His life and ministry is the revealing of the glory of Christ...
2 Cor: 3:17-18 · Roger Henderson · Apr 9, 2017
2 Corinthians (2017), No. 14
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261727397790

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, well today we... Actually, the class schedule is... Remember, I moved verse 17. I covered verse 17 last week. So we're just going to cover verse 18 today. And it's just a marvelous verse. Okay, so could someone read that? I can read it too. You can read it from your Bible if you want.

2 Corinthians 3.18. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. For we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in the mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit. Great, thanks Cheryl.

Okay, so actually I have another, I particularly like the Amplified Bible, I'm not trying to, you know, I like the Weiss translation. I have a couple of my favorites. I mean, this doesn't mean that you should run right out and, well, Roger says, I'll go out and buy it. Anyway, I think it brings out some points here.

And all of us, with unveiled face, because we are continuing to behold in the Word of God, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image, even as increasing splendor from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Go ahead. Can I make a comment about that transfiguration? Sure.

I was reading J. Vernon Davis. He knew the lady that did the Annapurna Bible and he had a real problem with her on this transfiguration. He said there's no one on this transfiguration except the Lord Jesus. Right, and actually that is, what you'll find, unfortunately what you'll find is that that word is used, right, and it's used, transfigured is used, actually it's used of the Lord Jesus, actually only four times.

We'll see here shortly. So we'll talk about that. Okay. That's a good point. That's a good point. We're not going to be transfigured. The Lord is transforming us. Good point. Okay. All right. So let's just do this. So actually, you know, last week we covered verse 17. Actually we covered verses 12 through 17 but the last three verses of 2nd Corinthians here in chapter 3 kind of have a pattern it seems like in verse 16 we saw it says whenever a person turns to the Lord and that spoke of our salvation and then verse 17 says where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and this speaks of our freedom in Christ and we talked about that a bit last week but now we come to this this verse that talks about another wonderful aspect of of what the Lord is doing in our life. We are all being transformed. It speaks of an inward change that God is doing as we behold Him in His Word.

So that's important. And that kind of picks up on the translation of the word, as you point out, transfigured wouldn't be appropriate. We're not being transfigured. In fact, actually, that's the opposite. We can't, you know, the Lord is seen But but not in the splendor sense as as it was in the amount of transfiguration. Morning, Tom. We're going to spend some time with metamorphosis. I think that's close to the pronunciation. We'll spend some time with that. Okay, so this is just for the context.

So, I kind of like the fact that we see salvation, we see the results of our salvation, and we have this wonderful freedom in Christ, and then we see this wonderful thing the Lord is doing, and He's doing that as we interact with His Word, interact with God's Word. And that's what's kind of tremendous. You know, there's a lot of talk, and I know Randy sees it too, you know, interactive communications, or interactive this. You know, the Bible is the most interactive book on the face of the earth.

And just from this verse alone, it has the amazing ability to transform us, to change us, based upon as we interact with His Word. And it's not going to be a physical change. It's going to be an inward change. And that's going to hopefully be shown on the outside.

So it's a marvelous, marvelous verse, a marvelous passage. OK. Whoops. All right, so I'm going to make use of an outline that Hal did back in 2004, which I kind of liked. It kind of takes a verse and it breaks it down into the main idea of the verse. Then there's like five additional parts to the verse.

And they all kind of basically, the main verb in here is, are being transformed. We'll see shortly. But these all kind of modify that and give you more information. So we're going to look at, first of all, we're going to look at, we are all being transformed.

That's the main idea. And this is all believers. regardless of whether you're a spiffy believer or not so spiffy. The only requirement here is that you love God's word. If you love God's Word, the focus here is God's Word. That's going to change you. That's what's cool about it. You have something that's going to change you. Say, I want to go on a diet. I want to do this or that. You have something you can sit down with the Lord and go through it and it's going to change you because you're going to interact with the God who made you. And so it's wonderful. So okay, and there's some things in here.

It's with unveiled face, and that's pretty significant based upon what we saw last week. We're not like Moses who veiled his face, which I'm beginning more and more to see that Moses really, he shouldn't have done that. He should have just let it fade out and they can say, well see, I was with the Lord, look at the marvelous thing, let it fade out. No, he had to kind of cover it up like, well I really have this. He shouldn't have done that. But they don't really find people talking about that too much. Anyway, unveil face into the same image.

That's the results of the goal of the transformation. And this is the main thought. We're beholding, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord. How it's accomplished? It's not accomplished by us really trying to do anything other than wanting to understand His Word and focus on His Word. And it's from glory to glory. It's not a stagnant thing. It's from one state of glory to the other. And the Holy Spirit is the one who's energizing this and making this happen.

So we're going to go through these six areas one at a time here. Okay, the first one. So you see that actually in the verse itself, the subject, we all, and are being transformed. They're separated. You know, Greek doesn't necessarily put the subject and verb at the top and then put the rest of the stuff below it. So, but we all are being transformed. So, but, it's a contrast word. It's contrasting what has gone before. The subject, we all, and it has the idea that none are excluded. There's not one single believer that's excluded in this. It's all inclusive. And so here, our being transformed is what Thomas was talking about. I think it's pronounced metamorpho to change into another form. Meta, implying change. Morpho, implying form. It lays stress on the inward change within a believer.

So we're going to look at, and it's in the, you know, I usually don't spend too much time, but basically it's in the present indicative passive voice. So we're going to look at each one of those. The present tense, it means it's a continual process. It's continually going on.

As we interact with God's word, there's the opportunity for transformation. I was just saying, if you don't, you know, here's the other side of the coin. If you don't interact with God's word, you miss out. You miss out on what the Lord wants to do. That should be even more reason to spend time in his word. Not in the sense of, well, I've got to get my 20 verses in today, or whatever it is. But just, wow, I want to see what the Lord has to say. I want to understand what's going on here. So it's a continual process in the present. It's a statement of fact, indicative mood, and a passive voice. The subject, we all, are receiving the action of the verb. So we're not producing it.

We are transformed and the Holy Spirit is the one who's doing it. It's only used four times in the New Testament. It's either translated transformed or transfigured. And the transfigured cases show up on the Mount of Transfiguration where the Lord was He was transformed so you could see His glory outwardly. His garments were changed.

But for us, it's a different process, and we're going to talk about that in a second. Okay, then kind of reviewing those three points, our inward change or transformation is a continual process. We're not making the change. We're not making the change. God is changing us. The transformation process is a reality in our lives. So okay, here's Christ was transformed.

Let's look at these verses just quickly, at least one of them, because they're basically the same situation. Could someone read the first verse there, which is the Mark passage, or the Matthew passage? Peter and James and John, his brethren, led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And even a transfigured before them, whose face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as the night.

Great. Thank you. OK. Now, for some reason, I've confused myself here with my notes. Go ahead. You say the transfigured there in 2 is not a good translator? Well, no. Actually, in the Matthew passage, it is good. I mean, the Lord was changed, right? I mean, His garments were changed.

And like what was pointed out is that only the Lord, actually, you could see what was on the inside. As I mentioned before, even though we have the Lord living inside of us, we see no evidence outside of that. We may see a life attitude and a person's actions, but we don't see any...

Here's a case where that glory was made visible on the outside. Okay, just a second here. I don't know why I got myself confused here. Just one second here, I apologize. Okay, so his internal glory was manifest outwardly, we see from that. Okay, so did the Lord need to... this is kind of a word that kind of strangely... Did the Lord need to be changed inside? Was there a process going on inside the Lord Jesus to change Him? No, He was immutable to begin with. Right, right. So if you look at... because He's Christ, He's expressed image of God.

So let's look at Colossians 1.15. I mean, He's God. He doesn't need... you know, we need that process. He does not. He doesn't need to... to be changed, inward change in him.

Colossians 1.15. Don't you think that when he went up on the mountain and they saw him, it was more for their good? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, totally. He didn't need to, you know. And I haven't actually gone back, I should go back and look at the context and there's some other dialogue about that, you know. Why did he do it at that particular time? I didn't really go down that path, I just kind of made note of the fact that that's one of the cases, the four cases where we have our transformation word.

Okay, so Colossians 1.15.

Right, so basically the is, he already is the image. This verse is going to talk about the fact that we are being transformed into the same image. Because we have Christ in us, we're growing up in Christ. His image is being displayed in our lives. But he didn't need to do that. So that's Christ. His transfiguration. The same word, metamorpho.

What is the inward change in the life of the believer? Okay, so we kind of go through some steps here. God has crucified our old man all the way we're at Adam. If you look at Romans 6.6, basically it says that our old man, our old self, was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with or rendered inoperative. So what I'm trying to show here is that where is this interchange going to happen? Is the Lord going to try to work on our old man No, he's not. Because he's already judged him. We're already separated from that guy. And then additionally, our old man can never change.

And what God did in Romans 8.3, can someone read that? He actually did something in relationship to our old man.

What the law could not do, weak as it was to the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh. Right, so where it says that He condemned sin, it's actually the definite article, He condemned sin in the flesh. So God is finished with the old man. We've been separated from Him, and the old man, who contains the sin nature, so we're done with the old man. So where is God going to make this change in our lives? God is changing our inner new man, which manifests itself outwardly.

And this is something that I... Actually, going through this, it's funny, a lot of these are familiar territory, but I found a new aspect I hadn't realized. Maybe you'll pick up on it here in a second. And it has to do with this area right here. So let's look at Colossians 3.10. So this is going to talk about the new man. Is the new man, you know, There's two aspects of the new man. I won't say any more. Let's read the verse first.

Colossians 3.10. "...and have put on a new self, who is being renewed to true knowledge according to the initial of the one who is created." Okay. And let's just read one more, and then I'll talk about it.

Ephesians 3.16. "...let the word of Christ reach you well within you, for all that is within you can be admonished one another with songs and screams and tears of song, singing the praise of the Lord." Okay, was that, was that, was that three six? I'm sorry. Okay. That was a good verse too. Thanks Randy. Okay.

So you know, You know, we talk at Holly Hills here a lot about our position and our condition, and this is something that I had kind of... I kind of knew, but I kind of glossed over. It's important that we realize that there's a positional aspect to our new man, and there's a conditional aspect to our new man. And this is addressing the conditional aspect of our new man.

We have the life of Christ, which is perfect, but we also are growing in grace and the knowledge that there's an aspect, a conditional aspect of our life that is growing and understanding who we are in Christ. So that's the new man. I had kind of not actually focused as much on the conditional aspect, and this verse kind of brings it out. Because otherwise, if we had Christ's life, why aren't we just perfect? Now you could argue, well, I'm not perfect because I sometimes spend time over in the old man.

Well, this is saying that your new man in Christ There's a conditional aspect which needs to be influenced by his word. It needs to grow. And that's what this verse is about. Transforming is all about. So that's the part that I kind of maybe didn't have down solid, and I think it was helpful to me. Hopefully that's not too confusing, too.

But positionally, we have the life of Christ. John 17 says we absolutely have his life. So we have the perfect life of Christ, but we're unable to actually make that available to us. We have to grow in grace and the knowledge of Him. So we have position, we have it, just like we're seated with Christ in the heavenlies. We're not there yet, but we have that position. So it's a position and condition aspect of God's Word. Hopefully I haven't totally got off on a rabbit trail here. Go ahead. Exactly. Right, right. And that's good.

And especially in this verse, because this verse is talking about something God's doing. You say, well, why does God even have to do this? I mean, if you go down that path, you say, well, I have Christ's life, which is perfect. Why do I have to even go here? Well, there's an aspect of your life which has to be growing. Growing in Him. And that's what the Christian life is about. Growing in Him. Growing to know Him. Exactly. Have you ever gone and got the Christian greeting cards?

They crack me up. I look at it and I said, who wrote this thing? He doesn't know. It's some kind of goofy thing. What does this mean? And you say, they don't understand. They're writing these greeting cards. They didn't get believers to write the greeting cards. They got somebody else. I assume. I don't know. That's my experience with those cards. I'm sorry. In short, it's kind of like somebody commenting on a card game. Who dealt this mess? That's good. That's good. OK, cool. All righty. So OK. Okay, so that's the part, back here just a second, let me just go back for a second. Sorry to do this.

Remember, metamorpho is this transforming process. This is a word, Tom, you realize, this is the process that a butterfly, I mean, that a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, so it's a marvelous process. It's a marvelous process, what the Lord has in mind for us. Anyway, I didn't want to miss out on that. Okay, so now that was the main idea we covered. We are all being transformed. So now here's some things about us. What's marvelous is we have an unveiled face in our condition. We have an unveiled face, which is important.

So Moses with a veiled face versus us with an unveiled face. God's glory reflected in Moses' face was fading. once removed from its source. Moses veiled his face to hide his fading glory. And you want to be kind of convinced of that fact. Because otherwise, if you argue that he's trying to prevent them from hurting their eyes, you're off on a rabbit trail there. So Moses' glory was external and temporal.

A totally different deal with us. We have What we have in Christ the believers face is unveiled to show the ever-increasing glory of Christ as we behold him And this is kind of cool the verb tense of unveiled is Perfect passive which it tells us that it's a past completed action. We have an unveiled face as a believer and And actually, we have a verse that tells us that from last week. It tells us that it's a past completed action with abiding results in the present. And the passive voice tells us it's God who has removed it.

Remember last week in verse 14, it says, because the veil is removed in Christ, in 2 Corinthians 3.14. So when we become a believer, there's no longer this veil. So we have access to all this wonderful ministry of the Holy Spirit. The source of our glory is Christ's glory, which is eternal and permanent. The source cannot be removed since we cannot be removed from Christ in our position.

So that's talking about our unveiled face. So I'm going to kind of chunk through, if you have questions or you want to talk more. So we've gone through the main verb, main subject of the verb. We all are being transformed. Let's just go over here. So we've gone through the main thrust of the verse. We are being transformed. In our condition, it's unveiled face.

That's by God's intent. Into the same image. So this is the results or a goal of the transformation. into the same image tells us the goal of the transformation. So what is this image? It's this word in the Greek. Actually, it's a Greek form of the word we have for icon, like you talk about on a computer, computer icon. But it's much more expansive than that. It's resemblance, likeness. The word involves two ideas, representation and manifestation. So let's look at a couple of these verses here.

Could someone read Romans 8.29? For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestine to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Right. OK.

And the word conform there is the idea to have the same form as another. So the Lord is working our lives to... and the word same tells us this is Christ's image. He's focused on transforming us into the same image. So let's look at that. Christ's image is His essence and His attributes. So where am I going to cover the point I want to make here?

Okay, so we're going to talk about his image in a second, because obviously we're not going to be deity. We're not going to be deity, but we're going to have a likeness to our Savior, but not in terms of his deity. His image is his entire essence and all his attributes. He's holy, righteous, and just. That's the idea of the image of Christ, and we're going to be like him in the sense of that we have his life, but not his deity, certainly.

Randy? There's a really important principle there that we're after his title. Okay, good. Not the same as the person. My daughters are after the title of Adam. But being identified with Christ doesn't make us God. Right, exactly. And that's true. And this is the point here. We're into the same image, but we're not becoming deity, certainly.

OK, so this is a section I don't have a lot on. Let's see, I have this section on this. Actually, I just had one chart on basically into the same image. We're going to look at the related topic about His glory in just a second here. But this is kind of the focus on into the same image. OK, so now we're down to the fourth bullet. And this is one of the cool parts here.

Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. So this is how it's accomplished. This is the way God is using his word to change us. So how do we get transformed? It is beholding as an emir of the glory of the Lord. Beholding as an emir is actually one word.

And we're going to spend a lot of time in the remainder of the class talking about beholding. And we're going to see a couple of different words. This is one of the key words. Karpadzo, I'm not sure I'm finding exactly the right pronunciation, but basically it's the idea of kata, which is down, and aps, which is eyesight.

And actually, it only appears in this passage in scripture, and it's in the middle voice, which means it's to behold intensely what is being reflected. Okay, let's just keep going here, and I'll just show you what's next here. Notice that we are beholding the glory of the Lord. So what is the glory of the Lord? I mentioned this last week a little bit.

So there's two aspects. First of all, just like in the Mount of Transfiguration, there's a blinding presence. There's a passage in Matthew and one in Mark that talks about that that his garments were changed. They were changed and they were whiter than any, it says, any fuller in the King James or any launderer. They were just amazingly bright. And that talks about his very blinding presence of the Lord.

So that's one aspect. But the aspect that we interact with, because we can't see that blinding presence, what we interact with is the glorious nature of his life and his ministry. We see As we interact with God's Word, we see who He is and what He did. We see the person and the work of Christ. And that's the aspect of His glory that we interact with.

And the word doxa, and the word glory is doxa, it's used, this is from Vines, it's used of the nature and acts of God in self-manifestation. It's essentially what God is and does. So as I mentioned before, don't think of glory too much as as the brightness, but think of it more as the internal holy and righteous character of God. It's who He is. That's who God is.

And He's glorious just by His very nature is glorious. Okay, so we're focused on, we're beholding as an emir of the glory of the Lord. So what can we, with our eyes, what can we behold with our eyes that reflects the totality of Christ's glory? Okay, well first of all, Beholding Creation, it does it in a sense, but not totally, right? We see that the heavens declare the glory of God. We certainly can come to a fair amount of conclusions. There must be somebody that's doing this. We look out and all these marvelous things, but that doesn't tell us about the nature of Christ or the nature of God. We can look at We can look at believers, and actually in the early part of the verse it says we have things written in our hearts.

Believers are a testimony to God's glory. But really the only thing, only the Word of God does it. The Spirit of God reveals Christ's glory. And that happens through His Word. And this is a really great verse. John 16, 13-15. Can someone read that? It talks about the process the Holy Spirit's doing.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine, and therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you. Right.

So the Holy Spirit, you know, I always think of this as just the amazing Godhead. Here's the third person in the Trinity saying, and Christ did this too, says, you know, don't focus on me. My job is to focus you on Christ. So he says, and verse 14 is just really kind of key here.

He says, He shall glorify me, speaking of the Holy Spirit, for He shall take Mine and she'll disclose it to you. So the Holy Spirit is going to take the things of Christ and disclose it to us so that's that's the Process that's going to be going on as we behold the glory of the Lord in this mirror the Word of God That the Holy Spirit is going to take of mine and disclose it to you. So that's what's that's a place Not creation. We'll get we can get some glimpses believers are our wonderful testimony but the real The real nuts and bolts are in God's Word.

Beholding His Word. And the Holy Spirit, His job description is to show us the things of Christ. So we're not by ourselves. Think about this. When you're reading God's Word, you're not by yourself. The Holy Spirit wants to show you the things of Christ. So that's pretty cool. You have a tutor right with you there. Now you say, well, I wish you'd tell me a little bit more. Sometimes you have questions and I get confused. Anyway, it's pretty cool. Now this is kind of neat.

There's another verse that's going to talk about. Now this is not the only place in scripture that talks about beholding the glory of the Lord. There's another key verse which I'm going to show below here. John 17, 24. The Father, this is the Lord Jesus' prayer here. This is a real Lord's Prayer. Father I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am so that they may see or probably better literally behold my glory which you gave me for you love me before the foundation of the world. So we had the previous beholding was beholding this mirror of God's Word.

Well, this is talking about kind of another aspect of that, another level or another part of that, if you will. So let's just ask some questions about this verse. Who are those whom you have given me? This is the easier one. That's usans, right? Usans? You all? I'm not sure that is a word. What's that? It says in this passage, John says, we're a gift. I'm a gift from God the Father to God the Son.

I think, wow, he got a bad deal. You see yourself and you see your sins are always before you. Unfortunately, many times in our Christian life we see our shortcomings, and we say, oh boy, and you mourn over those. But the Lord says, don't go there. I know about those shortcomings. I paid for those shortcomings. Look at me. Focus on Him. So we're the ones that have been given by the Father to the Son, whom you have given me.

The second part here is, what does it mean to be with Him where I am? So, and this is pretty cool. So, what are your thoughts here? Well, this is so transitional truth, because he's at the right hand of God. Right. He is, right now. Exactly. Tom, I'll just hold your question just for a second here. But what you could do, you could say, well, you know, this is the sweet by and by, to use an old phraseology. This is the sweet by and by. Oh, you know, I get to be with the Lord. I'll be with Him there, and it'll just be wonderful. But no, I think this is talking about right now. He wants us to be there right now. You be with me where I am. And you're going to ask, how's that going to happen? Sorry, Tom. Did you want to add something? I probably didn't want to. I wouldn't want to miss that little part. Can I speak now? Yeah, do it.

Paul spoke about this saying that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. This links it up. Right, it does, it does. So this is really cool. He wants us to be, so this is an, if you will, we behold us in the mirror, God's word, but he's saying I want you to take that word and believe what it says. If he says you're seated with Christ in the heavenlies, Our brother Hal used to say, this just would blow me away sometimes.

He says, go there. I said, Hal, what did you say? Go there. Go where? Go to where you are in your position. Well, I'm seated with Christ in the heavenly. Go there and view your situation from that perspective. And I think that's what it says. He wants us to go there. And that's the other aspect of that beholding. We have the beholding in the mirror God's Word, but then we have the interactiveness of His Word in saying, wow, this is where I'm at. I'm really with you in the heavenlies. You know, there are difficulties I have in this life, but I can look at them from where I truly am, with you in the heavenlies.

That changes the whole ballgame, so to speak. Uh-huh. Exactly. And he'll say that to other believers and they are so confused. I know, I know. They have no idea what that means. And they say, no, don't you mean she's making up? No. All the basketball players are always pointing up. I'm always thinking, you guys. I'm happy they're believers. I mean, I don't say that. But they're always pointing up.

When I say they're pointing down, that'd be pretty cool. They would totally... They would. They would. Anyway. Okay, so... And the purpose of that, so that we may see or behold my glory. So there's... There's going to be two aspects here, so let's just kind of go on here.

So what's the difference between beholding, back in 318, I can't pronounce this word, carpazzo, and this word beholding, which we're going to look at shortly here, terreo. So 318, carpazzo, beholding there, that's beholding as in a mirror, emphasizes us beholding objectively the truth concerning Christ through his written word.

So that's what's called objective truth. Do you guys know the difference between if I say objective and subjective? Objective truth and subjective? I have a little thing I found. I was kind of contemplating that. Something that's objective is subjective than it's raining. You can go out and get wet, right? It's raining. That's the truth. Subjectively, I love the rain.

Objectively, is 318 but what's cool is the subjective part is John 17 24 that's a that's a part where you marvel you go where you you know you go in your mind's eye if you will you go and be with him where you're seated and you look at your situation from where he says you are that's that's the cool part that's the part where you take the written word and make it something that is is a fellowship kind of thing so this word here is Pharaoh It's the idea of a spectator, or like the word for theater, English theater. The emphasis is on beholding with a personal interest and intimacy. You have to do number one before you get to number two, right? Until you objectively see what the facts are, you can't do part two. You can't really fellowship with the Lord. You can't really see what's going on.

So there's part A and part B. So both would be holding. This is what was so cool. This is why I really wanted to use Hal's outline from before. I thought this was just so significant and so insightful. And I think we kind of teach this, but this is kind of condensed all in one little package. So thoughts? We're going to keep going on this a little bit more. Would that be kind of positional and subject or conditional? Well, they're related but kind of a different, you know, they're interrelated, right?

Obviously positionally we're seated with Christ and the heavenlies, right? Okay, so that's an objective truth, right? Because it came from God's word. We're not going to argue with the Lord. He says we're seated with Him and the heavenlies. The conditional or subjective part of that is Okay, let me consider that. If I'm seated with Christ in the heavenlies, what does that mean?

I can keep looking down because that's where I'm at. I can look at these situations, not ignoring them, but saying, wow, I don't have to be fearful that my relationship with the Lord is going to change because I'm already seated with Him. So you look at things in light of the objective truth.

So that's kind of the objective, subjective thing. All these people that are apoplectic with all the political things. Right. Good point. And so I had this conversation with a good friend of mine who's Jewish. And she is because they're all about now today. Exactly. And this is all what they do. Right. And she's conservative and she was very upset about things that are going on. Right. And I said, well, and she said, you don't ever seem to be upset about this stuff. Why not? And I said, well, because I have a different view as a believer. I'm looking at this in what my position is. My business address.

Right, that's cool. No, that's excellent. Exactly. Right. Well, you view it differently, just like when you travel, and so you have some bad accommodations, and the faucets leak, and the toilets don't flush well. You say, well, this isn't home. I get back home, things will be fine. Well, you can look at it that way. My physician, toilets are fine up here in heaven. I don't know, it's kind of silly. Anyway, so, you know, two different aspects.

That probably wasn't too cool a thing, but anyway. But really, I mean, if you're seated with the Lord in heavenly places, are you in danger? No! No. You might say, well, my physical body's in danger down here, Lord. You know, maybe I'm not doing too well, my leg's not working well, my arm's not doing my wrist or whatever, you know?

I'm fine with you, Lord. I'm at peace with you because I know where I live. And I live with you in the heavenlies. Okay. Oh, it is. It is. Well, that's the part of the fact. You have a truth in the Word and you say, wow, how can it be? I'm a gift from God the Father. There's an objective truth. I'm a gift from God the Father to God the Son.

You say, what was he thinking? You look at yourself and you say, Lord, if you're honest with yourself, you see all your shortcomings, and you hate them. And you say, why am I that way? Or why has the situation never changed, Lord? You complain about it, hopefully, in the right perspective. But things just aren't right here, and they're not right.

But they are right with him. So, anyway. Okay. All right. So what's the difference? And this is, we just started talking. So, it's making the objective beholding, Karpadzo, into the subjective, Therao. Christ desires, Is everything good? You walked by. It must be. Christ desires to have a close intimacy with us while beholding him. The objective, then subjective. Okay, here's kind of cool.

The apostles beheld him here on earth. In John, that's where he says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory." So the apostles, they beheld his glory. They saw him. They beheld him physically. We believers behold him in the heavenlies. That's our home address. Okay, so actually that's the last part on this. This is one of the cooler parts in here. So now we're going to kind of...

This is a clean-up operation, kind of the rest of this. crossing and dotting the i's and the t's here so okay so now it's from glory to glory increasing effect of the transformation as we behold Christ in his word God is transforming our new man conditionally to who he is positionally the glory of Christ and we see that the particular verse I kind of put a little asterisk that a pretty prickly cool verse is the one in Galatians, it says, it talks at the end of that verse, it says, I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you.

So there are a whole bunch of verses that talk about this process of Christ being formed in you. Making your conditional part become, you know, remember your positional part based upon your condition. I didn't say that right, I don't think. Okay, God's process. God is revealing the glory of Christ by his word. Some of this is kind of a repeat.

As we behold Christ's glory by faith, God shares Christ's glory upon us from glory to glory, ever increasing amounts of Christ's glory. God manifests Christ's glory through us as his representatives to reveal Christ to others. The process will be complete when we see him face to face. For now we see in a mirror dimly But then face to face now, I know in part, but then I shall be fully known as I also have been fully known so it's the idea be Fully knowing him, you know, that's a process we go through as we behold his glory We come to know him more and more and more His purpose it's never to hide his glory He revealed it to Moses and probably Moses shouldn't have covered his face up there Christ's glory revealed in the transfiguration to manifest the glory of Christ through you and me from glory to glory.

The last part is, just as from the Lord the Spirit. So the driving force in all this is the Holy Spirit. The Amplified has it, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. We saw in verse 17 that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty or freedom. Now we see He is the agent in the transformation process. Two things about the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

To reveal, and this is kind of a review, to reveal the glory of Christ as we behold Him in the mirror, in His Word, And then secondly, to be the living link between us and Christ as we behold him, as we thereo him in the heavenlies and experience a wonderful intimacy with Christ.

So that's the last chart. OK, I hope that was good for you. I mean, I think this is just a marvelous passage. Hopefully that's helpful. And the Lord has desires. to spend time with us. And he's provided the mechanism via his word and the Holy Spirit to do that. So it's pretty amazing stuff. Okay, well let's close then.

We thank you, Father. We thank you so much for this day, Father. We thank you for the blessings we have, Father. Thank you for your spirit that shows us Christ, Lord. Thank you for the process that as we look in your word, We're being changed, Lord. Thank you for the intimacy that you desire, that we can spend time with you and reflect upon and trust and listen to your spirit, reminding us of our wonderful place in you. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.