2 Corinthians 3:18

But we all with open face,.... We are not like Moses, who had a veil on his face; nor like the Jews, who have one on their hearts: "but we all"; not ministers and preachers of the Gospel only, but

But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. Parenthetical: of Christians in general.

Some by we here understand all believers; others think it is better understood of ministers: but the universal particle all rather guideth us to interpret it of the whole body of believers, of whom the apostle saith, that they all behold the glory of God with open face; that is, not under those dark types, shadows, and prophecies, that he was of old revealed under, but as in a looking glass, which represents the face as at hand; not as in a perspective, which showeth things afar off. We behold him in the glass of the gospel, fully opened and preached; and this sight of Christ in the gospel is not a mere useless sight, but such a sight as changeth the soul into the image and likeness of Christ, from glory to glory; carrying on the souls of believers from one degree of grace to another; or making such a glorious change in the heart, as shall not be blotted out until a soul cometh into those possessions of glory which God hath prepared for his people. And all this is done by the Spirit of the Lord, working with the word of God in the mouths of his ministers, but so as the Spirit hath the principal agency and efficiency in the work.

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. Ver. 18. Are changed] As the pearl by the often beating of the sunbeams upon it becomes radiant. From glory to glory] That is, from grace to grace. Fulness of grace is the best thing in glory. Other things, as peace and joy, are but the shinings forth of this fulness of grace in glory.

(18) But we all, with open face.—Better, And we all, with unveiled face.—The relation of this sentence to the foregoing is one of sequence and not of contrast, and it is obviously important to maintain in the English, as in the Greek, the continuity of allusive thought involved in the use of the same words as in 2 Corinthians 3:14. “We,” says the Apostle, after the parenthesis of 2 Corinthians 3:17, “are free, and therefore we have no need to cover our faces, as slaves do before the presence of a great king. There is no veil over our hearts, and therefore none over the eyes with which we exercise our faculty of spiritual vision. We are as Moses was when he stood before the Lord with the veil withdrawn.” If the Tallith were in use at this time in the synagogues of the Jews, there might also be a reference to the contrast between that ceremonial usage and the practice of Christian assemblies. (Comp. 1 Corinthians 11:7; but see Note on 2 Corinthians 3:15.) Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord.—The Greek participle which answers to the first five words belongs to a verb derived from the Greek for “mirror” (identical in meaning, though not in form, with that of 1 Corinthians 13:12). The word is not a common word, and St. Paul obviously had some special reason for choosing it, instead of the more familiar words, “seeing,” “beholding,” “gazing stedfastly;” and it is accordingly important to ascertain its meaning. There is no doubt that the active voice signifies to “make a reflection in a mirror.” There is as little doubt that the middle voice signifies to look at one’s self in a mirror. Thus Socrates advised drunkards and the young to “look at themselves in a mirror,” that they might learn the disturbing effects of passion (Diog. Laert. ii. 33; iii. 39). This meaning, however, is inapplicable here; and the writings of Philo, who in one passage (de Migr. Abrah. p. 403) uses it in this sense of the priests who saw their faces in the polished brass of the lavers of purification, supply an instance of its use with a more appropriate meaning. Paraphrasing the prayer of Moses in Exodus 33:18, he makes him say: “Let me not behold Thy form (idea) mirrored (using the very word which we find here) in any created thing, but in Thee, the very God” (2 Allegor. p. 79). And this is obviously the force of the word here. The sequence of thought is, it is believed, this:—St. Paul was about to contrast the veiled vision of Israel with the unveiled gaze of the disciples of Christ; but he remembers what he had said in 1 Corinthians 13:12 as to the limitation of our present knowledge, and therefore, instead of using the more common word, which would convey the thought of a fuller knowledge, falls back upon the unusual word, which exactly expresses the same thought as that passage had expressed.

Verse 18. But we all, with open face] The Jews were not able to look on the face of Moses, the mediator of the old covenant, and therefore he was obliged to veil it; but all we Christians, with face uncovered, behold, as clearly as we can see our own natural face in a mirror, the glorious promises and privileges of the Gospel of Christ; and while we contemplate, we anticipate them by desire and hope, and apprehend them by faith, and are changed from the glory there represented to the enjoyment of the thing which is represented, even the glorious image-righteousness and true holiness-of the God of glory. As by the Spirit of the Lord.] By the energy of that Spirit of Christ which gives life and being to all the promises of the Gospel; and thus we are made partakers of the Divine nature and escape all the corruptions that are in the world. This appears to me to be the general sense of this verse: its peculiar terms may be more particularly explained. The word κατοπτριζομενοι, catoptrizomenoi, acting on the doctrine of catoptries, which we translate beholding in a glass, comes from κατα, against, and οπτομαι, I look; and properly conveys the sense of looking into a mirror, or discerning by reflected light. Now as mirrors, among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, were made of highly polished metal, (1 Corinthians 13:12,) it would often happen, especially in strong light, that the face would be greatly illuminated by this strongly reflected light; and to this circumstance the apostle seems here to allude. So, by earnestly contemplating the Gospel of Jesus, and believing on him who is its Author, the soul becomes illuminated with his Divine splendour, for this sacred mirror reflects back on the believing soul the image of Him whose perfections it exhibits; and thus we see the glorious form after which our minds are to be fashioned; and by believing and receiving the influence of his Spirit, μεταμορφουμεθα, our form is changed, τηναυτηνεικονα, into the same image, which we behold there; and this is the image of God, lost by our fall, and now recovered and restored by Jesus Christ: for the shining of the face of God upon us, i.e. approbation, through Christ, is the cause of our transformation into the Divine image. DR. WHITBY, in his notes on this chapters produces six instances in which the apostle shows the Gospel to be superior to the law; I shall transcribe them without farther illustration:- 1. The glory appearing on mount Sinai made the people afraid of death, saying: Let not God speak to us any more, lest we die; Exodus 20:19; Deuteronomy 18:16; and thus they received the spirit of bondage to fear, Romans 8:15. Whilst we have given to us the spirit of power, and love, and of a sound mind, 2 Timothy 1:7; and the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father! and to this difference the Epistle to the Hebrews alludes, Hebrews 12:18-24. 2.

18. But we all] i.e. we Christians, in contradistinction to the Jews.with open face] i.e. unveiled. Cf. 1 Corinthians 11:7.beholding as in a glass] Either (1), according to the more ordinary meaning of the word, ‘beholding as in a mirror,’ or (2) with Chrysostom, ‘reflecting as in a mirror.’ The latter rendering makes the rest of the verse more intelligible, and has the additional recommendation that the glory on Moses’ face was a reflected glory, which we may suppose grew more and more intense the longer he gazed on God with unveiled face. The former interpretation sets Christ before us as the mirror of the Father’s glory. See next note.the glory of the Lord] i.e. of Christ, Who is the beaming forth (ἀπαύγασμα) of God’s glory, Hebrews 1:3, cf. John 1:14, and His image, ch. 2 Corinthians 4:4 (and note) and Colossians 1:15. Also John 17:24.are changed into] This word is rendered transfigured in Matthew 17:2; Mark 9:2, and no doubt the idea of the gradual beaming out of the inner glory which dwelt in Christ, producing a metamorphosis (this is the actual word used) which excited the wonder and awe of those that beheld it, was in St Paul’s mind in this passage. He uses the word in another place, Romans 12:2, where the idea of the Transfiguration and that suggested in this passage are combined, in order to express the marvellous inward change which takes place in the man who offers his heart to the transforming influences which flow out from Christ.the same image] These words are emphatic in the original. It seems impossible to interpret them of any other but Christ (ch. 2 Corinthians 4:4), ‘into the same image as Christ.’ He, as man, beholding the glory of God, with infinitely more fulness than Moses under the Law, turns to speak with us. We behold Him, not, as the Jews, with veiled heart, but with unveiled face, and as we gaze, we reflect back more and more of His image (cf. 1 John 3:2), until it be fully formed in us. Galatians 4:19.from glory to glory] i.e. from one stage of glory to another. Cf. Romans 1:17, and note on ch. 2 Corinthians 2:16.even as by the Spirit of the Lord] Three renderings are given of this passage. The first, which is the Vulgate rendering and is given in the text, needs no explanation. It is open to the objection that it inverts the order of the words in the Greek. The second is the natural grammatical rendering, ‘as by the Lord of the Spirit.’ The third, which is found in the margin of the A. V. and is adopted by St Chrysostom (who, however, interprets the passage of the Holy Spirit), ‘as by (of, A. V.) the (or a) Lord, the (or a) spirit,’ seems to give the best sense. For it refers us back to 2 Corinthians 3:17 and to the former part of the chapter.

But we all - All Christians. The discussion in the chapter has related mainly to the apostles; but this declaration seems evidently to refer to all Christians, as distinguished from the Jews.

18. Thus emancipated by the spirit of evangelic liberty from the vail upon the heart, (which was also a vail upon the eyes,) we, the free and freshly un-Judaized Christians, with open—Or, more