By Clement Harrold

September 10, 2026

Throughout the New Testament we are reminded of the mysterious connection between suffering and glory.  

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus challenges His disciples, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26)

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told that Jesus was “crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death” (Heb 2:9). The author goes on to explain that it was fitting that God the Father, “in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Heb 2:10).

St. Paul, in his famous Christ hymn in Philippians 2, recalls how the Son humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name” (Phil 2:9).

We also have Paul’s famous assurance in 2 Corinthians 4:17: “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”  

Finally, we mustn’t forget the apostle’s challenging line in Romans 8:17, where we are informed that our destiny is to become co-heirs with Christ “provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

From these different passages we learn that Christ’s suffering was the prelude to divine glory. Furthermore, it is by our own participation in Christ’s suffering that we come to share in His glorification.  

So far so good, but there is another, even more powerful lesson hidden beneath the surface in one particular book of the New Testament.

When we delve into the Gospel of John, we soon discover something quite startling: Christ’s crucifixion doesn’t simply lead to His glorification. Rather, the crucifixion is His glorification.  

As we shall see, in St. John’s breathtaking theological vision, the Son’s sacrifice on Calvary is nothing less than an epiphany of divine glory.

Trinitarian Love

We cannot make sense of John’s theology of the Cross without first taking stock of his portrayal of the profound love that has existed between the Father and the Son before all ages.

In his prologue, John observes that “the only Son” abides “in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18).  

In John 3:35, Jesus Himself explains that “the Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.” This sentiment is repeated in various ways throughout the Fourth Gospel:

“For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing” (John 5:20)

“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again” (John 10:17)

“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (John 15:10)

“I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26)

Another relevant verse is John 4:34, where Jesus announces, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.”

Similarly, in John 8:29, Jesus affirms, “And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.”

John 14:31 is especially notable for being the one instance in John’s Gospel where Jesus explicitly declares what has been implicit through the previous fourteen chapters, namely, His own burning love for the Father: “but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go hence.”

The role of the Holy Spirit is more mysterious in John’s Gospel, but we still learn something of the Spirit’s intimate relationship with Father and Son.

The Spirit is sent by the Son but “from the Father” (John 15:26), and it is the Spirit who flows out of the heart of Christ to provide living water to all those who believe (see John 7:37–39; cf. Rev 22:1–2).

Finally, we have John 15:9, which presents us with one of the most startling verses in the entire Bible: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.”

It is worth pausing to absorb the full force of these words.

When we see the extremity of the Son’s love for us on the Cross, we must remember that this is nothing but an image of that same self-giving love which the Son has eternally received from the Father. 

John’s “Lifted Up” Passages

The next step in our theological reflection is to consider Jesus’s three “lifted up” sayings in the Gospel of John:

“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14)

“When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he” (John 8:28)

“‘Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.’ He said this to show by what death he was to die.” (John 12:31–33)

Together these statements hark back to the Suffering Servant of Isaiah: “Behold, my servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high” (Isa 52:13).

In Greek, as in English, the “lifted up” sayings carry a dual meaning.

On a literal level, they point forward to Christ being physically lifted up on the Cross. But on a theological level, they also signify His exaltation through His Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension (see John 3:13).

In John, these are not separate stages of Christ’s glorification; rather, His being lifted up on the Cross is the beginning of His exaltation. As the Catechism puts it, “The lifting up of Jesus on the cross signifies and announces his lifting up by his Ascension into heaven, and indeed begins it” (§662).

The significance of this should not be lost on us.

Although we don’t have the space to survey the relevant passages, John’s account of Christ’s trial and death is heavily imbued with ironic imagery. In particular, John wants his readers to see that in His Passion Jesus is truly King, not just of the Jews but of the whole world.

Something similar happens in the “lifted up” sayings.

By carefully recording these statements, John wants us to see that the moment of Christ’s humiliation, suffering, and death is, in reality, the moment of His glorious exaltation.  

This motif is particularly striking in the case of the passage from John 8.

While the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition renders Christ’s words as, “then you will realize that I am he,” the Greek text can also be understood as being a reference to the divine name: “then you will realize that I AM.” If this interpretation holds, then Jesus isn’t just saying that the Cross will reveal His identity as the Son of Man; much more audaciously, He is saying that the Cross will reveal His identity as the eternal Son of God.  

This mystery is aptly captured in Isaac Watts’ 1707 hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.  

The hymn speaks poignantly of that “Love so amazing, so divine” which is unveiled on the Cross. Through His Passion and death, Jesus reveals that He is true God and true man, for the love that shines forth amidst the darkness of Calvary is not merely human—it is also divine.  

The Hour of Glory

So far, we’ve seen that John’s Gospel testifies to the radical love between the Persons of the Blessed Trinity while at the same time highlighting how Christ’s crucifixion is also His exaltation.

We are now in a position to take this reflection one step further by exploring how the Cross is nothing less than an epiphany of divine glory.

What is glory, exactly?

In his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas describes it as “the manifestation of some goodness” (ST II-II.132.4). In other words, “what is properly designated by the name ‘glory’ is that someone’s good comes into the knowledge and approval of many” (ST II-II.132.1).  

Elsewhere Aquinas borrows from a helpful definition attributed to St. Ambrose, which says that glory is the “splendor of nature that is known and praised.”

The Catechism explains that God created the world not to increase His perfection (which would be impossible) but rather to manifest it. As such, God’s glory “consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created” (§294).  

Later on, the Catechism characterizes the holiness of God as “the inaccessible center of his eternal mystery,” before adding: “What is revealed of it in creation and history, Scripture calls ‘glory,’ the radiance of his majesty” (§2809).  

The Hebrew word for glory is kabod. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible explains:

Often translated “glory”, the term is used in a variety of ways in Scripture. It can refer to wealth and material abundance (Gen 31:1), outward splendor or magnificence (Hag 2:3), or even the honor that one person bestows upon another (Prov 11:16). When the glory of God is meant, it refers to the visible manifestation of his presence (Lev 9:6), usually in the form of a dark or fiery cloud (Ex 16:10), like the one that enveloped the top of Mt. Sinai (Ex 24:15–17). This is the glory of his presence that sanctified the Tent of Meeting when God proclaimed that he will come to meet the people of Israel (Ex 29:43), the glory that filled the Mosaic Tabernacle (Ex 40:34) and later the Solomonic Temple (1 Kings 8:11). Since the Hebrew noun “glory” (kabod) is related to the verb “be heavy” (kabed), it is likely the Israelites understood the glory of the Lord to be the immeasurable heaviness of his Being (see Paul’s comment at 2 Cor 4:17). This would explain why, in 1 Samuel, the glory that departs from Israel (1 Sam 4:22) presses heavy upon the Philistines in the form of crushing judgments (1 Sam 5:6–7, 11) that could only be lightened if “glory” was rendered back to the God of Israel (1 Sam 6:5).

Our overlapping definitions can help us to make better sense of the many references to glory that punctuate John’s Gospel.

Particularly significant for our purposes is the way that Jesus ties the theme of glory to His coming “hour.” This hour refers not to a literal 60-minute period, but rather to the entirety of Christ’s Passion. At the beginning of Holy Week, for example, Jesus declares, “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified” (John 12:23).  

A few days later, on the evening of Holy Thursday, we find another allusion to the hour: “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

This sets the stage for what happens when Judas, the betrayer, exits the Last Supper:

So, after receiving the morsel, he immediately went out; and it was night. When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified; if God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. (John 13:30–32)

In John’s Gospel, references to “day” and “night” always include a symbolic element. Hence this scene teaches us that it is precisely from within the darkest night of the hour of Christ’s Passion that the Father is glorified in and through the Son.

Finally, we must pay attention to John 17—sometimes referred to as the high priestly prayer of Jesus—which takes place immediately before Christ’s arrest in Gethsemane.

Again we find a reference to the hour of the Passion: “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee’” (John 17:1). A little later on, Jesus implies that this hour will somehow unveil the glory that He has eternally shared with the Father: “and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made” (John 17:5).

Toward the end of His prayer, Jesus expresses His desire for His followers to behold His glory, while re-affirming the love that the Father has for Him: “Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

Glory Reconfigured

The foregoing discussion drives home a surprising truth.

The crucifixion of Jesus is not just the torture and execution of an innocent man. Nor can it be reduced simply to an atoning work by which we are saved from our sins. For the witness of John’s Gospel is that, at its heart, the Cross is a theophanic event, an epiphany of Trinitarian love, a revelation of divine glory.

This in turn means that we must be prepared to reevaluate what God’s glory looks like, together with the role that suffering plays in God’s glorification and ours.

For example, John tells us in his prologue, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14). Our reflections suggest that John beheld the glory of the Logos not just in His miracles and exorcisms, and not just in His Resurrection and Ascension, but also in His Passion and death.

Or again, we might recall the episode in John 12 where John relates a passage from the prophet Isaiah which points forward to Jesus. John adds an editorial comment: “Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke of him” (John 12:41).

If we know our Old Testament, we will remember that Isaiah’s vision of the divine glory occurred in Isaiah 6, when the prophet saw the Lord enthroned and the seraphim crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  

But what exactly is the glory that Isaiah saw?

If our reading of John’s Gospel is correct, then it seems that this is none other than the glory of the Cross.

In his mystical vision, Isaiah received a glimpse of how the Son would one day be exalted on Calvary and enthroned on the wood of the Cross while countless battalions of His holy angels looked on in trembling and awe. (This interpretation has been unpacked at length by Daniel J. Brendsel in his monograph “Isaiah Saw His Glory”: The Use of Isaiah 52–53.)

Finally, let us not forget Our Lord’s words in His discourse on the vine and the branches: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8).

Our souls were created to be fruitful, and this means they must be pruned through our pursuit of good works and our endurance in suffering (see John 15:2). It is by our patient acceptance of this (often painful) pruning process that we grow as disciples and give glory to God the Father.  

Behold the Lamb of God

Near the beginning of John’s Gospel, St. John the Baptist delivers a line that serves as a kind of one-sentence summary of what John’s readers are asked to do: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).  

Our task as Christians is to behold the glory of the eternal Son who offers Himself on the Cross.  

Just as the Israelites in the desert were saved from the poison of the seraph serpents by looking upon the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up (see John 3:14–15), so we are saved from the poison of sin by looking upon the One who “bore our sins in his body” (1 Pet 2:24) when He was lifted up on the Cross.

In an Angelus address for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Pope Francis reflected beautifully on the themes we have been discussing:

But how is it possible that God’s glory would  manifest itself right there, on the Cross? One would think it would  happen at the Resurrection, not on the Cross, which is a defeat, a failure! Instead, today, talking about his Passion, Jesus says: “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified” (v. 23). What does he mean?

He is telling us that, for God, glory does not correspond to human success, fame and popularity; for God, glory has nothing self-referential about it. It is not a grandiose manifestation of power to be followed by public applause. For God, glory is to love to the point of giving one’s life. Glorification, for him, means giving himself, making himself accessible, offering his love. And this reached its culmination on the Cross, right there, where Jesus unfolded God’s love to the maximum, fully revealing the face of mercy, giving us life and forgiving his crucifiers.

The passage that inspired the Holy Father’s insights was from John 12.

When some Greeks come forward asking to see Jesus, at first He seems to dodge their request. Rather than providing the Greeks with a straightforward “yes” or “no” answer, Jesus alludes instead to His impending Passion:

The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit

The implication of this answer is astonishing.

In response to the request to see Him, Jesus points to the Cross.

Thus we find ourselves confronted with the most explosive thesis of John’s Gospel. The moment when Jesus’s glorious identity will be seen most clearly is when He hangs naked and bloody from a tree, because that is when He will most perfectly reveal the radical, infinite, self-giving love of the Blessed Trinity.

Further reading:

How Was Crucifixion Perceived in the Ancient World?

Love Extravagant: Jesus on the Cross

The Saving Sadness of Christ

Uncovering the Paradox of the Cross | Scott Hahn w/ Clem Harrold