"And
after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James,
and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high
mountain apart: and He was transfigured before them; and
His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became
white as the light... and behold, a voice out of
the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am
well pleased; hear ye Him" (Matthew 17:1,2,5).
"We
all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the
glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the
Spirit" (or, "the Spirit which is the
Lord") (2 Corinthians 3:18).
The link
between the two passages lies in one word, unfortunately
slightly obscured in translation. In the King James'
Version it is 'are changed into the same image'; in the
Revised, 'are transformed into the same image'. The
Revisers certainly have made a slight improvement on the
other, and perhaps with a fine sensibility, or sense of
fitness, they avoided putting the true translation, and
made this slight change into 'transformed'. The fact
remains that we have the same Greek word here as that
which is used to describe what happened on that Mount -
'and He was transfigured before them.' That is the
same word exactly as is here translated alternatively
'changed' or 'transformed'. The exact rendering here
would be 'are transfigured into the same image'. So that
the children of God have a transfiguration, even as the
Lord Jesus had. His was an event, an act; a thing, shall
we say, as of a moment. We do not know how long it
lasted, but it was at a definite time point. Ours is a
long process; indeed, right from the beginning of our
Christian life to its climax, this is what is supposed to
be going on with us: we are being 'transfigured into the
same image, from glory to glory.
The Outshining of the Glory of a
Perfect Man
That at
once is very challenging to us, for Christian history,
life, progress. There may be - and I am always conscious
of being on very delicate ground in making any comparison
between the Lord Jesus and ourselves - there may be
something different about Him. It has been said that the
transfiguration was the outshining of His Deity, and I
have no quarrel with that; if that was so, all right; it
does not affect the issue at all. But we have reason to
believe that it was something other than that also - that
it was the perfecting of His humanity, and the outshining
of the glory of an absolutely Perfect Man. We do believe,
and we feel we have ground for believing, that something
like that was God's intention for all men, when He said,
'Let us make man in our own image'. And when there is so
much in the Word about the glory and the glorifying which
is the consummation of our pilgrimage, surely there is
something in the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus which
is not altogether isolated from what the Lord intends for
us.
That is
where I would put the emphasis in our present
consideration; that is the point. Indeed, in an earlier
meditation on this matter we said this very thing. We
said that the glory which took hold of Him, and emanated
from Him, filled Him, and transfigured Him, was the glory
of His personality as utterly satisfying to God. For
God's satisfaction is always the ground of glory wherever
you look in the Bible. Whenever you find in any place
that state of things with which God can be well pleased,
you will find the glory there - the glory fills and
breaks forth. That is supremely the case in the Lord
Jesus, and that is why at this point the voice from
Heaven attested Him, marked Him out, and said, '... in
Whom I am well pleased'. The Father was completely
satisfied.
I
repeat, then, that it was the glory of His personality as
the Son of Man; for, almost in association with that, He
spoke of His coming again as being 'the coming of the Son
of Man in the glory of the Father'. This, so far as His
perfecting was concerned, was not something that took
place on the Mount. The Mount was the mark of the consummation of His perfecting. I do not mean in the matter of sin
- sinfulness or sinlessness - but the perfecting of His
character, the perfecting of that inner man which we call
personality. Personality is a strange thing, an elusive
thing, something that you cannot get hold of, but you
cannot mistake; it is the person within - the man
inside. Now, He, in that inner life of His, had worked
out this whole matter of God's pleasure, God's
satisfaction, through His life. There was the Divine
approval at His baptism in similar words, indicating,
probably, that His thirty years were approved; certainly
indicating that the step that He was now taking, right
out into public, with the Cross accepted (for His baptism
certainly implied that) was approved. That brought the
word from Heaven: 'My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well
pleased'.
But now
this period, between the baptism and the Cross, is
concluding, and what a period! One New Testament writer
says that He was 'tempted in all points like as
we'. And that was crowded into a short three years and a
few months. Yes, hell tested Him; the world tested Him;
in a sense Heaven tested Him. He was put through it in
every detail, and won through. He, in that time, was
'made perfect through sufferings', 'learned obedience
through the things which He suffered'. That time brought
that inner life, that inner personality, to perfection.
Now, you will see why I am saying this at the outset; it
is not new, it is not fresh, but it is basic to
everything else. That is the point.
'We ALL... Are
Transfigured'
The
apostle takes hold of that very word, and says: 'We
all... are transfigured into the same image'. I am glad
he uses that little word with its so comprehensive
meaning - 'we all...'. He is not talking only about
himself and his fellow-workers, brothers in the work; he
is talking about the Corinthians and all believers. 'We
all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the
glory of the Lord, are transfigured into the same image'.
He takes hold of that same word, and brings it over to
all saints; making of that which had been perfected and
completed in the Lord Jesus a continuous process in the
life of believers. He is but saying: What was completed
and perfected in that One, has now to be reproduced in us
progressively; that perfection, that character, that
personality - the personality of the Lord Jesus -
perfected, brought into us, developed in us, manifested
through us. For 'personality', we could equally well
substitute the word 'character'.
Now the
first thing to note about this, which is, of course, so
helpful and encouraging, is where the apostle finishes
this statement, 'as by the Spirit Who is the Lord'. With
all that we know about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the
Person and the work of the Holy Spirit, all the effects
of the Spirit's advent and indwelling, let us recognize
this as supreme: The inclusive work of the Holy Spirit,
in all His manifold activities, is one thing - to
reproduce the Lord Jesus in a people. When you pray about
the Holy Spirit, and you speak about the Holy Spirit,
remember that. The Holy Spirit's supreme and
comprehensive object is to reproduce the Lord Jesus, in
His character, His personality, His perfected manhood or
humanity, in a people.
This is
very testing to you and to me. If we really contemplate
it - and it has challenged my own heart to the point of
making me very hesitant to speak freely - the test of the
Holy Spirit having His way in your life and mine, the
proof that He is there and that He is doing His work, is
our transfiguration. In other words: Is what Christ is in
His perfect humanity becoming more and more true of us,
in our natures, in our hearts? The real test of a
Spirit-governed life lies here: the progressive increase
of the character of Christ. If we are going to meet one
another as really Spirit-governed men and women, what we
must meet in one another is the Lord Jesus; and that must
be, not just today, not just in one time of our lives,
but going on, going on all the time.
Transfigured Through the Liberation
of the Spirit
That is
the test and the proof and the challenge of the Holy
Spirit's presence, and of the Holy Spirit's liberty to
work. You see, the apostle says that here, just in a
sentence earlier: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17). He is, of course,
making a comparison, or a contrast, with the old
dispensation of the Law - Moses coming down with the Law.
There it was all compulsion; there it was all 'you must'
and 'you must not'; bondage, thraldom, limitation,
suppression, repression, and anxious fretful striving.
Now, all that has gone, and the Spirit comes and has His
way. Moses, even, as representing that order of things,
and that dispensation, had to put a veil over his face -
not to hide the glory, but to hide the departure of the
glory, and pretend, pretend - for you know it was a
dispensation of pretending, on the outside. That was what
the Lord Jesus was up against in His day, with the
Scribes and Pharisees. He called them 'hypocrites', that
is, pretending something that was not true; it was all
put on, on the outside. The glory that had gone was not
seen through this veil of pretense.
But with
Christ, says the apostle, all that has gone; the Spirit
has come, and come within; now we are set free from all
that sort of thing. When the Spirit is Lord, it is
liberty; everything is spontaneous, it is free, it just
happens. You do not have to make believe, strive, fret,
worry, and suppress: it happens if the Holy Spirit is
there. And what happens, what happens? The glory of the
Lord - that is, the Perfection of His Manhood - begins,
and continues, to express itself in us spontaneously.
That is the 'life of the Spirit'. It is 'normal Christian
life'; there is something subnormal if it is not up to
that, and something abnormal if you are putting on to
that. But the 'normal' is that the Holy Spirit, having
His way, does this one thing: He makes Christ more and
more manifest in our mortal bodies.
So that
is the heart of this. Now, the point is that this is the
work of the Holy Spirit. That helps us very much, that
the Holy Spirit has taken the responsibility for this
into His own hands. You and I have not to strive to be
Christ-like. With all due respect for Thomas a Kempis, it
is not an 'imitation' of Christ - something that we try
to do. It is this: to a true child of God, who is not
putting something definitely in the way of the Holy
Spirit, it is as natural to become more Christ-like, as
it is to breathe. Now, you do not stop to discuss the
question of whether you are going to breathe, how many
more breaths you are going to take; whether you are going
to breathe now, or save it up till later on, and make a
theory of it - you just do it without thinking. And it is
as natural as that, because the Holy Spirit is our
breath, our life. Set that over against the many
difficulties that people find to be Christ-like!
Transfiguration Through Trials
Now what
is said here is these two things: First of all, there is
the Pattern, perfect, complete - Christ glorified. The
Holy Spirit comes to work that pattern out progressively
in the children of God. He has come for that purpose, to
take it over, and to do it. We are not allowed to say how
He shall do it; He chooses His own way. That will lead to
this next thing. The apostle goes on: 'We have this
treasure in vessels of fragile clay, that the exceeding
greatness of the power may be of God, and not from
ourselves' (2 Cor. 4:7). Now, how is it going to be
done? how are these vessels of fragile clay going to
contain, and increasingly contain, and manifest, this
glory of the character of Christ? Not in the way that we
would think, perhaps, or choose: 'We are pressed on every
side... we are perplexed... we are pursued... we are
smitten down... we are always bearing about in the body
the putting to death of Jesus... we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake... death worketh in
us...' (verses 8-12).
That is
rather a disconcerting, discouraging view of things, but
that is how the Spirit does it. The fact remains, whether
we like it or not just this: being pressed on every side
means that we are pressed into something more of the Lord
Jesus, and that something more of the Lord Jesus is
pressed into us. It means that you and I would never come
to this transfiguration, only through these trials and
these adversities. These are the Holy Spirit's means of
our perfecting, of our growth in Christ.
It is a
pity that it has to be like that; a great pity that we
cannot be Christ-like, without being put into difficulty
and trouble and suffering, but that is how it is! Give
people absolute exemption from all kinds of difficulties
and troubles, and see what kind of people they are -
self-centred; self-sufficient; self-assertive. People who
are never ill have very great difficulty in being
sympathetic and understanding with the sick. They have,
at least, to make a great effort to be patient with them
- that is why I like doctors to be ill sometimes! But
sympathy, understanding, patience, come to us along this
line of painful experience; it is a matter of character,
is it not?
And so
the apostle puts alongside of our transfiguration, all
these difficulties and adversities, and in effect he
says, This is the Holy Spirit's material; these are the
Holy Spirit's instruments for working Christ into us. If
we are not rebellious, if we do not allow bitterness to
creep into our spirit, it works out that way. Under the
government of the Holy Spirit, suffering and trial,
difficulty and adversity, will effect this.
Occupation with the Lord
But then
the apostle checks us here; he says: 'We all, with
unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror...'. The
revisers have had some difficulty here, as the
translators of the Authorized Version had, and they have
not settled their difficulty. Here is a matter in which
they did not really know exactly what Paul meant, so they
put it in these different ways - what we have in the
text, and what we have in the margin. Did he mean that we
are a mirror? that the image is thrown upon us as upon a
mirror, and then rebounds - is that what he meant? Or did
he mean that Christ is the mirror, and we are looking
into Him, and He is reflecting the glory of God? I think
that is what he meant. He spoke about the 'glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ' - I think the word 'face'
there is really equivalent to 'mirror'. I know that it is
not the same Greek word, but it is just another word in
meaning; it is 'in the face of Jesus Christ'. 'And we beholding,
as in the Face of Jesus Christ' - that is what the
apostle is talking about here.
Now the
word 'beholding' is a strong word; it is not just taking
a look, it is 'fixing our gaze'. That is what the New
Testament means by beholding, behold. We all, fixing our
gaze upon Christ, as He mirrors in His own Person the
glory of God, the satisfaction of God, the mind of God in
perfection. The point is that you and I must contemplate
the Lord Jesus in spirit, and be much occupied with Him.
We must have our Holy of Holies where we retire with Him.
We must have a secret place where we spend time with Him.
And not only in certain special seasons, but we must
seek, as we move about, ever to keep Him before us.
Looking at the Lord Jesus, contemplating Him, we shall be
changed into the same image. The Holy Spirit will operate
upon our occupation.
You
become like that which obsesses you, which occupies you.
Is that not true? You see what people are occupied with,
and you can see their character changing by their
obsessions. They are becoming like the thing which is
obsessing them; they are changing; they are becoming
different. Something has got a grip on them; they can
never think about anything else, talk about anything
else; and it is changing their character. Now Paul said,
'For me to live is Christ - being occupied with Him'. It
is the wrong word to use, but nevertheless it would be a
good thing if He became our 'obsession', our continuous
occupation. As we steadfastly fix our gaze upon Him, the
Spirit changes us into the same image.
'This Ministry' is for All: A Matter of
Character
Notice
the context of these words in 2 Corinthians. The apostle
here is mainly concerned with the effect of the life of
believers in this world, on this earth. He calls the
effect 'this ministry'. Perhaps that word needs
transfiguring for us. Note that when he says, 'we all,
beholding...', he includes all believers in that word
'ministry'. It is all believers he is speaking
to about ministry. And herein lies a tremendous
difference. Our technical, professional conceptions of
'the ministry' are mostly external: that is, you give a
title; you, more or less, put on a uniform; and so you
are 'the minister'. It is all put on the outside,
therefore it can be artificial. But what the apostle is
saying here, is, that the ministry is not something that
you put on, but something that comes out from within. We all
- and that includes you, my brothers and my sisters - are
called to the ministry. Any special application of that
word would only be permissible, in the New Testament, in measure,
and not in kind. That is, some have a special ministry,
and they are God's ministers in that particular way, with
that particular measure. It is not that they are a class
called 'ministers', and other people are 'laity' - such
ideas are altogether foreign to the New Testament. 'We all,
beholding', have the ministry, resultant from the
beholding. And so we are all called to the ministry; it
is just the effect of our being here.
Now,
what is the apostle saying about this? He is clearly
saying that the personality and the ministry must be one.
How searching that is, but how very meaningful. The
ministry must not be some 'thing' - preaching, teaching,
and all those things that are called 'ministry' -
something just done, whilst the man himself is different,
and the person is apart. What Paul is saying so
emphatically here is this, that when you meet a truly
Spirit-indwelt and Spirit-governed man or woman, what
they say comes out of their life - is a very part of
their life. Their teaching can be seen to have been
wrought into their history and their experience. When
that man or that woman seeks to teach, to 'minister', to
say something to someone else of a Christian character,
it is known that that has come out of some secret history
with God, something that the Holy Spirit has done in
them. Their ministry and their character are identical.
That is
very important indeed; it is indispensable. That is why
the Holy Spirit is so meticulous about character, so
careful about the personality, about the inner man, the
inner life. That is why, if we are under His government -
and this does not apply to everyone who ministers, or is
in Christian service - but if we are really under the
government of the Holy Spirit, if we, in word, exceed
what is true in our own lives, the Holy Spirit will soon
take us up on that, and, in effect, will see to it that
we are brought abreast of our teaching - that the thing
is kept in correspondence and balance. Have you ever said
something, and the Holy Spirit has checked you up, and
said: Is that true of you? is that something you have
said? It is very important, and, if we were honest, we
would not really have it otherwise. We want it to be like
that.
The Impact of the Glory
But this
is something that involves the glory - that is the point.
There is such a thing as the power of the Holy
Spirit in the glory. We spoke of it on a previous
occasion as the 'impact' - the impact of the
transfiguration upon those men; and the impact of a
seeing of the Lord by anyone afterward - what it
registered of power. Now, you and I perhaps covet and
crave as much as anything that there should be impact in
our lives, that there should be power, that our lives
should register, that our presence should not just leave
things as they were. We long that, as we go on, and when
we have passed on, something may have been left of an
impress, at least through our presence, and perhaps
through our ministry - something that shall remain. Yes,
impact is a very good word.
That is
bound up with the glory - that is the glory. It
registers; it is something that remains. Things may come
in, and for a time the glory may be veiled, but there is
something there that will come up again. I confess that I
have had difficulty in understanding - and yet there is
some understanding, because we are all made alike - how
three men, and one of them in particular, could be on the
mount of transfiguration, yet in His hour of need they
all could forsake Him and flee for their very lives; or
how one amongst them, who by a revelation of the Father
had declared that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the
Living God - how that man could yet, when it came to it,
deny Him with oaths and curses. And yet all this was only
a veiling for the time being; the glory came up
afterward. It came up with Peter at the end. Many years
afterward he remembered: 'We were with Him in the holy
mount'. It remained. There was a temporary eclipse, but
it was something that they did not forget. God forbid
that such an eclipse should ever be true of us; perhaps
we shall never have to go quite the same way as they
went. But there is a permanence about this matter - an
abiding effect of really having Christ revealed in the
heart; and, by that inward revelation of Him, there is a
manifestation of His character, something that remains.
Now it
is clear that we cannot say this of all that is called
'ministry'. It is a sermon, an address, something given,
and it passes. And it goes on like that in a routine,
week after week, week after week. But, of course, we do
not want it like that; we really do not want that we
should come and go, should be just passing things, and
not leave any abiding mark. No, there is an impact bound
up with this. So, it is not a matter of what we call 'the
ministry' - something external. The 'ministry' with Paul
is nothing less than, nothing other than, what is true of
Christ coming out of the life of His servants, of His
people; being there, and coming out.
"Therefore
seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained
mercy... we have renounced the hidden things of shame,
not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God
deceitfully; but by the manifestation of the truth
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the
sight of God" (2 Cor. 4:1-2).