THIS passage of Scripture is the climax of a chapter that the Apostle Paul devotes to the privileges of those who have the task assigned them by the Lord of the Church to preach the gospel.
It is formed in the pattern of a contrast, a contrast between the Old Testament situation and the New Testament situation. The Old Testament period was signalized by the fact that God’s people must stay at a distance. A portion of Exodus 19 was read to you. The stress of that chapter is on this, that God's people, though they are not like others who know not God or His ways or covenant, nonetheless must stay at the foot of the mountain while Moses alone, the servant of God, might come into the presence of God to the top of the mountain. So there is contrast between the servants of God in the New Testament period who are called to build up the church of Jesus Christ, and the servant Moses who in the Old Testament period had to lead the people of God closer to God, but also had to keep them at a distance.
But back of this contrast between the Old Testament and the New Testament preaching of the gospel is a deeper contrast—the contrast between those who know not God, and those who know Him through the Saviour Jesus Christ. For the Old Testament believers as well as those of the New Testament ate of that same spiritual food, Paul tells us, and drank of that same spiritual rock, which was Christ. Thus there is one company of people, Old and New Testament believers together, constituting the church of Jesus Christ, the body of the redeemed, those for whom Christ gave His life, and for whose justification He rose from the dead. And on the other hand are those not His people, who will not hear the gospel call, who have been disobedient in Adam, have not obeyed the gospel, and are not now God's people.
Those that are not God's people are portrayed to us as being in darkness, and those that are God's people are portrayed to us as living in the light of the Son of God.
Those in darkness have had their own prophets to speak to them. Plato, for instance, the great Greek philosopher, in that matchless allegory of the cave, spoke of men as being chained by their necks, their heads turned into the cave, away from the sunlight back of them. They can see only shadows on the wall. They hear only echoes. It seems that these shadows are speaking with one another. And these echoes and shadows typify mankind. And when one of these men, for some reason Plato cannot explain, has his chains removed and comes to the sunlight and sees things as they really are, and then goes back to his fellowmen who are still bound, they will not believe him. They say he is seeing visions and has been dreaming dreams. They think they are the ones that see the truth, and that he is a visionary who has imagined things for himself, so that he talks wildly about seeing the sun and the colors of the rainbow. He is a dreamer.
Yet he has seen the sun, and he it is who does see things as they are. And he proclaims the truth of God to men. So the Apostle says that it is we, God’s people, who have been given this task, to bring the light of the gospel to those in darkness, that they too may be translated out of the darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son.
And as ministers of the gospel we of the New Testament dispensation are not only taken out of darkness into light, but also in distinction from Old Testament believers we have a greater fulness of light. It is of that greater fulness of the light of the gospel which New Testament ministers preach and teach that this text speaks.
Notice these three points. We New Testament believers and preachers see better than Old Testament believers and preachers did. Secondly we see more. We see something they did not see. We see the glory of the Lord. And in the third place, we are changed more thoroughly than they were. As a result of what we have seen, we are changed as by the Spirit of the Lord.
The Better Vision
The Apostle begins by saying—But we all, with open face… In contrast to the fact that Moses went to the mountain top alone, he says we all go up. Moses prayed that famous prayer, Oh that all God's people might be prophets,—that they might have spiritual understanding, that I might be able to take them to the mountain top and display to them the glories to be seen there. But they are of poor vision. They see not the end, the meaning, of these sacrifices they bring daily. They understand not that the blood of bulls and goats points to the blood of Him who is the Son of God and Son of Man, who alone through His shedding of His blood can bring remission of man's sins.
So they wander in the valley. They do not perceive clearly and persistently the purpose of these things. But we all go to the mountain top. None must stay behind. No aged or sick, no mothers with infants need remain at home. In the New Testament all God's people without exception may take this trip to the mountain top, to glory, to see what is there to be seen.
And we see with open face. This again is in contrast with the Old Testament. They saw with veiled face. When Moses had been to the mountain, in the presence of God, he came down with glory shining in his face. The glory was too bright for them. So as it were they put veils on their faces, and Moses put a veil on his face. He adjusted the glory of the revelation of God to the poor eyesight of the believers.
But we all, with open face, with good eyes, with telescopes, good telescopes that bring distant things near so that we can see them clearly and exhaustively in their relationships one to another, behold the glory of the Lord. This is our privilege as New Testament believers.
On the old Route 30 through Pennsylvania, there is a place at the top of one of the mountains where you can stop and look through a telescope at various sections of the country, even at several states of the union. And when a family stops there, and each one looks, then each one individually says, O, how wonderful! But in that of which Paul speaks, each as it were has his own telescope. He has it in his eyes. And so all say simultaneously, O, how wonderful! That is the communion of the saints, to give expression simultaneously to the wonder of the glory of the Lord.
Further, Paul says, beholding. He uses the present participle. In the Old Testament even Moses went to the top only once—or twice because of the disobedience of the people. But after that he had to live on the memory of that one great event of the past. If you have been to Europe or somewhere, and you've seen strange things, you come back and tell your relatives and friends about them. At first they stand out clear in your mind. But after fifteen or twenty years memory dims, and you speak in more vague terms.
But in this of which Paul speaks, you live there every day. You don't make one vacation trip to the mountain top, or have one mountain top experience of an emotional uplift sort, but each morning you rise in the presence of the panoramic vision of the glory of God. Every day you see the glorious scenery.
So Paul describes the privilege of New Testament believers. They all may see, instead of Moses going alone. They all may see with open face and clear vision, and they all may see constantly, not dependent, as was Moses, on one distant event.
But supposing this more excellent vision all existed, and there wasn’t much to be seen. It has happened on occasion, when a family planned a picnic visit to some mountain to see beautiful scenery, and all the preparations were made, that the day turns out to be misty. In spite of good eyes, and telescopes, and all, you find a fog, and you can't see anything.
The Better Object Seen
But in the things of which Paul speaks, this does not happen. It was to some extent true of the Old Testament believers. They saw vaguely, in the distance, things yet to come. Those things were delineated to them more specifically through God's prophets as time went on. But even the greatest of them did not see what we in the New Testament have seen and can see-the glory of the Lord.
What does he mean by this? It seems to me he means, the glorified Lord, the Lord of glory, who humbled Himself though He was God and thought it not robbery to be called equal with God, humbled himself to death, even the death of the cross. In that humiliation He was glorious. We have seen Him, says the apostle John, and He was altogether lovely and beautiful. But especially in His resurrection He was glorious. By the glory of the Lord He was raised from the tomb, He could not be holden of it. Then He ascended into glory. Open wide the gates of the temple! Let the Lord of glory return with His spoils, the Victor over Satan and all his host.
That Lord of glory it is that the minister of the gospel may display before his people, before the congregation of Jesus Christ, and offer as a challenge to the darkness of this world, that they too may see and be glorified.
Now we all, he says, may see that, in this book. He says, beholding as in a glass. We behold through the glass of Scripture. That is the instrument, the window through which we see this. And the minister of the gospel has the task and privilege of taking that glass, holding it this way and that, asking people to look at it from here and from there. As a guide when he takes people through a museum, will have them stand first on one spot, then on another, and look first from a distance, then close up, and so displays step by step the glorious beauty of the whole portrait—so is the minister as he portrays the glory of the Christ. Often people with little artistic sense walk past the greatest treasures of the world with unseeing eyes. But the minister is speaking to people who are God’s people, who have artistic sense. What a glorious task it is for the guides who lead these people through this art gallery, when they see that the people appreciate, that they follow, they understand, they are elated, they greatly rejoice at seeing the glory of the Lord.
That, says the Apostle, is the privilege of everyone who, as a humble minister of the gospel, follows in the steps of Paul.
The Greater Change
Then finally the Apostle says, when we have thus seen the glory of the Lord, we of the New Testament are changed into that same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
This passage of Scripture is hemmed in with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In the preceding verse we read, “The Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Liberty from Plato's cave. The chains are removed, men are set free. They see, whereas they formerly were blind and did not see, the truth as it is in Jesus.
It is not automatically that we are changed, but it is by the Spirit of the Lord, which is the Lord, whose work it is to take the things of Christ and give them to us. And how are we changed? He says, into that same image—into that glorified image of that glorified Lord. We are molded after Him, fashioned, made over, rewoven, so that we become, from having been one thing, something totally different. All things, says the Apostle, are made new for us in Christ Jesus. It is a process. It is not attained in fulness all of a sudden. It is from glory to glory. It is disappointingly slow, sometimes. We may be discouraged at our little progress in sanctification. And the minister of the gospel may be disheartened because he sees not in himself and in his people and in the community that transformation he would fain accomplish for his Lord. But he must not be discouraged, because it is ultimately not dependent on him, but is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Therefore be not disheartened nor discouraged, ye ministers of the gospel. Let no one despise your youth. You may be just beginning after a long course of preparation, and you may be modest and you must be humble. But you must not fear the wrath of man, because it is God's Spirit who takes God's Word through your simple life and testimony and preaching of that Word. And He will accomplish His glorious purpose.
It is this passage of Scripture that stands before us as we think of young men entering upon the ministry of the gospel. As they follow Paul's example, as they would treasure this great light that by the grace of God they have seen, as they would rejoice in the fact that with the company of the Old and the New Testament saints they have been redeemed through the blood of Jesus, and if they would enter into the fulness of the inheritance of the New Testament revelation of God, may they by the power of the Spirit urge God’s people to keep their eyes fixed upon that glorified Lord, not to look to the left nor to look to the right, but being fixed in mind and heart upon that glorified One, thus to be changed from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord.