2nd Corinthians Chapter 3 verse 18 Holy Bible

2nd Corinthians 3 : 18 Bible Verse Songs

• Change Me by Tamela Mann
• Glory To Glory by Jeremy Riddle + Bethel Music
• Glory To Glory by Collen Maluleke
• Movin' On by Jonathan McReynolds + Mali Music
• Glory Days by Jason Gray
• My Desire by Elijah Oyelade
• Behold by Valley Creek Worship
• More of You by VOUS Worship
• Behold Him by Mission House + Revere + Paul Baloche
• I See The Glory by Steve Crown
• Behold Him by Francesca Battistelli

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 18. - But we all. An appeal to personal experience in evidence of the freedom. With open face; rather, with unveiled face; as Moses himself spoke with God, whereas the Jews could not see even the reflected splendour on the face of Moses till he had shrouded it with a veil. Beholding as in a glass. This is at least as likely to be the true meaning as "reflecting as a mirror," which the Revised Version (following Chrysostom and others) has substituted for it. No other instance occurs in which the verb in the middle voice has the meaning of "reflecting," and the words, "With unveiled face," imply the image of "beholding." They are, in fact, a description of "the beatific vision." An additional reason for retaining the translation of our Authorized Version is that the verb is used in this sense by Philo ('Leg. Alleg.,' 3:33). The glory of the Lord. Namely, him who is "the Effulgence of God's glory" (Hebrews 1:2), the true Shechinah, "the Image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15). Are changed into the same image. The present tense implies a gradual transfiguration, a mystical and spiritual change which is produced in us while we contemplate Christ. From glory to glory. Our spiritual assimilation to Christ comes from his glory and issues in a glory like his (1 Corinthians 15:51; comp." from strength to strength," Psalm 84:7). (For the thought, comp. 1 John 3:2.) As by the Spirit of the Lord. This rendering (which is that of the Vulgate also) can hardly be correct. The natural meaning of the Greek is "as by the [or, from] the Lord the Spirit." Our change into glory comes from the Lord, who, as St. Paul has already explained, is the Spirit of which he has been speaking. No such abstract theological thought is here in his mind as that of the "hypostatic union," of the Son and the Holy Spirit. He is still referring to the contrast between the letter and the spirit, and his identification of this "spirit" in its highest sense with the quickening life which, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, we receive from Christ, and which is indeed identical with "the Spirit of Christ."

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(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 2Corinthians 3:14. "We," says the Apostle, after the parenthesis of 2Corinthians 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. 1Corinthians 11:7; but see Note on 2Corinthians 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 1Corinthians 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 1Corinthians 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. "We behold the glory of the Lord, of the Jehovah of the Old Testament, but it is not, as yet, face to face, but as mirrored in the person of Christ." The following words, however, show that the word suggested yet another thought to him. When we see the sun as reflected in a polished mirror of brass or silver, the light illumines us: we are, as it were, transfigured by it and reflect its brightness. That this meaning lies in the word itself cannot, it is true, be proved, and it is, perhaps, hardly compatible with the other meaning which we have assigned to it; but it is perfectly conceivable that the word should suggest the fact, and the fact be looked on as a parable. . . .