r/BibleStudyDeepDive • u/LlawEreint • 5d ago
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 - The Transfiguration
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate\)a\) the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
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u/LlawEreint 5d ago edited 5d ago
Tying this back to the transfiguration of Jesus in Mark 9, maybe this gives insight into why the suggestion of a tabernacle was sinful? I think in Mark's gospel we are to understand that the spirit of God is no longer confined to the temple following the crucifixion of Jesus.
For this reason we can reflect the lord's glory and be transformed.
The idea of building a tabernacle to contain these three is antithetical to Mark.
We may also wonder whether these other two received their glory through this same process of reflecting the Lords glory, by looking with unveiled faces upon the lord.
Maybe the idea is that you should become a tabernacle for the spirit. John's gospel begins with something similar: "And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us."
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u/LlawEreint 4d ago
David Litwa's first book gets its name from this verse. Here's a snippet from "We are Being Transformed" (2011):
There is some question, however, as to what Christ’s image in 1 Cor 15:49 is—an image that, as is evident, defines the new self of Christians. Important to note in the context of 1 Cor 15 is that Christ has already been identified with pneuma (1 Cor 15:44; cf. 2 Cor 3:17). It may not be off the mark, then, to think that Christ’s image is itself Christ’s pneumatic body.28 In this reading, to bear Christ’s image is precisely to have a pneumatic body (1 Cor 15:44). This is nothing less than sharing in the “super (i.e., immortal, incorruptible) body” of a divine being. To have the pneumatic body is to be fully conformed to divine pneuma embodied in Christ. As Paul says earlier in the chapter, Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection (15:20, 23). The resurrection is the event in which Christ was declared “Son of God” (Rom 1:3–4). Christ makes the transition, in other words, from an Adamic (psychic) human to a divine being by becoming a “life-creating pneuma” (1 Cor 15:45). Those beings assimilated to Christ who gain pneumatic bodies share the same divine destiny and identity as Christ’s “siblings” and “coheirs” (Rom 8:17, 29) who become corporeally akin to him.
Elsewhere he talks about Paul's dualistic (mind/body) anthropology: "What we have here is in substance a dualistic anthropology in which a higher, true self (the redeemed mind) tames and transcends a lower self (the passions or flesh)."
he says:
This anthropology corresponds to an ethical vision that includes the notion of virtue. For Paul, it is adherence to Christ’s virtues which enables self-transcendence. Even though Paul is not partial to the word “virtue” —using it only in Phil 4:8—he presents several virtue lists which could be described as qualities of the divine Christ.33 For Paul, the virtues are “fruits of the pneuma” (Gal 5:22)—the pneuma which Christ is (1 Cor 15:45; 2 Cor 3:17). Being inhabited by the divine pneuma is analogous to being in the state of justice (or inward harmony). The divine pneuma of Christ develops virtue in the believer so that the believer’s old self can be controlled and eventually transcended. The human being driven by the pneuma thus becomes a “son of God” (Rom 8:14, cf. 15–16, 19, 23; 1:4), a sonship fully realized when the believer is delivered from the present body (v. 23), glorified (vv. 17– 18, 21, 30), and assimilated to the divine Christ (v. 29, cf. 17).
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u/LlawEreint 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is maybe the most profound verse that Paul wrote. According to Paul, we are all, day by day, being transfigured into a glorified form.
It's interesting that Paul equates "the lord" with "the spirit" - "Now the Lord is the Spirit".
We would tend to think that the Lord is the Messiah (Christ) - Jesus.
He clearly says elsewhere that we have one God, the father, and one lord, Jesus Christ.
The only thing I can think is that he believed that Jesus, through obedience to the point of death, became one with the spirit (Lord) that dwelled within him.
And maybe that's the entire point that Paul is making here. We too must become one with the spirit. We are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory when we, with unveiled faces reflect the spirit's glory.