The Order of Salvation: Glorification – Place For Truth

            Glorification is the great hope of every believer in Christ. We who have been saved, who are now being sanctified and made into the image of Jesus, eagerly anticipate the day when the sanctifying process will be completed, and we will be glorified.

            In one sense, Christians really can’t even begin to imagine just what exactly God has in store for us in our glorified state. John, writing about this future hope, says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2). Paul also affirms that our glorification will somehow involve our being made more like Jesus, when he writes, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

            We also know that this future glorification is intrinsically tied to our future resurrection in Christ. We know, beyond all doubt, that when we die, we go to be in the presence of Jesus in Heaven in our spirit. But we will not remain ethereal, disembodied souls eternally. Rather, when Jesus returns to this earth in triumphant victory, we will march alongside Him. At that time, we will be resurrected in physically glorified bodies, as soul reunites with body once more.

            Paul, writing about our future resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 explains that, “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” Whatever this physically resurrected, glorified body will be, we know for certain it will be without sin, disease, sickness, and death. It will, in some mysterious way, be like Christ’s glorified and resurrected body, for, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49).

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