Rob Morgan:Glow-in-the-Dark Christians
Glow-in-the-Dark Christians
A Pocket Paper
from
The Donelson Fellowship
______________
Robert J. Morgan
March 4, 2007
Have you ever been criticized? Hurt by the words of another? I don’t know if you remember last year when a CNN reporter was covering President Bush as he made a speech, and during his speech she slipped into the bathroom and, while there, ran into a friend and chatted a few minutes. She didn’t realize that her microphone was on and her words were coming across the air and being beamed into millions of homes. In what she thought was a private conversation, she made some remarks that were critical of her sister-in-law, and everyone heard them including, presumably, that sister-in-law. I think a lot of us wondered how the next family gathering went.
Nobody likes it when criticism comes or when we hear something that someone else has said about us; but I’ve found that if you stand really still for must a few moments, the criticism will go in one ear and out the other. It’s often not a very good idea to try to defend yourself or answer your critics. It’s amazing how much we can shrug off when we want to.
In the early 1970s, I was working with the Billy Graham team in Norfolk, and I was amazed at how critical some of the clergymen were towards Dr. Graham. In fact, there was one group of very conservative, fundamentalist preachers who took out full-page ads in the newspaper, and I still remember the banner at the top of the page: “The Bible or Billy.”
I was alarmed about this, but when I went to the crusade office and discussed it with Dr. Graham’s men, they just smiled and shrugged it off. They told me, “Dr. Graham has always had a policy of not responding to criticism. He says that if you wrestle with a skunk, even if you win, you lose.”
As a rule, I’ve found that’s good advice. Too often we get our feelings hurt, we let ourselves get upset, we take offense too easily, and we’re too sensitive. We need to just shrug things off and go on without letting them affect us. I often think of Jesus, when he was criticized and rejected in Nazareth and they took Him to the brow of the hill to push Him off. But the Bible laconically says simply that passing through the midst of them, He went His way.
But occasionally there are times when you need to explain yourself to those who are criticizing you, and that’s what 2 Corinthians is all about. Paul was extremely distressed by some of the things being said about him in the city of Corinth, because he was afraid the criticism would affect the way people felt about the Gospel and about Christ Himself. They weren’t just criticising him, but his message, his motives, and his methods. And so the book of 2 Corinthians is a very personal and autobiographical work in which Paul seeks to explain himself in the face of certain criticisms.
I said last week that Paul’s great theme was: “Thank God for pressure.” Well, today we’re talking about the pressure of criticism. And one of the criticisms is that he was too assertive, too authoritative, and too bold. In the passage we’re coming to today, Paul explains his boldness, why he is so open and honest and assertive in presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And in so doing, he tells us all how to be phosphorescent, glow-in-the-dark Christians. This is a rather difficult but a very wonderful passage, so I’d like to look at it as carefully and exegetically and biblically as we can in the limited time we have, so would you begin by reading with me 2 Corinthians 3:7-18
Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters of stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness? For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!
Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
This is not an easy passage to figure out, and I’ve struggled with it quite a bit; but I think we can make it relatively simple; and when you get to the basic truth running through it, it’s well worth the effort.
Paul’s basic point here is that his message and his Savior is so glorious that he cannot help being bold. Being a Christian, he claims, is glorious! It is a glorious thing! It’s a wonderful thing! It’s the most glorious thing in the world. It’s so glorious that our faces should be shining all the time, and our lives should be under continuous transformation from one degree of glory to another. The whole world may be veiled in darkness, but the Christian walks in the light of the glory of God and is being transformed from glory to glory by the Lord, the Holy Spirit. Our very lives glow in the dark, and because we have such hope we are very bold. That’s his basic point as I understand it. He gets there in four stages of thought.
Our Message is Super-Glorious
(Verses 7-11)
Stage one is: Our message is super-glorious. The Old Covenant (the Old Testament, the Mosaic Law) was glorious, but the New Covenant (the Gospel) is super-glorious.
As he wrote this, the apostle Paul had on his mind the story of Moses in Exodus 34. As you may recall, in that chapter Moses ascended onto Mount Sinai into the very presence of the Lord to receive instructions for the newly-liberated Hebrews slaves who had just escaped the tyranny of Egypt and were on their way to the Promised Land. Moses ascended into the very glory-clouds of God’s splendor, and when he came down from the mountain his face glowed. It was as though someone had turned on a powerful light bulb just under his skin, and the original languages even indicate that beams were shooting out of his face. The Israelites were so distracted and alarmed by this that Moses covered his face with a veil until the phosphorescence faded.
Now, here is what the apostle Paul is saying. Moses received the Law, which was given to show us the character and the standards of God’s holiness. The Ten Commandments summarized the righteous requirements that flow out of God’s pure character. In so doing, the Law defines sin. What is sin? It is the violating of God’s Law; and all of us are sinners and so all of us are dying. The Law defines sins and sin results in death. That’s the Old Covenant.
Jesus Christ, however, came to fulfill the Law and to shed His blood to forgive lawbreakers like us. The Holy Spirit takes the sacrifice of Christ and sets us free. That’s the New Covenant.
Now, if the Old Covenant was so glorious that it caused Moses’ face to shine, how much more glorious is the New Covenant. If the Law of God is wonderful in that it summarizes God’s holy character and His expectations, how much more wonderful is it that Jesus Christ came to fulfill the Law and to pardon our sins and to give us life.
You see, that’s Paul’s clearly point in verses 7-11:
Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters of stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness? For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!
Our Message Makes Us Bold
(Verses 12-13)
Now, in verse 12, Paul gets to his next point: Moses veiled his face, but we are very bold. The verse says: Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.
In this passage, he is saying, in effect: “Yes, when it comes to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I am assertive and I am bold, and here’s the reason why. I have a message that radiates with a glory that far surpasses the glory of the old message. My message of grace is greater than Moses’ message of the Law. Moses had his message and it made his face glow, but he hid the radiance behind a veil. But I’m not hiding my message behind a veil. Since I have such a hope, I am very bold.”
Look at verses 12ff. again: Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away.
This Message is Veiled to Some
(Verses 14-17)
But now, there’s a third stage to Paul’s argument. He admits that this message which so thrills him with its super-glorious nature, is indeed veiled to those who do not believe. Look at verses 14ff. Referring to the Israelites, he said:
But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
So Paul is saying that Moses had the message of the Law and it was glorious, but He veiled His face. Paul has the message of the Gospel, and it is more glorious, and he is bold in presenting it. But even as he presents it, some people, as it were, still have hearts and minds that are veiled and they cannot see the glory of the Gospel of Christ. Only the Holy Spirit can remove the veil and give them spiritual freedom and liberty. If you’ll look down at the next chapter, verse 3, you see that he explains this a bit more:
And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is in the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Our Message is Perpetually Transforming
(Verse 18)
But now he comes to the fourth stage of his argument. When we receive the message of the Gospel, the veil is lifted and we behold, absorb, and reflect God’s glory in ever-increasing measure. Our message and our Master are perpetually transforming. The super-glory of the Gospel soaks into our lives and makes us phosphorescent, glow-in-the-dark people. This is verse 18, one of the richest and most wonderful verses in the entire Bible. This is a verse to memorize.
And we, who with unveiled faces, all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Now I want to correct one word in this verse from the NIV rendering, and that’s the word reflect. This is a difficult verse to translate, and if you go from one translation to another you find that some versions say that we reflect the Lord’s glory and others say that we behold the Lord’s glory. For example, the New King James Version says:
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
What does it mean to behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord? I think it means that we turn our eyes upon Jesus and look full in His wonderful face. We keep our eyes on Him and contemplate Him and meditate on Him, because Jesus is the mirror image of God.
Years ago I read of a cathedral somewhere in Europe that had a high and lofty and beautiful ceiling. But the room was so narrow and the ceiling was so exalted that it was difficult to gaze upon. So the rectors placed a large mirror on the floor, tilted at the proper angle, and by gazing into the mirror they could see the ceiling.
And that’s what Christ is. Our God is so holy and infinite and awesome and invisible and high and exalted and lifted up that we can’t very well take in His glory. But Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Look down again at chapter 4, verse 4: The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Christ is the perfect reflection of God Himself, but positioned so that we can gaze upon Him. John 1:18 says: No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.
Colossians 1 says: He is the image of the invisible God.
Hebrews 1 says: The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being.
So we are to behold Jesus, and as we do so the Holy Spirit performs in our hearts a perpetual work of sanctification, making us more and more like Christ, transforming us from glory to glory. When we get to heaven, we’ll be perfectly glorified; but until then we are works in progress. This verse is the essence of what we call sanctification, Christian growth and maturity. We increasingly absorb and reflect the glory of God, and it should show up even on our faces.
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
How do we behold the face of Christ?
First, we receive Him as our Lord and Savior. This is a good moment for me to remind you of the basic tenets of the Gospel. I read just this week about a man in Huntsville, Alabama who was imprisoned as a member of the Mexican Mafia. His name is Mauricio Cardenas, and he was co-founder of the Texas chapter of the Mexican Mafia. One day in his prison cell a newspaper arrived, and on the front page somehow there was a quotation from the Bible, from Mark 5:26, about the story of the woman whom Jesus healed. Somehow that verse grabbed his heart and mind, and by the end of the day he had prayed to receive Jesus as His Lord and Savior. But he feared letting his fellow gang members know about his conversion, because there was a policy that no one ever left the mafia except by death. It was a policy known as “Blood in, Blood out.” So he kept his conversion secret, but finally he couldn’t keep quiet anymore. He went to the recreation yard where there were about forty members of the gang and he told them in plain simple Spanish, “I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, and I am backing out of the Eme (Mafia). I’ve thought it over long and hard and know the consequences of this action. You guys do what you have to do. It was an honor to have served as your leader. Now, it is an honor to serve Christ.”
No one said a thing, but as the months passed no one hurt him. In fact others joined him, sparking a prison revival that so far has yielded 97 professions of faith and 10 baptisms. (“Former Mexican Mafia General Baptized in Texas Prison,” by John Hall in Texas Baptist Communications, at http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php? module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=5615, accessed on December 5, 2006.)
There’s nothing that changes our lives like having an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin, that through Him we might be forgiven and reconciled to God. We come to Him in repentance and faith, and that makes all the difference in our lives. Perhaps that’s your greatest need today.
Second, we read about Him in His Word and we read thoughtfully and slowly and with contemplation. This is a very important spiritual discipline which has become a lost art today. In the Latin church in times past this was called lectio divina (pronounced lex’-ee-o / dih-vee-nah), or reading divine, or sacred reading. It was the idea that we take a portion of Scripture or some wonderfully deep devotional book and we read it slowly, thinking about each word, mulling it over, and letting it soak into our hearts, letting it speak to us.
Third, we trust Him and when the difficult moments in life come, we visualize His face and keep our eyes focused on Him, trusting Him and rejoicing in Him in all circumstances.
Fourth, we pray and come into His presence frequently.
Fifth, we memorize verses like 2 Corinthians 3:18 so we can carry these truths with us all the time.
Sixth, we ask the Holy Spirit to take these spiritual disciplines and use them to transform us into the very image of Christ so that we become reflectors of His glory, and then we make up our minds to bear His image day by day.
I’d like to end with a story I came across years ago, but I’ve not told it for a long time. It has to do with a dashing knight who longed to rescue his princess, imprisoned by a cruel enemy in the palace tower. He devised a plan and recruited two small friends to send her a message. First there was Claude Caterpillar who was a hard-working fellow, but crusty and sour. He started inching his way up the wall toward the distant window, but it was hard work. He grumbled that the sun was hot, causing him to sweat. Then the sun withdrew behind a cloud, it started to rain, and he complained even louder about the raindrops. Finally he heaved himself onto the window ledge, looked at the fair maiden, and said, "Hey you, come over here. Are you the lady in distress?" She nodded. Claude gave her the once-over and said, "You're kidding. You mean I climbed all this way up here for the likes of you? Well, anyway the knight says to get ready, he's coming for you at 5 p.m. sharp. Think you can remember that, or should I repeat it?" And off he went.
Next the knight sent Barney Butterfly. Barney, too, battled the rain and the contrary winds. He almost made it to the window when a bird came by and nearly ate him alive. But finally, he fluttered in, landing softly on the lady's finger. "Lovely and favored maiden," he said, "the white knight loves you dearly, and tonight he is coming to rescue you. He asks only that you be ready at 5 p.m."
The princess smiled and replied, "Thank you very much, Mr. Butterfly. You are very sweet and I will be ready tonight when he comes. Claude Caterpillar already brought me the message, but tell me, why was he so disagreeable? He brought me the same news, but after he left, I felt worse than before he came."
The butterfly replied, "Oh, you mean Claude? Well, don't mind Claude. That's just the way he is. I used to be that way, too, until I was transformed.”
Have you been transformed? Are you being perpetually transformed by the interior work of the Holy Spirit as you behold as in a mirror the very image of God in the face of Jesus Christ? Are you a glow-in-the-dark Christian? Spiritually phosphorescent?
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.