Shared Glory

I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to anyone else, nor share my praise with carved idols. Isaiah 42:8

The prophet Isaiah denounces Israel’s fascination with idolatry, and asserts the uniqueness of Israel’s God, Yahweh. His own significance, the gravity and immensity of his essence, is not something that should be given to another. Yahweh alone is God.

The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one. John 17:22

This part of Jesus’ prayer with his disciples in the upper room seems to defy Isaiah’s declaration. Even if one agrees that Jesus is truly God, of the one God, and so speaking of Jesus having God’s glory seems appropriate, surely giving that same glory to his disciples appears forbidden.

I grew up hearing that the oneness Jesus was praying for is a unity among Christians, that we should abandon all denominations and be united in one church. While that would be good, there must be more to this oneness for which Jesus prays since he talks about giving his followers his glory. What does he mean and how is he not contradicting Isaiah?

That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. John 17:21

From this earlier verse we understand why Jesus can speak of giving the glory of God to his disciples. We are being brought into the unity and oneness of God’s own self! Giving the glory of God, which will not be given to another, to Christians is fitting because we are now in union with God. We are no longer another, but members of the holy and divine body of Christ, to use that metaphor.

The scandal of humans sharing in God’s glory is no scandal if God brings us into union with himself through the God-man, Jesus. This is in fact the very heart of what the gospel proclaims.

No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 1 Corinthians 2:7

Paul understood this. The intention of God, from before the beginning of the time in which we find ourselves, has always been for our glory. Our glory is not some other glory, but is us sharing in God’s glory. This is why Paul can talk about how creation itself “will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21). Our glory is God’s glory granted to us in Christ.

We, the children of God, will come into the glory which God intended from before the beginning when we are brought by grace into union with God through Christ. Then the corruption will be gone and creation set free. When God is all and in all (1 Corinthians 15:28), his glory will extend throughout all things, and no, as Isaiah says, his glory will not have been given to another.