THE EFFECT OF BEHOLDING THE GLORY

THE EFFECT OF BEHOLDING THE GLORY

What is the practical effect of looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face? We must bear in mind that the apostle is here (2 Corinthians 3) contrasting the difference between the ministration of death and the ministration of righteousness. The glory in the former necessarily consumed, because it only appeared with a claim on man, who is unable to meet it. Righteousness not being established, the glory could not freely express itself, though Moses in his face bore marks of its transforming power. On account of man’s condition, it was fearful on Mount Sinai in its bearing on man, unrighteous as he was, yet no one could be in it without partaking of its moral supremacy, and therefore Moses’ face bore distinct traces of its blessed power. Israel refused even to gaze on the effects of it on Moses’ face. Man naturally shrinks, when seeking to maintain his own righteousness, from admiration or due appreciation of the transforming power of God; and therefore Israel, in asking Moses to put a veil on his face, only declared the moral distance of their hearts from God, and therefore the veil is transferred to their hearts. But now, says the apostle, there is a wonderful contrast. It is now the ministration of righteousness from the glory of God, for it was so announced in Luke 2. The Son of God is come to establish righteousness from the same glory, from which had come only the demand or claim of it; and, therefore, if the glory had the power to produce such effects on the face of Moses, when man ^[p. 107] in his then condition could not look at it, how much more now, when it is a ministration of righteousness? And hence the apostle declares that we use much boldness; and looking on the Lord, with unveiled face, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. It effects a moral transformation into its own likeness. Humbling as it is to admit it, I believe any association with that which is morally superior to us must have this effect on us more or less. If we descend to inferior associations, we deprave our better tendencies; but if we are occupied with moral superiority, we always adopt; it is not that we improve, but according to the superiority with which we associate, we adopt a new manner of acting, instead of only improving an existing one; and as the way of God is unique and morally supreme, we, as we are conversant with it, adopt its characteristics an qualities, so that we are really in the process of transformation, and not of mere improvement, because it is new, and hitherto quite unknown to us.

Now the traces of this moral transformation which takes place when we are looking on the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, may be easily noticed. How differently does it make us regard the same things, so that when we feel them most, we are often, through this wondrous power, most above them in spirit. The contrast in the way in which we estimate circumstances when in the glory in spirit, and when out of it, is even greater than the contrast which we find in the mind of the psalmist (Psalm 73), when outside the sanctuary (verses 1 - 16), and when inside it (verses 17 - 28). The same painful question occupied him in both cases, but his feeling and judgment were different in each. But the light of the glory and Jesus in it, so transformed Stephen that he was practically superior to the deadly violence spent upon him, though certainly deeply affected for those who perpetrated it; for one trace of the moral effect of the glory is a greater sensitiveness to evil,

^[p. 108] while there is a marked and sensible elevation above it.

It is, alas! but slowly that souls enter into the counsel of God in His grace to us, or see that it is a manifestation of His own heart in the person of His only-begotten Son from the centre of the glory; that the grace which has reached us has its origin in the glory - belongs to it, so to speak. When I understand its origin, I must understand its destination, or rather its association; and when I find myself in this association, through the grace of God, thus manifested to me, I am looking on the glory of the Lord. Seeing Christ in glory made Paul blind as man, but he never lost the remembrance of it in his soul, and therefore he called it the “mark” toward which he pressed throughout his whole course.

May we be practically more like Him, our eye full of the glory of the Lord, and He ever before us, supplying to us power over our difficulties, and our hearts abounding in praise to Him who has blessed us with such a rich salvation.