Think Wink.

We come to final question that I posed my youth two Sunday’s ago: How does “the gospel of the glory of Christ” apply to my personal sanctification? If I am to be a gospel-centered Christian, and the gospel is where God displays his glory and it is by seeing God’s glory in the gospel that I am drawn to Christ as my savior and delight, then how does this play out in my personal life and battles against sin and to become like Christ? To answer this, let us jump up in the context of 2 Corinthians 4 and look at 2 Corinthians 3:18 where Paul writes,

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.

The verbs here are most helpful in answering our question of how the gospel of the glory of Christ applies to personal sanctification. There are two participles and one present tense indicative verb: “unveiled,” “beholding,” and “being transformed.” Let us take them one at a time.

First, the reason why I came to this text for application is that there are two present tense actions: beholding and being transformed. But both stem from this idea of having our faces unveiled. The participle ἀνακεκαλυμμένῳ that is translated by the ESV as “unveiled” is a perfect passive participle. This “unveiling” is what was discussed in part two of this series, where God removes the veil over the mind that prevents the sinner from seeing the glory of God in Jesus Christ ans so coming to Jesus and accepting him as Lord, Savior, and Delight (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:14 where Paul says that the veil can only be removed from the law-covenant by Christ). This is why I came to this text, this verb. Now there are two things that I see from this verb, first is the passive idea, that is that we do not take the veil off ourselves but someone outside of us takes the veil off of our minds–namely the Spirit as Paul says, “For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (3:18). But also, notice that the veil is off and stays off. The veil is completely off and permanently removed for all time. So we can clearly see the glory of our crucified and resurrected Christ and it can effectively draw us to him unhindered by any outside influence (Again I must state that this is one way to understand Irresistible Grace in TULIP and Reformed Soteriology).

The second verb is the present tense participle κατοπτριζόμενοι, translated by the ESV as “beholding.” This is an interesting term because it is highly nuanced and it only occurs here in the NT. I bring this up because the idea in κατοπτριζόμενοι is that we are a mirror that reflects the glory of Christ seen in the New Covenant (2 Corinthians 3 is a discussion about the glory of the new covenant surpassing the glory of the old covenant and that the old covenant has been replaced by the new). Hence the NIV, HCSB, NLT, and the NET all translate this term as “reflect” or “reflecting.” The TNIV translates it as “contemplating” and the NASB translates this term as “beholding as in a mirror.” When I reached this point in my message, I turned to my marker board to draw this picture:

Let me explain something here. The mirror is us, as the NASB makes plain for us to see. The yellow around the cross symbolizes the glory of God and Christ seen only in the gospel. The people are those whom we will come into contact with each and everyday. Now follow the action in this next picture:

The yellow arrow is the glory of Christ shining into our hearts and we begin the act of “beholding” or “contemplating” the glory of Christ. This is a continuous action, which is why this participle is in the present tense. We must continually behold the glory of God, contemplate it. But to truly κατοπτριζόμενοι the glory of God, follow the yellow arrows in this next picture.

As a mirror, the glory reflects from us to all who come into contact with us. I think that this refers to 4:5, that we are sharing the gospel through preaching/proclaiming and our being servants who, like in Mark 8:34, have crucified themselves and now live to Christ and magnify him in both life and death. This leads to the third verb.

The final verb that I want to look at is μεταμορφούμεθα, translated as “being transformed” by the ESV. This is a process that takes all of our remaining time on the earth before we are called out of this life and into the next. As we behold and reflect the glory of God, we become more and more like God, moving from the glory of the Old Covenant into the glory of the New Covenant and the resurrection-life that it gives. We are transformed in our souls here on earth, and at the resurrection in our bodies. So that it is no longer us we see, but Jesus Christ in all of his glory. We become the very vehicle through which God shines the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ into the hearts and minds of unbelievers.

This brings me to why I chose this text to be the application of the sermon. The verb κατοπτριζόμενοι is an adverbial participle that modifies μεταμορφούμεθα. In other words, κατοπτριζόμενοι shows how we are μεταμορφούμεθα into the image of Christ. It is by beholding and reflecting the glory of Christ that we become transformed into the image of Christ. We become Christ-like by beholding, contemplating, being a mirror of Christ’s glory.

And that is our battle: beholding and reflecting Christ’s glory. That is our battle. When we fight sin, we are fighting to see Christ’ glory and to be caught up in its beauty and in Christ’s infinite worth and superior value. We must fight to be like the Psalmist who said in Psalm 63:2, “Yes, in the sanctuary I have seen you, and witnessed your power and splendor.” We must pray with the Psalmist in Psalm 27:4, “I have asked the Lord for one thing – this is what I desire! I want to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, so I can gaze at the splendor of the Lord and contemplate in his temple.” We desire God’s beauty and splendor. If we do not, we will not behold and reflect God’s glory, and thus not be transformed by that contemplation of God’s beauty into the image of Christ.

Therefore I plead with all who read this blog as I plead with those kids two Sundays ago: pray that God will open your hearts to see the glory of God in the gospel of Christ crucified and buried and raised. If you struggle with sin, pray that God will grip your soul with his beauty and show himself more to be desired than that so that it is easier to obey Christ than to commit sin. Pray that God will show you his beauty so that you will joyfully say, “Yes Christ! I choose you because you are so much better than pornography!” (and I know that is not easy!) Let us pray that God will make our hearts desire like that of the sons of Korah in Psalm 42:1, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” For when he is like water to your soul, you will cherish him and embrace him as Lord and Savior.

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