²² “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one…”

Another level of the received Glory points to the future. Just like Christ’s glory was veiled when He lived out His incarnation while on earth until after His resurrection, so also the glory which He has given us is veiled until after our resurrection. Philippians 2:6-8 tells us, “Although He existed in the form of God…[He] emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” This speaks of the outward, visible forms—He set aside the outward glory of God. But there is coming a time when His glory will be revealed, when “every knee will bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10-11).

The glory of God which is given to us is seen dimly now, but will be fully realized in a future time: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2). Until then, we have the promise of God’s transformative power developing glory in us now, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18). Therefore, we walk by faith in the truth of God’s glory in us even though it is not fully evident yet. “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:18).

As Christians, we have the great hope of what is yet to come, the foretaste of which we can experience now to some small degree. We have, as someone has said, “the echo of heaven” in our hearts. Now, we live by faith that we have “become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust” (2 Peter 1:4). We are being “conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom 8:29). What a glory all this is. Since we have received Christ (John 1:12), we have also received His glory and the process of glorifying us in Christ has begun and continues until the day He returns. It simply does not get any better than that—a perfect plan, a perfect process and a perfect unity in the future. Until then, we Christians do well to pursue “being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose” (Phil 2:2).

Oh Father, continue to draw us to Your Son Jesus, that we may be in harmony with Him, and therefore in harmony with You and with each other.