Cole Glorification

An Introduction
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4335-6958-6
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten

Reihe: Short Studies in Systematic Theology

How Sanctification Transforms Christians Into Glorified Beings Facing sin, suffering, and an uncertain future, it's easy to become pessimistic, but believers in Christ know the best is yet to come. God promises that one day he will redeem his image bearers and renew the earth. Few books are written on the doctrine of glorification, but its promise of restoration brings urgent hope for Christ followers. In this addition to the Short Studies in Systematic Theology series, Graham A. Cole examines the concept of divine glory as well as God's plan for redeeming individual believers, the church, and the universe. Identifying two phases of glorification-one in this life and a final transformation into Christlikeness-Cole defines the role of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the sanctification process. Through careful study of Scripture, he shows Christians how their future identity as glorified beings should impact their perspective today. - Thoughtful and Theological: Walks through the plotline of Scripture to explain redemptive history, the Trinitarian work of glorification, and the future of unbelievers - Thorough Introduction: Studies the Old and New Testaments to explain God's divine glory, including the stories of Moses, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, as well as the topics of creation, the incarnation, transfiguration of Jesus, and the picture of the new earth in Revelation - Great for Theologians, Pastors, and Students: This concise study dives deep into an overlooked area of eschatology and includes suggested resources for further reading

Graham A. Cole (ThD, Australian College of Theology) is emeritus dean and emeritus professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. An ordained Anglican minister, he has served in two parishes and was formerly the principal of Ridley College. Graham lives in Australia with his wife, Jules.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cole, Graham A.

Leseproben

Introduction

Thinking about the future can be daunting for many people. This is true when thinking of oneself. Will I marry? Will I have children? Will I have good health? Will I find satisfying work? Is the best ahead of me or have I passed it already? Is there life after death? If so, what does it look like?

Not long ago, I received a late-night phone call from a man who had recently turned forty. A friend of his a little older than him had just died suddenly from a heart attack. The caller was in tears. This was his first friend of around his age who had died. Now he was not only grieving but also confronting his own mortality.

Thoughts about one’s future can be influenced by the society in which one lives. I have lived in three countries: Australia, the United States, and England. I found optimism about the future in both Australia and the United States, but pessimism in England. The English people I lived among seemed to have a sense of a great empire now lost and never to be recovered. In other words, a glorious past was gone forever.

Those interested in scientific scenarios about the future of the universe can also find the latest theories demoralizing. Is a coming generation going to face the heat death of the universe or the big crunch or the big chill? In any of these contemporary scientific scenarios, humankind won’t survive. Over a century ago, when the heat death of the universe was commonly held as the best science, philosopher Bertrand Russell argued that in that light, “Only within the scaffolding of these truths [as claimed by the science of his day], only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”1

However, for the Christian, the best is yet to be. To rework the Russell quote: “Only within the scaffolding of these truths [as revealed in Scripture about the future], only on the firm foundation of unyielding hope, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.” The scriptural testimony addresses questions about the future at three levels. It speaks of the future for the individual, the future for the church, and the future of the universe.

In systematic theology, matters of the future—our hope—are covered by eschatology (Greek, eschata, “last things”). Traditionally this coverage has canvased two subtopics. Individual eschatology looks at the future for the individual in terms of death, judgment, and heaven or hell (“the four last things”).2 Cosmic eschatology examines ideas about the future of the universe. I suggested above that a third element needs to be considered in the light of the biblical witness: the church as the bride of Christ has a glorious future, and so there is a corporate aspect.

The purpose of this work is to examine one of the aspects of individual eschatology in the light of Scripture:3 the doctrine of glorification.4 In biblical perspective, we shall be glorified beings.5 I was surprised to find that when I explored this doctrine, the last evangelical monograph to address glorification specifically was that by Bernard Ramm, Them He Glorified: A Systematic Study of the Doctrine of Glorification, published in 1963. Back then, he lamented, “I found no book which systematically explored the doctrine.”6 Here is a lacuna or gap I hope to fill by this brief study. In so doing, some aspects of both corporate and cosmic eschatology will also make their appearance.

In chapter 1, we examine the doctrine of God in terms of the divine glory. In so doing, the chapter follows the biblical plotline and its testimony to the glorious nature of God as rendered in the Old and New Testaments. Several landmarks will figure prominently in the discussion: the theophany which Moses experienced on Mount Sinai (Ex. 33–34), the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the temple (Isa. 6), the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the divine chariot while in exile in Babylon (Ezek. 1), the incarnation of the Word (John 1), the transfiguration of Jesus (Mark 9), Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9), and the end-time picture of the glory of God and the Lamb in the new earth (Rev. 21).

The God of biblical revelation is glorious. Eric L. Mascall appreciates this revelation when he writes, “Only if we recognize that the God of Christianity is a God of utter glory and splendor can we understand the intensity and concentration with which, down the ages, men and women have sought union with him.”7 The startling biblical truth is that this God shares his glory with us.

The glorious God of biblical revelation has a project. Chapter 2 explores this divine project, which includes bringing God’s children to glory (Heb. 2:10). In the light of the great rupture delineated in Genesis 3, God has a plan to reclaim and restore his divine image bearers to himself. Divine love motivates the plan. Divine glory is the ultimate goal of the plan. To be restored to the divine image is to become a glorious being.

Understanding Romans 8:30 constitutes an important part of the chapter. The apostle wrote, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29–30). Traditionally, this so-called golden chain of redemption is all about soteriology, as the phrase implies. However, recently New Testament scholar Haley Goranson Jacob has argued that Paul is writing not about salvation but about our restoration to the glorious role of being co-regents with Christ here and now. Being glorified, according to her, is about vocation, not salvation. We participate in this vocation through our union with Christ. Is she right? We will consider her argument.

Chapter 3 addresses the matter of the glorification experienced in this life. Paul is our guide. He wrote to the Corinthians about how the Spirit transforms us from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). Is this a passive process where God does all the work, or do we share in the process? How does this process relate to our sanctification? These questions and others are dealt with in this chapter.

Chapter 4 explores the prospect of glory. Hope is vital to the Christian life. Our eschatological horizon is so very different to that of the secularist. The prospect is of nothing less than a new heaven and a new earth, for which the groaning creation is longing, and with it the revealing of the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom. 8:18–25). The sphere of glory to come requires the transformation of our bodies (1 Cor. 15:44). Our bodies need to become like that of Christ’s own glorified body (Phil. 3:20–21). The nature of the glorified body will be explored, as will the question of when that body is received. Aspects of both corporate and cosmic eschatology will also figure in the discussion.

Chapter 5 deals with the question Who will be glorified? C. S. Lewis saw the implications of the hope of glory when he wrote:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.8

Will these “everlasting splendours” only be those who trust in Christ? Such a notion suggests an exclusivity that would make secularists bristle.

But what about those whom Lewis describes as “immortal horrors”? We will explore the traditional view of what that means as well as the speculative suggestions of Lewis and N. T. Wright. What would embodied existence look like when excluded from the divine presence? is an interesting question. However, we need to distinguish carefully between biblically anchored convictions, opinions that are less so, and speculations that have little anchorage in the biblical testimony. Even so, in the end, some may turn out to be true.

A brief summarizing conclusion rounds out this study, together with some further reading suggestions for those readers who want to go deeper.

1. Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” The Independent Review 1 (Dec. 1903): 416, Bertrand Russell Society (website),...