The Transforming Power of Beholding Jesus’ Glory
A verse of God’s
word that seems to return to my mind very often lately is this: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding
the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one
degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”[1]While
I have received much encouragement from the thought of God changing his
children to be more and more like Jesus Christ, today the context drove home
the wonderful realities of how this contrasts with any attempt to please God by
keeping the law.
When Paul writes,
“And we all,” he means all believers
in Jesus Christ. If you have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior through
the gospel of the kingdom, this applies to you. If you have not yet come to
this experience, the invitation stands open. However, this is also a contrast
with the fact that Moses alone went up the mountain to behold the glory of God
as he received the Ten Commandments,[2]
while the new covenant enables every believer to approach God through Jesus Christ.[3]
The
expression, “with unveiled face,” is
in contrast to that which came with the “veiled face” of Moses. Only Moses saw
the presence of God on Mount Sinai, and then he veiled his face so that the
people would not be overwhelmed with the glory that was fading from his face
when he came down from the mountain. All believers in Jesus Christ are to see
themselves as having an “unveiled face”,
meaning that there is no obstruction between us and the presence of God.
“Beholding the glory of the Lord,” means
that, through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are able to see the glory
of the Lord by faith.[4]
Our eyes are no longer veiled to the realities of God. We are not bound to the
kind of veil that keeps us from seeing the glory of God.[5]
While I have
much to learn about beholding the glory of the Lord by faith, it strikes me
that, if spending time with God in his word each morning is understood as, “beholding the glory of the Lord,” I don’t
think there is any further advertising required!
The remarkable
thing is that, in this faith-and-love relationship with Jesus Christ, we who
are his brothers, “are being transformed
into the same image from one degree of glory to another”. God initially
made man in his own image and likeness,[6]
and through the gospel returns us to that image, one degree at a time. In
contrast to this, when Moses came down from the mountain, the glory on his face
was fading. He gave the people the covenant of the Ten Commandments that were
written on tablets of stone,[7]
and no one was returned to God-likeness by the experience.
To make this
contrast very clear, Paul had just called the covenant of the Ten Commandments “the ministry of death”[8]
and, “the ministry of condemnation”.[9] He
was working to clarify that there is now “a
new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit,” meaning, not the
commandments written in letters on tablets of stone, but the personal
relationship with Jesus Christ through his Holy Spirit.
And, if that
is not enough contrast, Paul raises the symphonic crescendo to such heights of
clarity by declaring, “For the letter kills,
but the Spirit gives life.” That which was written by God’s own finger on
tablets of stone were the letters of death, so to speak. They never did
transform Israel into a people after God’s own heart. By the time Jesus came in
the flesh, Israel was so far gone that most of the nation did not receive him.[10]
However,
this new covenant,[11] the one Paul says, “For this
comes from the Lord who is the Spirit,” this covenant in Jesus’ blood
transforms all of God’s children into the same image as Jesus Christ from one
degree of glory to another. This will continue until that glorious day when God
completes what he started,[12] and we become just like Jesus when we see him as he is.[13]
Today’s
morning lesson on contrasts lifted my heart up into the light of the gospel so
that my heart was truly filled with Jesus’ joy, and my joy was made full, just
as Jesus promised would happen if I would feast on his words.[14] People like me can become like Jesus. That is the most remarkable
thing in the world. Make a list of man’s sins, and you will find me in there
somewhere, looking just as guilty as everybody else.
However,
somehow, the infinite, eternal God, looking into the bounds of space, time, and
matter, is personally transforming me in degrees that he calls “glory”. It is his word. I would not
have chosen it. Sluggard, yes. Disappointment, yes. Immature behind my years,
yes. But “one degree of glory to another”?
God had to tell me that! And this morning he did, loud and clear.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
No comments:
Post a Comment