John 13:31-32

John 13:31-32. When therefore he was gone out, Jesus saith, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him; and God shall glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. In the going out of Judas Jesus sees the disappearance of the last trace of the world from His presence. It is the token to Him, therefore, that the struggle is past, that the victory is won, that the moment of His glorification has arrived. To the eye of sense, indeed, it seems as if at that instant the powers of darkness triumphed. But that was only the outward aspect of the events now to be consummated. We are on the verge of the ‘lifting on high;' and in what the world thinks shame there really begins the brightest manifestation of the ‘glory both of the Son and of the Father. Hence the emphatic' Now with which Jesus introduces His words. The ‘glorifying' spoken of in the first two sentences is not to be distinguished from that of the last two, as if the former were the glory of suffering by which Jesus glorified the Father, the latter that of reward by which the Father glorified Him. It is throughout the same glory that is in view, and that not an outward but an inward glory; although the word ‘glorify' implies that what had been for a time veiled, obscured, is now made manifest in the brightness which is its true and proper characteristic. The glory spoken of is that of Sonship, the glory belonging to the Son as the absolutely perfect expression of the Father, and especially of that love of the Father which is the essential element of the Father's being. This expression had been found in the Son, not only throughout the eternity preceding the foundation of the world, but also after He became Son of man; and it is to be particularly observed that it is of the glorifying of the ‘Son of man' that Jesus speaks in the words before us. His life on earth, not less than His previous life in heaven, had been the manifestation of the Father's love. But its ‘glory' had not been seen. The world's idea of glory was altogether different; it had misunderstood and persecuted, and was about to crucify, Him whose life of lowly and self-denying service in love had been the highest and most glorious expression of the love of God to sinful men. This had been the cloud obscuring the ‘glory.' But ‘now,' when the struggle was over, when, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, the ‘lifting on high out of the earth' (comp. on chap. John 12:32), the resurrection, the ascension, and the bestowal of the Spirit established the triumph of Jesus, the cloud was rolled away, and the glory always in Him, but hidden for a time, was to shine forth with an effulgence that all, though some unwillingly, should own. In this respect the ‘Son of man' is ‘now glorified.' Thus, also, ‘God is glorified in Him;' because it is seen that even all the humiliation and sufferings of His earthly state, flowing as they did from love, the expression as they were of love, are the manifestation of the love of God. Nor is this all, for ‘God shall glorify Him in Himself;' that is, shall bring out before the whole universe of being that the lowly, the crucified, Son of man is ‘in Himself,' one with Him, His Beloved in whom His soul is well pleased (Isaiah 42:1; Matthew 12:18). Finally, God will do this ‘straightway,' for the moment of death, of resurrection, and of all that followed, is at hand. Can we fail to understand the triumphant ‘Now' of Jesus at the very instant when Judas was on his way to complete his treachery? But if there be triumph for Himself, what of His disciples?