The Alchemy of Grace

"(We are very bold), unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away" (2 Corinthians 3:13.)

Moses descended from Mount Sinai, his face suffused with beauty, a beauty so splendid that it bewildered his friends. So he placed a veil over his face to spare them. 

Paul, however, noted something in the text that others had missed: Moses kept the veil on his face after the glory had faded away. He was faking it. 

That's the problem with trying to keep a law of any kind. We can't keep up the effort and so must fake it. Self-effort makes us hypocrites in the end. 

There's a better way: "We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory (beauty) of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory (beauty) to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians. 3:18).

Paul says that we all are being transformed.” No one is too far lost and too far gone. 

We all are being transformed,” a passive verb. Change is not through self-effort but through the agency of Another. (You only have to ask Him.) 

"We all are being transformed" (metamorphoô), a Greek verb from which we take our English noun "metamorphosis," a word that suggests that magical process by which ugly, repulsive grubs are transformed into beautiful butterflies. This is the alchemy of grace. 

David Roper