II. HIS HUMANITY THROUGH HIS INCARNATION BECOMING A SHELL TO CONCEAL THE GLORY OF HIS DIVINITY
Christ’s humanity through His incarnation became a shell to conceal the glory of His divinity. Instead of the words His humanity it is perhaps better to use the expression His flesh, for John 1:14 tells us that the very God became flesh. This flesh, this humanity, became a shell to conceal the glory of Christ’s divinity. Christ’s divinity is itself the divine glory. Just as God is light, divinity is glory. When Christ was in the flesh, in His humanity, His flesh was a shell which concealed His divinity and thereby concealed His glory.
III. EXPRESSING THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD IN HIS HUMAN LIVING, YET THE GLORY OF HIS DIVINITY BEING MOSTLY CONCEALED
Although Christ expressed the attributes of God in His human living as His virtues in His humanity, the glory of His divinity was mostly concealed by the shell of His humanity, His flesh. When He was living on earth in the flesh, on the one hand He was God, who is glory, and on the other hand He was flesh. This flesh was a shell that concealed the very God who is glory. Because the divine glory was concealed within the shell of His flesh, it was necessary for Him to be glorified. In John 12:23 He said, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." In 17:1 He prayed, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You." In verse 5 He went on to say, "And now, glorify Me along with Yourself, Father, with the glory which I had with You before the world was."
According to my limited knowledge, few readers of the Bible and Christian teachers pay adequate attention to the glorification of Christ mentioned in these and several other verses from John 7:39 to John 17:5. It is common for theologians to study redemption, justification, and sanctification, but rarely do they study the matter of Christ’s glorification.
IV. IN HIS TRANSFIGURATION THE GLORY OF HIS DIVINITY BEING MANIFESTED FOR A GLIMPSE TO HIS DISCIPLES
As God Christ Himself was glory, but this glory was concealed in the shell of His humanity, and thus His divine glory could not be seen. Others could see His shell, but they could not see His glory concealed within the shell. However, in his Gospel the apostle John said, "We beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father" (1:14). He, along with Peter and James, beheld the Lord’s glory when He was transfigured on the mountain. His transfiguration was a glorification. While He was living in the shell of His flesh, He temporarily came out of His flesh and was glorified.
It was only in Christ’s transfiguration on the mountain while He was living in His humanity, that the glory of His divinity was manifested for a glimpse to His disciples. Matthew 17:2 says, "He was transfigured before them, and His face shined like the sun, and His garments became as white as the light." Peter refers to this in 2 Peter 1:17-18: "He received from God the Father honor and glory, a voice such as this being borne to Him by the magnificent glory: This is My Son, My Beloved, in whom I delight. And this voice we heard being borne out of heaven while we were with Him in the holy mountain." In Matthew 17 Peter, John, and James were the only ones who saw the glorified Jesus, and they testified that they could not deny what they had seen of the concealed glory of Christ. They were most blessed in seeing the Lord in His transfiguration. Whereas only three beheld the glorified Jesus on the mountain before His resurrection, after His resurrection millions can see Him. Today we see not a Christ who is still in the shell but a Christ who has come out of the shell and has been glorified.
(The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)
