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254 How Are the Christian Scriptures Confirmed by the Peculiar Glory of God?
revelation of God’s majesty through meekness. It is the revelation of
the heights of his holiness through his humble helpfulness. And it is the
grandeur of his grace through his voluntary sufferings in the rescue of
sinners. This is God’s peculiar glory. It is at the heart of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Along with countless manifestations in Scripture, this is
the central brightness of “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,
who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). This is what bursts upon the
heart and mind of the person in whom God shines with “the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
Now we push our exploration another step further. What we will see
now is that the Scriptures manifest themselves to be the word of God by
their display of this peculiar glory of God in the transformation of selfish
people into God-centered, Christ-exalting servants who live for the
temporal and eternal good of others. More specifically, the Scriptures
show themselves to be God’s word both by the new life they exhibit and
by the new life they create.
Beholding and Becoming the Glory of God
As we have noted, in 2 Corinthians 4:4–6 the apostle Paul connects
the power of God’s word, the glory of God, and the transformation of
sinners. Verse 4 says that the reason people don’t believe the gospel to
be true is that they are blind to the light of this glory. But when God
overcomes the blindness (v. 6), they see and believe. The seeing is the
well-grounded foundation of faith. It is real. And the least educated and
most educated hearers of God’s word arrive at well-grounded certainty
by the same final step: sight.
Five verses earlier, Paul had made the connection between this sight
and the transformation of our lives. In 2 Corinthians 3:18 he shows
how the glory of what we behold in the word creates a glory in the way
we behave in the world. He wrote, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding
the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image
from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who
is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). Beholding is becoming. We are transformed
by seeing. And the nature of the transformation is shaped by the nature
of what is seen. We see “the glory of the Lord.” And we are changed
“from one degree of glory to another.”