I see, therefore I’m ok

What made Christ Christ? If we say that the veil has been removed and we are being transformed into his image, then what is the image? Could Christ have been Christ if he lived like us?

One of the ovens used to create the remains of prisoners at the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau.

---

2 Cor 3.15-18

Whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Since we cannot go to God, he must come to us. Since we cannot save ourselves, God must do it.

We all agree on this. It is central to everything we hold true.

Some things we don’t agree on though, such as this: the transformation. We claim that 2 Cor 3.18 says we are automatically transformed. We’re not Jews, we don’t have a veil over our faces, so we’re being transformed. Because we see. Miraculously. Mystically.

No. Paul says there’s nothing mystical about it.

Certainly, anyone who refuses to open their eyes has no hope of being transformed, but seeing does not transform you. The fact that Paul was writing to Christians who clearly were not like Christ should be proof that it is not an automatic thing. We want a cause-effect relationship between “see” and “transform”, but it’s not there. Seeing is the start, not the end.

In 2 Cor 4.3-11 Paul describes the transformation. In verses 3-6 he says that God has given us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. For the unbeliever, that’s the stopping point. It’s foolish and offensive. But to the believer it’s not the ending point, it’s the start. The gospel divides people who are perishing from those who are being saved, but it does not finish the path of those who are being saved.

Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

There’s more. A lot more. Verses 7-12:

We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.

Yes, the power belongs to God, but that power is there strengthen us to do things that would turn a mere mortal back. It is not there to let us off the hook. In, in fact, makes things quite terrifying.

Notice that what Paul describes as the transformation fits squarely the experience of Christ. What Christ when through, Paul says he is now going through. And why not? If the image of Christ is the thing we’re supposed to be transformed into, how can that happen if we are not becoming more like Christ and in fact turn away from the things that made Christ Christ?

Paul says the transformation is so that “the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.” The image of Christ is not mystical; it’s visible. Christ was really, actually, a physical man. Yes he was God, but his image not just spiritual; it encompassed everything he was.

Paul says the image of Christ is visible in us as well. We need to look carefully at that “us”. A person who looks like sinful flesh is sinful flesh. Christ is not sinful flesh, so no one can say they’re being transformed into the image of Christ if they look nothing like him. Paul makes that us/you distinction obvious in v 12: Death is at work in us, but life in you. They could see, they could be transformed, but they weren’t anywhere close to the image of Christ. Until they were always carrying in their bodies the death of Jesus, they were far away from the transformation Paul speaks of.

The image does not mean we physically look like Christ, nor is it just a way of thinking. The answer is in Philippians 2: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” The mind of Christ says that nothing I am or have (or don’t have) stands in the way of doing the will of God. The mind of Christ says, I will suffer any humiliation to do the will of God. The mind of Christ says, I will pay any price, even death, to finish what God has given me to do.

If you think there are limits to what God can ask, you don’t have the mind of Christ. If you think there are prices too high to pay, you don’t have the mind of Christ.

The image of Christ is not mental or spiritual, nor is it a physical similarity. It’s life. Every example Paul gives for what it means to be transformed to the image of Christ or to have the mind of Christ is given in terms of living. If how you live means that no one can detect Christ in you, then there is no image of Christ in you, because Christ never lived that way.

Nor Paul.

We want this transformation to happen automatically, by the power of God, because we want heaven but not earth, and life but not death. We say he has to do it because we can’t. We say it’s such a remarkable transformation that no one can do it except the Spirit.

So Paul was mistaken. There was no reason for him to be afflicted and persecuted. He could have stayed home and had the image of Christ magically transform him while he went about his regular life. How sad: he was wrong. He did all that for nothing.

Christ did it. God didn’t do it for him. He did it.

We do too. If we want to be like Christ, we have to be like Christ.