Glorification
In the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer every Christian prays, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10). This is an implicit recognition that we do not presently live in heaven. Our eyes, ears, and even our own hearts confirm this truth. We pray, “Your kingdom come,” because, although the kingdom of God was inaugurated at the coming of Jesus (Mark 1:15), it has not been consummated. We still live in a fallen world and we are very much a part of it (Rom 7:13–25). After all, as our Lord said, it is not what goes into us but what comes out of us that defiles us (Matt 15:11) and that is because we ourselves are still fallen and corrupt and awaiting perfection or glorification (Rom 8:30).
The great good news is that, in the resurrection of our Lord, glorification has also been inaugurated. In his resurrection the new creation has begun. Paul says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). That is why Paul says that, in Christ, things like circumision no longer have any religious significance. What matters is “a new creation” (Gal 6:15) and that having been given new life in Christ we have been “created in Christ Jesus” to walk in good works, which God has prepared beforehand (Eph 2:10).
The new creation began on Sunday morning, April 5 in the year AD 33.1 Three women came to the tomb early Sunday morning in order to care for his body only to find that he had been raised from the dead (Mark 16:1–8; Luke 24:10; Matt 28:1). Peter and the others confirmed the empty tomb after them (Luke 24:12; John 20:4–8). Our Lord Jesus was not dead. He was alive (Luke 24:23; Mark 16:6). The disciples saw him. They even saw his wounded hands and side (John 20:20; 26–29).
Our Lord Jesus remained with us for forty days (Acts 1:3) until he ascended in the sight of the Apostles (Acts 1:9). In the time between his resurrection and ascension not only did the disciples see him but he was seen by five hundred others and James and all the apostles (1 Cor 15:6–7).
We live in the time in between Christ’s ascension and his return. As our ascended Lord and King he rules all things in his general providence (Ps 2; Ps 110; Acts 2:30–36; 1 Tim 6:15; Rev 17:14; 19:16) and he rules over his church as her Chief Shepherd, High Priest, and Overseer (1 Pet 2:25; 5:4; Heb chs. 4, 5, 7, 8, 9). He ordains whatever comes to pass (1 John 1:1–3). Scripture says:
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. (1 Cor 15:25–28)
According to the New Testament, Christ’s resurrection ushered in the beginning of the “last days” (Acts 2:17; Heb 1:2; James 5:3; 2 Pet 3:3). We have been living in the “last days” since Christ’s ascension. This explains why Paul says
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men (2 Tim 3:1–9).
Paul was characterizing the nature of life between Christ’s ascension and his return. The interim, however, will not last forever. When all the elect, both Jew and Gentile, have been brought to new life and true faith in Jesus then he will return (Matt 24:14; Rom 11:25–26). Before Christ returns there will be a period of apostasy and trial (Matt 24:12). The Antichrist, about which so much has been written in the last fifty years, is a reality but the Spirit of Antichrist has been with us since the days of the Apostles (1 John 2:18; 4:3). As Paul says, before Christ returns, there will be a “rebellion” and there will be a man of lawlessness who exalts himself against God (2 Thess 2:3) but, Paul told the Thessalonians that “the mystery of lawlessness” was already at work then (2 Thess 2:7).
According to Paul, Christ’s return will be visible, bodily, and noisy (1 Thess 4:16). He will return once—not twice (or even three times) as some traditions suggest. Our Lord Jesus said, “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes (Matt 24:37). Life was going on as usual and the flood came and took away most of the world that then was (Matt 24:39; 2 Pet 3:6). When Jesus comes again it will not be with a flood of water, but fire (2 Pet 3:6–10). The Reformed churches believe deeply in the certain return of Jesus but unlike some, we do not speculate about dates and times because our Lord warned us against this very thing saying, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matt 24:36). Instead, we devote ourselves to serving him and loving our neighbor until he returns (Matt 25:14–30; 1 Cor 15:58; 1 Thess 5:1–11).2
Living As Pilgrims Until Christ Returns
Here is how we explain the petition of the Lord’s Prayer:
“Your kingdom come,” that is: So govern us by your Word and Spirit, that we submit ourselves to you always more and more; preserve and increase your church; destroy the works of the devil, every power that exalts itself against you, and all wicked devices formed against your Holy Word, until the fullness of your kingdom come, wherein you shall be all in all.3
We live our Christian life as “pilgrims and aliens” (1 Pet 2:11) faithfully serving our risen Lord, in union with Christ, in the Spirit (Gal 5:16), in the Christ-confessing covenant community. The Apostle Peter characterizes the visible church the place where the “Spirit of glory and of God rests” (1 Pet 4:14). The Apostle Paul calls the church “God’s temple” (1 Cor 3:16).
Sometimes, in the providence of God, we become so identified with Christ that we are given the privilege of suffering for his name. Paul says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col 1:24). The Apostle Peter reminds us that we should not be “surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Pet 2:12–14).
As pilgrims we look forward with great joy to Christ’s glorious, bodily return (1 Thess 4:13–18), about which we confess:
That in all my sorrows and persecutions, with uplifted head, I look for the very same one, who before offered himself for me to the judgment of God, and removed all curse from me, to come as judge from heaven, who shall cast all his and my enemies into everlasting condemnation, but shall take me with all his chosen ones to himself into heavenly joy and glory.4
At his return all those who died in the Lord before his return will be raised and their bodies and souls reunited (1 Cor 15:50–56; 2 Cor 5:1–5).
Those who are alive when the Lord returns will be taken up to meet him in the air as he comes to us.5 This is what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:17: “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”6 This being taken up to be with the Lord will not be secret. The image that Paul is invoking for the Thessalonians is that of a conquering king entering a city, an image with which they were familiar historically. The inhabitants of the city meet the conquering king and escort him into the city. So it will be when Jesus returns. Further, Scripture says nothing of a seven-year period before a literal millennium. The 1,000 years of Revelation 20:5–7 is figurative just as is the “dragon” of vs. 2 and the “pit” of vs. 3 “prison” of vs. 7 are figurative.
There will be a judgment but it will not be, as many imagine, a great line where believers and unbelievers alike line up for a final examination. Rather, as we confess, “the books” (that is, the consciences) will be opened, and the dead will be judged according to the things they did in the world, whether good or evil. Those, however, who are in Christ have already been judged at Calvary (Rom 8:1). Those who are united to Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, “will be crowned with glory and honor. The Son of God will ‘confess their names’ before God his Father and the holy and elect angels; all tears will be ‘wiped from their eyes’; and their cause—at present condemned as heretical and evil by many judges and civil officers—will be acknowledged as the ’cause of the Son of God.’ And as a gracious reward the Lord will make them possess a glory such as the heart of man could never imagine. That is why “we look forward to that great day with longing in order to enjoy fully the promises of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”7
Then we shall be glorified and God shall be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). We shall see our Savior face to face (1 Cor 13:12). We shall experience the friendship and communion with God for which we were originally created, which we foreited in the fall, but which our Lord Jesus earned for us and shall have given to us.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 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. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. (Rev 21:1–7)
“Amen. Come Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20).
NOTES
1. “In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening” (Ex 12:18). Jesus was crucified on the 14th day of Nisan, in the tomb on the 15th, and raised on the the 16th or April 5, AD 33.
2. This section follows Louis Berkhof, Summary of Christian Doctrine (Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing Co., 1938), 187–88.
3. Heidelberg Catechism, 123.
4. Heidelberg Catechism, 52.
5. Belgic Confession, art. 37.
6. The Scriptures say nothing of a so-called secret rapture nor do they speak of more than one return of Christ.
7. Belgic Confession, art. 37.
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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