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What It Is Like to See the Glory of God 163
the one. He was a deceiver through and through. He betrayed Jesus
with a kiss—a lying kiss (Luke 22:47). Loving money turns people into
liars and thieves who cannot see the glory of Christ.
Covetousness Causes Blindness to Glory
Why does loving money make you blind to the glory of Jesus? Because
the glory of Jesus lays claim on our hearts as the greatest treasure in the
world. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which
a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that
he has and buys that field” (Matt. 13:44). As the king of Israel, whose
kingdom would never end (Luke 1:32–33), Jesus was the embodiment
of the kingdom of God. Where he worked, the kingly rule of God
was working (Luke 11:20). Therefore, this one-verse parable about the
kingdom of God (Matt. 13:44) is about finding Jesus as our supreme
treasure. When we see him for who he is—infinitely beautiful, valuable,
and satisfying—our love for money is neutralized. We see this because,
in the parable, the man who found the treasure joyfully sells all that
he has to possess it. This signifies a radical replacement of money with
Christ as our supreme treasure.
It is either-or. Money or Christ. “No one can serve two masters, for
either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to
the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matt.
6:24; cf. Matt. 10:37–39; Luke 8:14; Mark 10:21–22). Nor can you
serve Christ and money. Judas is the proof. The love of money blinds
the mind to the superior worth of Jesus. Even before we reason it out,
our hearts are rebelling against the claim of Jesus to replace money as
the supreme treasure of our lives.
So Judas saw the same Jesus whom Peter saw, but he did not see
him as compellingly glorious, beautiful, and all-satisfying. He was not
blind to the human being. He was blind to the infinite beauty and value
of divine glory.
And the reason for the blindness was not that he was a helpless
pawn in the hands of Satan but that he joined Satan in hating the broad
daylight of Christ’s glory. His blindness—our blindness—is rooted in
his rebellion. Here’s what Jesus said in John 3:19–20 about our blindness
to his glory: