“Glorification is the final phase of the application of redemption. It is that which brings to completion the process which begins in effectual calling. Indeed it is the completion of the whole process of redemption.
For glorification means the attainment of the goal to which the elect of God were predestinated in the eternal purpose of the Father and it involves the consummation of the redemption secured and procured by the vicarious work of Christ. But when does glorification take place?
It is here that we need to appreciate what glorification really is and how it is to be realized. Glorification does not refer to the blessedness upon which the spirits of believers enter at death. It is true that then the saints, as respects their disembodied spirits, are made perfect in holiness and pass immediately into the presence of the Lord Christ.
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 5:8). Presence with Christ in his state of glory cannot consist with any of the defilements of sin—the spirits of departed saints are “the spirits of just men made perfect” (Heb. 12:23).
The Shorter Catechism sums up the truth when it says: “The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory: and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection.”
Yet, however glorious is the transformation of the people of God at death and however much they may be disposed to say with the apostle that to depart and to be with Christ is far better (cf. Phil. 1:23), this is not their glorification. It is not the goal of the believer’s hope and expectation.
The redemption which Christ has secured for his people is redemption not only from sin but also from all its consequences. Death is the wages of sin and the death of believers does not deliver them from death. The last enemy, death, has not yet been destroyed; it has not yet been swallowed up in victory. Hence glorification has in view the destruction of death itself.
It is to dishonour Christ and to undermine the nature of the Christian hope to substitute the blessedness upon which believers enter at death for the glory that is to be revealed when “this corruptible will put on incorruption and this mortal will put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:54). Preoccupation with the event of death indicates a deflection of faith, of love, and of hope.
We who have the firstfruits of the Spirit “groan within ourselves,” the apostle reminds us, “waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23). That is the glorification. It is the complete and final redemption of the whole person when in the integrity of body and spirit the people of God will be conformed to the image of the risen, exalted, and glorified Redeemer, when the very body of their humiliation will be conformed to the body of Christ’s glory (cf. Phil 3:21).
God is not the God of the dead but of the living and therefore nothing short of resurrection to the full enjoyment of God can constitute the glory to which the living God will lead his redeemed. Christ is the firstbegotten from the dead, the firstfruits of them that have fallen asleep; he is the firstborn among many brethren.
This truth that glorification must wait for the resurrection of the body advises us that glorification is something upon which all the people of God will enter together at the same identical point in time. There is no priority for one above another.
In this respect it radically differs from death and the glory with Christ upon which saints enter on that event. Each saint of God who dies has his own appointed season and therefore his own time to depart and be with Christ. We can see that this event is highly individualized. But it is not so with glorification. One will not have any advantage over another—all together will be glorified with Christ.
The New Testament lays peculiar stress upon this fact. We might think it unnecessary to accent it. We might say: the important truth is that all will be glorified and all else is of little significance. It is not so.
The apostle Paul found it necessary to inform, or perhaps remind, the Thessalonian believers that even those who will not die but be living at the advent of the Lord will not have any advantage over those who died, “because,” he says, “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
And so the living and the resurrected dead, who died in Christ, will together be snatched up to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:16, 17). Again, the same apostle says: “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 incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51, 52).
Glorification, then, is the instantaneous change that will take place for the whole company of the redeemed when Christ will come again the second time without sin unto salvation and will descend from heaven with the shout of triumph over the last enemy. “Then will come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Cor. 15:54, 55).
There is much for our instruction in this fact that the final act of the application of redemption is one that affects all alike at the same moment of time in the final accomplishment of God’s redemptive design. It is as a body that the whole company of the redeemed will be glorified. This is highly consonant with all that of which glorification is the consummation.
It is union with Christ that binds together all the phases of redemptive love and grace. It was in Christ the people of God were chosen before the foundation of the world. It was in Christ they were redeemed by his blood—he loved the church and gave himself for it. The people of God were quickened together with Christ, and raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus (cf. Eph. 5:25; 2:5, 6).
Christ wrought redemption with the design “that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). When heaven’s design will reach its grand finale, Christ will come again in the glory of his Father. He will also come in his own glory—it will be “the appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Tit. 2:13).
But this will also be the revelation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19). There will be a perfect coincidence of the revelation of the Father’s glory, of the revelation of the glory of Christ, and of the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
The glorification of the elect will coincide with the final act of the Father in the exaltation and glorification of the Son. “But if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Rom. 8:17).
There is heavenly congruity here, and it is congruity which exemplifies the marvel of divine love, wisdom, and power as it also vindicates the glory of God. “The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day” (Isa. 2:11).
Glorification is an event which will affect all the people of God together at the same point of time in the realization of God’s redemptive purpose. It will bring to final fruition the purpose and grace which was given in Christ Jesus before times eternal (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9)”
–John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1955/2024), 174-177.
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