This morning I was encouraged by the Lord’s prayer in John 17:22-23, where He says,
And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.
How wonderful! The Lord’s prayer in John 17 is that God may be glorified in the Son, and the Son is glorified in the church – through the oneness of the church in the Triune God! First of all, God was glorified in Christ in His resurrection – Christ’s divine element, His divine life, was released from within His humanity into His many believers (John 12:23-24) and His whole being(including His humanity) was brought into glory (Luke 24:26)!
In Christ’s resurrection, God’s divine element was expressed and God was glorified! But now today, God is glorified in and through the Son BY the church! When the church has been regenerated, sanctified, crucified, and united with Christ in glory, then the Son of God will be expressed and manifested!
Whenever God is expressed through His Son or through the church, that is glory! The Lord began His prayer in John 17 with verse 1 where He says, Glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You! and, in a sense, Paul continued or expounded on this prayer in a practical way in Eph. 3:21,
To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations forever and ever. Amen.
Today God’s glory is in the Son through the church! Glory is simply the expression of the divine life and the divine nature – if we believers live by the divine life and nature, we shall express the divine glory!
When we all as the Body of Christ live not by ourselves but by the divine life and the divine nature, we corporately express Christ – unto the glory of God! This is how the Lord is glorified in us – and in this glorification, the Father is glorified!
It is all in this wonderful organic union between the believers and the Triune God.
When the Lord prayed for oneness, He said, “that they may be IN US” – oneness among the believers is by the believers being in the Triune God. The Father is glorified through the organic union of Christ’s believers with the Father in the Son in oneness (John 17:23).
The Lord prayed for our practical realization of this oneness with the Triune God – we need to realize that by believing into Christ we are being put in Christ and we are made one with Him! With the Triune God there is a wonderful co-inhering oneness – and we have been put into this oneness! This oneness has been enlarged to include us, the believers in Christ, and it has been duplicated into us that we may be one with God and also one with one another!
Today Christ is in us, His believers, causing us to be in Him! By living in our spirit – by living the divine life and according to the divine nature, we are expressing the Lord Jesus Christ in our living. This is Christ’s glorification – Christ is expressed through us!
In Christ’s glorification, God the Father is glorified! The Son is glorified in the church, and the Father is glorified in the Son! What a mystery! What a wonderful reality given to us!
[sharing inspired from, The Conclusion of the New Testament msg. 288, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization-Study of Isaiah (2). Read this portion in Spanish also via, hoy Dios el Padre está glorificado en el Hijo y Cristo el Hijo está glorificado en la iglesia]
Lord, gain what You are after in us! Accomplish Your heart’s desire in us! Make us more one with You! We want to realize this oneness – by living out the divine life and according to the divine nature! O, Lord, bring us into this realization of the enlarged oneness of the coinhering Triune God! Thank You for including us into this oneness – You gave us the oneness of the Triune God! We just want You to be expressed in us – that God may gain His glory through the church!
