Theological Term of the Week: Glorification
The completion of the application of redemption to believers in which all of God’s people will be instantly and perfectly conformed, both body and spirit, to the image of the risen and glorified Christ when he returns.
- From scripture:
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-53 ESV).
… Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27 ESV)
- From The Westminster Confession of Faith:
CHAPTER 32
Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead
2. At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed: and all the dead shall be raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other (although with different qualities), which shall be united again to their souls forever.
- From Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray:
Without resurrection of the body from the grave and the restoration of human nature to its completeness after the pattern of Christ’s resurrection on the third day and according to the likeness of the glorified human nature in which he will appear in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory there is no glorification. It is not the vague sentimentality and idealism so characteristic of those whose interest is merely the immortality of the soul. 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.
Learn more:
- Gerald Bray: Glorification
- Ligonier Ministries: Glorification
- Martin Blocki: The Ordo Salutis: Glorification
- R. C. Sproul: The Difference Between Our Sanctification and Our Glorification (video)
- Michael Horton: Glorification (video)
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