AN UNVEILED REFLECTION
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 25, 2020 under 2020 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; October 25, 2020 from 2 Corinthians 3:12-18
Theme: Those who gaze upon Christ with an unveiled view become transformed into His image.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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We look at one such passage this morning. In 2 Corinthians 3:12-18, the apostle Paul wrote these words about his ministry—and the ministry of those who served with him in proclaiming the message of the gospel;
Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech—unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:12-18).
There are many remarkable things that Paul—under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—declares to his readers in these words. But the thing that I want to especially highlight to you this morning is what he says in that last verse. In verse 18, we’re told that “we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Those words declare to us nothing less than the life-transforming power of Jesus Christ toward all who come to Him by faith, and who humbly turn their attention to Him.
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Now; this passage especially came to my mind the other day when I was having my personal time in the Scriptures. I had been reading a portion of God’s word that talks about how we—as believers—are to minister in one another’s lives. We’re to help one another in our troubles, and bear one another’s burdens. And it caused me to think back to the early days of my training in ministry—and the things that I was learning about pastoral counseling.
Early on, I was very ambitious. I had read some books on pastoral counseling and some other books on psychology; and I thought that I had pretty much figured it all out. I was under the supervision of another pastor who had done a lot of counseling, and who had some pretty strong ideas about how it should be done. He had passed a lot of those ideas on to me. And so, all on my own, I actually sat down—as a personal project—and began to develop a detailed philosophy of counseling that would cover all types of situations. I wanted to develop an approach that would, of course, be strictly biblical; but that would be comprehensive enough to cover all of the essential rules and principles of daily living that would deal adequately with any problem that anyone might have. I sought to set it down in the form of a set of systematic rules that would enable me—as a pastor and a counselor—to master counseling situations of all kinds, and that would provide the solutions to all the varieties of problems that people might face.
I think it took me only a day or two before I gave this up. Thankfully! Who in the world did I think I was?
Looking back, I believe that I was simply thinking in the way that a lot of other people think. If we just have the right set of principles in place and the right set of rules to follow, and if we just correctly assess people on the basis of those principles and teach them to carefully conform to those standards, then we would be able to help them solve all their behavioral and life-style problems. But now—many years later—I know that we can’t solve our problems in life with a set of rules and standards—no matter how wonderful we think those rules may be. I have grown to appreciate something that all those books on counseling and psychology never told me—that the solution to our problems comes, not from following a set of wonderful rules, but through entering into a relationship with a wonderful Person. That Person alone is able to solve all of the problems of whoever sincerely enters into that relationship with Him and who trusts Him.
That Person—of course—is the Lord Jesus Christ; the Son of God, who loves us and who died on the cross to redeem us from our sins; the only truly ‘wonderful counselor’ that there is. And so now; I believe that the most effective thing that I or anyone else can do to help other people with their problems in life is to first make sure that I am in a deep relationship of love with Jesus; and then, to introduce others to Him and to invite them to grow to know Him better, and then—most of all—to let Him solve their problems in the way that He knows best.
I have embraced Colossians 1:28-29 as the theme of my ministry toward others:
Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily (Colossians 1:28-29).
Finding the solution to the problems that plague us is not really a very complicated thing. It certainly becomes complicated when we try to reduce things down to a bunch of impersonal rules and principles that we control. I tried to do that; and it didn’t work. But when we enter into a deep relationship of love with Jesus Christ in a personal dependent way—when we cease worrying so much about ourselves; and grow instead to know Him through the Scriptures, and walk in obedience to Him, and keep our eyes focused upon Him—then the troubles of life really do, eventually, find their resolution in Him. Just like it says in that great old hymn:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Jesus helps us to grow so much in love with Him that we eventually put away every addictive habit, or to turn away from every sinful practice, or set aside every hateful and bitter attitude, and to become more and more like Himself in our life and our behavior. He even places His Holy Spirit in us as our indwelling Helper and Guide and Counselor, who helps us to learn more about Jesus, and to walk in obedience to Him. The Holy Spirit even reproduces the very life of Jesus in and through us.
It really is just that simple. So many of our problems are solved when we yield ourselves to a deep relationship with Jesus. And what’s more, so many problems are avoided when we stay there. Just fix your gaze upon Jesus Christ. Grow to Him better through the Bible. Trust Him through prayer. Enter into a life of dependency upon Him in every decision of life. Follow His steps wherever they may lead. And you’ll find that, increasingly, your life will change. It won’t happen overnight. Those ‘quick spiritual fixes’—those tactics that we try to use in order to solve our problems quickly without a dependent relationship with Him—never work. In the long run, they really only end up making things worse. But over time, if we’ll grow closer and closer to Him by faith—His Holy Spirit helping us and empowering us—our life becomes progressively conformed to His own.
All who genuinely love and trust and yield themselves to Him can testify that this is so.
So consider those words again: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Those are not just mere religious and sentimental words. They are based on the idea of something more real than anything else on this earth. They are based on the idea that the claims of the gospel are objectively true: that we truly are fallen from God because of sin, and that we need redemption; and that God truly has sent His Son into the world to become one of us; that He truly did live a sinless life, truly died on the cross for us as our Substitute, truly was raised from the dead three days later, and now truly does bodily sit at the right hand of God the Father in intercession for us; and that anyone who wishes to may now truly enter into a relationship with Him by faith and have all their sins washed away.
If those claims of the gospel are true, and if those words of Paul from our passage are true—and I believe they absolutely are—then, no matter how radical it may seem to this world, we actually have in those words of Paul’s the basis for genuine, permanent, glorious life-transformation. Other things certainly might provide help along the way—but they only help if we keep Jesus first. Those other things, in fact, aren’t really even absolutely necessary; because all of our needs can be fully met and all of our problems can find their complete resolution in knowing and loving Jesus Christ and in being reconciled to God through Him.
This is because those who gaze upon Jesus Christ with an unveiled view become transformed into His image. There can be no greater power for positive life-transformation than that!
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Now; the apostle Paul was writing all of this to the Corinthian believers because there were some teachers in the church who were trying to reduce things down to a bunch of rules and regulations. They were trying to bring these Corinthian believers under the principles of the old covenant—the covenant that God had made with the people of Israel through the law He gave to Moses. That old covenant has passed away; and the new covenant has come through the Lord Jesus Christ.
That old way had served its purpose in the plan of God for the ages. A new thing has begun through Jesus Christ—a righteousness before God on the basis of faith in Jesus, and a new power for living that comes from a relationship with Him. In the passage that we looked at last week, Paul wrote;
But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious (2 Corinthians 3:7-11).
Paul was greatly thrilled to proclaim this new way from God. Let’s look back through this passage and see how he declared it to us. First, he tells us that, in this new way …
1. WE NOW SPEAK PLAINLY.
In verse 12, he said, “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech …” The hope that he spoke of came from the encouraging confidence he had in the greater glory of the new covenant in Christ that completely out-shined the fading glory of the old covenant. The glory of the old covenant was demonstrated in the fact that Moses’ face shone when he came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. But that was a fading glory. The glory of the new covenant gave Paul and his fellow gospel preachers ‘great boldness of speech’ in declaring it.
Paul went on to say in verse 13 that he and the others used “great boldness of speech—unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away.” Back when Moses came down from God to speak His commandments to the people, his face shone with the glory of God. And then, after he spoke to them, he put a veil over his face to hide the fading-away of that glory until he went back up the mountain to speak to God again. That veil was symbolic of the contrast between the old covenant and the new covenant. The old covenant faded away; but the new covenant lasts forever. The old covenant had glory, but the new covenant has immeasurably greater glory. Just as Paul went on to say in 2 Corinthians 4:5-6;
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:5-6).
Therefore, we today do not try to conceal anything—as Moses did, in his day, with the veil. Instead, we declare, boldly and confidently, the full sufficiency of Jesus Christ to provide everything that anyone needs to live the life God wants them to live; and we announce openly and clearly Jesus’ ability to make everyone complete who trusts in Him. We hold-back nothing. Instead, we invite everyone to gaze fully upon Him and be made whole.
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Now; not all respond to that invitation. Paul certainly experienced that. He offered the message of the new covenant in Jesus to his fellow Jewish people. And many of them rejected his offer. As he went on to explain, he spoke with great boldness and clarity of the full sufficiency of Jesus;
2. BUT A VEIL REMAINS.
In verse 14, he wrote of how the view of the Jewish people—back in the times of Moses—was obscured. He said, “But their minds were blinded”; or as we can translate this, “their minds were hardened”. This is because, in a spiritual sense, that veil remained throughout the centuries. He goes on to say in verses 14-15, “For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.”
Now; we need to be very careful in how we understand this. The apostle Paul was not saying anything against the Jewish people. He himself, after all, was a Jewish man; and he deeply loved his kinsmen and hoped for their salvation. Rather, he is pointing to a reality in the great plan of God for the ages that opens up the way of salvation even to the Gentiles. The Jewish people were given the Old Testament Scriptures; and in those Scriptures, the promise of the new covenant in Christ was given. But God has allowed that spiritual ‘veil’ to remain in place and obscure the truth from their hearts for a time. Paul wrote about this to a group of Gentile Christians in the Book of Romans. He said;
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all (Romans 11:25-32).
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So you see; that veil—in a spiritual sense—remains. But it only remains for a time. It is only there until it serves God’s purpose. And the good news is—as Paul goes on to tell us …
3. THIS VEIL IS REMOVED IN CHRIST.
Paul writes, in verse 16, “Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” It’s very important to notice that Paul speaks from the plural to the singular. He said in verses 15-16 that a veil remains over “their” hearts—speaking of the Jewish people as a whole. But when any single individual Jewish man or woman turns to Jesus in humble faith, the veil is taken away. And then, they see clearly that the Lord Jesus is declared all the way through the Scriptures that had been given to them.
I believe we see a wonderful picture of this in the New Testament. After Jesus had been crucified, the hearts of His followers were broken. They had hoped that He would be the promised Messiah who would immediately bring in the glories of the kingdom reign right then and there. They hoped this because they had misunderstood the promises of the Scriptures. They didn’t understand that He first needed to die on the cross for us as our Redeemer. We’re told that two of them were walking along the road to Emmaus; and suddenly the resurrected Lord Jesus walked with them. They didn’t recognize Him; and He asked them why they were sad. And without knowing who they were talking to, they told Him about all the things that had happened—explaining to Him
“how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see.”
Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:19-27).
What a conversation that must have been! Later on, as they broke bread with him, they recognized who He was … and then He vanished from their sight. And do you remember what those two disciples said to each other after Jesus departed from them? They said, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (vv. 32).
The veil was removed when they turned to Jesus. And I believe that the same is true today—whether for a Jew or for a Gentile. The veil is lifted, and our eyes are opened, and the pages of the Scripture are suddenly illuminated to us and made plain to us, when we turn to Jesus. The Bible makes sense to us because, now, we know and love the Author.
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And when we look in that way upon Him …
4. AN UNVEILED GAZE TRANSFORMS.
Paul tells us in verse 17, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” We don’t walk down the road to Emmaus today. Jesus does not meet with us bodily along the way. He has returned bodily to the Father; and we wait for the day of His return. But He has left His Holy Spirit; and the Lord is the Spirit. He is the Spirit of Jesus; and He awakens hearts and opens eyes to Him even today. And when He does so, there is liberty. No longer do we seek to earn righteousness or favor with God through the old covenant rules and regulations of the written law. The Spirit transforms us from within.
And how does the Spirit do this? He does it by what Paul wrote in verse 18; “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Look at the details. We now view Jesus with unveiled face. The veil is removed; and we see Jesus plainly—in all His glory—as He is declared to us in the Scriptures. And we behold Him as in a mirror. A mirror does not reflect any image of its own. It only reflects the image of whoever is placed before it. And now, Jesus is placed before our plain sight—and no other but Him. It is His image that is reflected by us. And day by day—from glory to glory—bit by bit—through the work of the Holy Spirit—we are being conformed to the image of the very Jesus whose image is reflected in us.
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One of the greatest Bible teachers I have ever known—Dr. John Mitchell—used to tell his students that they should read a little bit from the Gospels every day. They should get to know Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John well. It’s because these Gospels tell us the stories of Jesus; and it’s by reading these Gospels that we grow to know what Jesus was like. We gaze upon Him. And the more we gaze upon Him, the more His likeness is reflected in us. We become transformed into His image.
If you have never placed your faith in Jesus as your Savior—if you have never entered into a personal relationship with Him—I hope you will do so today. And if you have already entered into that relationship by faith, I hope you will fix your gaze upon Him. Spend time with Him, and grow to know Him. Love Him and adore Him. Depend on Him, and follow as He leads. As you do—day by day—you will grow to be more like Him. His image will be reflected in your life.
That’s the pathway to true, lasting life-transformation.
EA
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