God glorifies us that we may have His divine image in full; this is the consummating of God’s organic salvation (Rom. 8:30, 23; Eph. 4:30; Phil. 3:21; Col. 3:4b; 1 Pet. 5:10a; 2 Tim. 2:10; Heb. 2:10).
Glorification, the final step in God’s organic salvation, brings the conformed believers into the glory of God. Many Christians today have a wrong concept that our glorification will take place in the twinkling of an eye at the coming back of the Lord Jesus. Such a concept is altogether inaccurate. Glorification is accomplished through a gradual process, beginning with regeneration, continuing through renewing, sanctification, transformation, and conformation, and finally arriving at glorification by which we have His divine image in full.
God’s organic salvation has not only the base, the building up, the establishing, the shaping, and the solidifying, but also the consummating. God glorifies us that we may arrive at the consummation of the possession of His divine image.
In regeneration God seals us with His Spirit (Eph. 1:13); this sealing Spirit, who is the Triune God Himself entering into us, causes us to bear God’s image, signified by the seal, thus making us like God.
This sealing of the sealing Spirit is like inking, saturating us from within with the glorious life element of God throughout our life, resulting in the redemption of our body (Eph. 4:30; Rom. 8:23) so that our entire being bears the divine image of God.
On the one hand, God’s glorifying us is the glory of God saturating us from within. At our regeneration we received the sealing of the Spirit. This sealing Spirit within us saturates us daily, continually, unceasingly, and constantly. Eventually, the result will be the redemption of our body in our glorification.
On the other hand, God’s glorifying us has an outward aspect; that is, at the time of our rapture when we are matured in the divine life, we will be brought into God’s glory outwardly for our glorification (Rom. 8:30; Heb. 2:10).
Hence, we will be glorified from within through the lifelong saturation with the glory of God and from without through our being brought into God’s glory. Whereas the inner saturation is a lifelong process, our being brought into God’s glory outwardly will be instantaneous. By such a glorification we will arrive at the consummation of the possession of God’s divine image.