41. So God is glorified in the Son of Man,
Who is also Son of God. Let us see, then, what is this third
clause which is added, If God is glorified in Him, God hath also
glorified Him in Himself. What, pray, is this secret
mystery? God, in the glorified Son of Man, glorifies a glorified
God in Himself! The glory of God is in the Son of Man, and the
glory of God is in the glory of the Son of Man. God glorifies in Himself, but man
is not glorified through himself. Again the God Who is glorified
in the man, though He receives the glory, yet is Himself none other
than God. But since in the glorifying of the Son of Man, the God,
Who glorifies, glorifies God in Himself, I recognise that the glory of
Christ’s nature is taken into the glory of that nature which
glorifies His nature. God does not glorify Himself; but He
glorifies in Himself God glorified in man. And this
“glorifies in Himself,” though it is not a glorifying of
Himself, yet means that He took the nature, which He glorified, into
the glory of His own nature since the God, Who glorifies the God
glorified in man, glorifies Him in Himself, He proves that the God Whom
He glorifies is in Himself, for He glorifies Him in Himself.
Come, heretic, whoever you be, produce the inextricable objections of
your tortuous doctrine; though they bind themselves in their own
tangles, yet, marshal them as you will, we shall not be in danger of
sticking in their snares. The Son of Man is glorified; God is
glorified in Him; God glorifies in Himself Him, Who is glorified in the
man. It is not the same that the Son of Man is glorified, as that
God is glorified in the Son of Man, or that God glorifies in Himself
Him, Who is glorified in the man. Express in the terms of your
unholy belief, what you mean by God being glorified in the Son of
Man. It must certainly be either Christ Who is glorified in the
flesh, or the Father Who is glorified in Christ. If it is Christ,
Christ is manifestly God, Who is glorified in the flesh. If it is
the Father, we are face to face with the mystery of the unity, since
the Father is glorified in the Son. Thus, if you allow it to be
Christ, despite yourself you confess Him God; if you understand it of
God the Father, you cannot deny the nature of God the Father in
Christ. Let this be enough concerning the glorified Son of Man
and God glorified in Him. But when we consider that God glorifies
in Himself God, Who is glorified in the Son of Man, by what loophole,
pray, can your profane doctrine escape from the confession that Christ
is very God according to the verity of His nature? God glorifies
in Himself Christ, Who was born a man; is Christ then outside Him, when
He glorifies Him in Himself? He restores to Christ in Himself the
glory which He had with Himself, and now that the servant’s form,
which He assumed, is in turn assumed into the form of God, God Who is
glorified in man is glorified in Himself; He was in God’s self
before the dispensation, by which He emptied Himself, and now He is
united with God’s self, both in the form of the servant, and in
the nature belonging to His birth. For His birth did not make Him
God of a new and foreign nature, but by generation He was made natural
Son of a natural Father. After His human birth, when He is
glorified in His manhood, He shines again with the glory of His own
nature; the Father glorifies Him in Himself, when He is assumed into
the glory of His Father’s nature, of which He had emptied Himself
in the dispensation.