness; especially, to uplift to celestial honor and blessedness." But it also has a reciprocal meaning, as when there is a descent of glory upon common things and we speak of them as glorified. We say that glory is shed upon them; but the two definitions are the two sides of the same idea.
This process, in the case of Jesus, was reciprocal, proceeding from Jehovah initially, and in its turn "exalting to a state of glory; raising to power and happiness; especially, uplifting to celestial honor and blessedness," the assumed human.
In the case of man we call this process "regeneration." It is the process to which Jesus refers in his conversation with Nicodemus as "being born again," or "born from above," or "born of the Spirit." Its initial source is in God; it is God operating in the heart of man, uplifting him into a new life, where he becomes the moral image and likeness of God. It is indeed the opening up of that spiritual plane of life, or of life on the plane of the spirit, to which we have so often referred, by means of which one becomes an angel of heaven. It is developed through unselfishness, the voluntary laying down of the selfish life, the determined following out of the commandments of Jesus, the executed resolve to love others as we love ourselves. And yet, after all, it is Divinely effected. One can no more be born by his own effort into the plane of the truly spiritual than he can be born by his own effort into the plane of the material. The Divine works within us to bring it about, but with our consent and coöperation. Without our consent and coöperation it cannot be brought about. We are acted upon by the Divine, and we react to it, and our reaction to the Divine influences is similar to the reaction of the mother to the father; the material or natural plane being, as it were, the mother that cooperates in bringing forth to life the new spiritual seed from our Heavenly Father.
This process of regeneration is the process to which we were destined from our birth. Without it we are undeveloped men, living here and hereafter the half-life, the imperfect, incomplete life of selfish beings, voluntarily rejecters of God's life, of the true life of heaven, which Jesus calls "eternal life." Without the development of life on the spiritual plane we can never be fashioned into the moral image and likeness of our Heavenly Father. To live spiritually, or on the spiritual plane, is to truly live. To refuse to live on that plane is never to be really born into the image and likeness of God. It is the equivalent of moral death, for it means the separation of the unregenerate man from God through refusal to receive His life. The supreme effort of our lives. should, therefore, be "to follow the Son of man in the regeneration."
Jesus called the process in his case glorification. Let us note some of the passages where reference is made to it:
The first reference is John 7:39: "But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified."
John evidently refers to that state of complete union with the Father when the Son was "glorifled," completely exalted, and made one with the Father, when he had "ascended to the Father." The "ascension" was indeed nothing more than the glorification or completeness of union of the Father and the Son, when the "Father" descended, as it were, lower and lower into outward things, as the "Son" by reciprocation ascended into the very Divine itself. Our regeneration is indeed an image of it, but the glorification of Jesus infinitely transcended our regeneration; for we never ascend into oneness with the Divine that dwells in our Inmost, or Holy of Holies, whereas Jesus ascended into the bosom of the Father, and, as "sitting on the right hand of the Father," exercises all Divine power—is, in other words, the one and only Divine. He who has "all power in heaven and earth" is the only God of heaven and earth.
We in our regeneration go up step by step into higher and higher planes of spiritual living; but we never commingle with God as one with Him; we never go above the highest plane of the angelic heavens into oneness or identity with God. We remain forever creatures with life derived from God, never having life in ourselves, or self-existent life. And while God mediately descends through us as we become regenerated until He manifests Himself through us even on the natural plane of living, it is not God in His fullness in us, as He dwelt in the Divine Human when that was "glorified." God as He is in Himself is forever back in the recesses of our being—in our Holy of Holies. He is never identical with us in our external life, so that we never have life in ourselves—self-existent life—as Jesus had it. In other words, we are never commingled with the Divine. We are never Divine.
Another passage from John (12:16) emphasizes the same idea as the preceding quotation: "These things understood not his disciples at the first, but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him." "When Jesus was glorified" here evidently refers to his exaltation at his ascension, the "ascension" being the complete union with the Father, when he reigned openly as Divine.
Now there are two states of consciousness manifested in the Lord's life on earth—the one when he spoke as man only, with the consciousness on the plane received from the natural; that which theologians call his state of exinanition (of emptying himself) or humiliation; and the other state of consciousness, which we may refer to as the state of glorification, when he spoke as absolutely and consciously Divine.
On the plane of the natural, in his states of humiliation, he spoke of the Father as greater than he; he prayed to the Father, and spoke of Him as if He were a distinct being from himself; and yet again in his states of glorification he spoke of himself as one with the Father. There was usually an adaptation of this latter consciousness to the states of his hearers, so that they might better understand him. He could never, as we have seen, speak with utter disregard of the states of his hearers. There was always an effort at accommodation or adaptation. It is entirely evident, from the accounts of his life, that the consciousness on the plane of the Divine grew more and more prominent as he progressed, as he threw off the merely human and limited, as the Divine descended lower and lower into the outward.
If we will read the passage in John 12:23—33, we shall see the idea of the Lord's glorification more prominently brought out:
"And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified." Let us here think of the dictionary definition, and read the sentence in this way: "The hour is come, that the Son of Man should be 'exalted to a state of glory; raised to power and happiness; especially, uplifted to celestial honor and blessedness.'" Is not that the true meaning? Now how was this to be accomplished?
This brings out a most important phase of the matter, demonstrating that the Lord's glorification and man's regeneration are similar, both requiring temptation combats to accomplish them: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Here the Lord was evidently under the stress of temptation. He continues by turning his own temptation into good counsel for his followers:
"He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. . . . Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name."
These latter words are the evidences of victory. The name of a person is the expression of his character or quality. All names were given so in the beginning, and even now they indicate to the hearer the personalities of the ones who bear them. By asking the Father to glorify the Father's name, Jesus was asking that he himself should be exalted as to the Divine Human; that the Divine should flow down into and infill the Son as the outward expression in time and space of the Divine, as the Father's "name" or expression, and so exalt him into oneness with the Father. And his victory over the temptation to resist the natural death which he saw so clearly to be imminent and yet indispensable actually brought about this fuller union of the Son and the Father, for immediately we hear:
"Then there came a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people, therefore, that stood by and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said,"—and his answer is very pertinent to our discussion,—"This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes."
Jesus continued, and what he says is an evidence of the effect of his temptation combats, namely, his victory over the evil forces that strove to destroy him and which had almost destroyed the human race: "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out."
By meeting the infernal hosts as a man, as the son of Mary, on their own plane, admitting them into himself through the planes of life he had assumed, he conquered them, gained the victory which should forever set men free from their power as men voluntarily followed him in the regeneration.
The consciousness of his victory is still more apparent in what follows: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." It was the Divine consolation after victory that comes indeed to every human soul. It was in this case even more—it was the Lord's rejoicing over the salvation of a world. He looked through all the future ages and saw this triumph, the fulfillment of that for which he had so humbled himself. It was a song of victory, the joy of which was not personal, but lay in the realization of the welfare of his creatures whom he was now rescuing.
Another passage from John (13:31, 32)—for John's gospel is the one which most fully and intimately records the inner psychologic states of the Lord—has the following statement, made at the time that Judas leaves the table at the Last Supper to go out and betray Jesus to his enemies:
"Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified," i. e., lifted up, exalted,—"and God is glorified in him," i. e., the Divine brought down into the Son. "If God be glorified in him," i. e., brought down into the Son,—"God shall also glorify him in himself," i. e., exalt the Son into oneness with Himself,—"and shall straightway glorify him." Is not this the obvious meaning of what is sometimes a difficult passage? "Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me; and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you."
"The little while" to which Jesus referred is the time remaining before the glorification was completed. Soon they should not behold him as they had now done daily for so long; for the glorification would be complete. At that time, or in that state, they could not find him as they had hitherto done, for he would have departed out of the limited finite. Yet in that glorified state he would be with them forever: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
The going out of Judas to betray meant the early consummation of the processes of glorification, when the human from Mary would be forever put away; for the merely external human, the material, would die upon the cross; and the Lord realized it perfectly. Therefore, as he had triumphed in the thought or anticipation of this final victory he exclaimed, "Now is the Son of man glorified,"—lifted up, exalted,—"and God is glorified in him,"——the Divine is brought down into the plane of the natural. The external limited was to be put off, and in its place the Divine, even as to ultimates,—or in the last things of human life,—was to be put on—God was to glorify the Son of man in Himself. They were to be made forever one. God was to dwell forever on the plane of the natural, as well as on higher planes. Jesus saw prophetically that which was about to occur. The process was almost finished. In a little time he would be able to say from the cross, "It is finished."
Let us consider for a moment the Lord's intercessory prayer after the Last Supper:
"These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son," i. e., descend into the Son, or ultimate plane,—"that thy Son may also glorify thee"; i. e,, ascend into perfect oneness with the Father,—"as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, [the internal of God] and Jesus Christ, [the external of God] whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."
Here was Jesus, almost at the last moment of his earthly life, praying to the Father as if the Father were distinct from himself. And the Son was still distinct from the Father, in spite of their approaching union or perfect oneness. It is possible to understand the deep mystery involved in this relationship as here exhibited.
Let us for a moment think of God's essential being.
What is God? The very form of the word indicates that the minds of the Anglo-Saxons and related races perceived that God is essential Good, the Supreme Good. It is a high ideal of God, but a proper one. God alone in the supreme sense is Good.
Accepting this idea of God, we find back of the word Good the essential quality of Love, a higher concept of God, for Love is the source of Good. We are entitled to think of God as Love, Love being His essential quality. But a quality cannot be manifested except in form; and thus we next think of God as Wisdom, which means merely the form of Love on the same plane. When we think of God as Good, actually a lower perception of Him, we think of God's expression or form as Truth.
We thus perceive that God has two phases at least of being, Love and Wisdom, Good and Truth, or, in general, Being and Coming-Forth, or Quality and Form. Jehovah, or the Father, seems to be Essential Being, and Jesus, or the Son, God-Coming-Forth-to-View, God-manifesting-Himself. Thus, there are not two beings, but one Being. Just as our soul as it is in itself needs to have a body through which it can manifest itself to the world, so the Infinite God, Essential Being, needed to have a body or proceeding in form in order to make Himself manifest in time and space. But let us bear in mind that Essential God and God-Coming-Forth-to- View would not be two Gods, but merely two phases of the one only God.
When we think of the quality of God, His inmost character of Love,—or as perceived as the Divine Good,—we think of the Father; but we cannot see that inmost quality except in its form of the Son, the Divine Wisdom, or the Divine Truth. While this coming forth to view in time and space created the impression of two separate beings, they were not two, but one, as Jesus said, "I and the Father are one"— identical. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
When God would manifest Himself in time and space He provided, as we have seen, a soul-form taken from the truth as it existed in the angelic heavens and in the minds of good spirits and men. It was truth from the Divine as it existed in the heavens in the minds of others; thus it was His own with them; but it was not the actual Divine Truth as it exists in its perfection as the body or form or interior expression of God. It was not the Logos of John 1:1, i. e., the Divine Wisdom or the Divine Truth.
The Logos was the first expression of the Divine in its emanation; it was the Divine Wisdom or Truth; it was the interior form of God-Coming-Forth-to-View. This is Truth in the Divine Form, and it is not, as we have indicated, the imperfect form of truth as it exists in the minds of angels and men.
Jesus was most interiorly the Divine Love, or the Divine Good; then He was the Logos, or the form or expression of God on the most interior plane; then he was for a time in the descent to earth truth as it is received by angels and men; then he was that which men saw, a man among men, a flesh-and-blood man, with consciousness on every plane of proceeding. He was all of these things when men saw him on earth. His human mind, from which he so often spoke, had at least two planes of consciousness—one of the lower plane of the human mind when it is shut out from the perception of its higher nature, the other the upper plane of the regenerating human mind when it perceives and speaks from the plane of the spiritual, or the plane of the angelic heavens. Then he had a plane of consciousness above even this upper human, the plane of the Logos, or Divine Wisdom or Truth above the heavens.
The process of glorification was this: The Essential Divine, Jehovah, manifested Himself first as the Logos, or the Divine Wisdom or Truth. When it would appear before men a soul-form was taken from the things of God, or the Divine Truth, as received by the angels and men. This was to provide a receptacle fitted by its quality to receive and contain the Divine in limitation. This receptacle or soul-form became in its outmost manifestation on earth Jesus of Nazareth. It was not separated from Essential God; it was merely a covering or projection of the Divine; it was actually God dwelling in His own things on lower planes. As Jesus was humanly perfected, that is, as he lived the life of overcoming, the Inmost Divine, Jehovah or the Father, descended. God as the Logos cast out from the soul-form, or plane of reception, on the level of the angelic heavens, i.e., the plane of spirit,—the imperfect reception of God on that plane by substituting therefor the Divine Wisdom or Truth, or God in His first emanation. Then God dwelt directly on the plane of the heavens in His infinity.
Then God as the Logos descended as the processes of glorification continued into the plane of the natural mind. It was at this time that we have the intercessory prayer recorded in John 17. It was the Son speaking on the plane of the Logos addressing the Essential Divine, the Father. By the "glorification" he was referring to the perfect union of the Divine Good and Divine Truth which was now about to take place on the lowest plane of the natural life, when the Logos would entirely supersede the plane of the maternal human and even the Father, or Essential Divine, would be united with the Son, and the Divine Good and the Divine Truth would be one on the plane of the natural.
There was still left something of the maternal human, for Gethsemane and the cross were yet to be endured. It would still be possible for consciousness, therefore, to be manifested on that plane. But at the time when Jesus prayed his intercessory prayer, it is evident, from certain considerations, that he was speaking as the Logos or Interior Divine Truth.
The question occurs, Why were these different planes of consciousness existent? There can be little discussion of the fact that they did exist. The purpose was that there might be the effort toward reciprocal union from the lower planes of life, action and reaction. God, in order to come before men, assumed an imperfect receptacle of His life. It was necessary to cast out the imperfections in order that He might finally descend in His very fullness on the lowest plane, and be forever God with man. The man Jesus of Nazareth represented at first the Divine dwelling in an imperfect receptacle, limited by the material conditions it had assumed. The only normal way by which these imperfections could be put off was by bringing down the Divine as it could be received. This was by temptations admitted into the maternal human. The Divine descended as it overcame the devils who did the tempting: it descended and replaced the imperfect. Jesus overcame, as all men must overcome, by the power of the Divine, but he could not have been tempted had he not had a plane of consciousness at the time of temptation like our own. God was not tempted, but the man-plane did receive temptations and it overcame, as every man must overcome. That made Jesus complete man—thoroughly a human being. What overcame in him is what overcomes in man, the Divine power; the difference was that God dwelt directly in him as His very soul, whereas God is only adjoined to us, dwelling in us as a separate entity in our Inmost.
We now hear the words: "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." This was the Logos speaking, that was in the beginning with God, who was God, and that for which he prayed was the reciprocal union of the Divine Good and the Divine Truth, God and the Logos, the Father and the Son. These elements in God had been to appearance separated by the Incarnation; they were now to be reunited. That it was this interior Divine Truth or Logos speaking is shown by what follows: "And, now, O Father, glorify thou me, with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." The outward man Jesus had not existed before, but the Logos had always existed. This effort toward union resulted in the complete glorification, or perfect union on the plane of the natural of Father and Son, when the essential Divine infilled the form of the Son, when the Divine actually dwelt in its fullness in His own things on the plane of the natural, no longer as hitherto mediately in the assumed human from Mary.
In the twenty-fourth verse of this same chapter Jesus said:
"Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world." The Divine Good always loves the Divine Truth, or Logos. The exaltation of the Divine Truth (not the son of Mary) would be into its primitive union with the Divine Good. Good and Truth mutually love each other; but both are capable of existing in one being, and they did so exist in the case we are considering, for Good was the quality of the Divine of which the form was Truth.
Jesus spoke as he did here in order that men might understand His essential Divineness, his oneness with the Father in spite of appearances, and he spoke as if there were two in order that they might believe at all. And yet, after all, it was a speaking according to the fact, for the Divine Good had not yet descended to this lower plane from which he spoke. It was the effort to bring down the Divine Good to the plane where the Divine Truth, the Logos, had preceded it—it actually helped to bring it about; but it was at the same time an accommodation in appearance to the minds of his hearers, and for their benefit; for he knew that he and the Father were one, as soul and body are one, just as he had said so many times.