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Transformation by Beholding the Glory of the Lord

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II Corinthians 3 – The Transformation of Your Soul

  • 2 things:
    • He defends his ministry &
    • compares the law & the gospel

NT Background

  • what was Paul saying in ch. 2?
    • Defending his ministry. See References, like Matthew Henry.
    • II Cor. 2:15-17: “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”

OT Background

  • 34:27-35
    • why did God save Israel from Egypt?
    • why did Israel fall into the desperately wicked golden calf situation?

The text itself

  • 14, unlifted: Gk, anakalyptō – unlifted, as in a veil. Vs. 14, removed: Gk, katargeo – to render idle, unemployed, inactivate, inoperative; to cause a person or thing to have no further efficiency; to deprive of force, influence, power; to cause to cease, put an end to, do away with, annul, abolish; to cease, to pass away, be done away; to be severed from, separated from, discharged from, loosed from any one; to terminate all intercourse with one. Vs. 16, taken away: Gk, periaireō – to take away that which surrounds or envelopes a thing; metaph. to take away altogether or entirely, the guilt of sin, to expiate perfectly.
  • Martin Luther & Matthew are good Henry References.
  • the veil over what is taken away in Christ? See vss 14-16
    • The law?
    • The glory of God?
    • Their own minds.
    • Moses didn’t say, “I’ll cover the law so you don’t read it because you’re unclean, or unfit, or unable to understand it.”
    • Like the Roman Church in the middle ages & during the Reformation – only priests could handle God’s word; I guess no one else was allowed the Spirit of God in order to understand God’s word. Surely they didn’t believe that! Were they afraid of the liberty it could grant to people?   That is the implication.
    • What happens when the veil is removed?
      • Transformed: Gk, metamorphoo – to change into another form, to transform, to transfigure; Christ’s appearance was changed and was resplendent with divine brightness on the mount of transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-5)
      • II Cor. 3:17 – “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

How is one transformed from glory to glory?

  • We often don’t notice how much God has transformed us.
  • vs 13 – in putting a veil over his face, was Moses deceived as to why God had saved Israel? IOW, did Moses believe that a person is saved by obeying the law? “Their minds were blinded” vs 14
    • if the Israelites thought that salvation from generations of slavery in Egypt was evidence that God wanted to destroy them, what did they think of the law of God which often threatened death for disobedience?
    • where do you behold the glory of the Lord?
      • In the mirror?
      • In prayer?
      • In preaching?
      • In worship?
      • In communion?
      • What does scripture say?
    • How does a mirror transform you?
    • The only other time the Gk word Metamorphoo is used is in Rom. 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
    • 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
    • Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
    • 1:21-25: “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”