One and Equal Glory
Simply in Scripture
05–05–2022
If you turn your scriptures today and open to Romans 3:23, it says there: ‘All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.’ Now, this text has been abused, I would say, by almost every one who has tried to preach a Jesus who walked the earth some 2000 years ago, and died for the sin of the world in a very historical sense, and preached as the basis for which man needs an external god to himself to save him. But it is not about that at all. The meaning of this text is the equation of God and Man. It says by sin, humanity arrived at being short of the glory that is in divinity. In other words, before the sinning, God and Man have one and equal glory. You cannot deny that. You need that to make sense of the expression that man then fell short, fell short of what? Of the glory of God… which implies he once has this glory as his own.
So, the central figure of the gospel says, ‘Now glorify You me with yourself, Father, with the glory which I had with you before the world was.’ So here is one who is clothed in human form. Paul defined the mind of Christ, and he said Christ’s mind is that one who was in the form of God, but takes on the human form and by giving up the glory that has been his from the beginning, he appears in the form of man. Well, who is clothed in human form today but you? It is you who is clothed in human form, having an ageless glory which you left, you took the ‘form of a servant’ and become fashioned as a man. It is this one who is the central figure of the gospel and is yourself (for your mind is the mind of Christ, Php 2:5–8). He now makes an eternal order to the Father. And he is One with the Father. His order is simply thus, ‘Glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was’. What is this glory? ‘Glorify me with YOURSELF.’
Well then, God and His Glory are One! Man who has sinned has entered the limit of opacity. The limit of contraction that is called Man is God who has fallen short of the Glory. No one gave God to the state called humanity but Himself. When he did, he became You. And You and God are One. So, God gave himself up for Humanity, and thereby he sinned, or he consigned all men to disobedience. Well, look at it very carefully.
The role of Pilate is simply the objective world. Pilate is the one that is ‘close pressed’ or ‘firm’. The facts of life, they seem firm, and that is Pilate. And they demand from the Imagination who is Jesus, ‘ren’t you going to speak to me? You realize, don’t you, that I have the authority to release you and the authority to crucify you?’ The facts of life boast of having the authority to release and to crucify. You could reason all the means to achieve your objectives in this world, and they would seem firm, they would be so close pressed to you and would make it quite difficult for you to use the power of your imagination. But the Imagination answered and said, ‘You have no authority over me at all, except what was given to you from above. That’s why the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’ Well, who gave him up? Who is the one from above? God himself. It is God who subjects you to the facts of life, and make you miss your goals. Then he has the greater sin, and the greater sin is that he becomes humanity in you, has the experiences of humanity as you. Why? So that on an appointed day, he would awaken you as Himself, in infinite expansion.
Well then, simply in scripture, You have the glory of God. Equal glory with God, and the glory of God and God are One. For there is Only God in this whole wide world. Nothing but God. Now, you have fallen short of it. But you will come to the hour of awakening, and you will express the pattern buried within you and place the eternal order: ‘Glorify me with yourself, with the glory that I have in the beginning with you, Father.’ He could not pray that, you know, if he had not be short of that glory at some time. So, he asks it because it is in the Body of Jesus that Humanity is Redeemed, and will continue to be redeemed. This is the Awakened Imagination. Therefore, although you have sinned and fallen short of this eternal glory, it is not lost forever. ‘For Divine Mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus.’ (Blake) Or as Paul put it, ‘Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.’ (Rom. 3:23)
