Verse 18, which basically will be the text this morning. But we, with all on veil 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. In our day, the church continues, speaking generally, to attempt many ways to impact our culture. All of us know there's something missing. So the church tries in many different ways to reach the culture with different schemes, different programs, and so forth. Some of them biblical, some not so biblical. Some are good attempts to fulfill the Lord's command to go into all the world and preach the gospel. We evangelize, we disciple, which of course are biblical. all good, all biblical. Yet down deep in many of our hearts, we know that something is not correct in the culture we live in today. We realize things are not quite as they should be, as they were in times of the great awakenings in this nation, revivals where I come from, in the days of the Reformation, in the days of the early church, because Paul and his apostles, the Lord's apostles, had great impact on the Roman Empire. They turned the world upside down in their day through the preaching and the teaching of the gospel. And we see it here in 2 Corinthians. And the all-important point of it all is the presence of God in the life of the church and its her members. Now, when you look at our text this morning, it's got all to do with that wonderful doctrine of sanctification, its nature and the means of attaining it. Paul has been reminding the church at Corinth of the great privilege of those who live unto the gospel. as opposed to those who lived under the law. He tells us in the Old Testament their minds were blinded. He says also, but even to this day when Moses read, a veil lies upon their heart. Not only those in Judaism, even those who Stead blind, even though the Lord came amongst them to preach the gospel. But even today, they, along with the Gentile nations, have this dark veil over their hearts, over their souls. We're living among corpses, so to speak. Spiritually speaking, we're living amongst dead people. And we need to be reminded of that when we evangelize. But then Paul says, those who receive Messiah, the Messiah who came, the veil is taken away. And the question for us this morning is, do we know who we really are? Do we know what we are? For the answer to such a question, we need to go back to Moses. as Paul does here, and consider how Paul draws this very real contrast between the glory of that day to the glory today that dwells in the church and our people. So we ask the question, who we are, or who are we? Remember Moses went up to meet the Lord on Mount Sinai, recorded in Exodus 20 and Exodus 34. He came down with the two tablets of the law, of God's law in his hand, and he met with the people, and we're told that his face shone while he talked with them in verse 29 of Exodus 34. And when Aaron and the people saw this glow that was emanating from him, they were afraid. They didn't want to talk to Moses. So he put a veil on his face and this veil on his face represents the clouded revelation of the Old Testament, as Wallace put it. The vanishing gleam on Moses' face recalls the passing and the fading glories of that which was abolished. The glory exhibited on Moses' face was really a vanishing glory. Yet there's a principle, isn't there, here for us? that is communing with God, looking to God, living in the presence of God as Moses did, he reflected the glory of God. It was a glory that could be seen. Isn't this the calling of the church even today? When we get a glimpse of it in Moses, should it not be in the church as well? to show forth the glory of God. What is the end of salvation? Well, doesn't the Westminster Divine tell us to glorify God and enjoy Him forever? And what is the purpose of the church? To bring many sons onto glory, Hebrews 2.10. There were those in Corinth that had attempted to improve the gospel, just as we have people trying to improve it today, by adding human philosophy. But Paul says, the world through philosophy, through human wisdom did not know God, 1 Corinthians 1.21. Then he said, but we speak the wisdom of God and the mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 1 Corinthians 2.7. How often we as individuals and as the church fail to grasp this. We fail to be aware of this glory. that is ours in Jesus Christ that has been given to us through grace. Christianity is not simply about forgiveness or evangelism, good things as they are. We need to capture what Paul was teaching to the church at Corinth. It seems to me that his immediate purpose here is to illustrate with frank openness that ought to mark our Christian witness, our Christian character. This is why he goes back to Moses here, Paul, in this chapter, and to speak of this veil. As Dr. Lloyd-Jones says, the church has lost its impact to those outside, the ordinary people outside today. That's as true today as it was in 1960-odd when he said that. He says, because our gospel is too small. because somehow we have removed this emphasis of glory and its importance. It comes back to the question we asked, do we know who we are or what we are? That takes us back to Genesis where God said, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created man, male and female, he created them. Man is unique. We're not like the animals. We have souls. We are made in the image. The only part of this creation that is made in the image and the likeness of the creator. We're not like the angels. It doesn't say anywhere that the angels were created in God's image, but it says that we were made in the image of God. Actually, angels are servants to men with their ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation, Hebrews 1.14. So we were created spiritual beings. God's glory was in man in his original constitution, in the garden. No animal possessed that. And because we're spiritual beings, He's given us character. He's given us power. He's given us a soul. He's given us a mind that we can think, we can analyze, we can understand, we can reason. It's a reasonable faith. That's the inner character of man. It cannot be seen. It's unique. The scripture tells us in Ecclesiastes 7.29, God made man upright. We were created in a state of innocence as God's image bearers, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. As God pronounced over his creation, it was very good. However, as G.I. Williamson says, puts it, He was not yet confirmed in that condition. God placed before man two alternatives in the garden. The path of perfect obedience that would lead to continual life. As Paul tells us in Galatians 3.12, yet the law was not of faith, but the man who does them shall live by them. However, there was the other path of disobedience. which would lead to death, eternal death. Genesis 2.17, for the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. And God gave us man authority over his creation. We are like vice regents of the creation. He says, God said, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth. But of course we know man disobeyed, he rebelled. A great calamity happened as Paul describes it. Therefore as through one taking of human life after the fall, Genesis 9, 6, whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed, but the image of God he made man. That's why we're against abortion. It's the killing of the image of God. The sanctity of a life applies to all mankind, not just to the church. But you see, fallen man, has lost, as Wallace put it, the vital core of God's image in the form of righteousness and holiness in relating to God himself. Sin did not completely destroy the image of God and man, but it corrupted that image. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, says Paul. There are for those non-righteous, no not one, Romans three. Don't we see this depravity all around us? Don't we see it within our own hearts? This corruption? We see the ignorance of God everywhere. We see the darkness of our world. What's going on now is a big spiritual battle amongst the people of Israel. in those days, for when Moses went up to the mountain to meet with God, what were the people doing? They were making their own God. They turned to idolatry. And when the text says, but even to this day, when Moses read, a veil lies on their heart. Not only the Jewish people, beloved, does this veil lie upon, but in every nation under heaven. Because Paul calls each of us sons of disobedience, dead in trespasses and sins. It's a description of all mankind without Christ. But then Paul says in the verse before a text, nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. So this leads us to the great contrast that lies in our text. Judaism says Alexander MacLaren had one lawgiver who beheld God while the people carried below, whereas Christianity leads us all to the Mount of Vision and lets the lowest pass through the fences, he says, and go up to where the blazing glory is seen. Moses veiled his face and shone with the radiance of deity. But you see, those who are in Christ have unveiled faces, and we are to shine forth that light to our whole culture, to be a perpetual light. Jesus said, I am the light of the world, he announced, but he also said in Matthew 5, 19, you are the light of the world to believers. So then let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven, Matthew 5, 16. So let us come to this contemplation and reflecting of Christ. But we all with unreal face beholding as in a mirror the glory of Lord. This is the new man that Paul is talking about. who was created according to God and through righteousness and holiness, Ephesians 4.24. This is the man or woman who's put on the new man, who's renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him, Galatians 3.10. In the salvation, the Lord restores us through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. We are not only brought back, as it were, to the place of righteousness and holiness before the fall, but we are, as many have suggested, even taken beyond that point. We become after the image of a heavenly man, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. It is he who we are to be conformed to as believers. The one who was first born among many brethren, You need to be conformed to what he is like, Romans 8, 29. Paul says in our verse, but we all, all who are in Christ Jesus, all who are united to him by faith, all who have their sins forgiven, all who are accepted in the beloved, that's the all. And he says, we all with unveiled face, beholding in the mirror the glory of the Lord. Now he doesn't mean looking straight into a mirror completely. Actually the word means more mirroring rather than seeing in a mirror. But the word Paul uses here really actually covers both. As well as put it, there's no reflection of the light without a previous acceptance of the light. In other words, the soul beholds in a mirror, and it once beholds, and then it reflects. Perhaps it's captured well in Peter and John, in Acts 4.13, when the people saw their boldness, they realized that they had been with Jesus. They mirrored Jesus in their lives. So the word then describes the Christian life as a contemplation and a manifestation of the light of God. That's what Christianity is. How about you say to me, didn't Paul say in 1 Corinthians 13, 12, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face? Do we not walk by faith and not by sight? No man has seen God at any time, nor can see him. So is Paul contradicting himself here? No, not at all. Two things here in answer to this supposed problem. One, the object of vision, and secondly, the real nature of the vision itself. First, the object. Who is this Lord whose glory we receive on our unveil faces? It is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the manifestation of God. When we speak of the glory, it is not his incomprehensible, incommunicable luster of his divine perfect attributes. No, it's not glory who tabernacled among men. We beheld his glory, John says, remembering John 1.14. The glory is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It is that glory which was revealed during his earthly ministry, in his loving words, and the beauty of his wonderful works. The glory of the Father's will that was resigned to God. dwelling in and working through the will in Him. It's that glory of that real manhood or perfect manhood. The express image of God as Hebrews tells us. That's what we reflect as Christians. But as for the vision itself, it's that beholding Him with our souls by faith. It's that immediate consciousness of the presence of God within us. That perception of him in his truth. It's the mind of Christ working in us. It's the outworking of his presence in our hearts. It's Christ in us, the hope of glory. As one theologian puts it, he who believes in the living Lord Jesus Christ has a contact with him as immediate, as real as that of the eyeball with the light. The sense is, seeing is believing, believing is seeing, says the Spirit, which clings to the Lord, whom having not seen, it loves. You see, nothing comes between the true believer and his Lord, whom he loves and trusts. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, Romans 8, 16. As believer, you sense, don't you, the presence of the Lord, the Spirit of God, witnessing to you and in you As one has said, believing we see and seeing we have that light in our souls to be the master light of all our seeing. The only veil that dims the light in the believer is our sin. As the psalmist says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. How do we expect to be heard in prayer for continuing a life of sin? But through His grace, His mercy, this separating principle is done away with in Christ for everyone who really loves Him. It's true, we do see through a glass darkly, as Paul says. But it's equally as true as her text says, but we all, with on veil faces, behold in a mirror the glory of God. Notice that we said before, but we, tells us this truth doesn't belong to a certain few in the church. There's none of God's people so low, so unimportant, so weak, so compassed about, as it were, with sin, that the light does not come through. In the Old Testament, one has likened the light that broke through the clouds was but a dawn. It only touched the mountaintops, the Moses, the Davids, the Elijahs, the prophets, and so forth. while the valley slept, he says, in a pale shadow. Whereas now that Jesus Christ has come in all his fullness, it's like the blazing sun has arrived, for Christ reveals himself to all his servants, all who bow the knee to him and to his authority. There's no privileged class in the church. Whatever special gift may belong to some, the greatest gift belongs to everyone in the church. And of my men's servants and on my maid's servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. Acts 2, 18. We're living in those days. We're living them right now, when the gospel of the grace of God goes out to all. All of us who know him, behold the glory of the Lord. This means we should be giving forth the light which we behold, because Jesus Christ has been formed in us. See, the contemplation of Christ involves reflection. In other words, what we are will certainly show. Others will know, just as it says in the New Testament, they have been with Jesus. That is the result of all true possession of the glory, all who possess the glory of Christ. That should lead every one of us to search our hearts if we profess Christ, to put some serious questioning before us, before the scriptures of truth. Are we reflecting the glory of Christ? Does this beholding and reflecting go together in me? You know, you remember those watches that you could look in, you could see all the workings going on. It was just like a window into the watch. You see what was going on. That's the way we should be. We ought to remember who we really are and shine forth the light of the Lord. We should know the convictions that we hold, the emotions that we have, and what should dominate our lives, our hearts. It's Christ, because he shall mold us and shape us to be more like him. So that others will know to whom we belong. because we're called on, as Paul puts it, to make every effort to communicate this light that we've been given. Look what he says in the context, 2 Corinthians 4, 6, God has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So we need to put away all the veils. If we're truly with Christ, we need to put away all those fears of speaking to others of Jesus Christ, of his glorious salvation. We shouldn't have any fear of what will happen if we do, if we stand for truth. We're living in a day, as I said before, It's hard to understand where the truth lies in this world when we were fed lies after lies on the television, lies after lies on the computers, lies after lies by leaders. You don't know where truth lies. The only truth lies here, beloved, in this book, in the Lord Jesus Christ. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And that's where I believe the church has lost its way. We're putting our trust in men, whose breath is in their nostrils, rather than the one man, Christ Jesus. We are to renounce the hidden things of dishonesty, the scripture tells us. We are to fully trust our Lord. We're not to hide the light, as Jesus told us. Let your light so shine before men, to see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. See, if you're truly a Christian, the lesson is you're bound to show forth in your life what you believe and to make that secret as much as possible an open secret. As Paul said himself, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord. You see, Paul preached Christ. He didn't preach men. He didn't preach programs. He didn't preach gimmicks. He preached Christ and Christ alone. And I believe the church needs to get back to that. We must see to it that we have an unveiled face in our lives and the light shines forth into our culture for the glory of God. Now what about a life of complete assimilation in Christ? 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. That brightness that shone forth from Moses' face soon faded away without a trace. That was given in the purposes of God. But Paul says, this glory which we behold shines into the depths of our being and changes us into the image of Christ. That temporary luster in Moses' face illustrates the powerlessness of the law to change our moral character into the likeness of Christ. Paul says himself in Romans 3, 19, Therefore then by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in the sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's what the law does. The law tells us we're sinners. That's all the law does. It tells us we're sinners. It cannot save us. It condemns us. It is Jesus Christ and him alone that saves. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, Romans 3.21. See what Paul is doing in our text is proclaiming the great principle of Christian progress, that beholding Christ leads to assimilation in Christ. The metaphor of a mirror doesn't really serve our purposes in this part of the text. Well, it's illustrated this way. It's not so much a reflecting surface like a mirror, but it's more like a bar of iron that is put into the furnace till it's white hot right down to its core. And the outer skin glows, as it were, with the whiteness of heat. that it's too hot to sparkle. You see, we too must have the glory put into us, into the very depths of our being before it can be reflected in us and from us. Christ must more and more be deeply involved in us so that we can show forth Christ in our lives. Of course, the contemplation is gradual, brings about gradual transformation. We all beholding in the mirror are changed as the Holy Spirit keeps perfecting our characters to looking more and more like Jesus Christ. But it's not simply the beholding, but it is the grace of love and deep trust in Jesus Christ that molds us to be more like him in all his wondrous beauty. the one who the scripture says is fairer than the children of men, altogether lovely. The writer of the Hebrews exhorts us, look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, is set down at the right hand of God. We are to look to the cross. We have to have a long, reverent gaze at the cross so as to be conformed to his death, that in due time you may be also in the likeness of his resurrection. But that transformation comes gradually. We live in a culture today that wants immediate things, wants instantaneous things, things to happen immediately. But the life of sanctification is not like that. Biblical sanctification is slow. Paul's language tells us it's a lifelong process. We're transformed, he says, we're changed. But it is from glory to glory, it is continuous. So we shouldn't be disheartened if progress is slow in our lives. That partial transformation that you may have experienced is but a fragment. of the great image yet to be produced in your soul. We need to take heart amidst all the trials and tribulations of this life, all the disappointments that we have in this life, because this is a life of contemplation for the Christian. And one day our lives will have complete assimilation in Jesus Christ. as the text says, transformed into the same image from glory to glory. That marvelous light that falls upon the believer's heart from the face of the Lord is permanent as well as progressive, ongoing. Paul tells us in Philippians 2, for the Lord will transform our lowly body, it may be conformed to his glorious body. That great change that awaits the final day of resurrection on the just certainly is something we all look forward to if we know the Lord. the day of great liberation. It's the day of final victory. But often our focus upon that day is a great transforming day. We look to our death. We look to leaving this world, leaving the sinful world behind and going to Christ, which is, of course, as Paul says, far better. Because we'll awake and look at his likeness and we shall be like him. But we forget that the transformation doesn't begin after death, but it begins now in the here and now. That great day in heaven only comes as a result of the great spiritual change that takes place in our natures, which begins in faith and love in this life. Yes, it's wonderful to be close, it would be wonderful to be close with the immortality and resurrection, But is it not to be good to be like Him here in our hearts, in our lives? Should we not learn to feel as Christ feels when He walked this earth? Should we not will as He wills? Should we not have the same sympathies as our Lord Jesus Christ? Should we not have the same loves, the desires as our Lord Jesus Christ? Should we have not the same attitude towards the Father, towards all men and women, same as Jesus Christ? Should not our heart and His heart beat as one? Is that what assimilation in Christ means? To think after Him? Is that why we were given the Gospels? One of the reasons we're given the Gospels? The account of his life? You see, wherever the beginning of oneness and likeness is spread, all the rest shall come in due time. As the spirit, so the body. Our whole nature in this Christian life must be transformed and made like our saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ. And that process shall not end until it's complete in all who love him. But it's the beginning here in this life that is so important. To have these people, as leads us into a sermon by Dr. Sproul yesterday, He talked about these people, and this is people, evangelicals in the church, these people, because of false theology, faulty theology. They're told they're Christians, and they believe they're Christians, but their lives don't add up. Their lives is the very opposite of being a Christian. He says they've never known the gospel, because they're not hearing the gospel from their pulpits, because they don't live out the gospel. They think they can claim to be Christians, but yet their lives are far from what a Christian ought to be. What does Paul say in Romans 8, 11? If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the spirit who dwells in you. You will be like him. Of course, the complete assimilation of the body and spirit to our Lord is the end of the process, the end of the journey. But it begins here. by looking to him in faith. Then Paul adds another remarkable truth with the words, into the same image. It's in the singular, so it is the thought of that blessed likeness of all who become perfectly like him. None of us in here are the same. We're all different in many, many ways. But as believers, we have this common The thing that we share, we're in Jesus Christ. And we're all growing into the same image, so to become perfectly like him. And yet, we retain our distinct individuality. we being many are one, because we're all partakers of the divine nature, as Peter says. Paul speaks of this to the Ephesians in different languages. He speaks of the goal, the purpose of the Christian ministry, for example, that we all come to a perfect man, Ephesians 4.13. In other words, the church, Jew and Gentile collectively, Christ's body will be that perfect man, so to speak, in glory. He will be the complete image of the fullness of Christ. As one has put it, whilst we all bear the same image, there will be no monotony. There will be this great, he says, diversity, this endless diversity, with no discord, because there'll be no sin. So here and now, all you're in Christ are being changed, you are being transformed from one degree of glorious grace to another. Till it all be consummated in glory forever. But even now, beloved, if you are his, you possess this glory. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is in you as a Christian. Think about that. The glory of Jesus Christ is in everyone who is a Christian now. It's not something that we wait for in heaven, it's here now. And we need to ask ourselves, do people see it in the modern church today? Do the people see it in me? Do they see it in you? Do they see it in us? is the light of Jesus Christ shining forth in this darkened world from every one of us who know him. Because that is evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Just as by the spirit of the Lord, the scripture says. Paul just said, the Lord is a spirit. And here he tells us the transforming power by which we are made like Jesus flows from the Lord who is spirit. So the Lord is the one way, the only way to glory. And the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. He is where the Spirit is. He does what the Spirit does. And one day, beloved, you shall dwell with Him, and you will look upon Him forever, because the Spirit is working within you now. What happiness, what bliss awaits the children of God? To stand before Christ, perfectly changed before him, in a sense, looking into a mirror because we'd be totally assimilated into him. When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Is that not a glorious future to look forward to? Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you this morning for Jesus Christ. We thank you, Father, for all that he has done and continues to do for us. Who can measure his sufferings caused by our sin? Who can understand His glory. And yet, O Lord, that glory, as the scriptures tells us, as Paul tells us, as John tells us, as Peter tells us, as the gospel writers tells us, should be reflected in us, so that we would shine forth as lights in a darkened world, that they may look upon us outside these walls and know that we have been with Jesus. Grant, O Lord, that that would be our motivation, that would be our goal in this life, to glorify you and to enjoy you forever.