When the Veil Comes Off, We Are Transformed into His Image
We were meant to become like Jesus, and we have every reason to want to. This is a look at 2 Corinthians 3, and at the difference between learning how to look like a Christian and actually being transformed into the likeness of Christ.
What Can an Earthly Father Teach Us About Becoming Like Jesus?
Pastor Tom began with a memory from when he was a little boy walking with his dad. If his dad put his hands in his pockets, so did he. If his dad walked with a limp, he tried to walk that way too. He was not going home to practice in the mirror or take notes. He loved his dad, looked up to him, and wanted to be just like him.
He pointed to a simple truth: a little boy begins to resemble his father because of the time he spends with him. Nobody had to hand him a list of instructions. Then he asked a question he wanted to linger throughout the message: if spending time with an earthly father can change the way we walk, what ought spending time in the presence of our heavenly Father do to the way we live?
He said the church has become very good at teaching people how to look like Christians — what to do, what not to do, where to go, and what to avoid. The Bible does teach how we ought to live. There is a right way and a wrong way. But he feared we have sometimes confused looking righteous with becoming like Jesus, and those are not always the same thing.
What Was the Glory of the Old Covenant?
Paul takes us back to Exodus 34. Moses went up Mount Sinai to meet with God — not in a casual way, but in the presence of the God who spoke the universe into existence. The mountain was in fire and storm. Israel was terrified. And when Moses came back down, his face was shining. He did not even realize it at first. Aaron and the children of Israel were afraid to come near him because of the glory of that encounter.
Paul picks up that account in 2 Corinthians 3. The old covenant, the ministry engraved on tablets of stone, came with glory. But Paul also says that ministry brought death. The law points out what is wrong with us. It reveals the righteousness of God by revealing our sin. It can tell us what is right and expose what is wrong, but it could never give a spiritually dead sinner the life we need.
Pastor Tom was careful here. Paul is not calling the law evil. He calls it glorious and holy. The bad news of the law is what makes the good news of the gospel good. The law was never intended to be the final means by which God would reconcile sinners to Himself. It was pointing toward something greater.
He asked, if the ministry that brought death came with glory, how much more glorious is the ministry of the Spirit that brings life? Moses’s face reflected a glory that was passing away. The glory of the new covenant through Jesus Christ does not pass away. And God is not merely concerned with changing how we appear before people. If His goal were to make us glow, He could do that. He is concerned with transforming who we are before Him.
What Is the Veil Paul Is Talking About?
In 2 Corinthians 3:12–15, Paul describes a veil that remains over hardened hearts when the Scriptures are read. Pastor Tom connected that to the Pharisees. They possessed the Word of God. They studied it and taught it. They knew the law. But their hearts did not have it.
They were extraordinarily concerned with religious observance and outward appearances. Jesus confronted that in Matthew 23, comparing them to cups cleaned on the outside but filthy inside, and to whitewashed tombs. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” – Matthew 23:27–28, NKJV
You can polish a tomb and make everyone admire how good it looks, he said, but you have not changed what is inside. Before criticizing the Pharisees, we had better examine ourselves. Our sins may look different than theirs, but our unrighteousness before a holy God is just the same, and it takes grace for them because it took grace for us.
Along the way he shared why Luke 23:34 is his favorite verse in all the Bible. Jesus had no problem naming sin plainly. But on the cross, when the weight of our sin was upon Him and He had every right to lash out, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” – Luke 23:34, NKJV
Have We Taken Our Eyes Off the Heart of the Law?
He said we need to learn the cross before we learn anything else, because it is easy to get our eyes on actions and take them off the cross — exactly what the Pharisees did. Someone may say, I don’t drink, I don’t cuss, I don’t miss church, and I give my tithe. Those are good things. Keep them up. But how do you treat your wife when nobody is watching? How do you respond when someone hurts you? What happens in your heart when somebody else receives the recognition you wanted?
We can become so concerned about whether we are breaking a rule that we take our eyes off whether our hearts resemble Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reminded His listeners of the law of an eye for an eye. Pastor Tom explained that this was not a command to take revenge. It was a principle of proportionate justice: the most you could do, not a requirement to go further. Jesus was showing the heart of God — that it is better to turn the other cheek than to retaliate.
The question changes. It is no longer, What am I allowed to say back? It becomes, What response would honor Jesus? Jesus was not teaching that God’s law is wrong. He was teaching that people had missed the heart of it. He does the same with murder and lust, taking the issue to the heart. The religious man asks, Have I crossed the line? The transformed heart asks, Am I becoming more like my Savior?
You can follow a list of religious expectations and still have a heart filled with pride, lust, hatred, bitterness, and selfishness. The goal is not behavior modification. It is life transformation. The tragedy, he said, is that the Pharisees had spent their lives studying Scriptures that pointed toward the Messiah, and when the Messiah stood before them they did not recognize Him. They were so occupied with their system of religion that they missed the Savior standing in front of them.
He asked the church to consider whether we could become so concerned with order and activity — the building, the PowerPoint, the temperature, who is ushering, who is greeting — that Jesus could walk in the door and we would not recognize Him. He pointed to Martha and Mary: Martha was concerned with everything she thought needed to get done, and Mary spent time with Jesus. Holiness matters. But more important than treating the Bible as only a list of what to do and not to do is finding the heart of Jesus and spending time with Him. If you spend time with Christ, He changes those things.
When Is the Veil Taken Away?
That is why verse 16 matters so much. “Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” – 2 Corinthians 3:16, NKJV
Notice what Paul does not say. He does not say the veil is removed when somebody becomes sufficiently religious, memorizes enough Scripture, or finally convinces everybody they are a good person. He says when someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
For generations Israel had the Scriptures, the prophets, the sacrifices, and the law pointing toward Jesus. Then the Son of God entered the world, lived a sinless life we could never live, fulfilled the righteousness of the law we could never fulfill, and went to Calvary. There He bore the punishment we deserved. And when Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. “Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split.” – Matthew 27:51, NKJV
Pastor Tom noted that the temple veil and the veil Paul describes over a heart are different, but both point to the work of Jesus. Our works are not included. Through His sacrifice we are granted access to the Father. Through faith in Him, the veil of spiritual blindness is removed.
Some of us have spent years trying to make ourselves good enough for God. We stumble, we fall into the same sin again after promises and goals, and the first voice in our ears is the enemy’s, saying we are not good enough and should not serve. We get into a cycle of fighting whether we are good enough, telling ourselves that once we get everything straightened out we will come to Jesus. But if we could make ourselves righteous enough to stand before God, why would Jesus have needed to come and die? He did not come to congratulate righteous people. He came to save sinners. There is not going to come a time when you have done enough, are good enough, or have all the answers. Jesus did it all. The answer is turning to Christ in repentance and faith.
What Kind of Freedom Does the Spirit Give?
When the veil comes off, the work of God does not end. That is when transformation begins. “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” – 2 Corinthians 3:17, NKJV
Anywhere we go outside of God, there is bondage. Through Christ we are freed from condemnation. The blindness that kept us from recognizing His glory is removed, and the Holy Spirit begins working within us to free us from the dominion of sin. But Christian freedom is not permission to keep living in rebellion against God. It is freedom to begin living in obedience to Him. It is freedom to say, I am not the most qualified, but God is the qualifier. Not I, but Christ through me.
Before Christ, we stood condemned by the righteousness the law demanded. Through Christ we are justified, forgiven, reconciled, and adopted, so that we can cry Abba, Father — not only as a formal title, but as a child coming to a daddy. He begins confronting sins we have grown comfortable with, changing what we love, and producing desires that were not there before. There is a tremendous difference between someone who avoids sin only because they are afraid of getting caught, and someone who hates sin because they love Jesus. One is concerned with consequences. The other is concerned with honoring their Savior.
What Does It Mean to Behold the Glory of the Lord?
That leads to verse 18. “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.” – 2 Corinthians 3:18, NKJV
Moses went up a mountain, encountered the glory of God, and came down with a shining face. Under the new covenant, Paul says every believer has the privilege of beholding the glory of the Lord with an unveiled face — not just Moses, not just the prophets, not just pastors or missionaries, but every person who comes to Christ.
As we behold His glory, we are being made into His image. We are still going to sin and mess up. The enemy will say we have never changed and we are not good enough. The flesh is not good enough. But the blood of Christ has covered it. When you go back to the heart of God, you can be transformed, because Christ has already given us His image.
Pastor Tom used a simple picture. If you put water, a lemon, and sugar in a glass, you have the ingredients, but you do not have lemonade until you stir it. When you were saved, God put all the ingredients there — the Holy Spirit, His power, the gifts, the image. Now you have to walk with Him, find His heart, and stir it. Beholding His glory means more than acknowledging that He exists. It means fixing our attention on Him, considering who He is, and connecting our hearts with His through His Word, by faith, and by the work of the Holy Spirit.
He closed by urging the church not just to listen to a good sermon, watch someone else go to the altar, or look for ways to be served. Dive in. Behold the glory of God. You do not have to study Greek and Hebrew or go to seminary first. Go home and ask, Jesus, what does Your Word mean? Connect my heart with Yours. Before the mountains were formed, Jesus was there. He knew your name. He loved you. He already had a plan for your redemption.
He also pointed to 2 Corinthians 4:18: “while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:18, NKJV. Your life matters. Your time with Jesus matters. We are going to spend eternity with Him. Let’s make this life count, and spend it with Him now, before we meet Him in heaven. Stop treating the Word only as a list of what is right and wrong. That is what the Pharisees did, and it put a veil over their eyes. Find His heart today.
Life Application
This week, do not settle for looking like a Christian. Spend time with the Father, and let the Spirit transform you into the likeness of His Son. The veil is taken away when we turn to the Lord, not when we finally get ourselves cleaned up.
Here are a few questions to sit with this week:
- If a child begins to resemble a father by walking with him, what is my time with my heavenly Father actually producing in the way I live?
- Have I been more concerned with looking righteous than with becoming like Jesus?
- Is there a place where I have taken my eyes off the cross and put them on my performance, or on someone else’s?
- The veil is taken away when someone turns to the Lord. Have I been waiting until I feel good enough, or will I turn to Christ now?
- What would it look like this week to behold the glory of Jesus in His Word — not just to read the words, but to ask for His heart?
We were meant to become like Jesus. The ingredients are already there. Stir them. Find His heart.