Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Corinthians · About this commentary
From Glory to Glory
2 Corinthians 3:16-18
16 But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. · WEB
One clause removes the veil, and the transformation that follows is described as something happening to the watcher rather than by the watcher.
But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
One condition, and it is a turning rather than an achievement. The verb is not qualified — no degree of understanding is required first, which would be circular given that the veil is what prevents understanding. And the removal is passive: it is taken away, by someone other than the person turning.
The word whenever keeps it open. No group is named and no group is excluded.
Verse 17 supplies an identification and a consequence: now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Liberty is the word that answers the chapter's whole comparison — a written standard that could only condemn produced no freedom, and could not 2 Corinthians 3:6.
Then verse 18, which gathers everything the chapter has been building.
But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Four things in it are worth marking. We all — the unveiled face is not the prophet's privilege; the contrast with Moses is complete, since he alone had the experience and here nobody is excluded. As in a mirror — the seeing is indirect and real at once, which is honest about what is available now.
Are transformed is passive, like the veil's removal. The watching is what a person does; the changing is done to them, which is why the sentence cannot be turned into a technique.
And from glory to glory answers the fading of Moses' face directly. The earlier glory moved in one direction, downward, and had to be hidden. This one moves between two glories with no ending named — the same currency, and the transaction runs the other way.
The agent is named last: even as from the Lord, the Spirit. The comparison that began with tablets of stone 2 Corinthians 3:3 ends with a person doing the writing.
settled What this mark means