Justification, Glorification, and the Security of Salvation
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God the Father tell us in the Bible that He has a grand purpose for certain people whom He has selected from the mass of mankind. His purpose is to bring this select company of human beings into heaven to spend eternity there with Him in total happiness. God the Father can do this for the born-gain believers because He has worked out a plan that meets the demands of His own justice, of His own righteousness, to punish the sinner for his moral guilt. He has taken care of the demand of that punishment. The punishment we Christians deserve has been born by the sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ, on the cross, so that consequently, all has been paid in full. And so, God the Father is free to execute this purpose for a limited number of human beings out of the mass of the human race.

Romans 5:6-8, we have previously learned, has taught us that. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

It is the death of Christ that enables God the Father to realize His purpose. The people who in this way have been elected by God the Father into eternal life are tied to that heavenly destiny, we have found, by an unbreakable chain consisting of five links. The first link was foreknowledge, which was God in eternity past choosing some from the human race to have a place in the intimacy of His family in heaven. The second link was predestination, which is the believer destined to be transformed into the spiritual image of Jesus Christ with a resurrected, glorified body. Link number three was the calling of the believer who has been summoned to believe the Gospel by God and thereby to be born again.

Justification

The word "called" is the Greek word "kaleo." This word means the effectual call to salvation, which a sinner will accept. This is in the Greek aorist tense. Every one of these links is aorist tense. Aorist tense tell us that this is an action which God does only once. And He only does it once because He never has to do it again. Very important. It's not too technical for you to understand that the tenses in the Greek language tell us something about doctrine that is important, and this tense tells us a great deal.

Once and for all. God does not call a person again and again. Now, what does that tell you? That tells you immediately that if you've been called to eternal life, you can't ever drop out again. Because He's not going to call you again. There are many foolish people who teach that God calls a person, every time he loses his salvation, He calls him again. But the Greek language says, "No, you're wrong. He only calls once."

And, it is active voice, which means that God does the calling, not some preacher pounding the pulpit or telling you tear-jerking stories. It is indicative statement of doctrinal fact. There are no "ifs" involved here. It is declaring something that God has done and no one can change.

Now, these people He has called, He refers back to those as "them." "And whom He calls, them." The Greek word "them" is this word "houtos." It's a demonstrative pronoun. It's one of those pronouns that points to a certain group. It points back to the individual's "which He has called," and it indicates in this word that of those whom He has called, one hundred percent are going to be tied to the next link. Nobody dropping out. And, the next link is that He has justified.

The Greek word "dikaioo." "Dikaioo" is a word that you should understand very well. Back in the fifth chapter of Romans, we went over this in great detail. Paul is just touching upon it now, depending upon your previous knowledge to understand what justification is all about.

Justification is a legal term that views God as the great Judge of the universe, and what He is declaring is that certain people of the human race are innocent, free of all moral guilt. And the reason those people are free from all moral guilt is because God has imputed to them the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ. Once God the Holy Spirit baptizes you into Christ, you now possess all that He is. And what He is is absolute righteousness. So, absolute righteousness is imputed to our credit. Consequently, God the Father looks at us, and He sees that we're just as perfect as His Son, and He declares us to be justified.

It's a judicial word used in the court of law used by a judge to pronounce a person innocent. The word "justified" is used as the opposite of the word "condemned." You can balance the two. "Justified" is the opposite of being condemned. And that's why in the very first verse of this chapter, the eighth chapter of Romans, you remember, we read, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." Why is there no condemnation? Because they're all justified. If you are in Christ Jesus, you possess His absolute righteousness. If you possess His absolute righteousness, you are justified in God's sight. You are innocent.

So, this refers to simply a pronouncement that God the Father has made about a believing sinner who is in Christ as the result of the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the point of trusting in Christ as Savior, and thereby, that person is credited with this righteousness of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us this very thing in this way, "For He hath made Him [God the Father made God the Son] who knew no sin to be sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." We who are sinners have exchanged our guilt for the sinlessness of Jesus Christ. That's what happens at the point of salvation, and that's why we are not condemned. And that's why we are justified.

So, this refers to a pronouncement that God the Father makes. Again, it is aorist tense. Once more, important to notice that God justifies a person once. If you think that you can lose your salvation, and thereby lose your justification and have to come back and be saved again, you have a real problem with the Word of God. You are a very ignorant person. You're a very muddleheaded person that's reading the Bible from the English text. You have fallen into a terrible trap.

The Greek language says God only justifies a person once. When He does it, He does it once for all. He doesn't have to do it again. And, it is active voice. God personally does the declaring of our justification. No reversal is possible, because He does it. It's a statement of fact of what God does for those He has called.

Justification furthermore is always the result of believing the Gospel in response to the call of God. So, it's very important to realize that justification is always the result of faith. If there is no believing, there is no justification. Consequently, it isn't a matter of what you do or don't do. It is a matter of faith. And if there's not faith in Jesus Christ, there's no justification.

So, where is the Jew going for all eternity, who has no faith in Jesus Christ? He has faith in God like the demons do, James tells us. And they tremble over the confidence and the awareness of God, but there is no justification. Without faith in Jesus Christ specifically, there is no justification. So, where is the Muslim world going? To the lake of fire. There's no other place they can go with their rejection of Jesus Christ. Where are all the great, exotic religions of the east going who reject Jesus Christ? They have no faith in Him for salvation. They're going to Hell!

And when you run your mind through all the potential religions of the world, you will see indeed that heaven is going to be a very small group of people out of the mass of mankind that ever lived. And can you believe it: you and I are part of that select company. That's what we mean by God having a purpose of election that He executes. It is important to know that if there is no believing in Christ as Savior, there is no justification.

Romans 3:21-22 has taught us that, "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law [apart from human doing] is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference."

Romans 3:26 furthermore says, "To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness [God's righteousness]: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." He justifies those who believe in Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:28 says, "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law." That is, apart from any human efforts.

Romans 4:5 says, "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

Romans 5:1 says, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And so, it goes on and on. The Bible is very clear: if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, you cannot be justified. If you are not justified, you cannot go to heaven. So, may have a religious participation of one kind or another, but in that religious participation, they do not trust in Jesus Christ. They do not believe in Him as Savior, and so they do not receive the grace of justification. Absolute righteousness is imputed, then, by God only to those who believe the Gospel message and thereby are born again.

In Romans 4 beginning at verse 20, verses 20-25, Paul had put it this way, "He [referring to Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered on account of our offences, who was raised again on account of our justification." So, justification, I cannot stress enough, is always tied with believing in Jesus Christ as the substitute Savior, the substitute sacrifice.

Justification, furthermore, takes place instantaneously. So, you are this morning either justified, or you are not justified. It is not something you feel. It is something that is the result of your position as per your believing the Gospel message. So, everybody here is either justified or not justified.

Furthermore, justification is not the same thing as having your sins forgiven. Having your sins forgiven is part of salvation. Having your sins forgiven means that you have moral guilt, and we are going to forgive you of that moral guilt. But you still have the moral guilt. You can do something to a person. You can steal money from them. And the person can say, "Well, I'm going to forgive you. You're a theft." But you still have the moral guilt of what you did. You see, that's not enough to get you into heaven.

Justification is to remove the moral guilt by giving you the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that's why we say that it's God looking at you as if you were a person who has never committed a single sin. It's not just that you are a person who committed sins and then they were forgiven. It's looking at you as if you had never even done those things. Now, that takes some doing. But that, you see, is what justification is. Forgiving your sins is the negative part of salvation. Having the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to you is the positive part of salvation. And you need both of these to go to heaven.

So, justification, clearly understand, is something that God has added to your credit. God can impute this absolute righteousness to the believer because Jesus Christ has paid the penalty in His death for the sins of the world. This does not mean that the justified person is sinless in practice while he is on earth, but he will be so in his glorified state in his resurrection body in heaven, minus the old sin nature. You will then be sinless in your practice. You can be justified and still be a person who sins.

Justification, then, forms the basis for this good that Romans 8:28 has been talking about of God's blessing not only in eternity but in time on this earth. The believer who learns and practices the principles of doctrine is able to grow in grace toward spiritual maturity. The super grace level of maturity gives the believer the maximum capacity to receive God's blessings in time. Make no mistake about it: if there's anything God our Father wants to do, it's to bless us. That's the name of the game. He intends to bless us in eternity with what we merit as a result of our divine good production. He wants to bless us now as the result of our having the capacity to receive it.

I do not have to tell you that there are some Christians who do not have the spiritual maturity to receive certain blessings. There are some Christians who simply do not have the spiritual maturity to receive the blessings of great wealth. They would do great injury with it. There are some Christians that are not in the position of spiritual maturity to have a position of influence on people. They would be destructive if they were in a position of influence. And, so it goes that God who wants to bless us can only do it to the extent that we've developed the capacity to be able to handle the blessing.

And that's the problem with most of us: being able to handle God's blessings. And it is the Word of God in a justified person that gives us that maturity. Immature Christians are always engaged in mountains of human good works with the hope that God is going to bless them. And if God did bless you for those human good works, He would sin. But Christians are always running around engaging in what is human good. I didn't say it's bad. I didn't say it wasn't necessary. I didn't say it was. I didn't even say it wasn't something the society can benefit from. But it is strictly human good level. And they're pouring their lives and their treasures into it thinking that God is going to commend them and prosper them and reward them in heaven, and He is not.

Now, Satan will get in there and prosper you on earth when you do that. You may count on that. But immature believers are always missing out on the genuine, real blessings because they are not tied into the maturity that their position in justification entitles them to. And if God blessed a person like that, He Himself would be violating His own holiness.

So, He protects His holiness in a very distinct way. He constructs a very definitive channel of blessing, and we can perhaps illustrate it by an electric wire. Here is an electric wire, and that will carry a current that we may compare to the blessing of God. The electric wire has an insulation upon it, so we'll put an insulating coat upon this wire. This is being carried through a wire which we may call, "the grace of God." This is the grace wire of transmission, and there is this insulation which God puts around to insulate His blessings from the old sin nature contamination. In order to protect the grace wire of blessing from old sin nature contamination, God surrounds it here with an insulation so that He shields it from a contaminating influence.

Now, at one end, comes in the burst of current. We call this current "divine justice." This is the justice of God. God's justice, which is perfect, is putting the current into this wire. Now, you've got the current going through, but the current isn't going to do anything or go anyplace until you have a receptor. And this is the point. There is only one thing to which divine justice is sending this current of blessing (and that's what we're sending through the wire) is shooting the current of blessing. It's a grace wire. It's what God is doing for you. He's protecting what He is doing from the contamination of own sin nature so you can't get involved to foul it up. There is only one that that will receive that, and that is the absolute righteousness of God. The plus power of God is the only thing that He blesses.

Now, stop and think what that means for a moment. The only thing He is going to bless is the absolute righteousness that He has put into us. The only thing He will bless is the absolute righteousness functioning in you, His justified believer. Anything else, He will not bless.

So, now you have absolute righteousness, but you're off chasing rabbits. You're not functioning on that absolute righteousness. And if you don't know the Word of God, you won't know how to function in terms of absolute righteousness. If you are out of step with God's absolute righteousness, you will be promoting that which He cannot bless. And our society is filled with projects that people are promoting that God cannot bless. They are human good. And he protects His blessings from going to people like that because He has this closed system. He has His divine justice, sans blessings.

It can only go through a grace wire, a grace wire totally insulated from the contaminating effects of the sin nature, and the only receptor for those blessings is the absolute righteousness that God has put into the believer. When that righteousness is free to function, there is nothing that can stand in the way of God blessing you with everything under the sun that you can think of. God's justice is free, then, to send the current of divine blessing through the grace wire to the absolute righteousness in the justified believer. Living a godly, holy life as per the principles of doctrine is the reason that God blesses us here on this earth. It is the product of divine righteousness in us.

Christians, instead, are trying to get God's blessings and to get His prosperity by self-denial, self-crucifixion, performing religious rituals, old sin nature do-goodism projects, promises they make to God of various kind, mentally visualizing into reality they think what they want. None of that works. This is the system that works. The justice of God has all kinds of blessings for you. The grace wire is ready to receive those blessings just because God our Father wants to give them to us. He will give them only to the target of His absolute righteousness in us. All the divine blessings in time come from the justice of God down the grace wire, insulated by God's integrity, to the absolute righteousness of God functioning in the believer.

See, this is God's holiness. God's holiness is what insulates the old sin nature from being able to come in to have a hand. So, God can bless us, you see, without violating His holiness. Justification, then, is a wonderful doctrine. It means being qualified for divine blessings on earth, for the glory of God. This is the purpose of the Christian life: blessings now, rewards in eternity.

Glorification

Here is the end of the chain. Here is where all of this is going to lead to. Whom, again referring to the previous group that He has justified, that group which God has declared to be free from all moral guilt because He has credited that person with the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ, imputed it to the believer. A judicial pronouncement of God who, at the final judge, again, a justification, as we pointed out, by God, once and for all. These same people, he again says, "them," the ones who are justified. And again, the word "them" means one hundred percent of them he also glorified.

The word "glorified" is the Greek word "zoxazo." "Zoxazo" is a word, "glorification," refers to the absolute perfection of character which exalts a person to a position of great honor and happiness. It is an inward perfection which is externally reflected in brilliant light surrounding the person. God is surrounded by a brilliant light. The Jewish rabbis used to call it the Shekinah glory of God. The "dwelling in light" of God is what that means, because God's absolute, perfect essence is reflected externally in the brilliance of light which surrounds Him. This is what the disciples saw in Jesus Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration when He displayed His glory. The brilliant light hat surrounded Him because His absolute perfect character.

Glorification, furthermore, extends to the Christian's resurrected body. In Philippians 3:21, we read, "Who shall change our lowly body, that it may be fashioned like His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." So, when Paul says, "All those of you who have been justified are also going to be glorified," he is telling us that not only are we going to have the perfect character of Jesus Christ, but we are going to have the glorified body of Jesus Christ as well, which will then be immortal: never subject to sin, never subject to death. God's perfect character manifested externally in the brilliant splendor of light which surrounds Him. That is His glory, manifesting His excellence.

Now, this is what Romans 3:23 means when it says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. When you're talking about God's glory, you're talking about His absolute perfect righteousness and character, and it is that standard that a person who is a sinner falls short of. God calls the Christians, then, to share His glory, the glory of His perfect character demonstrated by a visible, brilliant light.

1 Thessalonians 2:12 says, "That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you into His kingdom and His glory," which stresses again what Paul is saying here that we have linked up our justification with glorification. Now, here's something again that is interesting. The word "zoxazo," again, we have to say God says that I have glorified you people. What's the tense? Aorist. But we're not glorified yet. This is something that doesn't take place until we come into heaven. That's when we get the absolute perfect character of Jesus Christ. It's in the future that we get that absolute perfect resurrected body. And yet, he uses this same tense indicating that God does it, and God does it once and for all. This is the way that God the Holy Spirit talks to us in scripture to tell us that something that is absolutely certain, even if it's in the future, he talks about it as if it's a completed act.

And that's what you have here. The Bible uses this grammatical technique to tell us that something in the future is absolutely certain to happen. So that, even though we had not yet been glorified, our Heavenly Father says, "Consider it done." You know, when you go and ask somebody to do something, and they say, "Fine, consider it done." Now, if you trust that person, what do you do? You believe Him, and you act upon that fact that he will do that, and that when you get there expecting that thing to be done, you're not going to be disappointed. This aorist tense says, "Consider it done." Yes, it's in the future. Yes, you still have to die, or be raptured, taken into the Lord's presence to have this executed, but it's as good as done. And you may consider it done.

It's active voice again. Active voice: God Himself does this for the Christian, placing him in a place of glory in heaven. We can't travel there on our own. He has to take us to that glorification. A statement of fact. God's glory cloud surrounding Him indicated His absolute holiness and that He was unapproachable. He had to make a way for us to be glorified. That is, He had to make a way for us to come into the glory land of heaven. His surrounding light that frightened the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration indicates that God is holy, and you cannot make your way to Him. He had to make the way for us. And of course, that's exactly what the Bible very clearly tells us is what He was so kind to do.

Hebrews 10, beginning at verse 19, this is pointed out to us, "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus [that is, into the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, the inner sanctum], By a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."

So that, here you have the writer of Hebrews saying, "You can come into the very presence of God." His holiness, His glory reflected by the light that surrounds Him tells you you better not come near Him. But God has made a way through: that is the body of Jesus Christ. On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Lord displayed this glory, and I want to remind you that He was a godman. He was a human being who was radiating this glory.

Ah, now, that becomes very important to us. We can understand when God radiates a glory that says, "You are absolutely perfect. Nothing wrong with you. You're the best." But for a human being to radiate that glory - and I mean you will radiate just exactly the glory of God - that is something else. But the Bible makes it clear to us that Jesus Christ in His humanity radiated that glory. Therefore, it is possible for a human being indeed to experience that.

The glory of the Lord Jesus Christ is something that all of the world is going to see in the very near future when He comes back to this earth a second time. Matthew 24:30 points that out to us, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."

When Jesus Christ comes, He will come in the brilliance of the external light that reflects His internal glory. Verse 27 says, "For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be," meaning that everybody is going to see Him coming from outer space. We Christians will radiate the glory of God while we accompany Jesus Christ to the earth at this time. Yes, He's going to come surrounded by that glory, and all the world - all of humanity on the face of the earth - is going to see Him in that brilliant glory.

But, I want to remind you that Colossians 3:4 tells us that we will be radiating that same glory. Colossians 3:4, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." When He appears back on this earth, you will appear in that glory.

1 Corinthians 2:8. The Apostle Paul in speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ calls Him "the Lord of Glory." "Which none of the princes of this age knew [Paul says]: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory." The reason He is the Lord of Glory is because of His absolute perfect character. And so, we are going to have that same perfection reflecting that same glory when we return. And, the humanity of Jesus Christ stands at perfect ease in the very presence of God the Father. In Acts 7:55, upon the stoning of Stephen, we see this evidence as Jesus stands in Heaven. Jesus stands perfectly at ease surrounded by the glory of God, He in that presence. "But he [that is, Stephen], being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God."

So that, when others who saw the presence of God were overwhelmed with fear, like the disciples, we're going to be at ease in God's very presence. That's very hard to conceive now that we will stand at ease knowing what we have been, what we have done, where we have come from. It's going to be hard to imagine that we will be absolutely at ease in that glory. We'll not only be at ease, we'll be covered with that same brilliant light.

2 Thessalonians 2:14 tells us that the Gospel is the means by which a sinner secures this glory. 2 Thessalonians 2:14, "Unto which He called you by our Gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." So that, again, unless you have believed the Gospel, you will not experience the glory that He is talking about here.

Jesus as the Agent of the Believer's Glorification

Hebrews 2:10, "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons into glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." It is Jesus Christ who brings we who are His sons and Christ's brethren into glory.

1 Peter 5:10 says, "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." Again, our entrance into glory is the result of the work of Christ. Colossians 1:27 says the same thing, "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

When Jesus Christ was praying the high priestly prayer, which we have in John 17:22, He was conscious of glorifying us, "And the glory which thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one." So, He who is the Lord of Glory is going to be the agent that brings us into that glorification. And again, the Bible says once you have been glorified, it is irreversible.

2 Timothy 2:10, "Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes [Paul says], that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." Eternal glory. Never to be lost again. Now, it is true that indeed, you and I begin our transformation into that character of God by the degree that we take in the Word of God into our lives and function on it. And as 2 Corinthians 3:18 points out, that purifies the soul.

Security of Salvation

We Christians are eternally tied to our Heavenly Father, and we are destined for a home in His heaven. God Himself makes sure that we get to heaven no matter what we may foolishly do on earth after our regeneration. What we may foolishly do. Don't kid yourself. The best of Christians do the most foolish things. But I don't care what you do, what you have done, what you may yet do. You may do the dumbest, the most short-sighted, the most stupid thing on earth, and you may get into some serious evil in the process. God has forged a chain that you cannot break loose from. He is going to see to it that you are glorified.

Our moral guilt is now treated by Him as if it never existed. He says we're justified, therefore our feet are on the path to the glory land of heaven. All potential future sinning of the Christian has already been included in the price that Jesus Christ paid. That's what you must remember. Yes, you will do wrong, but that has already been paid for. That is not a problem with God.

So, there is no power in the universe which can break this five-link chain of the believer's eternal attachment to salvation from hell. Even the believer Himself cannot break this chain. God Almighty has a purpose. He intended to execute that purpose on certain ones of the human race. He then selected those and proceeded to build a chain. Foreknowledge: He selected them. Predestination: to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. That was done in the past.

Now, He comes into time, and He gets the Gospel to you. You hear the Gospel, and if the Holy Spirit gives you the call to believe it, you believe it. Now, He has brought you into the family of God. At the same time, then, He has also imputed to you then the absolute righteousness of Christ so that God now declares you to be justified. And because you are justified, He now says you are destined to be taken into heaven to be transformed into a perfect human being. You are going to be glorified, and you will be surrounded by the glory light of God Himself. There is no power in the universe which can break any one of these links. Remember all aorist tense; God does it once and for all, because it never has to be done again. Nothing can break this link of the believer's eternal attachment to salvation in heaven.

So, the rest of this chapter, now, in Romans 8:31-39, as we complete this chapter, you will find takes up the question of, "Is there anything that could possible go wrong that could break the golden chain of the Christian's eternal security?" That's what the rest of this chapter's about. He's described the chain, and then because Paul knows how people thinks, the Spirit of God leads him to discuss, "Is it possible? What could happen? Could this happen? Could this happen? Could this happen?" And he takes up certain things that could possibly happen, that come to people's minds, that could cause them to lose their claim to heaven. The rest of the chapter is going to say, "There isn't anything that could happen that could change any of this."

The Coronation Day for the Believers

Revelation 3:21, therefore says to us, "To him that overcometh [those who are born again, justified] will I grant to sit with Me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne." You're awaiting your coronation day. You're awaiting the day for them to put the crown of glory on your head. Your coronation is inevitable.

Revelation 22:5 adds to this, "And there shall be no night there [in heaven]; and they need no lamp, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them the light: and they [you people] shall reign for ever and ever." You're not just going to be in heaven; you are going to be fully the royal family of God exercising authority in various ways as ruling monarchs. That's what "glorification" means.

So, we say, "All hail to you Christians living and those who have passed on ahead of us." All of us waiting with eager anticipation the coronation day when we get to that high point. If you've ever watched the coronation of, say, the King of England, or the Queen of England, that highest point in that ceremony is when the Archbishop of Canterbury holds the crown over the head of the potential monarch and proclaims His right to this by an act and a gift of God and slowly lowers that crown upon the head of the monarch. And all burst out in cheer as the royal glory now belongs to that person. All hail you Christians who are headed for that coronation day.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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