I was thinking of posting the following hymn.
Face to face with Christ, my Savior, Face to facewhat will it be, When with rapture I behold Him, Jesus Christ Who died for me?
Refrain
Face to face I shall behold Him, Far beyond the starry sky; Face to face in all His glory, I shall see Him by and by!
Only faintly now I see Him, With the darkened veil between, But a blessèd day is coming, When His glory shall be seen.
What rejoicing in His presence, When are banished grief and pain; When the crooked ways are straightened, And the dark things shall be plain.
Face to faceoh, blissful moment! Face to faceto see and know; Face to face with my Redeemer, Jesus Christ Who loves me so.
(Tune: http://www.smallchurchmusic.com/MP3-2010/MP3-FaceToFace-Tullar-SPiano-128-CAM.mp3)
(http://www.smallchurchmusic.com/ - Search under F if above link fails.)
It's really rousing to sing, and very aspirational.
But then I began to wonder... is this really the truth? Do WE really NOT 'see' Jesus already? Is singing it a way to let us off the hook from diligently pursuing an eternal perspective? Or do the words provoke you to a better hope?
Scripture doesn't seem to let us off the hook...
Hebrews 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Philippians 3:20 For our conversation IS in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
Lastly, I'm always thrown by the 'mirror' which appears in translations of 2 Cor 3:18, which is left out by some translators. Tyndale tried more than one way to fix this, and I'm slightly spoiled by his last attempt, because it flows brilliantly from the previous verses describing Moses with his face covered, to conceal the glory of God from the people.
'But we all behold the glory of the Lord with His face open, and are changed unto the same similitude, from glory to glory, even of the Spirit of the Lord.'
Tyndale's first translation from the faithofgod website, is quite different:
Tyndale's New Testament 1525 - 26 2 Cor 3:17, 18
The Lord no doubt is a spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And now the Lordi's glory appeareth IN us all, as in a glass: and we are changed unto the same similitude, from glory to glory, even of the Lord which is a spirit.
Holman puts it:
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 We all, with unveiled faces, are reflecting the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
There is no doubt that a transformation is going on, because this is the Greek word which is translated with 'mirror' in it. Might some of you Greek scholars be able to explain the absence of 'mirror' in this?
New Testament Greek Definition: 3339 metamorphoo {met-am-or-fo'-o} from 3326 and 3445; TDNT - 4:755,607; v AV - transfigure 2, transform 1, change 1; 4 1) to change into another form, to transform, to transfigure 1a) Christ appearance was changed and was resplendent with divine brightness on the mount of transfiguration
In the next chapter, Paul says:
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined IN our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure IN earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
Romans 8:10 And if Christ [be] in you, the body [is] dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth IN you.
Is this a matter of faith - hoping for things which are not seen (as in the hymn) - or do you feel this IN your body (as I do in mine)?
Sparks wrote:
The Government of the Word of God
Let us return to the Levites, and consider some other features of spirituality - things that were true in the life of the Levites in a typical way, that is, they pointed on to the spiritual truth of our own time. A marked thing in the case of the priests, the Levites, the sons of Aaron, was that, as anointed men under the government of the Holy Spirit, they came in a very utter and immediate way under the government of the Word of God.
There was a symbol of that, as you know, in the court of the tabernacle. It is called the laver. The laver, as we know, was made from the mirrors of the women. They had metal mirrors, shining, bronze mirrors, into which they looked, as women are wont to do, and saw what they were like; and when they saw that there was anything not right about them, they put it right in the face of the mirror, they adjusted to what they conceived to be the right kind of thing. They brought those mirrors, and there was made of them this great basin called the laver, and it was filled with water; and the priests, the Levites, could not perform or fulfil their ministry, could not enter upon the ministry of holy things, except as they came to the laver and washed hands and feet. They could never take a further step in the fulfilment of their service to God without coming to the laver to wash.
Now you can see quite clearly that that is a very simple and easily understood picture. This laver undoubtedly represents the Word of God: that is the thing into which we look now and see where we are wrong. If we look into the Word of God, we see where things are out of the straight: if we look into the Word of God, we see what God requires, what Gods picture is for us, and what we are in contrast. We look in, and then, as we adjust to the Word of God, the Word of God has this mighty power of putting us right, cleansing us, and keeping on cleansing us, by the washing (or laver) of water with the word (Eph. 5:26).
That is brief, but it is very important. A spiritual person is first of all one who seeks to know the revealed will of God in His Word. You cannot be a spiritual person, after the kind of which we are speaking, and neglect or be careless about the Word of God. You will be one who is really diligent in reading and searching the Word of God, with one object - to know what God wants where you are concerned. If there were more of that, there would be a different kind of Christian, stronger, purer, and far more satisfying to the Lord.
https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?forum=34&topic_id=16294&post_id=126210&viewmode=thread&order=0
Now, it seems that CHRIST is the mirror, and we look at Him both to see His glorious perfections and our own shortcomings, that humbly, we may receive the necessary transformation into His likeness.
Thank you for reading. Please discuss.
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