Show me Your glory, God!
(and how is this communicable for us?)

Yes, how?? When I think of the Glory of the Lord, His Kavod, I think of fire descending on His mountain, or smoke filling His temple, and the cloud of His presence - we read awesome stories of when God revealed His glory to His people, His priests, and His prophets in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, 1 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Isaiah, Ezekiel. I also remember reading about the Azuza Street revival (see picture), where God would manifest His glory as a cloud so thick the children played hide and seek in it, and with fire coming down from heaven and going back up from the roof of the building - the local Fire Service didn’t know what to do with themselves! This kind of glory is clearly not communicable - how could we imitate this?!

And yet, I read that Jesus says He gives us His own glory:

The glory that You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one.(John 17:22)

I think Jesus might not be talking about fire and smoke…

When John first mentions Jesus’ glory at the beginning of His gospel, he immediately identifies Jesus’ glory as the Father’s glory:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:14,17)

We see that John compares what Moses saw of God’s glory, with Jesus’ possession of God’s glory. Here’s what God showed Moses:

The LORD passed in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and filled with gracious love and truth. (Exodus 34:6)

This sounds almost identical. John definitely wants us to know that Jesus is Yahweh, and so when we read Jesus telling the Father that He’s giving us the glory the Father gave Him, this is no small matter! This is not simply honor or recognition (which would be other translations of glory, and more obviously ‘communicable’). 

Jesus’ glory is full of grace and truth, and He gives us His glory so that we would be one as He and the Father are one. What has unity got to do with glory?

We hear often that we were made for God’s glory, and that we were made in His image and likeness: male and female. To paraphrase Genesis 2:22-24, God created woman out of man, and for this reason - because they began as one - they were made to be one. I would argue that this  reveals more than simply the sanctity of marriage. If we read our creation story alongside Jesus’ longings for us all to be one, we can see that God originally designed us for perfect unity with each other and with Him.  Therefore, Jesus gives us His own glory to bring us back into the Godhead’s own image: perfect unity and love. Our unity will display God’s glory. Our unity shows that we were made in the image of God.

This gives a different meaning to 2 Corinthians 3:18:

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

I do believe, as Paul highlights in this chapter, that the Holy Spirit’s ministry in us gives us a greater glory than the Old Covenant did, and we see amazing manifestations of His glory through our prayers! (you could say this is a communicable means of God’s glory) I also believe that beholding and reflecting Jesus’ glory will transform us into His image, as Jesus prayed for. Holy Spirit gives us the grace and truth needed for this unity that Jesus died for.

Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to see My glory that You have given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

However, I think that we will only see the bright fullness of this glory when we’re finally in full union with Christ forever. We see this prophesied towards the end of the book of Revelation - it does not get much more glorious than this!

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.

“Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. (Revelation 21:2-3, 9-11)

We see that this is the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer: His Bride united with Him forever, enjoying His glory. This shows God’s glory was always meant to be communicable.