John 12:28 “Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
In this context, to “glorify” is to hold up with the highest of all honor and reverential respect. As He declared, the name of God the “Father” had been wonderfully “glorified” in the coming and in the acts of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; for, it fulfilled four thousand years of prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah. And on at least two occasions, God the “Father” gloriously spoke in the hearing of men concerning His Son. On the occasion of our Lord’s Baptism, The Triune God Gloriously Revealed Himself when the Son of God was being Baptized, the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove and sat upon the Son, and God the “Father” spoke and said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)! Then, on another glorifying occasion, the Lord took “Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, 2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.” (Matthew 17:1). Astonishingly, accentuating the glory and power of our God, “there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with” the Lord (Matthew 17:3). When “Peter” suggested they build three monumental “tabernacles”, “one for” the Lord, “and one for Moses, and one for Elias” (Mark 17:4), to mark the glory of what they had just seen, once again God the Father gloriously spoke in the hearing of men. Matthew records, “behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him” (Matthew 17:5). Because God is Triune, this glory is mutual in the Godhead; Peter explained it this way, “For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (II Peter 1:17). And, just a short time prior, while standing at Lazarus’s open tomb our Lord spoke to God the “Father”: “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. 42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. 43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.” (John 11:41-44). In so speaking to God the “Father”, our Lord Jesus Christ glorified Him and emphasized His perfect union with God The “Father” and the Sovereign power of God, even over death. Furthermore, the “Father” would shortly “glorify” His name again in the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of His Beloved Son! Still today, these glorious truths concerning our God, compel us to prayerfully cry, “What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?” (Psalms 116:12)!