Why does the Father need to glorify the Son?

By CopticBot.ai (Coptic Space Inc.) · Last reviewed 2026-10-10

We must distinguish between the Son’s Eternal Glory (which He has forever as God) and His Acquired Glory (which He took as a Man for our sake).

1. The Son Did Not "Need" It for Himself

As God the Word, the Son is Co-essential with the Father. He lacks nothing. He is the "Lord of Glory." As St. Cyril explains in On the Unity of Christ, the Son asked the Father to "glorify Me with the glory which I had before the world was" (John 17:5).

He isn't asking for a new glory He didn't have; He is asking for His eternal, divine glory to now be revealed and manifested in His human body.

2. For the Sake of Humanity

The Son became Man. When the Father glorifies the Son, He is glorifying the Human Nature that the Son joined to Himself.

• Before the Incarnation, human nature was disgraced, dead, and separated from God because of sin.
• The Son took a human body, and that body went through death.
• When the Father "glorifies" or "raises" Him, human nature—for the first time—is brought into the presence of God, glorified, and seated at the right hand of the Father.

The Father glorifies the Son so that we can be glorified in Him. If the Father didn't glorify the "human" Jesus, then our human nature would remain dead in the grave.

3. To Reverse the Shame of the Cross

To the world, the Cross was the ultimate shame, a sign of being cursed by God. The heretics and the Jews of that time looked at the Cross and said, "This man is a criminal."

The Father "glorified" Him to prove to the entire universe that this Man was not a sinner, but was the Incarnate God. The Resurrection and the Ascension are the Father's "stamp of approval," publicly revealing that the flesh of Jesus is the "Flesh of God."

4. The "Economy" (House Rules) of Salvation

In the "Economy" (the plan for our salvation), the Son took the role of a Servant.

• He obeyed the Father even unto death.
• In response, the Father highly exalted Him (Philippians 2:9).

This isn't because the Father is "higher" than the Son in nature, but because the Son voluntarily took a lower position (Humanity) to rescue us. The Father "glorifying" the Son is the completion of the cycle: God became Man (humiliation) so that Man could be united to God (glorification).

Summary in Coptic Theology

We do not believe Jesus was a man who "earned" divinity. We believe He is God who took on the "lowliness" of man.

• The Humiliation: Belonged to His humanity (hunger, thirst, death).
• The Glory: Belonged to His divinity.

When the Father glorifies the Son, He is essentially "filling" the humanity of Christ with the light and power of the Divinity. Because we are members of His body (the Church), that glory now flows to us.

As we pray in the Litany of the Gospel, we see Him as the one who "rendered the power of the enemy void." The Father glorifying the Son is the victory of the Trinity over our fallen state. Mistaking this for a sign of weakness (as the Nestorians or Arians do) is to miss the point: He accepted the "need" for glory only so He could give that glory to you.