John 13:31 “When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.”

Jesus’ glory is not like the glory our world lusts for. When I was in high school, we called the quarterback, the running backs, and the receivers–the people who handled the ball–the “glory boys.” They were the ones who got their names in the papers. CEO’s of corporations, presidents and prime ministers of nations are showered with recognition and glory because of the power that they wield.

It’s not necessarily an evil thing if some of that kind of glory should happen to come our way. Prestige, power, and pleasure were experienced by some of the believers in the Bible, and they survived. But it is tempting to let that kind of glory reign as god in our lives. One man summed it up this way, “One of the saddest pages kept by the recording angel is the record of souls damned by success.”

Being surrounded by such worldly glory can alter our understanding of God’s glory. What did Jesus mean when he said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him”? God has prestige, power, and pleasures, this is true. He has more of these things than any human being who ever lived.

But is that what Jesus was seeking? During Jesus’ earthly ministry many tempted him to find his glory that way. His brothers encouraged him to go up to Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Tabernacles to perform some miracles (John 7:3-5). They figured that he wanted to be a famous public figure. Jesus refused. Many of Jesus’ followers wanted him to become the political King of Israel. They wanted him to return it to the good old days when Israel was the envy of the world. Jesus refused. Satan even came to Jesus and offered, “Here, I will make you an instant celebrity, if you will just jump off the temple, or I will make you the King of the world, if you will just bow down and worship me.” Jesus refused.

Religious people toy with similar ideas about bringing God glory today. “If God’s people could only get control of the power, then what a paradise of safety, morality, and plenty for all we could make of this world. What glory we would bring to God.” That thinking distracts churches from centering their ministries on the gospel of forgiveness of sins. I am in favor of ending abortion, strengthening the family, defending religious freedoms, and promoting good morals. We all need to be. But too much of Christian activism is still infected by a fascination with power. If the glory of his power were God’s main concern, then all of these world problems–and they are problems–would have been taken care of long ago.

Jesus was looking for his glory in another place. “NOW is the Son of Man glorified,” we read. What was happening now? “When he was gone…” and that “he” was Judas. Now is the Son of Man glorified, when my betrayer goes to spring his trap and sets the events of my horrible suffering in motion. Now is the Son of Man glorified, as I am abandoned by my disciples, humiliated by my people, and crucified by my rulers. Now is the Son of Man glorified, as I carry the sins of the world to my cross, and give up my life, my soul, my all in the most shameful death imaginable.

Do you understand why this is his glory? It is not because Jesus did something very brave, self-less, or even hard to do. To all the world his death looked like a huge mistake. What good could he do, how could he change things, if he were dead? But “this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Jesus is glorified by his death because God himself, dying to save you from your sins, is the ultimate expression of God’s love for you.

And God is glorified in him. Nowhere does God identify himself by saying “God is power.” But he does say “God is love.” It is part of his very essence. Jesus reveals this most clearly when he dies for us. Such self-sacrificing love leads our hearts back to God. We can come to this God, and glorify him, for reasons unlike the worshipers of all the other gods in the world. Such love fills us with sincere trust and heartfelt love for him who loved us, and gave himself up for us.

Luke 20:35-36 “Those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”

When I die, I don’t want that to be the end for me. And I am not alone in thinking that way. Christians historically have confessed their faith in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. But people of every culture in almost every kind of faith throughout time have longed for a life to come as well. Over 4500 years ago the ancient Egyptians built their pyramids in hope of an afterlife. Today, over 50% of people believe there is a heaven even when they have no religion at all. All of this reflects what the author of Ecclesiastes once wrote: “(God) has also set eternity in the heart of man.” We long for something more than the life we know now.

But “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting” has always had its skeptics. We see what happens to dead bodies over time. “Living” skeletons and zombies and mummies and ghosts are fine for the horror films, but we don’t actually see the dead return to life like that, much less in perfectly restored form. It’s not hard to see why atheists, who demand more than God’s promises, would have their doubts. Nor have the skeptics always come from outside the church. Paul had to deal with people who denied the resurrection in the church of Corinth, and there are professors in Christian colleges and seminaries today who teach that there is no real resurrection of the body.

The Sadducees of Jesus’ day were a religious party whose skepticism led them to deny a resurrection of the dead. They tried to make the idea look ridiculous by confronting Jesus with a scenario in which a woman was widowed multiple times. If there is a resurrection, whose wife would she be in the next life? Surely God would not allow her to live with multiple husbands! To these men, life after death was a farce.

So Jesus explains that marriage is an institution for this life only. It doesn’t follow us to heaven. Those God considers worthy of a place in that new world will face no dilemmas regarding spouse or family.

Nor do we need to fear that heaven will somehow be inferior to our current experience, then. The absence of marriage doesn’t mean we will have something less. Jesus implies that this new life will be a huge upgrade. “Those who are considered worthy” will take part in it. Don’t misunderstand his words. It’s not that any of us actually is worthy in and of ourselves. God considers us worthy because of the value and worth of Jesus our substitute. If we listed our own qualifications on an application for heavenly membership, we would submit a blank piece of paper. The only “qualifications” we can claim are borrowed. They come directly from his own perfect life of love. And no background check can turn up any marks against us, because every sin has been permanently removed from our record by his innocent death on the cross.

That God should look at us as people worthy of heaven, then, is a powerful expression of his grace. From the externals, the difference between us and a worthy candidate for heaven is far greater than the difference between a bag lady or a homeless person and a country club member. One would expect that our presence would only spoil it for everyone else.

Then we find that God has filled heaven with others just like us, people considered worthy because they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. All of them have been cleansed, transformed, and made immortal. “They can no longer die.” In his grace God has given us the priceless privilege of participating in a new life with a new body indescribably better than anything we now know.

The resurrection is not only a certain promise we can believe. It is a beautiful promise we want to.

John 8:4-5 “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

No one denied that this woman was actually guilty of adultery–some form of extra-marital sex. Jesus didn’t question it. The woman herself never denied it. She wasn’t being mistreated because the Pharisees and the teachers of the law said what she did was wrong.

In this even the Pharisees and teachers of the law were wiser than so many who would like to take the commandment “You Shall Not Commit Adultery” off the books. They call it a victimless sin, at least where everyone involved has given their consent. “Sex is healthy, and it’s natural, and restricting it to marriage simply gets in the way of a beautiful thing,” is the claim. I don’t have to document that claim for you, do I? You watch TV and go to movies. You see the magazines in the checkout lane at the grocery store.

The truth is, sex is healthy and it is natural. But take it outside of marriage and it hurts everybody. It often robs children of one of their parents. It erodes our ability to form trusting, committed, lasting relationships. It spreads disease. When it leads to pregnancy it may cut short a young person’s education and employability, fostering first poverty and then crime. Without boundaries it makes us less self-disciplined and self-controlled. It moves us more and more in the direction of seeing other people as objects for our use rather than children of God for us to serve. It makes all of society less stable, less functional. The God whose main concern is that we love our neighbor was consistent with that goal when he commanded, “You shall not commit adultery.”

That doesn’t mean the woman’s accusers were taking the right course of action with her. She may have sinned, but she was a sinner mistreated. When the prophet Nathan came to David after his adultery with Bathsheba, he had a rather elaborate presentation to bring David to repent of his sin so that the Lord could restore him. It seems that there was some concern for the man’s soul.

Where is there any evidence of that kind of concern for the woman here? Where is their sense of grief and shame that a sister in the faith has fallen? Where is the seeking love, hoping to bring a lost sinner to repentance and restore her to God?

Where are we as we react to a world whose morals should make us blush? Are we too weak to resist? Are our own attitudes about sexuality coming more and more from the trash on TV or the biblically ignorant people with whom we work?

Or in our zero tolerance, one-strike-and-you’re-out world are we angry and mean and hoping to make an example out of someone? Does it matter to us how a sinner is treated, because they probably have it coming anyway?

Maybe Jesus’ final verdict unsettles us: “Neither do I condemn you.” Don’t misunderstand his words. He is not approving her sin. He does not excuse it. Those who want to remove adultery from the things condemned by the 10 commandments cannot appeal to Jesus’ words here.

These are words of forgiveness. In fact, they express perfectly what we mean when we use that five-dollar theological word “Justification.” Justification is God’s not guilty verdict. When God justifies us, he declares us not guilty of our sins. He declares us not guilty, not because we haven’t committed sin, but because he doesn’t count it against us. He counted it against Jesus instead when Jesus died on the cross.

Isn’t that what he is telling the woman here? “Neither do I condemn you.” “I declare you not guilty, though you know full well you committed the sin.” You are free from you sin. You are justified. Now you can go…and leave it.

Jesus never gives us a license to indulge our sins. He does not deny that we have committed them. But he doesn’t throw stones at us. He melts and breaks our stone cold hearts with his grace and mercy. You are forgiven. Go and sin no more.

John 7:18 “He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.”

There is nothing wrong with having a large church, a successful ministry, and a good reputation in the community. Large numbers don’t have to be about self-glory for the preacher or his church. Behind each number there is a soul, a child of God who has been saved for eternity, when the gospel is preached and believed. The more believers the better.

But Jesus warns us here about the one who speaks on his own to gain honor for himself. There are ways of gathering large numbers that have nothing to do with bringing souls, or glory, to God. A man can develop a “cult of the personality” that attaches people more to himself than to Christ. Maybe he accommodates himself to the culture instead of confronting it where it needs to be confronted. Maybe his message is delivered with a winsome smile and appealing stories, but it doesn’t really say anything. Maybe he brings glory, not just to himself, but to all his listeners, by giving them some of the credit for their faith and salvation. If this is what his teaching accomplishes, he has failed the test.

“But he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth.” Jesus did more than teach good morals or gather a large number of disciples for himself. He brought his Father glory by teaching people what God is really like. He did not preach the hard-hearted bean-counter god of the Pharisees, only interested in whether we have paid him all we owe. He preached the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. He preached the God who has done everything we needed to be saved. He preached the God who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we might be spared.

That still brings God glory today. Yes, we have to preach everything in his law to bring people to repentance. But what brings God more glory than anything else is the truth that he fulfilled the commandments for us perfectly in Jesus’ perfect life. He paid all the penalty for every sin in Jesus’ innocent death. Heaven is a gift that already belongs to us in Jesus’ glorious resurrection. Even the faith to believe it and receive it is his gift.

That is more than good advice or reliable information. That accomplishes God’s glory and our salvation. That kind of teaching passes the test.