Romans 5:1-11
“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2)

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a many-layered blessing. Its entrance point is our justification by faith (as Paul notes). But then, as an extension of this justification, we discover the blessing of peace with God – that is, no longer does God count our sins against us or separate us from Himself. We may not have peace in every aspect of life at every time, but we will never be without this peace with God. But then the blessings keep coming. For no sooner as we forgiven and then justified, justified and then given peace, even this peace gives way to a new blessing – hope. More specifically, we “hope of sharing the glory of God.”

Now, “glory” is a rich and robust word in the Bible. It almost always attends to God and God alone (which makes Paul’s declaration that we might share in it all the more surprising and delightful). It is often manifested as the radiance that pours out of God’s very being – like, how our bodies are perpetually putting off heat in a cold room (since the principles of thermodynamics reveal that heat moves toward cold). Maybe you’ve seen a football player take his helmet off during a cold December game in Green Bay and the steam just rises off his sweat-covered scalp. That’s sort of how God’s glory is envisioned in scripture.

This glory is of a substance with God. It is not God, but neither does it exist without God. And now, amazingly and radically, Paul is telling us that we can hope to share in this glory. We can be of a substance with God without becoming God. It really is a startling message and the sort of promise that cannot be found anywhere in the Old Testament. This glory-promise is unique to God’s ministry in the world though and after Jesus the Christ.

All of this can feel like a mystery – an exciting one – but a mystery nonetheless, which is to say, we can believe this, but that belief doesn’t immediately translate into any particular action or new way of living in the world. And yet, if we are truly convinced that those who find their lives hidden with Christ are to share in God’s glory, then we can’t ever view one another the same way again. No longer is the guy with a nose whistle in the next pew over a minor annoyance. Nope. He’s the very radiance of God. No longer is the woman whose kids keep kicking the back of your pew just a frazzled mother. Nope. She is (and those kids are) the very radiance of God. Oh, and no longer are you the worst thing you see in the mirror each morning – the flab, the wrinkles, the gray, the bags, the regrets, the shame, the frustrations, the sorrow – nope, now you are the very radiance of God.

To live just one week like this is true would be to transform our every interaction and opinion. And wouldn’t that be a glorious thing, indeed? Amen.