Does the Death of Christ Glorify the Father?

Tom: We’re continuing with the gospel. We’re in the Gospel of John, chapter 13, and we’re going to pick up with verse 31: “Therefore, when he was gone out, [referring to Judas] Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, you cannot come; so now I say to you.”

Dave: Well, He’s talking of His death, of course. He knows exactly what Judas is going to do. Judas is going to betray Him to the chief priests, exactly as the scripture said, for thirty pieces of silver. Amazing!

Well, it’s really staggering, Tom, when you go back and you read it in Zechariah. God says to His people, “Well, why don’t you just count out the price—what do you think I’m worth?” And God says, “And they counted out for me thirty pieces of silver [that was the price of a slave]” and then, sarcastically, God says, “A goodly price that I was priced at by them. And I said, Throw it down in the temple and buy with it a field to bury strangers, a potter’s field.” That’s Zechariah, and that is exactly what happened. That was written 500 years before this happened—400 years, at least.

So Jesus knows exactly what is going to happen. I don’t think they offered thirty pieces of silver—it doesn’t happen like that. Maybe they offered him 5 or 10, and I think Judas kept bidding this thing up until finally he got to 30. That was his retirement nest egg and he was so pleased with himself, having forgotten, if he even knew—and the rabbis, of course, if they even knew—that was exactly what the scriptures said.

And in Paul’s first sermon on his missionary journey when he is commissioned by the church in Antioch in Acts, chapter 13, he says, “The rulers, our rulers, did not realize what they were doing when they took Jesus and when he was betrayed and crucified, they were, in fact, fulfilling the prophecies, the scriptures that had been written.” And now Jesus is talking about—He says, “Now is the Son of man glorified.” Wonder why He calls himself—often he calls himself—“the Son of man,” but in this particular context, God had to become a man to pay the penalty for our sins: “By one man sin entered into the world….” It would not have been just for God, somehow, to pay that penalty. He had to become a man to pay that penalty for us, so He refers to Himself as the “Son of man is glorified” and it’s a done deal. There is no question that He is going to go to the Cross, He’s going to pay the penalty for our sins, and God will be glorified in Him because He is going to lay upon His Son the judgment that we all endured [correction: "incurred"].

And Tom, I often say—it’s a horrible thought—but God is actually glorified by those who are in hell, who will spend eternity in the lake of fire. Glorified, in this sense—that he did not waver. I see so many parents or grandparents, especially—in fact, we have a situation right now in an acquaintance, a family, and they are not disciplining a son who is bringing much grief. But you would think that with all the grief he has brought them they would be hard on him instead of easy on him. Instead of that, “Okay, that’s all right, okay.” You say you lay down the rules, but then when he breaks them, then you let him go again and again and again.

But God said, “The soul that sinneth, it must die.” He said the wages of sin is death—eternal separation from Him, and the only way that man could be forgiven is for Christ to pay the penalty for the sins of the world. And you know that when we get to it in a few more chapters, Christ weeps in the Garden: “If it’s possible, don’t make me go through this. If man can be saved any other way, don’t make me go through with this.” And we know it’s not possible—the Father said it’s not possible. You’ve got to pay the penalty for the sins of the world. And then after the Father tells the Son, “You must pay the penalty—no one can get to heaven any other way,” then God let’s people in some other way? It’s a slap in the face to Jesus, and we couldn’t believe anything else that God would say if He doesn’t stand true to His word in that respect.

So, I think this is one of the ways in which God is glorified. He’s glorified in His love, in the gift of his Son: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son….” But He is also glorified in the fact that He is going to lay upon Christ the penalty for our sins. And those who reject Christ, they are going to suffer the penalty, and He is not going to waver, He is not going to compromise, He is not going to back down.

Tom: Dave, in our segment just a few minutes ago, a difficult question with regard to some judgments that God is making. And in this situation—and we don’t know the answers to these things because we don’t have the comprehension, the mind of God—we don't know all the variables. There are too many things missing for us to make a, even a, in some cases, not in every case, but in some cases, a reasonable judgment. It’s the same way here, but I guess we could say that God is going to be proved righteous in everything—fair, righteous, in everything that He does and has done, and that’s how He is glorified.

Dave: And then we have the prayer, when we get to it, three chapters later—four chapters later—John 17, Christ is saying: “Father, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have finished the work that you gave me to do; now, Father, glorify me.” Well, He hadn’t actually hung on the Cross, but as far as He was concerned, He had done it. So, Christ is glorified in His love for us; God is glorified in His love for us, but in His punishing His own Son for the sins of the world.

And yet, in the earlier segment we were talking about purgatory and about the fact that Christ is not glorified in Roman Catholicism. He didn’t finish the work; He didn’t complete it. They have to re-present him. This little wafer becomes Christ and is offered again and again, perpetually, thousands of times every day on Catholic altars around the world in a very clear denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. But here, Christ is saying, “I am going to be glorified. Father, you are glorified. You will be glorified in me,” and He is, of course, referring to the Cross, and He will be glorified in the fact that He paid the full penalty for our sins, and the Father will be glorified in the fact that He exacted this from Christ and He did not compromise. And then He says, “Little children, in a little while I am with you…”

Tom: Dave, stop there.

Dave: All right.

Tom: Little children—it’s a wonderful statement, but these guys are going to bail out on Him! They are going to run. And they’re also—these are not men who are younger than Jesus—why this term? It seems like a term of endearment. He loved them—there was no doubt about it.

Dave: Right. Well, how do we become little children even when we’re old? We become the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, and through His death He was going to make it possible for them to be born again. They would become babes in Christ—new creatures in Christ Jesus—and He says, “A little while I am with you; you will seek me, and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go you cannot come, so now I say to you.” He’s going to the Father—well, He’s going to die, and they are going to be heartbroken, shattered, disillusioned—their whole world has been destroyed. This One that they thought was the Messiah, the One they followed, the One to whom they devoted their lives, has been taken. No miracles at that time. They are going to bind Him and mock Him and crucify Him, and they cannot believe that this could happen to the One who could still the waves and wind with a word; who could walk on water, who could raise the dead. Was this all a dream? They must have been deceived. Their whole world is shattered. But He will rise from the dead.