A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion/Chapter 9
IX. The Glorification of the Humanity.
THE descent of Jehovah God into the world by the assumption of Humanity, being for the purpose of effecting the restoration of man, as above described, it was necessary, when that work was accomplished, that he should again ascend, or return back to that glory, of which he appeared to be emptied, when he so far humbled himself as to take upon him our infirm nature. In short, it was necessary, that he should divest himself of that material body, with which he Was clothed for a time, aud which in a great measure concealed from mankind the glory of his Divinity. But as it was by Humanity in conjunction with Divinity, that the redemption of man was, and could alone be, effected; so, in order to perpetuate this new condition of the Divine Agent, and that he might be a Redeemer and Saviour to eternity, he gradually united in himself all the attributes and perfections of Divinity, with all the principles and forms of Humanity. This union of the divine essence with the human, which was mutual and reciprocal, was preceded by the most grievous and severe temptations, the last of which was the passion on the cross, by which the Lord finally laid down the merely natural life, together with all the infirmities incident to it, and thus entered into the purely divine life, yet in and with a Humanity perfectly Glorified and Divine.
The reciprocal unition of Divinity with Humanity, and of Humanity with Divinity, in which consisted the glorification of the Son, or his union with the Father, after temptation, is thus described by the Evangelist: "Jesus said, The hour is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again," John xii. 23, 27, 28. "When Judas was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him," John xiii. 51, 52. "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee," John xvii. 1, 5. And to instruct us, that the great end and design of all the sufferings, which our Lord endured while on earth, was (not the pacification of any wrath in the Father, but) the glorification of his own Humanity, according to the eternal principles of divine order, he said to his disciples, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" Luke xxiv. 26.
The glorification of the Humanity was the same thing also as the return of Jesus to the Father, or to the divine essence, from which he came forth. He therefore says, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father." John xvi. 28. Prior to, and during the progress of, his glorification, that is, while in his state of humiliation, the Lord was apparently distinct from the Father; for he prayed to him, and said, that the Father was greater than he, and that he came to do his will. In this state also he suffered temptations and crucifixion. But in his state of glorification he said, that he and the Father were one; that the Father was in him, and he in the Father; yea, that all things belonging to the Father were his; and in conclusion, after his resurrection, that all power was given unto him in heaven and in earth.
It follows, therefore, that after the descent of Jehovah God into the world, and during the time in which he was veiled with a Humanity visible to men, he sustained a character and title suited to the low condition and appearance assumed; but that, on his re-ascent, he again returned into that ineffable glory, which he had before all worlds, and which now, in consequence of the incarnation and glorification, shines in heaven with a seven-fold lustre, as it is expressed by the prophet: "The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven-fold, as the light of seven days, in the day that Jehovah bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound," Isa. xxx. 26.
