Sinful things are certainly a problem between us and God, and we need to take care of those things. What about us today? We may think that we know who Jesus is, so Paul’s word in 2 Corinthians 3 doesn’t apply to us.īut we need to realize that in principle, a veil can lie on our heart at any time. If we have a veil on our heart, how can we see God? How can He infuse Himself into us? To have a veiled heart is a serious matter. Our heart is central to our relationship with God, so the condition of our heart is crucial. Our heart is also the gateway of our being, determining whether we’re open or closed to particular people and matters. Our heart is the organ with which we love God, people, and things. Many verses in the Bible reveal that our heart is composed of our mind, emotion, will, and our conscience. Yet the Jewish people couldn’t see this, because Paul said that they had a veil on their heart. These writings revealed not a religion for people to follow but a wonderful Person, Jesus Christ. Jesus made it clear that the writings of Moses and even the entire Old Testament were concerning Himself. “And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He explained to them clearly in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” This chapter gives the account of the resurrected Jesus meeting and conversing with two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus. We know this from the Lord’s own word in Luke 24. Because of this, they couldn’t see that the writings of Moses revealed the Lord Jesus. It wasn’t the writings of Moses themselves, but what the Jewish people thought they knew about them that became a veil on their heart. Here, the apostle Paul was speaking of the Jewish people, who revered the writings of Moses in the Old Testament. “Indeed unto this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.” To see what it means to have an unveiled face, we first have to see what a veil is. So what does it mean to have an unveiled face? What is a veil? In the same way, if we believers are to behold the glory of the Lord-that is, to see Him and gaze upon His beautiful and glorious Person-we must have an unveiled face. But if the mirror is covered, or veiled, it can’t behold or reflect anything. A mirror is a surface that both beholds and reflects what’s in front of it. Here, the apostle Paul likened us believers to a mirror. “But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” In this post, we’ll take a closer look at 2 Corinthians 3 with help from notes from the Recovery Version to see the things that can hinder us from being able to behold the Lord and how we can deal with them. As we behold Him, more of Christ is infused into us, resulting in a spiritual “metabolic” process: our old, natural element is replaced with more of Christ, and we spontaneously live according to Him. Second Corinthians 3:18 tells us we’re being transformed as we behold and reflect the Lord like a mirror. Instead, it’s the result of God’s life operating and growing within us. In a previous post, we saw that according to the Bible true Christian transformation isn’t brought about by an improvement in behavior, or by acting in a way we think is more Christ-like.
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