Doxology

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.”  John 17:22  ESV

Glory – Certainly every Christian believer is familiar with this Greek word – doxa.  In days past, it was incorporated into a ritual of Sunday worship.  We sang the doxology.  But I wonder now if we ever really understood the idea of glory.  Yes, I am sure we realized that God is glorious, that His splendor is manifest in all that He does, that His reflection is found in holiness, justice, mercy and compassion.  But how is it possible that Yeshua could say this doxa has been given to us?  Are we filled with splendor?  Are we reflections of holiness?  Do we manifest goodness, justice and mercy?  It’s hard for me to see this in His followers.  It’s even more difficult when I notice that the verb here (dedoka) means that what Yeshua has given in the past has continuing result in the present (the perfect tense in Greek).  The two verb tenses are the same.  God gave glory to Yeshua (an action in the past with continuing results in the present).  I can understand that.  Yeshua put aside divinity and became a man, but the Father glorified Him – gave Him back what He put aside – and He has that glory now and forever.  But you and me?  How did Yeshua give us glory and how does it still show up today?

Leon Morris provides this explanation:  “Just as His [Yeshua’s] true glory was to follow the path of lowly service culminating in the cross, so for them [the disciples] the true glory lay in the path of lowly service wherever it might lead them.”[1]  Morris amplifies this comment by adding that “the apostles are right with God and therefore they are supremely significant.  They have the true glory.  They are walking in the way of God.”[2]  That all sounds so nice, but it doesn’t seem to be true.  Yeshua spoke these words just before His arrest.  None of the apostles remained loyal to Him after that event.  Is that “walking in the way of God”?  Did they “take up the cross and follow”?  It seems to me that Morris’ comment is only accurate after the resurrection, but Yeshua says that He has already given them the equivalent glory of what He received.  The perfect tense does not imply that they will receive it at some later point in time.  It implies that the gift has already been given.  Morris considers the “way of the cross” to be the “way of true glory.”  We might agree, but how can this be true of the apostles when Yeshua makes this statement?

Maybe we just don’t understand what “glory” means.

One thing is certain.  Yeshua wasn’t speaking Greek when He uttered these words.  So examining the meaning of doxa is not going to help much.  Doxa is used as the translation of twenty-five different Hebrew words in the LXX.  But primarily it is associated with the Hebrew kavod.  Rooted in the language of the land, kavod is about what is heavy, what has weight – and therefore has importance and significance.  But since YHWH is invisible, kavod is used as a description of His manifestation.  He reveals Himself as glorious.  We find this sense of the word in the description of the Shekhinah falling on the Tabernacle, the vision of Ezekiel, the illumination of Moses’ face and the transfiguration of Yeshua.  Kavod is a description of the revelation of God in His acts in creation and salvation.  Above all it speaks of God’s honor, exhibited in His self-revelation.

What does this mean to us for understanding Yeshua’s statement?  “The manifestation, self-revelation and honor you have given me, I have given to them.”  Has Yeshua passed to us the manifestation of YHWH?   Have we become the vehicles of His honor?  If we think of “glory” as a kind of possession, as a state of being that is somehow attached to us in the way that we acquire a gift when it becomes our property, then I am afraid we will misinterpret Yeshua’s declaration.  We will think of “glory” from a Greek paradigm, as though receiving glory is an expression of a quality that is now ours.  “Glory” becomes an adjective in much the same way that “saved” becomes an adjective.

But if we think in Hebrew, then we notice the kavod is not something we possess.  It is an act that we participate in.  We become the manifestation.  We become the honor and the revelation.  We don’t have it.  We are what it is as it is displayed through us.  Glory is a description of Yeshua as He fulfills the purposes of the Father because in that process He manifests the truth of YHWH.  It is the same for us.  Yeshua gives us the means and the opportunity to become the process of God’s self-revelation.  We are glory, the glory of the Father, precisely as Yeshua was the glory of the Father, when we manifest the Father in our actions.

Now go sing the doxology.

Topical Index:  doxa, glory, kavod, manifestation, John 17:22