“Man as created was already crowned with glory and honor, for made in the likeness of the enthroned Glory, a little lower than the angels of the divine council, man was invested with official authority to exercise dominion as priest-king in God’s earthly courts."

So write Dr. Meredith Kline in his  book, Images of the Spirit. Dr. Kline was my Old Testament professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachussetts, back in the day. I was honoured to be his Byinton Fellow Associate. Dr. Kline continues: "Yet, the glory of man’s royal functioning would be progressive as he increasingly fulfilled his historical task of subduing the earth, his ultimate attainment of functional glory awaiting the eschatological glorification of his whole nature after the image of the radiant Glory-Spirit. Ethical glory also belonged to man as created and in this respect man would have gone from glory to glory had he not sinned, moving on from a state of simple righteousness to one of confirmed righteousness."

I often found Dr. Kline's insights to be profound and searching - and different from those of many scholars. His seminal work, 'The Treaty of the Great King' almost made me become a Presbyterian as he shows the Covenant relationships of ancient Kings and their vassal servants, and the similarities in the many covenants of the Scripture, primarily in the revelation of God known as the Old and New Testaments (Covenants).

I love the faith and hope expressed in Dr. Kline's further observation: "Man re-created in the image of God is restored to the hope of the formal-physical image-glory of resurrection immortality and Spiritual existence. Meanwhile, God, who has prepared for the new man the covering of eternal glory, gives him the earnest of the Spirit (II Cor. 5:5). In his redemptive renewal man is re-created after the image of God in true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3: 10) and with respect to this ethical glory-likeness to God man is transformed from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord (II Cor. 3:18; 4:16; Rom. 12:2)."

Having passed through to the Bright Country some time ago, Professor Kline is even now basking in the Presence and the Glory that all God's Children will experience.