From Glory to Glory through the Spirit

… outward narrative. For among these are those in Christ who have richly received the free revelation of the Spirit. And if wherever the Spirit is, there freedom surely is as well (2 Corinthians 3:17), how is the Spirit not free by nature? If that is so, the Spirit stands outside the bounds of slavery and is no longer something created, but would rightly be ranked with the highest and free nature, to which power over all things belongs. For the Spirit is the Spirit of the Father, reaching out from Him to the creation in Christ.

“And we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Moses put a veil over himself because the sons of Israel could not look upon “the glory of his face” (2 Corinthians 3:7, 13), for they were unspiritual and fleshly and immature in faith. But we believers, whose heart has been enlightened by the torch the Spirit carries, and whose mind’s eye knows how to see purely, have beheld the Lord with unveiled face. For He has spoken to us and has been seen in glory and in a majesty most worthy of God; for we have known Him as God, the exact imprint of the Father’s being (Hebrews 1:3).

As in a mirror, then, we behold the divine and ineffable nature. For the mind of believers is, as it were, remolded from its schooling in the law into the teaching of the gospel, and is in a certain way transformed into spiritual knowledge. It does not settle for shadow or types, but has chosen to pass from the glory that belongs to the law to another glory, the glory in Christ, through the Spirit. So we are transformed into the same image. For as we carry the types over into truth, and out of the shadow in the law give shape to the mystery of Christ by the fine discernment of our thoughts, we shall find the same glory as if in plain sight. For if glory was given to those who served the law, greater still, and beyond all comparison surpassing the first, is the glory of the holy priestly ministers, who are also made sufficient by God as ministers “of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

It is plain, surely, and obscure to no one at all, that those who are moved from training in the law to the precision of the gospel would by all means be understood to be going, as it were, from the first glory to another glory, and to be remolded, so to speak, toward better things. And what moves them to this is the Spirit, who sets them free from the slavery that comes from the law; for in the Spirit “we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Romans 8:15) as sons and as free.

There is no other way to see the depth beneath the spare wording of the law except through the Holy Spirit alone; for it is the Spirit who searches “even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10). By “the depths of God” we say is meant the knowledge stored up like treasure in the sacred writings. That is why the inspired David made his prayers to God, saying, “Unveil my eyes, and I will perceive Your wonders out of Your law” (Psalm 119:18). And the Savior Himself regarded with no small admiration the one who rises from knowledge of the law to spiritual knowledge, that is, the knowledge of the gospel. For He said, “Therefore I tell you that every scribe who has been made a disciple for the kingdom of heaven is like a rich man who brings out of his treasure things new and old” (Matthew 13:52). The old are the things in the law; the new are the things in Christ.

But if someone wishes the transformation of our same image from glory to glory to be understood in another way as well, he will take some such thought to mind: all of us who have known Christ and have been counted among the children of God are by all means in glory; but it is at the time of the resurrection that we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18). For Christ Himself, who to us “the pledge of the …” (2 Corinthians 5:5)