Sunday, September 04, 2005

2 Corinthians 3:18

--Kistemaker commenting on "we are being transformed"...
The verb is in the present tense and passive in voice, which means that transformation is a process with an implied agent doing this work in us.

The Greek verb is metamorphousthai (to be transformed)

made me think of CS Lewis' words in Mere Xnity:
Did you ever think, when you were a child, what fun it would be if your toys could come to life? Well suppose you could really have brought them to life.
Imagine turning a tin soldier into a real little man. It would involve turning the tin into flesh. And suppose the tin soldier did not like it. He is not interested in flesh; all he sees is that the tin is being spoilt. He thinks you are killing him. He will do everything he can to prevent you He
will not be made into a man if he can help it.

For you are no longer thinking simply about right and wrong; you are trying to catch the good infection from a Person. It is more like painting a portrait than like obeying a set of rules. And the odd thing is that while in one way it is much harder than keeping rules, in another way it is far easier.

The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to 'inject' His kind of life and thought, His Zoe, into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.

also...Kistemaker:
We know that Jesus, who changes our lives, is the wellspring of our transformed inner being. This change occurs through the working of the Holy Spirit (see v. 17). “Our whole transformation is the work of the Lord in and by and through the Spirit.” RCH Lenski

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