How do you begin talking about glorification? I mean, we don't often talk about glorification in the circles I travel. I've read or heard about grace, redemption, reconciliation, Hell, the Kingdom of Heaven, love, temptation, manifestations of the Holy Spirit, the radical church, the validity of Scripture, why Jesus died, evangelism, outreach, droplets of grace, et cetera. As with Hell, glorification is something you can't sneak up on from behind. I can't very well say, "I was being glorified the other day and . . ." Truthfully, I barely understand glorification.

The Latin root for glorification is glorifico, glorificare. (If you ever see GLORIFICAMUS TE somewhere, it means "We glorify you.") Glorificare comes from the Latin word gloria. Gloria looks like a woman's name, but really it's the same thing as the English word it resembles--glory. Therefore, to glorify is to give glory to or to make glorious. But here's a question I bet few of us have ever thought--in all that we use the word glory, what in the world does it mean? What in the cosmos is glory? (Beyond a movie with Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington.)

As usual, I turn to my trusty Oxford Dictionary of Current English from 1911. It tells us that glory is "resplendent majesty, beauty, or magnificence, effulgence or heavenly light, imagined unearthly beauty; bliss and splendour of heaven--state of exaltation". In the Oxford Popular Thesaurus, most of the synonyms for "glory" are words dealing with beauty, majesty, greatness. God lives in glory. Real glory is the sort of thing we may not see until Heaven. Glory is something of a heavenly nature. Glory is an amazing greatness, beauty, majesty, splendour. Glory is one of those unearthly intangibles. Glory is a quality of God. Exodus 15:11 (NIV) reads:

Who among the gods is like you O Lord?

Who is like you

majestic in holiness,

awesome in glory,

working wonders?

The glory of God is so great that when God showed his glory to Moses, Moses had to hide in a cleft in a rock, and God had to shield Moses' eyes because no one may see God's face and live. In Isaiah, the hem of God's robe filled the temple with his glory. Glory is also one of the greatest thirsts of humanity. I told this to someone in a chat room and was informed that I was selfish. I believe this to be true. People thirst for glory of some sort. They want themselves to have glory, or they want those around to have glory. People are always writing and telling about heroic deeds because these deeds are glorious and humanity thirsts for glory. Many people spend their whole lives trying to perform glorious actions or gain "glory" for themselves. And when people get a glimpse of the glory of God, there's no turning back--that's the real glory, the glory we've been thirsting for. It's the good stuff.

Guess what? In Jesus, glory is attainable. This is glorification. When we accept Jesus, we are justified. Justification has already happened for the Christian. As we live in Jesus, coming nearer to him and seeing him more, we are sanctified. Sanctification is a process in the life of the Christian. Glorification, on the other hand, has yet to happen. Remember Bishop Eddy: "We will be saved from the presence of sin. This is glorification." What this statement refers to is yet to come. We will attain glorification in the future. We will die. And we will go to be with Christ, and there will we be glorified. Glorification also refers to the resurrection day, when the believers will be raised in Christ in glorified bodies. We see in Philippians 3:20-21, "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." We will be glorified.

Sin is not glorious. Sin is very inglorious. Sin is unclean. We all have sin. I do not think that we go a day without committing some sort of sin, be it thinking ill thoughts against those around us. Sin is not beautiful. Sin is ugly. Sin has no majesty--only putridity. The attributes of sin do not correspond with the attributes of glory. If we are to be glorified, it is obvious that we must be saved from the presence of sin. When we are raised up in Jesus, therefore, we will be truly, finally wiped clean. We will no longer have to worry about the presence of sin in our lives. I believe that we will no longer worry about sin because we will be with God. If we are in the presence of God, we will be so overcome by His glory that our glory will become worthless. As well, our own will itself will suddenly pale in comparison. We will have no desire to do anything at all but that which God wants us to. We will want only to praise him and follow him. I believe also that we cannot be truly glorified here because we are not living in the very presence of the Almighty. We live in this world, and this world is fallen, sinful. It is not until we go to Heaven or until Jesus raises us at the last day that we will be able to be saved from sin's presence.

Remember this, friends. We can only be justified through Jesus. We can only begin to be sanctified through Jesus. And we will only be glorified through Jesus. It is Jesus living in us that makes us able to have these three -tions. We must be ever mindful of this. We are not justified, sanctified, or glorified by our own power. Furthermore, if we wish to see others justified, sanctified and join them to be glorified, they must come to know the saving power of Jesus Christ.

Are you glorified?! Not yet, but I will be. Hallelujah! Amen.