By T. Austin-Sparks
From "The Work of the Ministry" - Messages given at Honor Oak - Volume 2.
"These things spake Jesus; and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee" (John 17:1).
"If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because THE SPIRIT OF GLORY and the Spirit of God resteth upon you" (1 Peter 4:14).
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of glory. All the Holy Spirit's interests and concerns and activities have glory as their object and have nothing else in view by which to satisfy Him. Glory is the object and the end of all God's works and ways - numerous, various and largely unsearchable and inexplicable as they are. His object in everything is glory - and moreover that glory has to do with us. The Scripture precisely states that we are 'called into His kingdom and glory' (1 Thess. 2:12); and many other like statements affirm the same thing - that God's concern for us is glory.
THE SOURCE AND GROUND OF GLORY
Let us look first of all at the source and the ground of glory, the glory, which concerns us and with which, through the grace of God, we are concerned. The source and the ground of the glory can be simply stated as being Christ glorified. Christ glorified is the source of glory for us and the ground of glory for us.
When He was here on the earth He was not here in glory. He was here in humiliation, and humiliation for Him meant voluntary self-emptying. "He emptied himself" (Phil. 2:7). In this very chapter in John's Gospel we have that wonderful utterance of His: "Father, glorify thou me... with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (John 17:5). Humiliation meant voluntary self-emptying. It meant no self-fullness. "I can of myself do nothing" (John 5:30). It meant voluntarily accepting a life of complete dependence. The fact of the Holy Spirit coming upon Him and taking charge, immediately leading Him into the wilderness, and all the way through to the end, when He "through the eternal Spirit offered himself" (Heb. 9:14), means that He was dependent, He became dependent; there was no self-sufficiency.
It meant voluntary self-weakness. We are told that He was "crucified through weakness" (2 Cor. 13:4). He accepted that weakness - which meant that He drew every bit of strength from another source. There was no self-strength.
And then it meant voluntary acceptance of shame and dishonour - and what shame, what dishonour! They degraded Him according to their own mind. No self-glory, no self-esteem. "He humbled himself" (Phil. 2:8), He was not here then in glory. For one brief moment on the Mount of Transfiguration He was glorified. But it passed. John says: "Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:39).
The fact that He lived such a life of prayer is the proof, the inclusive mark, of all this. He had to draw everything from outside Himself. These opening words of John 17 are very remarkable words, far too profound for our fathoming, altogether beyond us; they would take us completely out of our depths. He was God, very God, and He is praying to God. Something has happened, for God does not pray to God, God does not ask God for things. You see the point. It does not mean that He was other than the Divine Son, the Son of God, very God: but He had for the time being taken a place in which all that was suspended.
But when God raised Him and took Him back, He reversed all that. When Jesus was glorified, it was in every respect just the opposite of His humiliation. That is, He is now no longer emptied - He is full. God has filled Him with all things. Paul speaks of God's "riches in glory" which are "in Christ Jesus" for us (Phil. 4:19). He is filled with all the riches of glory for His own people; full, sufficient - yes, self-sufficient; all sufficiency is in Him. Paul says that in the Colossian letter. He, being filled with all things, has all sufficiency, and we are made sufficient in Him. He is made powerful - "the ruler of the kings of the earth" (Rev. 1:5). No longer weak, but mighty with all the might of Heaven and God. And no longer in shame and dishonour and reproach, but in Heaven "crowned with glory and honour", says the Word (Heb. 2:9). God gave Him honour and glory (2 Pet. 1:17). This is the Scripture. He gave Him "the name which is above every name" (Phil. 2:9). Jesus glorified is the source of glory, the basis of glory.
