Redemption Accomplished and Applied: Glorification

I’m participating in Tim Challies’ Reading the Classics Together program. The book is Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray, and this week’s reading is the very last chapter, which Tim has summarized here.

In this last chapter, we reach the final phase of the application of redemption, the believer’s glorification. From the beginning, this has been God’s goal for us and the purpose of Christ’s redemptive work.

But what is glorification? Let’s start with what it is not: It is not what happens to us directly after death. For the believer, the state after death is a blessed one in which we are completely holy and with Jesus, but glorification is better than that. Glorification is

the complete and final redemption of the whole person when in the integrity of body and spirit the people of God will be conformed to the image of the risen, exalted, and glorified Redeemer, when the very  body of their humiliation will be conformed to the body of Christ’s glory.

Glorification is our resurrection and those who have died wait until Christ comes again for it. This means glorification is the one aspect of redemption that we all enter together. All the other steps happen individually, but in glorification we are, all of us, together with Christ. (Do you find this picture as thrilling as I do?) Murray says that this may not seem important, but it is, for the togetherness of glorification is something stressed in the New Testament. The Lord descends and the living and the resurrected dead “will together be snatched up to meet the Lord in the air.”

How could it be any other way? Everything in the redemptive process comes to us through union with Christ, and the design of Christ’s work is to present to himself a glorious church. It all comes together in

a perfect coincidence of the revelation of the Father’s glory, of the revelation of the glory of Christ, and of the liberty of the glory of the children of God.

Not coincidence in the sense of fluke or serendipity, but as events that occurs at the same time. And yes, it is perfect!

Glorification brings “to final fruition the purpose and grace which was given in Christ Jesus” and is connected with

• the coming of Christ in glory. Our hope is focused on the coming of our glorious Savior, and our “glorification is glorification with Christ.” Remove the glorification with Christ, Murray says, and you have “robbed the glorification of believers of the one thing that enables them to look forward to this event with confidence, with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
• the renewal of creation. Yes, creation itself is delivered from corruption with us in the same glorious event. Creation waits, groaning, for the glorification of God’s children.

Glorification, then, means a whole new world. All the affects of sin in us and in our world—all of the curse—is gone together and forever.

Throughout Christian history there has been a recurring heresy that regards matter itself as the source of evil. This shows up in the thinking that it is our bodies that are our problem, and that salvation consists of “the immaterial soul [overcoming] the degrading influences emanating from the material and fleshly.” But Murray calls this spiritual sounding teaching “beautiful paganism,” for in the very beginning, human beings were created with bodies and spirits and God pronounced them very good. We were created to have bodies, and without them, we are not complete.

The right doctrine of glorification counters this heresy.

Here we have the concreteness and realism of the Christian hope epitomized in the resurrection to live everlasting and signalized by the descent of Christ from heaven with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God.

And our hope also includes the material universe around us, which will also be delivered from bondage with us. New heavens, new earth, glorified people, and “‘then the end, when he delivers over the kingdom to god and the Father’ and ‘God will be all in all.’”

I’m looking forward in hope to that glorious, glorifying day.

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful for the material world. I’m thankful for things that can be seen and touched and tasted. Lately I’ve enjoyed

• warm gingerbread smothered in cold homemade applesauce.
• a snuggly pup.
• warm, fresh laundry.
• smooshy snow.
• crisp air.
• bright sunshine. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist)
• hot green tea.
• a view of the mountains from every window.

A material world is God’s good gift to us and, in the end, it will not be taken away, but delivered from its corruption—which is our fault, by the way—so that we can keep on enjoying God’s gift of material blessings throughout eternity. I say hooray for that and thank you, Lord.

On Thursdays throughout this year, I plan to post a few thoughts of thanksgiving along with Kim at the Upward Call and others.

Round the Sphere Again

Bible Study
Thabiti Anyabwile on putting “what it means to me” in its proper place.

A premature “what it means to me” takes the pen out of God’s hand and dips it in the ink of our puny intellectual, emotional, social, psychological and usually idolatrous wells.

There’s more and you should read it. (Pure Church)

What to Read
Speaking of idolatry: I read Tim Keller’s Counterfeit Gods back in November. I didn’t review it here, not because I didn’t like it (I did!), but because I can’t review a book unless I make my many marks in it, and this copy belonged to my church library. But not to worry: I agree with everything in this review by Erik Raymond. Says he, “I highly recommend this book for Christians of all stages.” Me too, although the picture it’ll paint of your own heart probably won’t be pretty. (Irish Calvinist)

Michael Haykin has compiled love letters from 12 couples from church history. The Christian Lover “is a celebration of marriage, an intimate window into the thoughts of men and women who were deeply in love with both God and one another.” You can read the introduction and two witty letters from Martin Luther to his wife Katharina here (.pdf). (Just think, if they’d had phones and email 500 years ago we wouldn’t have these little glimpses into Luther’s heart.)

Defining our Mission
It’s popular to put all the virtuous deeds that Christians do in the category of mission, but is that right? (Kevin DeYoung)

Doctrine and Life
“[T]here is an evangelical impatience with theory, doctrine, intellect, anything that seems academic, for fear that it encourages mere speculation and proves to be unrelated to life,” says Martin Downes. But “the cry for application is, in reality, just a sound, unless there is something to apply. And for that we need truth, doctrine, knowledge.” Read the rest at Against Heresies.

Sew It Up
If I had a grandson I’d sew up a pair of these boy pants. If I had a granddaughter, I’d just change the lining print to make them little girly. (ikat bag)

Sun Shots
They call it “the best eclipse photo ever.” It is pretty cool, don’t you think? (mental_floss Blog)

We had 3 hours more daylight today (8h 41m) than we had on December 21 (5h 37m), and we’re gaining 5.5m per day. I considered saving this tidbit for my Thankful Thursday post, but I do occasionally have things other than warm weather and more sunshine to be thankful for. Just the same, the upside of darkness is a blessed place to be.