From One Degree of Glory to Another.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 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. – 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 ESV

Paul continues his use of Moses as a comparison. Moses, as a result of his exposure to the glory of God during his time on top of Mount Sinai, actually glowed when he came back down the mountain. God's glory rubbed off on him, so to speak. And when the people saw Moses’ face, they were terrified. They had never seen anything like it before in their lives. So Moses covered it up with a veil. But in time, the glory or glow began to fade. But rather than let the people in on the secret, he continued to wear the veil and hide the fact that his glorification was impermanent.

But Paul’s point is that Moses’ temporary glory was symbolic of the temporary nature of the Old Covenant. It too, would come to an end. It would be replaced with something far better. The glory Moses received was external in nature. His skin glowed. But like a bad sunburn, over time it began to fade. The New Covenant, made possible by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, provides us with a different kind of glory. Because of the work of the Spirit in our lives, we have had the veil removed. And that act has accomplished two very important things. It has freed us up from having to pretend as if we are something we are not. For Moses, the veil became a cover-up, a means of hiding reality. At one time, we too were stuck trying to act as if we were spiritual through external acts that led those around us to believe we were something we were not. We veiled our lostness with self-righteousness. But then the Spirit opened our eyes. And that's the second significant thing that happened when the veil was removed. We were able to see Christ in all His glory. For the first time we were capable of recognizing Jesus for who He is and able to accept what He had done for us. The removed veil signifies our acknowledgement of our own sinfulness and the Spirit-endowed ability to see the freedom made available to us through Jesus.

Paul says, “the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”. We have the Spirit of Christ present within us. This does not mean that the Spirit and Jesus are one in the same. It simply means that they share their divinity and to have one is to have the other. The Spirit allows us to have the mind of Christ, the wisdom of Christ, the love of Christ, and the nature of Christ. And His presence within us frees us up from having to try to earn favor with God through acts of self-righteousness. We now depend solely upon the righteousness of Christ that was imputed to us by God. We share in Christ's righteousness, so when God looks at us, He sees us as perfectly righteous, just as His Son was.

But Paul’s main point in these closing verses seems to be that we are able to see the glory of the Lord in the lives of one another. It is an internal, eternal glory that emanates not from the outside, but from the inside. It begins in the heart and flows out of us so that others can see it and experience it. It shows up as the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It manifests itself in the gifts of the Spirit, resulting in the building up the body of Christ. We can see each other being transformed into the same image, the image of Christ, from one degree of glory to another – progressively and proactively – by the Spirit within us. “For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

We are to reflect the glory of the Lord. We are to literally glow with His glory. In the very next chapter, Paul writes, “For God, who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6 NLT). We have the light of Christ shining in our lives in the form of the Holy Spirit. We have the capacity to see the glory of Christ because we have had the veil removed from our eyes. We can see Him when we read the Word. We can see Him working in the lives of those around us. And Paul goes on to say, “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves” (2 Corinthians 4:7-8 NLT). That light within us is to shine out of us. Others should be able to see the glory of Christ reflected in our actions, attitudes, speech and conduct. Our changed lives are to be living proof of the transformative power of Christ’s work on the cross and the Spirit’s presence within us. We are being transformed into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another. And one day, we will be like Him – glorified, perfectly righteous, completely sinless, and enjoying the unbroken pleasure of His presence.

You Have What It Takes.

Romans 15:14-22

But I myself am fully convinced about you, my brothers and sisters,that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. – Romans 15:14 NET

While Paul has spent a great deal of time critiquing the behavior of the Christians in Rome, he begins to close out his letter with some words of encouragement. He wants them to know that they not only have within them the power to live lives that are different and distinct from those around them, they are actually pulling it off. His letter was not meant to depress and demoralize them. He was simply doing what God had called him to do as a minister of the Gospel. And that sometimes included having to say and write difficult things. But his goal was always the same: "that the Gentiles may become an acceptable offering, sanctified by the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:16 NET). Paul wanted them to live lives that were set apart, different and distinct from the way they used to live. He wanted their lives to be marked by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit – who alone can make a life of holiness possible. Paul knew that they had what it takes to live holy, set apart lives because he knew they had the Holy Spirit residing within them. As a result they were "full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another" (Romans 15:14 NLT).

Paul uses the term "goodness." It is the Greek word, agathōsynē and it means "uprightness of heart and life." It is the goodness that comes from God and reveals itself in spiritual, moral excellence. In other words, it is an inner quality that shows up in our character and our interactions with others. Paul uses the word in three other places in his letters and it is always associated with the work of the Holy Spirit. In other words, it is not of human origin, but is divine. In Galatians 5, Paul includes it in the list of the fruit of the Spirit. In Ephesians 5, Paul tells the believers in Ephesus that they are full of light and, as a result, they should live as people of light. For the light that resides within them only produces "goodness" – spiritual and moral excellence. In 1 Thessalonians 1:9, Paul prayed that they would be make them worthy of His calling and fulfill for them every desire they had for "goodness" and every act that was prompted by their faith. Paul wanted to see the power of the Holy Spirit "fleshed out" in their lives by the way they lived their lives and interacted with one another. They had it in them, but they had to live it out.

The key for Paul was dependence upon and obedience to the Holy Spirit. His life was marked by a constant reliance upon the Holy Spirit's direction. He did what he was told to do. He went where he was told to go. He preached what he was told to say. In spite of opposition, difficulty, set backs, his own apprehensions, fear, physical illness or any feelings of inadequacy or inability. Again, Paul was simply doing what the Holy Spirit had directed and empowered him to do. "I bring you the Good News so that I might present you as an acceptable offering to God, made holy by the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:16 NLT). Anything he had accomplished through his life had been done by the Spirit, not him. His life had been marked by "goodness" – spiritual, moral excellence. By allowing himself to be used by the Spirit, Paul had been able to see lives changed, and the message of the Gospel spread throughout the Roman Empire. The power of God had been "fleshed out" in Paul's life, making a difference in not only his own life, but the lives of thousands of others. The goodness of God had done a good work in and through Paul. And Paul wanted to see that same thing happen in the lives of the believers in Rome. Having the Spirit of God living within us is great. But the key to living the Christian life is learning to let the Holy Spirit reveal His power through us. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, "We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves" (2 Corinthians 4:5 NLT). Our darkness has been penetrated by the light of the Gospel and the presence of the power of God in the form of the Holy Spirit. Now we need to let that light shine. He describes us as fragile clay jars. We are weak and worthless, and yet God has placed His Spirit within us, so that His power might flow from us – revealing and testifying to His life-changing presence in our lives. But if the Spirit's power never shows up, if the "goodness" of God never reveals itself in spiritual, moral excellence in our lives – God doesn't get the glory and the darkness around us remains unchanged. We have what it takes. Now we have to take what we have and let it out.

Father, too often we live in our own power and fail to reveal Your power that resides within us. Show us how to let the power of the Spirit within us out of us. May His light shine through us, proving that we truly are Your sons and daughters. May Your goodness flow from us in acts of kindness, works of faith, and the fruit of the Spirit. Amen.