The Gospel of John

The Glory of God

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 46- 70

Genre:

Track: 046

Dictation Name: RR197Z48

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in His temple. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and He will strengthen Thy heart. Wait I say, on the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thy mercies never fail. Thou art mindful of us when we are unmindful of things great and small. Thy mercy never fails. And so we come gratefully praying for Thy blessing upon us and upon our loved ones. For those of our number who are absent from us that Thou wouldst give them traveling mercies and for Andrew Sandlin that Thou wouldst bless the meetings and his speaking. We thank Thee our Father that Thy love never fails, Thy mercy never fails and Thy so great salvation is irreversible, a fact for all of time and eternity. Make us mindful how rich we are in Christ, in His name we pray, Amen.

Our scripture is John 13:31-38. Our subject: The Glory of God. John 13:31-38.

“Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

32 If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.

33 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.

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

36 Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.

37 Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake.

38 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice.”

After Judas left our Lord in verses thirty one and thirty two speaks of His glory. The glory of God means His presence among men in power and in the fullness of His justice. For power and justice are never separated in God , among men they are rarely together. Where the most power is very often there is the most injustice and if we find that to be true too often in our country think about other countries in the realm, within the world where power and injustice reign. Our Lord speaks of the glory in a fourfold sense. First now is the son of man glorified, the time has come for my glorification on the cross, this is the great manifestation of God’s grace and mercy towards fallen man and the world. Our creator is also our redeemer, the glory of God means a revelation of His presence in power and God reveals His glory and power in the atonement, so that we see in the cross a supreme revelation of God’s being and of His glory. The glory sought by fallen man is the power to break and to crush people. In George Orwell’s book 1984 he tells us that the glory of the humanistic socialist state is sought in total power and total oppression and its image is a boot stamping on a human face forever. That is man’s idea of power and glory. For us as Christians the glory of God is manifested by the cross. Second, God is glorified in Him, in the Son and His atoning sacrifice. The power of God is for us beyond our imagination, more than we can ever fathom.

His power and glory are still very plainly revealed in the cross in our Lord’s atoning sacrifice. This is in direct contradiction of man’s dreams of glory. Such dreams exalt men at the cost of human lives and seek man’s power for the sake of power. Mark Twain in portraying Tom Sawyer shows how when he is punished Tom Sawyer dreams of a scenario where he’s going to come out on top, he does not say I was wrong and I got a licking because I deserved it, no, in his mind the only proper scenario is one in which he comes on top and all the others are sorry they were mean to him even though he deserved it. Man dreams of glory, it is interesting that man’s dreams of glory united with power they lead to disillusionment and to cynicism. And after the self-proclaimed noblest era of man’s history, 1914-1918, World War One, when Wilson proclaimed that this was going to lead to a wonderful new world, it was going to make the world safe for democracy, it led of course to all the horrors that this century has seen. The most popular play of the 1920s had a title ‘What Price Glory’. But God is glorified in Christ’s work which gives a revelation of God’s glory. Then third if God be glorified in Him God shall also glorify Him in Himself. Jesus Christ by His obedience to the cross thereby glorified the Father, God reveals His glory in the incarnation and the cross, Jesus Christ is glorified by the Father.

So that in some way beyond our imagination the son is magnified and glorified in the trinity, in the Triune Godhead. Because the incarnation and the cross are the revelation of the very being of God, the revealer Jesus Christ is glorified within the trinity and in His kingship. Then fourth the Father shall straightway glorify Him. The cross is the glory of Jesus and God then glorifies Him. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the light, the exclusive way to God so that no man can come to the Father except by Him. Then in verse thirty three Jesus identifies the disciples as little children. It is a very emphatic statement. We can almost translate it as little tots, little ones, because now as He approaches the cross and as He feels the weight of the divine mandate that He has He recognizes the distance between His vision of things from eternity to eternity and the feebleness of the disciples understanding. Their miscomprehension of what is about to take place. Little children, my little tots. There is a great deal of comfort in that because at a point when they were about to flee from him, bewildered, peter was going to betray Him three times, the almighty and the person of God the Son speaks of their frailty, their sinfulness and sees them as little children, little tots. It is important for us to remember the Bible has two words for sin, one is anomia, anti-law, that’s its literal meaning, that’s why you don’t hear more about that word, because the churches are too much anti-law today, but that is the word that describes sin in the world by the non-Christian, it’s anti-law.

The word most commonly used because most of the bible is not talking about the world so much as us and is addressed to us is hamartia and it means missing the mark. So that it says for us our sins, well we’re moving in the right direction, we’re on target but at times our frailty and our sinfulness lead us to miss the mark. And its because the disciples were not anomia, anti-law as Judas was, but guilty of hamartia, falling short that He spoke to them as little children as He does to us. As truly God and for all eternity in His deity He looks upon their incomprehension and confusion compassionately as He does ours. They are like children uncomprehending. I shall be with you only a little time longer. As I told the religious leaders, He says, I am going where you cannot come, I tell you this in order to prepare you for your calling. I have a new commandment which I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another. How is this a new commandment because the bible over and over again speaks about love. It is not a new commandment per say but it is a new commandment in its motive, that we love one another as Christ has loved us, compassionately and patiently. New in new commandment is one of two Greek words for new, one is young, as opposed to aged and the other is fresh, as opposed to aged. It is the latter meaning that applies here.

We are given a fresh commandment, its given with a freshness because it comes in a new framework. The commandment to love in Leviticus 19:18 now has as its focus our love as a response to Christ’s love. All men will recognize Christ’s disciples by the reality of their love for one another. It has become obvious to the disciples that Jesus was going and that He was giving some parting council and they were very distressed by this. Peter was so distressed that he ignores what our Lord is saying and he interrupts our Lord’s train of thought and comment to say ‘wither goest thou’ our Lord answers him and says Peter cannot follow Him where He goes but thou shalt follow me afterwards. But Peter is persistent, why cannot I follow Thee now, I will lay down my life for Thy sake. And Jesus questions this resolution. Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily I say unto you the cock shall not crow till thou has denied me thrice. And so it happened. What our Lord say about His glory is closely and essentially tied to the foot washing episode. Fallen man seeks glory by playing God, Jesus tells us that redeemed men find glory by being God’s man to the world, by being the visible presence of God’s grace and mercy. The disciples had hoped to see Jesus crowned as the Messianic King, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem probably revived their hopes. Earlier they had quarreled over gaining high places in Christ’s kingdom, now Jesus points to a radically different glorification.

It was imperative that the disciples learned the meaning of Christ’s glorification, the glorification of the Son of man meant separation from His disciples, they were to be on their own. In time their recollection of His words would lead to a recognition of the meaning of His glory. Our Lord speaks first of the relationship of His coming death to His glory. He then speaks of its relationship to His disciples. The cross was at that time the epitome of shame and dishonor. Through a great deal of experimentation they developed the most painful way of execution imaginable. A doctor who studied the matter has said it is without equal in the pain it caused. For God the Father to decree that this ugly fact, crucifixion, should set forth the glory of God the Son in His revelation of the God-head and the God-head’s glory was a startling fact. The incomprehension of the disciples is understandable, as John records it it is now apparent to him that the whole story was the glorification of the Son of man. According to one scholar, Paul Cretzman, and I quote:

“It is the son of man, the god man that has been glorified through all the miracles of His life and who has now to be glorified through the greatest miracle, His death and burial and then His resurrection. And God is glorified in the Son, it is God’s salvation, God was in Christ and God would be the cause and the promoter of His glorification which was then bound to result in the Father’s glorification as well. The son having accomplished the work of salvation the Father would receive the honor and glory for the resulting benefit for the whole world. But so close is the union between the Father and the Son that there is a mutual exchange of honor and glory between the two.” Unquote.

What is said by our Lord concerning God’s glory is very important because it is in radical contradiction to all man’s ideas about glory. God’s glory is the manifestation of His divine nature, God who in His greatness is beyond our imagination and conception is in the fullness of His glory known by us in His atonement, effected by Christ and in the resurrection. We have here something comparable to what occurred at the burning bush when Moses bewildered by God, bewildered by the fact that God had left them alone for a few centuries in abject slavery, asked what is your name because names then were identification tags, they described you, and God’s answer was I have no name, I Am that I Am, I am the eternally existent one, but then He went on to say I am known because I am He who manifested Himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And so now God knowing that man’s reason cannot comprehend Him declares that in our salvation, in the cross, in the resurrection, His glory and His being are manifested to us in a marvelous way, in an unmistakable way. Because as once fallen creatures our minds are still in this life darkened we do not see His glory in all its fullness and so we are not fully aware of its greatness. All the same, we know that the Lord of all glory is so mindful of us that He has given us His only begotten son for our redemption and we are now prepared by Him to reverse the fallen values of this world in terms of the requirements of our redeemer king. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto thee for Thy revelation of Thyself in Jesus Christ, in His death, His atoning sacrifice, His resurrection and His ascension. Make us ever joyful in what Thou hast done for us and faithful in serving Thee as we ought. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question] When he commands them to love one another and to keep that, I feel that’s one of the things that non-Christians take out of the bible, extrapolate and use it against Christians..[becomes unintelligible]

[Rushdoony]Well first of all as you say they take that out of context, God is love, indeed He is but God also says HE is a consuming fire, that He is a jealous God, that He is a righteous God or just God. So we cannot take one aspect of His being and absolutize that. So that there’s a great injustice done, a great evil done, to the meaning of our faith and the meaning of scripture when we have that pick and choose method. The bible is not like a cafeteria, you don’t go through the line and say this is what I want, I don’t care for this or I don’t like this or that. You cannot do that. This is God’s book it’s a revelation of God, it reveals all His being, not only that part of His being that we want. So that the people who will say God is Love, and absolutize that, are guilty of idolatry. We cannot take any one aspect of God and make that absolute.

It has from early days led to weird doctrines, one of the first coming within a hundred years of the resurrection held that God is love, therefore the Old Testament was by another God an evil God of law, of justice, of wrath, of anger, who was trying to clobber people at very term but the New Testament God is the God of love. Then subsequently under Abbot [unknown], Italy, you had the kind of thinking that is very much with us, third age thinking, because he said there are three ages and three gods virtually, and some of the people who were third age thinkers very quickly developed this out of [unknown]’s thinking. The age of the Old Testament god, justice and law, the second age the age of the New Testament God, love, and then the third age which will continue to the end of history, is the age where neither love nor law nor faith are necessary, it’ll be the age of the spirit. And everyone will be a charismatic figure who will know the truth and everything he spouts will be from God. Whatever God there might be. So that third age thinking, Aquarian age thinking, and that sort of thing has been very prominent. Now an interesting aspect of this entire aberration is that [unknown] thinking came to very clear focus in Hagel, the father of all modern political philosophies, in particular Marxism, but all forms of socialism and democracy, republicanism and so on, they are all out of Hagel, third age thinking. And in third age thinking there would be nothing left of the remnants of the others, that’s why in soviet thinking they disavowed the idea of law.

And what you had instead was the will of the proletariat which may have given some comfort, I Don’t think it’s hardly possible, but there were a few die hard socialists who felt that if the proletariat condemned them then it did so rightly and they must have done something wrong and therefore hail to the will of the proletariat and they died convinced that somehow they had to be wrong, there were a few that way. It was third age thinking because it was anti-law, it was the will of the soviet people not the law of the soviet people. One or two books were written on Soviet law for western consumption essentially by top ranking men in the Soviet Inion but they always concluded by making it clear that was called law was simply the will of the people, it was not law in any historic sense. Well, we have that in our culture, under different premises but still third age thinking. Victimhood is an aspect of that, it is not guilt, it is victimhood, so you are saying the old law no long has any validity, victimhood has replaced it and therefore you have to restore these people to health psychiatrically and if they won’t be restored then you execute them. Now the Soviet Union moved into that---

Tape ends.