In John 12 the Lord Jesus is first of all found in the loved circle of His own at Bethany where they made Him a supper, and where Lazarus sat in communion with Him, while Martha served in devotion of heart, and Mary in worship anoints the feet of the Son of God so that the house is filled with the odour of the ointment. Then we see a great crowd from Jerusalem hailing the Lord as the King of Israel, anticipating the day when He will come to His earthly people and be received with acclamation. Afterwards the Greeks come, and say to Philip, "Sir, we desire to see Jesus," and Andrew and Philip come and tell Jesus, to which He replies, "The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified."
The desire of the Gentiles to see the Lord brings before Him in vision the hour of His glory, when the church will share His heavenly glory, when Israel will be blessed on earth on the ground of the New Covenant, and when the Gentiles will be blessed according to the promise of God to Abraham, "In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Psalm 8 brings before us the glory of the Son of Man in the coming days, when the Name of the Lord will be excellent in all the earth, and everything will be established under Christ for the glory of God and the blessing of men.
But the Lord immediately turns from the scene of glory of Psalm 8 to that which was essential for its accomplishment, saying, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone; but if it die, it bears much fruit." Not only was it necessary that He should die if blessing was to be brought to His own, to Israel and to the Gentiles, but also that He might enter into His glory as Son of Man, the divine centre of all the glory and blessing that God had purposed. His glory as Son of Man rests on accomplished redemption, and will be displayed before the whole universe in the Millennium.
Quite another aspect of the glory of the Son of Man is brought before us in John 13:31-32, where the Lord Jesus says, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall glorify Him immediately." Here the Son of Man is glorified in going into death to secure the glory of God. Every other man who died received the wages of sin, but the Son of Man in obedience to the will of God entered into death to glorify God in relation to the whole question of sin, and to enable God to give effect to all the counsels of His love.
How brightly shines the glory of the Son of Man in the cross! His obedience unto death, even to such a death of shame and judgment, contrasts so blessedly with the disobedience of the first man. Every other man, by sin, had brought dishonour to God, but this Man, in suffering for sin on the cross glorified God, procuring redemption, which removed the barrier that hindered man entering God's presence, and enabled the redeemed sinner to view the glory of the Son of Man and the glory of God shining in His face.
Having glorified God in His death upon the cross, the Son of Man is glorified by God "in Himself." So that the Son of Man has not to wait until the day of His kingdom glory to be glorified; He is glorified "immediately" in being set down by God at His own right hand. Being glorified "in Himself" at once brings out the glory of the Person of the Son of Man, for only a divine Person could be so glorified. Yet it manifests so wonderfully the place that Man has in Jesus, God's beloved Son, in being now glorified in the presence of God the Father with a glory that is altogether divine.
From these Scriptures then we can see the glory of the Son of Man in three distinct aspects. First there is the glory in which He shall be displayed in His kingdom, when as Head over all things He shall come in His own glory as Son of Man, in the glory of His Father, and of the holy angels. Secondly, there is the moral glory of His submission and obedience even unto death, so that in the cross He brings to God the glory of redemption, meeting all the claims of His nature as of His throne in relation to the sin that stained His fair universe and dishonoured His name. Thirdly, there is the present glory of the Son of Man in the presence of God, the divine answer to the cross and to all that He wrought there for God's pleasure.
Wm. C. Reid.