We have so much working for us—that the Creator would purpose these things so far in advance, and be interested in us as individuals from long before our births. This passage is also about those whom God has called according to His purpose. It likewise mentions God’s foreknowledge of those whom He calls. It says we are predestined to be conformed to Christ’s image, and that His predestination includes justification, which we saw in I Peter, as well as glorification.
Now, before we conclude that our part in the first resurrection is assured if we are called according to God’s purpose, we need to think carefully about what it means that He “also glorified” those whom He predestined, called, and justified. The glorification we think of first is our change to spirit in the resurrection when our bodies will match Christ’s glorious body. Plugging that glorification in here certainly makes it sound like our spiritual completion and resurrection were determined from the very beginning.
But there is another way to understand the glorification here that also answers the question that many have asked, which is why sanctification is not mentioned here.
In John 17:22, during His Passover prayer, Jesus says to the Father, “. . . the glory which You gave Me I have given them . . ..” Jesus gave glory to the disciples, even as He had glory while He walked the earth. It was not the glory of a luminescent body, but rather the glory of a life of absolute purity and truth. Christ gave glory to the disciples through His instruction and His overwhelming example. This relates to what Paul says in II Corinthians 4:6:
Drawing this all together, it means that those whom God has called into a relationship and who thus come into His presence, like Moses did, have been glorified in the sense that our lives begin to radiate the light of Christ’s life and truth. This is why Jesus said both that He is the light of the world, but also that His disciples are the light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5; Matthew 5:14; Philippians 2:15).
When someone has spiritual understanding upon which he acts, it becomes visible—there is a glory. To glorify someone can also mean to bestow honor on them, which also applies to all whom God has called and justified—it is a tremendous honor that has been given to us. We are already partakers of the divine nature, which is another way of describing this glorification. It is the initial stage of a future glorification, but it is glorification, nonetheless. Those whom God justified, He has also glorified. We shine as lights in a darkened world.
