I am glad to have this opportunity, friends, of meeting with you and sharing with you something of that which the Lord has spoken to my own heart. I trust it will be His means of blessing to you also.
I am going to ask you to open the Word with me and just traverse the path in the Gospel according to John. Our basic passage will be John 17.
“These things spake Jesus; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee.”
— John 17:1“I glorified Thee on the earth.”
— John 17:4“And now, Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”
— John 17:5
Now go back to John 7:39:
“But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
Then John 11:4:
“This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby.”
In John 12:16 we read:
“These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him.”
And John 12:23-24:
“The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.”
In John 13:31-32:
“Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; and God shall glorify Him in Himself, and straightway shall He glorify Him.”
And in John 16:32:
“Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.”
Then, back in John 16:14:
“He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.”
You will have noted the common word in all those passages. After all, our selection has been only an earlier selection; there are others containing the same word which could be added. This word forms a pathway right through the Gospel according to John. It is the pathway of glory.
You will have noticed, even in the selection of passages which we have made, how the Lord Jesus placed everything on the ground of His being glorified. From beginning to end, that for Him was the ground of everything: His being glorified.
We should be impressed with that. Without any exposition of it, or enlargement upon it, the fact is overwhelmingly shown, declared, and verified in this book: for the Lord Jesus, everything rests upon the ground of His being glorified.
The phrase which He used a number of times seems to have governed Him very much in His life: the hour—“Mine hour,” “My hour,” “the hour is come,” “His hour was not yet come.” There was an hour which governed His whole life.
The significance of time—an all-governing time in everything—and that hour, that particular time, was in His mind, coming up again and again as He went along. He called His hour the hour of His being glorified.
It sounds as though He were bringing out of the future something that governed the present situation, whatever it might be from time to time.
When you ask, “What is the glory of the Lord Jesus? What does the glorifying of the Lord Jesus mean?” the answer in the Bible throughout is just this: the glory of God is always the expression of His complete satisfaction.
When God is perfectly satisfied, fully satisfied, then the glory of God always breaks out. You trace that through the Old and New Testaments. The Lord Jesus was living in the light of a time which He called the hour when the Father’s full satisfaction would be realized.
Father fully satisfied: glory. The glory of God’s satisfaction. He was living in the light of that and bringing that into every detail of His life.
Begin in John 2: the marriage in Cana of Galilee, the water and the wine. We shall come back to it in a moment. It says of that:
“This beginning of His signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory.”
— John 2:11
But notice what led up to this: the feast, the failure of the wine, His mother anxious and concerned, turning to Him and saying, “They have no wine.”
Jesus said to her:
“Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.”
— John 2:4
But then He acted, after that pause, waiting for something. He was saying, in effect, “I can do nothing of Myself. I can only do what I do as the Father enables, gives Me His sanction to do it. When it comes from the Father, it will be quite all right. The Father will be glorified.”
“I am not here to glorify Myself by what I do. I am here to glorify the Father.” And in His heart He would say, “Father, will this glorify You if I do this thing?” Then He got the answer back: “All right.” He manifested His glory.
This hour—that great future hour when the Father’s satisfaction came—was brought forward. That is not imagination or strained interpretation, because there was an actual occasion when He said, “Father, glorify Thy name,” and there came a voice from heaven. He was living, you see, in that touch with the Father.
There was another occasion when His brethren after the flesh said, “This is the time of the feast in Jerusalem. Everybody is going up to Jerusalem to the feast. You go up.” Jesus said, “You go up; I go not up; My time is not yet fulfilled.”
In effect, He was saying, “I am not governed just by what everybody else does. I am not governed by common acceptance, popular opinion, the fashionable thing to do. I must have it from the Father. This going up must, in some way, be the Father’s satisfaction.”
“You go up.” And when they had gone up, then He went up. Strange behaviour, is it not? But what was going on inside? It was this all the time: “Father, are You going to get something out of this? Is this going to be to Your pleasure? I cannot do it on any other ground.”
“If You are not going to find satisfaction in this, well, let them have all the feasts they like. Let them do what they have always been doing, but I will not be in it unless there is something for the glory, satisfaction, and pleasure of the Father.”
He evidently got the witness from the Father in that moment: “It is all right. Go up. I have something in this.” And He went up. You see, He did have something in it.
Putting everything on the ground of glory—the glory of God in Jesus Christ, the glory of Christ—brings everything under that one governing consideration.
Does this really minister to the glory of Christ? My going here, or not going; what I do, or what I do not do; whether I act, or refrain from acting—how much is this going to minister to His glory? That is the governing thing.
There must be a touch with heaven. Can I do this? Will it be doing it for my own glory, my own pleasure, my own satisfaction? Or does His glory require it? Will it minister to His glory?
That was the basis of the life of the Lord Jesus. He called that His hour, governed by the hour of the Father’s satisfaction; and that was His glory. “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” It is only another way of saying that His glory was His treasure.
This glorifying of the Lord Jesus was the signal for the change of the dispensation by the coming of the Holy Spirit.
“This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified.” In other words, Jesus glorified: the Spirit is released. The Spirit comes. The great advent of the Spirit takes place. The dispensation is changed into the dispensation of the Holy Spirit.
How much the Lord Jesus put upon that! “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.” Obviously, He put much more importance upon the Holy Spirit’s coming than upon His own staying in the flesh.
The signal for the coming of the Spirit, as Pentecost so clearly declares, both in the act and in what followed, was Jesus glorified. Pentecost was a day of glory, full of the glory of the Lord.
Then everywhere they went they were full of this glory, preaching, “Jesus is glorified. Jesus is on high.” Glory went out over the earth. But the signal for that was Jesus glorified.
It is a very practical thing, dear friends. Whatever we may desire about the Holy Spirit, and however we pray for the Holy Spirit—we want power, light, guidance, and ask for the Holy Spirit for many things and many purposes—remember this: the Holy Spirit will only act in any way at all if the motive is the glorifying of the Lord.
You can pray until you cannot pray any more for the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit genuinely will make no response until the motive is that Jesus may be glorified—not that I may have something, do something, or be something. No, nothing like that.
Jesus being glorified governs the whole matter of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has put it on that ground. Once you are adjusted wholly to the glorifying of the Lord Jesus—and the Lord knows when we are truly adjusted—and rightly adjusted, you have given the Holy Spirit the ground that He wants, and He will move spontaneously.
Notice again: this is a door through which you enter into such a wealth in this matter. The glorifying of the Lord Jesus was the ground of the reversing of situations from the impossible to the possible, or to the actual.
There is a sense in which this whole Gospel according to John is the Gospel of impossible situations which are turned into actuality. You have a whole series, from beginning to end, of utterly impossible situations in the natural.
Begin with the marriage in Cana of Galilee. The thing is proceeding, and suddenly the whole thing breaks down and collapses: “They have no wine.” That is the key to the whole matter—the joy and the fellowship—and it breaks down there.
It is shame, disappointment, reproach. The bottom, as we say, has fallen out of everything on the wine question. It is a hopeless situation. What are you going to do? You can do nothing. Everything is at an end.
I expect those who knew about it were looking at one another in consternation, perhaps afraid to let people know because of the disaster they felt—the utter spoiler of the whole thing. Hopeless.
Mark that Jesus was very careful—and it comes up again and again in the Gospel—to see that it was hopeless. “They have no wine.” What have I to do with it? “I am not here just to redeem broken-down social occasions. I am not here just to make things a little more pleasant for people and save them from their embarrassment.”
“I am here for the Father—by doing what is utterly impossible to men.” That is why He came. Life has broken down. Life is full of shame, embarrassment, disappointment, and hopelessness. That is where you begin: a hopeless, impossible situation for man by nature.
He came into that, turned it, and showed forth His glory by changing this hopeless situation into one not only of hope, but of realization.
Then John 3: this man Nicodemus is trying to find his way into the kingdom, trying to find the secret of the kingdom of God. He has all that a man could have of religion and learning. “Art thou the teacher of Israel?” said Jesus—the teacher in Israel.
Everything of tradition, inheritance, position, and prestige—everything that a man could have—and still dissatisfied; still speaking like a man in despair and disappointment; coming to Jesus by night to try to find the solution to his heart problem.
Jesus takes great pains to show how hopeless his situation is. He does not take up this man on his own ground and encourage and comfort him. He throws it straight at him:
“Ye must be born anew.”
— John 3:7
“Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
— John 3:3
Cannot, cannot, cannot. Hopeless for the best of this world. It is an impossible situation naturally, no matter how much religion you have. Hopeless.
But Jesus turned that hopeless situation, not only for Nicodemus but for how many more, into hope and realization in the kingdom. My point is that Jesus is continually making it perfectly clear that, for man, the situation is impossible; but with Him, there is no such thing as impossible.
Then John 4. Was there ever a clearer example of hopelessness than that woman of Samaria?
“Thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.”
— John 4:18
When she begins to speak, you hear her tone of despair: “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come all the way hither to draw.” This is the cry of a woman who has exhausted life of all its hopes, still in despair.
You know what He did with that. He drew out this hopeless situation, did He not? He made her aware of it and took pains to let her know. It sounds cruel for Him to bring up her past, but He was letting her see how her own state was a hopeless one, in order that He might show that He is the hope of the hopeless.
In John 4, when Jesus came into Galilee, a certain nobleman came to Him and said, “Sir, come down; my son lieth at the point of death. Come.”
Again, it sounds so cruel. This poor, distraught, heartbroken father had his whole life wrapped up in that boy who was at the point of death. Jesus said:
“Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise believe.”
— John 4:48
Is it unkindness, cruelty, lack of sympathy? No. He is drawing this man out to his extremity, making him recognize and acknowledge that only in Jesus is there any hope.
He says, “Sir, come down ere my child die.” It is the cry almost of despair, as though he had come for the last resort. Only Jesus—that is what Jesus wants: “Oh, Jesus, no hope!” And Jesus did not go. He said, “Go thy way; thy son liveth.” You know the rest of the story.
There is one more of these examples of the impossible: John 6. “Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat?” Five thousand people—and two hundred denarii of bread would not be sufficient for them.
If you look into your Bible and work that out, it represented a year’s wages for a labouring man: two hundred denarii. It was not sufficient to meet this need. Jesus had put the question as a test: “How can it be done?” “No, it just cannot be done,” said the apostles. “It is hopeless. It is impossible.”
“Make the people sit down.” And you know the rest of the story. But that was quite hopeless, quite impossible, was it not? Yet it became an actuality.
Then John 9: the man born blind—born blind. Strange language, strange kind of argument, a lot made of this, all sorts of things said about it. The disciples asked, “Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?”
Jesus answered:
“Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”
— John 9:3
Born blind. The man’s own language shows how he realized the hopelessness of his position. When the rulers attacked him and challenged him about who it was that had given him his sight, and said that this man was a sinner, the man said, “Why, herein is the marvel!”
“Since the world began it was never heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind.”
— John 9:32
That was his idea about it. There was no question about this with him. This was a hopeless thing, never heard of from the foundation of the world. That is pretty hopeless, is it not? Yes, Jesus meant it to be like that for the glory—for the glory.
Then John 11. You know His attitude there. They sent to Him, “He whom Thou lovest is sick.” There was no disputing that statement—His love. Nevertheless, He abode where He was two days.
When at last He came and moved toward the tomb, the sister said, “Lord, by this time he stinketh.” The Lord had deliberately forced it up to that point naturally, to make the thing as hopeless as anything could be naturally.
“This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby.”
— John 11:4
You can go on to the end, the last chapter. “Master, we have toiled all the night, and took nothing.” All a fisherman’s lifelong acumen, knowledge, and ability exhausted—nothing. The verdict upon that was nothing.
Well, you know the rest. “Cast the net on the right side of the boat.” An impossible situation turned into realization for His glory. He put everything on the ground of His glory.
There is a lot of comfort in this for us, is there not, friends? Oh, how often we despair and feel the hopelessness of things. While Jesus lives, there is no such thing as impossibility and hopelessness.
We can say that, and I can say that, but it does not require much to see that sometimes it is the most testing thing we could know: to believe that this is possible after all. But it is. Many of us have enough experience because He has taken pains to bring us to the place where, for man, this is the end; but for the Lord there is no impossibility.
Again and again He has changed that hopeless, impossible situation into something for His own glory. Everything is on the ground of His glory.
What is He doing in all this? He is putting our life upon the same basis as His own. He came and put His life on that ground: the glory of the Father. Nothing that was not for the glory of the Father was to have place. Everything was tested and challenged by this: “How much does this serve the glory of the Father?”
If it does not, there is no place for it. Only if it does do I entertain it. Now He turns that over and puts our life onto it. He put the people in Cana on that ground. He put the woman of Samaria on that ground. He put Nicodemus on that ground.
Think of the man at Bethesda. What a story of hopelessness that is in John 5. Thirty-eight years, and every time he tried to get into the water, somebody got ahead of him. Utter despair. Jesus changed it. He was putting that man’s life on the same basis as His own.
He was putting man’s life on the same basis as His own all the way along like that. It is a very safe position, dear friends, to have your life on the same basis as the Lord Jesus had His.
That is the destiny of the church. What is it that Paul says in Ephesians 3:21?
“Unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.”
How—how is there glory in the church for ever and ever? Just this way: that the church’s life has been a life of impossible situations turned to glorious realization. Is that not the history of the church all the way along?
From the beginning, it has seemed impossible. Nero slaughtering Christians showed how the church had grown, how quickly and mightily. It is computed that he massacred no fewer than ten million Christians. That leaves things pretty small, pretty weak, and pretty hopeless.
Again and again the church has gone that way through history—gone back like this—but on it goes, on it goes, greater than ever today. Hopeless? Yes. Impossible? Yes, but for Jesus.
What is the object? What is it that is governing this? It is not because the church is anything, or because you and I are anything. His glory governs everything: “Unto Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus.”
There is much more in those passages which I read. Remember one occasion at the feast of the Passover. At Jerusalem, among the multitude, there were certain Greeks who came up to the feast. Going about, looking at the sights of Jerusalem, they included in their sightseeing this One of whom everybody was talking—Jesus of Nazareth.
They came to the disciples and said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Philip came and told Andrew; Andrew came and told Jesus. What did Jesus say immediately?
“The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”
“Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.”
— John 12:23-24
How is Jesus glorified? How is Jesus really seen? They said, “We would see Jesus,” and He said, in effect, “You do not see Me merely when you see Me after the flesh. You see Me when you see a great multitude which no man can number, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”
One grain having died, reproducing itself in a mighty harvest—that will show forth My glory. That will let you know Who I am: not just one of the sights of Jerusalem, but one of the sights of heaven.
A new revelation, a new knowledge of the Lord Jesus—that was the reason. How Jesus is really known and seen is in how He is reproduced in other grains, in the many others.
He puts our life on that basis. He says to us that it is to be the same with us as it was with Him: falling into the ground and dying. He immediately adds:
“He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”
— John 12:25
The same basis as Mine. You let your life go for Christ. You pour out your life unto death in His interests. Glory will come out of that. That is the way of glory.
I think I have said enough to make the point clear. This is the way. I could go on, of course, for hours, but it is not necessary. We have it here.
The Lord Jesus has put everything of His own life and ours upon this one foundation: His glory. Challenging everything according to that, testing everything according to that, governing everything by that.
He is saying to us, “Now it must be true of you, as it was of Me, that you have your life governed by one motive and one interest: How much does this minister to My glory?”
That dismisses all talk about, “Well, must I?” or, “May I not?” or, “Have I got to?” There is no place for any talk like that, dear friends, when we are mastered by this—His glory.
If this does not serve His glory, then let it go. If this way can be to His glory, no matter what it means to me, then that is the way I am going. It is the way of glory all the time—the ground of glory.
May the Lord rest this one deep in our hearts and make us men and women who are committed—committed people—to the glory of our Lord.