THE HOLY SPIRIT MAKES US ONE BY
MAKING US LIKE CHRIST

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 Cor. 3:18

It is a rule of life that we tend to become like what we continually gaze upon in admiration, if not in one way then in another. It is therefore important what heroes we choose to admire. Nathaniel Hawthorne was getting at this in his story about the Old Stone Face, which looked upon a village from its mountain perch. The village perpetuated the myth that a great leader would one day come to their town bearing the image of the Old Stone Face. A school boy, infatuated by the myth, grew up studying the face naturally etched in stone on the mountain, wondering who would one day come bearing its image.

The boy grew up anticipating every stranger and visitor to the city, but no one ever came who fit the description. At last when the boy was an old man and sitting on his porch with a neighbor, the neighbor, looking intently upon the stone face on the nearby mountain and then at the old man, cried out, “Clarence, you are the Old Stone Face!” Over the years the man became like what he had come to admire. It is a great and sobering truth, and that is the idea in 2 Cor. 3:18. The more we look upon Christ the more we become like him.

This is the mission of the Holy Spirit as the Guest of heaven within us. That is what the apostle says in making his point, “just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Phillips captures this beautifully in his translation: “We are transformed by the Spirit of the Lord in ever-increasing splendor into his own image.”

It is wonderfully reassuring to realize God has given us His Spirit for the purpose of conforming us more and more into the image of Himself, through Jesus Christ. A Guest has come to make his home in our hearts so that we might become more and more like Jesus!

The context of 2 Cor 3:18 shows that the Jews did not understand the gospel message because a veil hung over their faces so they could not see. We are to conclude that this was their fault in that they did not want to understand. The apostle says “the veil is taken away” when one turns to Christ (verse 16). Then they will see Christ in all his glory, as if beholding him in a mirror. But the likeness of Christ is reflected on the beholder, so that he becomes like what he beholds in the mirror.

And so Paul says “we are being transformed into the same image,” which refers to the here and now in this world. As Christians we are becoming more and more like Christ in this world and it will continue through eternity. This is the mission of the Holy Spirit, which is further evident from the fruit he seeks to bear in our lives: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. This is another way of saying that the Spirit’s mission in our lives is to make us Christlike, for these virtues are what it means to be like Christ. The Spirit makes us gentle women and gentle men because that is Christlike. We are like Christ when we are kind, good, and forbearing.

Christlikeness is thus the end in view of the Christian faith. While such judgments as “sound in faith” should refer to being like Jesus, it is often made to refer to being loyal to some party line. We have been more attentive to making people like us, like our party, than making there like Christ. It is sometimes tragically the case that the most Christlike members of a congregation are suspect for that very reason: they are more devoted to Jesus than to the party!

A good commentary on 2 Cor. 3:18 is Rom. 12:2 where the apostle pleads with his readers to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” The idea of the passage is that they are to turn away from being like the world and become like Christ. He then makes a remarkable statement: “that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” We show what God’s purpose is for His church when we become a transformed people by being like Christ.

This is why the church is referred to as the Body of Christ, “the fulness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). That says it all: the church is to be Jesus Christ in this world, his fulness, his likeness. But there is also reference to believers being “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), “until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. 4:19), “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27), and “Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

This is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. When this is the case we are a united people—mutually like Christ even though different from each other. Christlikeness does not mean that we are carbon copies of each other. Unity among believers is thus the fruit of the Holy Spirit. That is why we are urged to preserve the unity of the Spirit “with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love” (Eph. 4:2-3).

That is to say that the way to unity is Christlikeness.—the Editor

It often happens in life—indeed it happens daily—that we use a thing and benefit from a thing without being fully able to understand all about it. We use electricity without being able to define what electricity is or how it works. We use a motor car without being able to understand the theory of the working of the internal combustion engine. There is many a thing in this life which we know by its effects. For many of us that will be true also of the Holy Spirit. We need not get lost in the mysteries of the Trinity to experience the power of the Holy Spirit; and it will be to the good of our souls to go to the Bible and to meditate on what the Bible says about the work of the Spirit of God in the lives of men, in order that we may lay hold on that power for our own lives.—William Barclay in The Promise of the Spirit