What is Glorification?

In my last two blogs we looked at justification and sanctification.  This time we will look at the third part of salvation.  Salvation is the overall theme of life in Christ.  He is the Savior and we are the savees.  Justification is always initiated and carried out by God when He declares us righteous in His eyes because of what His Son, Jesus, did in our behalf.  He lived a perfect life, died for our sins, and rose to declare us acceptable to God.  We merely received this message by grace through faith.  Sanctification, on the other hand, is a cooperative venture between the believer and God to move him or her towards a greater and greater conformity to the likeness of Jesus.  God grants us the power and we respond in obedience.  As Luther taught, “There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow.” Sanctification is not necessary for justification but it is the necessary fruit of justification.  That means that it does not play a causal role in justification but instead is caused by justification.  God plays the major role in that venture by giving to us a new heart and the gift of the Holy Spirit but we still have a role to play by daily dying to ourselves and putting on the likeness of Jesus.  But this process will always be incomplete in this life.  It is always a work in progress.  It is indeed a battle.

But that is where glorification comes in.  In the end we will win this battle, i.e. we will be glorified.  A key verse is 1 John 3:2, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is."  When Jesus returns we will be changed into His likeness, that is, we will share His glory and perfection.  The battle will be over.  All the temptations and weaknesses of the flesh will be gone.  This is not simply the conclusion to a life of sanctification; it is a brand new kind of life and existence.  It's not that we finally arrive; it is that something totally different happens.  In some ways it is a return to Paradise.  There will be no original sin.

In this life we always bear the imprint of the original sin that we inherited from our parents as they did from their parents all the way back to Adam and Eve.  We are all sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.  Many in the secular world do not accept this idea, believing that man's problems are totally environmental.  But believers should know that the easiest doctrine to prove is the doctrine of original sin because it is obvious everywhere.  You just have to watch the evening news. It is because of original sin that our sanctification will always be an ongoing battle.

But imagine what life will be like when original sin is no longer a part of our existence.  There will no longer be a bent towards sin.  Instead there will only be a joyful and free obedience to the Triune God.  It will not be an obedience that hopes to impress God or win His approval.  It will simply be an obedience that flows out of total agreement with God.  We will do what God wishes because we will wish the same thing. 

In addition to the absence of original sin there will be the absence of the devil or satan.  He will be cast into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:10).  This is the reason that we won't have to worry about a repeat performance of what we saw happen in the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve were deceived by the devil which cost them their state of innocence, but there will be no one to deceive us in our state of glorification.

This state of glorification is not merely a spiritual state because we will have a new resurrection body.  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:52, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed."  What this body will be like we only know from the resurrection body of Jesus.  Paul writes in Philippians 3:20-21, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself."  What was Jesus' resurrection body like?  He could be touched and He could eat.  He was not a ghost floating around in space.  Our resurrected body will be a spiritual body for sure (1 Corinthians 15:44) but it will also be a real body capable of eating and drinking at the wedding banquet of the lamb.  In fact, the New Jerusalem is described in Revelation as a real place with the Kings of the earth entering into its gates (Revelation 21:24).  Whether we will share in Jesus ability to pass through locked doors and appear and disappear at will is unknown, but we do know that there will be no more pain or suffering, tears, disease or death.

Some have speculated that in this new earth there will be activities like skiing, golf, horseback riding and whatever else strikes our fancy.  It is not impossible but it is speculative.  What we do know is that the Triune God will be there and that there will be lots of worship.  It will be anything but boring since boredom is part of our fallen nature that will no longer be there.

Is it any wonder that we should fix our hearts and minds on the things that are yet to come?!