This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.com.
Memphis Belle is one of the most celebrated aircraft of World War II. Named after the girlfriend of chief pilot Robert Morgan, the lumbering B-17F Flying Fortress carried the first U.S. crew to complete twenty-five combat missions over Europe before returning to America.
Based in England, Belle coursed through flak-filled skies over France and Germany in 1942-43. The 10-man crew battled Nazi fighter planes and delivered its payload before returning to base through the same menacing skies. The crew’s survival through more than two dozen missions was rare indeed. The Army Air Forces lost 30,000 airmen in battles against Nazi Germany. During the heaviest fighting, U.S. bomber-crew airmen had a one-in-four chance of survival.
For a time after the war, however, Memphis Belle sat outdoors, neglected, until an ambitious restoration project began, requiring more than 100 workers and thousands of hours to scrape paint, bend metal, and fabricate parts. In 2018, on the 75th anniversary of Belle’s historic 25th mission, the fully restored legend was reintroduced to the public at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Today, Belle stands as chiseled and sleek as when she first rolled off the assembly line, a testament to the people who recognized her intrinsic value and labored to restore her glory for generations to come.
In a manner of speaking, followers of Jesus are like the Memphis Belle. We make our way through perilous times as we live in a sinful and fallen world. We age, get sick, break bones, endure disappointment, suffer crushing defeats, and sometimes are persecuted for our faith. Christ doesn’t offer us an easy path to everlasting life, but in his work of salvation, he promises to bring us home one day and then fully restore us – body, soul, and spirit.
Known scripturally as “glorification,” it’s the final act of God’s redemptive work, in which he raises our lifeless bodies from the grave and restores us to a state that’s better than the original.
What is glorification?
Glorification is the final stage in God’s work of salvation. It’s the crowning achievement of sanctification, in which Christians are fully conformed to the image of Christ. It’s the perfection of the body, rejoined with soul and spirit in resurrection, as well as the restoration of the universe to its original state.
Put another way, glorification is how God fully reverses the effects of the Fall, purging sin and its stain from the created order. It involves the return of Jesus, the future resurrection and judgment of all people, and the creation of new heavens and a new earth.
For the most part, when Christians talk about glorification, we’re referring to our future resurrection, at which time we receive incorruptible bodies like the body Christ had when he rose from the dead.
Even so, glorification is more than this. It is multidimensional, involving time and eternity, individuals and the believing community, saints and their Savior, resurrection of people, and the regeneration of Earth. To better understand glorification, let’s first define “glory” according to Scripture. Then, in the next column, let’s see how glorification works now, then at our death, resurrection, and the installation of new heavens and a new earth.
The meaning of glory
The term “glory” in Scripture translates both Hebrew and Greek words. One such word is the Hebrew kabod, which refers to an individual’s display of splendor, wealth, and pomp.
When used to describe God, however, it doesn’t point to a singular attribute, but to the greatness of his whole nature. For example, Psalm 24:7-10 depicts God as the “King of glory,” attended by his hosts and distinguished by his infinite splendor and beauty.
In the New Testament, the Greek word doxa carries the meaning of honor, splendor, brilliance, fame, and glory. God is the “glorious Father” (Eph. 1:17) and the “God of glory” (Acts 7:2). In the Incarnation, Jesus bears “the glory as the one and only Son from the Father” (John 1:14).
“Glory” often connects Jesus with God the Father, particularly in his resurrection. For example, Jesus prays that the Father would glorify him as he glorifies the Father (John 17:1-5). Peter declares that God has glorified Jesus by raising him from the dead (Acts 3:13-15; 1 Pet. 1:21). Paul notes of Jesus, “Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).
Paul also sees Christ’s glorification in his ascension; Jesus is “taken up in glory” (1 Tim. 3:16). Further, the apostles preach that Christ is now exalted at the right hand of God (Acts 2:33; 5:31). And, when he returns, his appearance is glorious (Tit. 2:13).
The Bible tells us there is glory now, glory in death, glory in resurrection, and glory in the restoration of the cosmos. We explore these forms of glory in the next column.
Next: Our once and future glory