Chapter Six: Transformed into His Likeness
CHAPTER SIX
TRANSFORMED INTO HIS LIKENESS
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 from the Lord, the Spirit.
2 CORINTHIANS 3:18, NASB
Some things in nature are a complete mystery to me. How can an insect that crawls on the ground be changed into one that flies? How can a black, fuzzy, rather ugly creature be transformed into a beautiful, fascinating creature with brightly colored wings? How can a destructive insect that can literally strip a tree of its leaves (at least a swarm of them can) become a dainty creature that can land on the petal of a flower blossom without defacing it? In short, how can a caterpillar become a butterfly?
I don’t understand the process, but I know the word for it. It is metamorphosis. That five-syllable, “eight-cylinder” word is used to describe what happens when a caterpillar spins a hard cocoon around itself and, some days later, emerges as a butterfly.
A lot of things in the spiritual realm are also a complete mystery to me. How can a person who is indifferent or hostile toward God become a deeply committed follower of Jesus Christ? How can a person who is a slave to destructive sinful habits become a person who is self-controlled, gentle, and compassionate? How can a fanatical, self-righteous Jew named Saul of Tarsus become the humble, self-effacing Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles?
Again, I don’t understand the process, but I know the name for it. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul calls it transformation (being transformed). The Greek word for transformation is metamorphoomai. You can readily see that our English word metamorphosis is essentially a transliteration of metamorphoomai. I find it somewhat fascinating and instructive that Paul uses the same word that describes the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly to describe the spiritual transformation in the life of a Christian. The process is just as mysterious, and the results are even more striking.
Actually, the process of transformation that Paul describes very briefly in 2 Corinthians 3:18 is called sanctification. Here is another one of those “eight-cylinder” words, as I call them. It is a word that is not part of our daily vocabulary, and perhaps even sounds a bit pretentious. But it is an important scriptural word that we ought to become familiar with if we desire to pursue holiness. Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us whereby our inner being is progressively changed, freeing us more and more from sinful traits and developing within us over time the virtues of Christlike character. However, though sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us, it does involve our wholehearted response in obedience and the regular use of the spiritual disciplines that are instruments of sanctification.
REGENERATION
Sanctification actually begins at the time of our conversion, when, by an act called regeneration, or the new birth, the principle of spiritual life is planted within us. This work of regeneration is promised in such Old Testament prophecies as Jeremiah 31:33, where God says, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” And in Ezekiel 36:26-27 He says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
In the New Testament, Paul also described regeneration in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” And again in Titus 3:5: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth [or regeneration, as it is translated in many versions of the Bible] and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”
Note the radical change that is explicitly described in each of these Scripture passages. God will put His law in our minds and write it on our hearts. That is, He will give us a new disposition that, instead of being hostile to God’s law, actually delights in it. The law, which before was merely external, is now written in our hearts by the Spirit of God so that we are moved to obedience.
The heart of stone is transformed into a heart of flesh. “Heart of stone” is a figurative expression for a hard heart, one that is insensible to the things of God and unable to receive any impressions of divine truth. The heart of flesh represents a soft and tender heart, one that is able and willing to receive and act upon the truths of God’s Word. Matthew Henry says of this verse, “Renewing grace works as great a change in the soul as the turning of a dead stone into living flesh.”[32]
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that when a person is united to Christ, there is a new creation. A Christian is a radically changed person the moment he or she trusts Christ. This doesn’t mean we become “saints” in practice overnight. It does mean a new creation —a new principle of life —has been planted within us by the Holy Spirit, and we can never be the same again.
The expression “born again,” from John 3:3-8, is usually taken to mean no more than being saved from the penalty of sin. According to Jesus, it means to be born of the Spirit (John 3:6, 8), that is, to be given new life. Paul said the same thing in Titus 3:5 when he spoke of renewal by the Holy Spirit.
This act of regeneration or new birth by which a person enters the Kingdom of God (John 3:5) is solely the work of God the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is entirely a work of grace, just as justification is. It is also an instantaneous act of God. The moment we are justified we are also regenerated. A person cannot be justified without being regenerated.
Again, I am concerned that there are thousands of professing Christians who think they have been justified, who think their sins are forgiven and that they are on their way to heaven, who show no evidence of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. I fear for them that they will one day hear those awful words from the lips of Christ, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:23).
Lest I be misunderstood at this point, let me say emphatically that the solution for these people is not to change their conduct so that they might see some evidences of regeneration. The solution is to come to Jesus, renouncing any confidence in their own goodness, confessing themselves to be sinners in the sight of God, and trusting entirely in His atoning work. They will then be truly justified (saved from the penalty of sin) and will at the same time be genuinely regenerated (made new creations in Christ). The evidence of regeneration will then be apparent to them and to others around them.
SANCTIFICATION
Regeneration, then, is the beginning of sanctification, or to use Paul’s word in 2 Corinthians 3:18, of transformation. Sanctification, then, is the carrying out of regeneration to its intended end. William Plumer, a nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister, wrote, “Regeneration is an act of God’s Spirit. Sanctification is a work of God’s Spirit, consequent upon that act. . . . In regeneration we become ‘new-born babes;’ in sanctification we attain the stature of full-grown men in Christ Jesus.”[33]
The question is sometimes asked, “What is the relationship of sanctification to justification? Can a person be justified but not sanctified?” The answer is, justification and sanctification are inseparable. God never gives justification without sanctification (see 1 Corinthians 1:30 and 6:11). Both have their source in the infinite love and free grace of God. Both are accomplished by faith. In justification, we rely on what Christ did for us on the cross. In sanctification, we rely on Christ to work in us by His Holy Spirit. In justification, as well as regeneration, God acts alone. In sanctification, He works in us but elicits our response to cooperate with Him.
Quoting William Plumer again,
Justification is an act of God complete at once and for ever. Sanctification is a work of God begun in regeneration, conducted through life and completed at death. The former is equal and perfect in all; the latter is not equal in all, nor perfect in any till they lay aside the flesh. In justification God imputes [that is, credits] to us the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification he [imparts] grace, and enables us to exercise it.[34]
The Holy Spirit’s work is a work of grace in two respects. In an earlier book, Transforming Grace, I showed that the Scriptures use the word grace in two distinct but related ways. The broader, more common meaning is God’s unmerited favor to us through Jesus Christ. But there are several instances in Scripture where the meaning is God’s divine assistance to us through the Holy Spirit.[35] But even this divine assistance is a result of God’s unmerited favor. So whether we think of sanctification as an undeserved blessing, which it is, or as the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in us, it is indeed a work of grace.
Our part, that is, our response to the Holy Spirit’s work and our cooperation with Him in His work, is the pursuit of holiness. We will be considering our part in sanctification beginning in chapter 7. But for now, I want to emphasize that the pursuit of holiness, though requiring diligent effort on our part, is dependent upon the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul expressed this principle of dependent discipline quite succinctly in Philippians 4:13: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Paul did the work, in that case, learning to be content. But he did it through the enabling strength of the Holy Spirit. It is difficult to grasp this principle of being responsible yet dependent. But it is absolutely vital that we grasp it and live by it.
THE GOAL
The goal of sanctification is likeness to our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that we “are being transformed into his likeness.” In Romans 8:29, he said that God “predestined [all believers] to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” Christlikeness is God’s goal for all who trust in Christ, and that should be our goal also.
Both words, transformed and conformed, have a common root, form, meaning a pattern or a mold. “Being transformed” refers to the process; conformed refers to the finished product. Jesus is our pattern or mold. We are being transformed so that we will eventually be conformed to the likeness of Jesus.
Sanctification or holiness (the words are somewhat interchangeable), then, is conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ. We see this same idea expressed in different wording in other New Testament Scriptures. In Ephesians 4:24, Paul said our new self is “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” The writer of Hebrews stated that God disciplines us “that we may share in his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10), and in 1 Peter 1:16, the apostle Peter quotes an Old Testament passage where God said, “Be holy, because I am holy” (emphasis added in each Scripture quoted).
How can we know whether we are being transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ? We begin by studying His character. One of my favorite descriptions of Christ is that He “loved righteousness and hated wickedness” (Hebrews 1:9). Jesus did not just act righteously, He loved righteousness. In His humanity, He loved equity, fairness, justice, and upright dealings with others. At the same time, He hated wickedness. Jesus hated sin as sin. We often hate the consequences of sin (even if it seems to be no more than the guilt feelings that follow sin), but I suspect we seldom hate sin as sin. We saw in chapter 2 that sin is a rebellion against God’s authority, a despising of His person, and a defiance of His commands. Do we truly hate sin when we see it in our own lives because of the despicable nature of it? To the extent we do, we are being transformed into His likeness.
Another Scripture that is helpful to me is John 6:38: “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.” Jesus’ entire goal in His earthly life was to do the will of His Father, even though that will culminated in Jesus laying down His life for His sheep. If we are going to become more and more like Him, we must grow toward that same goal of seeking His will. To be like Jesus is not just to stop committing a few obvious sins such as lying, cheating, gossiping, and thinking impure thoughts. To be like Jesus is to always seek to do the will of the Father. That is a very high standard. We frequently desire to do our own will, resulting in actions that may not appear to be sinful in themselves. But they are sinful if they are not the Father’s will.
Not only did Jesus do the will of the Father, not only was that His whole goal in life, but Psalm 40:8 tells us that He delighted to do the will of the Father.[36] To become like Jesus, then, is to come to the place where we delight to do the will of God, however sacrificial or unpleasant that will may seem to us at the time, simply because it is His will.
Then there is Jesus’ statement in John 8:29, “for I always do what pleases him [the Father].” Everything Jesus did was done with the aim of pleasing the Father. And of course, He perfectly realized that aim. What about us? How often do we think, speak, or act with the aim of pleasing the Father? Of course, we will never attain that aim to the extent Jesus did, but the question remains, what is our aim? Is it to please the Father in all we do, or is it to just get through life as comfortably as we can?
Consider also that God looks at our motives as well as our actions (see 1 Chronicles 28:9; Proverbs 16:2; 1 Corinthians 4:5). We may do or say the right thing outwardly, but what is our motive? Is it to please the Father, or is it sometimes to feel good about ourselves, or to look good to others? I’m not saying that we should always be questioning our motives; I’m just attempting to paint a picture to some degree of what it means to be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ.
A PROCESS
We can easily see from the pattern of Jesus’ life that conformity to Him is a lifelong process, and a goal that will never be attained completely in this life. That is why Paul refers to the continual change being wrought in us with his expression in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “with ever-increasing glory,” or as it is more literally translated in the New American Standard Bible, “from glory to glory.” That is, as the Spirit of God works in us, we progress from one stage of glory to the next. As Charles Hodge wrote, “The transformation is carried forward without intermission, from the first scarce discernible resemblance, to full conformity to the image of Christ, both as to soul and body.”[37]
Because sanctification is a process, there will always be conflict within us between the “flesh,” or the sinful nature, and the Holy Spirit. This conflict is described by Paul in Galatians 5:17: “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” He elaborated on this struggle in greater detail in Romans 7:14-25, where he said such things as, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (verse 18).
I realize that not all Bible expositors regard the tension described in Romans 7:14-25 as descriptive of a normal Christian experience, let alone of someone who is vigorously pursuing holiness. Yet what honest Christian would not admit to the frequent gap between his or her spiritual desires and actual performance? Which of us would not concede that “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (verse 21) is a frequent lament?
The comments of John Murray are most helpful at this point. He wrote,
The presence of sin in the believer involves conflict in his heart and life. If there is remaining, indwelling sin, there must be the conflict which Paul describes in Romans 7:14ff. It is futile to argue that this conflict is not normal. If there is still sin to any degree in one who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then there is tension, yes, contradiction, within the heart of that person. Indeed, the more sanctified the person is, the more conformed he is to the image of his Saviour, the more he must recoil against every lack of conformity to the holiness of God. The deeper his apprehension of the majesty of God, the greater the intensity of his love to God, the more persistent his yearning for the attainment of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, the more conscious will he be of the gravity of the sin which remains and the more poignant will be his detestation of it.[38]
Think of yourself walking into a room where the lighting is controlled by a dimmer switch. As you walk in, the lighting is dim and you see the furniture all in place, no newspapers lying around, and no dirty cups on the coffee table. The room looks neat and clean. But as you turn up the wattage in the lights, you begin to see dust on the furniture, smudges on the walls, chips in the paint, and threadbare spots in the carpet. The room that looked all right in the dim light suddenly appears dirty and unattractive under the full glare of the brighter light.
That is what happens in the life of a person who is pursuing holiness. At first your life may appear fairly good because you’ve been a decent sort of person and no gross sins are visible. Then the Holy Spirit begins to “turn up the wattage” of His Word and reveal the more subtle, “refined” sins of which you were not even aware. Or perhaps you were aware of certain thoughts or actions but had not realized they were sinful.
An even better analogy might be the shining of a spotlight into the shadowy recesses of an old house. The Holy Spirit is continually shining His spotlight of conviction into the recesses of our hearts, revealing sinful attitudes and actions of which we were not aware. These newly discovered sins are usually dismaying and discomforting to us. And the more holy a person is, the more he or she is dismayed. Then as we attempt to deal with these sins, we discover that they are stubbornly entrenched in our habits of life and are not easily dislodged. Or a sinful habit we thought had been decisively dealt with reasserts itself, and we seem powerless before its onslaught. All these experiences set up the tension within us that Paul described in the latter half of Romans 7.
Does this mean then that we are no better off than the unbeliever who struggles with some habit he or she wants to be rid of? By no means. John Murray offers helpful insight into the difference between the struggle of a believer with sin and that of an unbeliever with some undesirable habits. He wrote,
There must be a constant and increasing appreciation that though sin still remains it does not have the mastery. There is a total difference between surviving sin and reigning sin, the regenerate in conflict with sin and the unregenerate complacent to sin. It is one thing for sin to live in us: it is another for us to live in sin.[39]
The Puritan Samuel Bolton also helps us see the distinction between the believer’s struggle with sin and the dominion of sin in the unbeliever. He wrote,
We [believers] still have the presence of sin, nay, the stirrings and workings of corruption. These make us to have many a sad heart and wet eye. Yet Christ has thus far freed us from sin; it shall not have dominion. There may be the turbulence, but not the prevalence of sin. . . . [Sin] may get into the throne of the heart and play the tyrant in this or that particular act of sin, but it shall never more be as a king there.[40]
Sin is like a defeated army in a civil war that, instead of surrendering and laying down its arms, simply fades into the countryside, from which it continues to wage a guerrilla war of harassment and sabotage against the government forces. Sin as a reigning power is defeated in the life of the believer, but it will never surrender. It will continue to harass us and seek to sabotage our Christian lives as long as we live.
It is important for us to understand this difference between the unbeliever living complacently in sin and the believer struggling against sin. If we are going to pursue holiness, we must accept the fact that there will be continual tension within us between our desires and our performance. As British theologian J. I. Packer so often says, our reach will always exceed our grasp.
THE AGENT
Who is responsible for this transformation? The Holy Spirit is. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that we are being transformed by “the Lord, who is the Spirit.” The verb being transformed is passive —that is, something is being done to us, not by us. This does not mean we have no responsibility in sanctification. It means that in the final analysis it is the Spirit of God who transforms us. He calls on us to cooperate and to do the part He assigns us to do, but He is the one who works deep within our character to change us.
The pursuit of holiness has been a major object of my thoughts and study for almost thirty-five years. Over that time, I have come to realize —both from personal study and observation of my life —that the deep work of spiritual transformation of my soul has been what the Holy Spirit has done, not what I have done. I can to some degree change my conduct, but only He can change my heart.
Several passages of Scripture emphasize the fact that sanctification is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, Paul said, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” Note that it is God Himself who will sanctify us “through and through.” In other words, He will bring the process to completion.
Again, Paul wrote in Philippians 1:6, “[be] confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Finally, the writer of Hebrews prayed that God will “work in us what is pleasing to him” (Hebrews 13:21). Although these passages speak of God in a nonspecific sense, or use the pronoun he, we know from other Scriptures that the work of sanctification within the Trinity is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit (2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2). This being true, we ought to pray daily for His work of sanctification within us. One of my favorite prayers is to take the words of Hebrews 13:21 and ask that He will work in me what is pleasing to Him. (We’ll look more at the place of prayer in sanctification in chapter 8.)
The Spirit of God has indeed given us certain responsibilities in the sanctifying process. In fact, the Bible is filled with exhortations, challenges, and commands to obey, as well as spiritual disciplines to be practiced. We will consider these beginning in chapter 7. However, I am now emphasizing the Spirit’s work because we tend to lose sight of the fact that He is the agent of sanctification.
The way the Spirit operates in our lives to sanctify us is shrouded in mystery. Paul said He works in us “to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13), but he never tells us just how the Holy Spirit interacts with, or works on, our human spirit. I like to know how things work, and I used to try to figure out how the Holy Spirit interacts with our spirit, but I finally realized it was a futile pursuit. On this subject, the comments of John Murray are again helpful: “We do not know the mode of the Spirit’s indwelling nor the mode of his efficient working in the hearts and minds and wills of God’s people by which they are progressively cleansed from the defilement of sin and more and more transfigured after the image of Christ.”[41]
We will often be conscious of the Holy Spirit’s working in our lives and will even be able to discern what He is doing to some extent, especially in those instances where He elicits a conscious response from us. But, to again use the words of John Murray, “we must not suppose that the measure of our understanding or experience is the measure of the Spirit’s working.”[42]
THE MEANS
Although the Holy Spirit is the agent of sanctification and He works in us in this mysterious fashion, it is also true that He uses rational and understandable means to sanctify us. Some of these means, such as adversities and the exhortation and encouragement of others, are outside of our control to initiate. With other means, such as the learning and application of Scripture and the frequent use of prayer, He expects us to take the initiative. We will come to these in later chapters. For now, I want to focus on the one specific means that Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 3:18 —that is, beholding the glory of Christ.
Paul wrote, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed” (NASB).[43] That is, beholding the glory of the Lord is one means the Spirit uses to transform us.
What is the glory of the Lord that Paul referred to, and how does beholding it transform us? First, the glory of the Lord denotes the presence of God and all that He is in all of His attributes —His infiniteness, eternalness, holiness, sovereignty, goodness, and so on. In other words, God is glorious in all of His being and all of His works. However, in the context of 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul was contrasting the glory of the law given by Moses with the far-surpassing glory of the gospel (see 2 Corinthians 3:7-11). Then in 2 Corinthians 4:4, he spoke of “the gospel of the glory of Christ.” This means the glory of Christ is good news, for the word gospel means good news.
This close connection between the gospel and Christ’s glory leads me to believe that Paul was in this instance thinking of the glory of Christ, especially as it is revealed in the gospel. The law reveals the glory of God in His righteousness; the gospel reveals the glory of God in both His righteousness and grace. Christ’s death reveals the righteousness of God in that it satisfied the justice of God, but it also reveals the grace of God in that it was the means of salvation to those who deserve only eternal wrath.
Furthermore, the gospel reveals the wisdom of God in devising such an infinitely magnificent way of meeting our desperate need without sacrificing His holiness and justice. And it reveals the power of God, both in His raising Jesus from the dead and in raising us from spiritual death to a new life in Christ. So the gospel pulls together and harmonizes all these glorious attributes of the Lord: His righteousness with His grace, His justice with His mercy, His power with His love, His wisdom with His patience and compassion.
It seems, though, that God desires to magnify His grace in a special way to us, for Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:6-7, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” The key phrase is that God might show the incomparable riches of His grace. This is God’s goal in the salvation of fallen human beings: the exaltation of His grace shown to us in Christ.
James Fraser (1700–1769), an obscure Scottish pastor, wrote a masterful treatise on sanctification that was recognized as a classic in its day and has recently been reprinted. In this book, he has this to say about the glory of the gospel:
It is the gospel that exhibits God’s highest glory, which he chiefly designs to display before sinful men, even that glory of God that shineth in the face of Christ. It is the gospel that sets forth the glory of Christ, and by which the Holy Spirit himself is glorified; and it is it that will be honoured with the concomitant [accompanying] influence of the Holy Spirit. . . .
If it should now be asked what is that special doctrine of the gospel, and, strictly speaking, the doctrine of faith? I shall answer briefly —
All revealed truth ought to be greatly valued, and received by faith; and, if properly used, may be subservient to the main subject and design of the gospel. But the special subject of the gospel is Christ; and preaching Christ, according to the light and direction of the word of God, is preaching the gospel. . . . To preach Christ the Savior and the Lord, is the sum of gospel-preaching.[44]
This, then, is the glory that has a transforming effect on us. It is the glory of Christ revealed in the gospel, the good news that Jesus died in our place as our representative to free us not only from the penalty of sin but also from its dominion. A clear understanding and appropriation of the gospel, which gives freedom from sin’s guilt and sin’s grip, is, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, a chief means of sanctification.
To the degree that we feel we are on a legal or performance relationship with God, to that degree our progress in sanctification is impeded. A legal mode of thinking gives indwelling sin an advantage, because nothing cuts the nerve of the desire to pursue holiness as much as a sense of guilt. On the contrary, nothing so motivates us to deal with sin in our lives as does the understanding and application of the two truths that our sins are forgiven and the dominion of sin is broken because of our union with Christ.
Robert Haldane, in his commentary on Romans, quotes from a previous writer identified only as “Mr. Romaine,” who said, “No sin can be crucified either in heart or life, unless it be first pardoned in conscience; because there will be want of faith to receive the strength of Jesus, by whom alone it can be crucified. If it be not mortified [put to death] in its guilt, it cannot be subdued in its power.”[45]
We will be studying the discipline of putting sin to death, or subduing it, in chapter 11. For now, however, we should consider the connection Mr. Romaine drew between sin being pardoned in our consciences and our ability to rely upon Christ for the strength to subdue it. The cleansing of our consciences from the guilt of sin must precede our efforts to deal with the presence of sin in our daily lives.
In the words of Hebrews 9:14, it is “the blood of Christ” that will “cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death [that is, from sinful acts], so that we may serve the living God!” We cannot serve God or pursue holiness with any vigor at all if we are dealing with a guilty conscience. Therefore, we need the gospel to remind us that our sins are forgiven in Christ and that “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Our specific responsibility in the pursuit of holiness as seen in 2 Corinthians 3:18, then, is to behold the glory of the Lord as it is displayed in the gospel. The gospel is the “mirror” through which we now behold His beauty. One day we shall see Christ, not as in a mirror, but face-to-face. Then, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Until then we behold Him in the gospel. Therefore, we must “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.”
To behold the glory of Christ in the gospel is a discipline. It is a habit we must develop by practice as we learn to preach the gospel to ourselves. As I have repeatedly said, although sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit, it is a work in which He involves us. In later chapters, we will be looking at other disciplines that we must practice in the pursuit of holiness. But none is more important than the discipline of beholding the glory of Christ in the “mirror” of the gospel.
[32] Matthew Henry, A Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 4 (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, n.d.), 962.
[33] William S. Plumer, The Grace of Christ, or Sinners Saved by Unmerited Kindness (Keyser, WV: Odom Publications, n.d.; originally published 1853), 278, emphasis in original.
[34] Ibid., 279.
[35] For a more detailed discussion of this second meaning of grace, see Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1991), 137–38.
[36] The New International Version says in Psalm 40:8, “I desire to do your will, O my God.” All other versions at my disposal translate it “I delight to do [your will]” (emphasis added). See KJV, NKJV, RSV, NASB, MLB, TLB, and ASV.
[37] Charles Hodge, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, rev. ed. (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1959), 78.
[38] John Murray, Redemption —Accomplished and Applied (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1961; originally published 1955), 144-45.
[39] Ibid., 145.
[40] Samuel Bolton, The True Bounds of Christian Freedom (Edinburgh, Scotland: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1964; originally published 1645), 26.
[41] Murray, Redemption, 146.
[42] Ibid., 147.
[43] I have used the NASB translation for 2 Corinthians 3:18, because it, as well as most other versions, says “beholding” the glory of the Lord, whereas the NIV says “reflect” the Lord’s glory. Although both meanings are feasible, I believe the context favors the use of “beholding.”
[44] James Fraser, A Treatise on Sanctification (Audubon, NJ: Old Paths Publications, 1992; originally published 1774, revised 1897), 464-65.
[45] Robert Haldane, Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1958; originally published ca. 1842), 253–54.