Bringing Many Son’s to Glory

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
(Rom 3:23-24)

The Jewish Bible phrases verse 23 as ‘For all have sinned, and come short of God’s praise’. As true believers we have to realize that God have saved us not just from sin, but beyond that is that God is able to recognize a nature of Himself imputed in us that will catch His attention. With that heavenly notice follow a heavenly approval of being well pleased (Matt 3:17). Jesus didn’t die for us merely that we will be saved from hell only, but to bring us to glory, a state where the very heavens can open and Father’s eye watches with delight (2 Chron 16:9). We have to know and know that God didn’t save us just to get into heaven. It is a divine led pilgrimage from glory to glory, see it as a privilege!

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
(Rom 8:17-18)

Our ‘glorification’ can be achieved through suffering. What then is the suffering that we have to endure that brings glory? The suffering the apostle speaks of the nothing else but denying of the ‘self-life’ and taking up our cross daily (Matt16:24). Following Jesus inevitably leads us to the cross. It is the cross that He will give us, not a self-assigned one nor given by any individual (even our pastor). For our heart is deceitful above all things and since none on earth can understand it, only Jesus knows what cross we need to bear, so that that sin nature that rules over us will die and we live to glory.

Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
(1Pe 1:21)

Jesus’ glory was bestowed upon Him after He was raised from the dead. Likewise since we are not greater than our Master, the God given glory is to be dead to self or the sin-life first and it takes a supernatural act of God that we be born again (John 3:3) to be a new creature (2 Cor 5:17). In Jesus conversation with Nicodemus, He made it clear that we don’t have to die bodily to be born again. We have to see the whole council of God to understand that self have to die in order to be born again. It is not just by reciting a mechanical ‘sinners-prayer’ that we are raised to glory, the first step is Jesus giving us our cross.

Therefore glory is not a cheap thing to behold. It’s a painful journey that God wants us to take. Jesus laid down His will in Gethsemane, so must we. The suffering is the struggle within us to submit or yield to God’s will. Our strong will (or self) opposes the will of God because if God’s will take over we are no longer ours. Meaning our whole being belongs to God.

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
(Rom 6:13)

To yield to God is just as presenting our entirety to God. That means our hands, eyes, and any other faculty is no longer ours. Watchman Nee in his book, ‘The Normal Christian Life’ mentions about a brother on a long train journey in China. During the length of the long journey, there was a group of 3 gambling and needed a fourth partner, thus the Christian brother was invited to join in. The brother gave a rather strange answer by replying that he didn’t bring his hands with him. Of course this seemed ridiculous to the other 3. He then explained that his whole life has been yielded to Christ and so his hands, therefore gambling is not possible at all. If we have yielded all of ourselves to God, can our eyes watch pornography or can our hands steal or can our hearts wander and commit adultery? Paul frequently uses the word ‘Heaven Forbid!’ in Romans when teaching about our new life as God’s new creation.

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
(Rom 6:8)

What does Paul mean ‘if we be dead with Christ’? Didn’t Jesus die about 2000 years ago and rose from the dead? Isn’t this a historical event or a thing of the past? I believe Paul wrote this truth with the ‘be dead’ as a current reality because the cross for us is also a current reality. In order to mature from glory to glory, looks like we have to take up many crosses dealing with one sin-nature than another. God is merciful in the sense that it is a serial giving of a cross not parallel lest we can’t handle it (Duet 7:22).

How do we know that we have progressed from glory to glory?

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
(Rom 6:14)

We know that our pilgrims’ progress is in the right direction when we know that the cross we carried have put to death that particular sin nature has lost it power to enslave us. Just as a drug addict who has decided to come out of addiction, he or she goes through a process of cleansing. Being clean of drugs isn’t enough. The person has to come to a stage where all kinds of drugs and cigarettes are considered tasteless or useless or dead to them, even like dung. Paul was a man that has truly died and lived for God as he was able to count all things as dung (Phil 3:8) in order to win or gain Christ.

For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
(Heb 2:10)

The perfecting or completeness of our salvation through the cross Jesus will give us in our following Him daily will take us to son-ship in God. Only sons inherit of the Father, in that we have God’s glory embedded in us that we might be found pleasing to Him.