Dear EFC Subscribers:

Merced Church Planting

The long-anticipated (for Jan and I anyway) church planting in Merced, California has now been launched. We arrived in Merced on May 30, and have already begun having Sunday worship and group Bible study. Our team is quite small–only six for now–and we would love to have some of you come to join us on the great Christian adventure.  Please be praying for this work, that Jan and I will have the energy to make for a great start to the church, and pray for the campus ministry at Merced College and UC Merced. Our website is mercedchurch.com I will be posting sermons and other lessons at the site.

In Christ: The Missing Chapter

I am taking a break from the series of essays from Volume IV of The Christian Story, which will be published later this summer, to share with you a brand new chapter that I have written for the book In Christ, which has already been published. The book is about how we come into Christ and all the blessings we have in Christ.  But there is one really great blessing we have in Christ I had not included in the book.  This is the blessing that in Christ the veil is removed. This is the veil that made it impossible to truly see God and to be transformed into his likeness.  I am including this chapter below exclusively for EFC subscribers. Hopefully, it will eventually be added to the book!

New Material

There is less than the usual amount of new material at the web site, as we have been busy moving and starting up a new church, but, still, we have a few lessons that might prove helpful.  I have now completed a 14-hour class on New Testament Survey.  The class includes notes, power point, all the audio, plus several dozen sermons from the New Testament.

Also, I have completed a six-part series of sermons from the Book of Acts.  There are a few new sermons at the site as well at this link.

Here is that chapter:

In Christ, the Veil Has Been Removed

Outside of Christ, we were blind. The truth was right in front of our face, but we could not see it. Our spiritual IQ was not zero, but it was well below 100. The way to destruction is easy and wide, but we were ignorant of that fact. There was a sign at the side the highway to hell telling us about the exit that leads to eternal life, but our spiritual vision was more like 20×200 than 20×20. We could not read that sign. If we could see the truth, it was like looking through a very dirty windshield. The way Paul describes it, outside of Christ we could see God, but it was like looking through a veil.

We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. (2 Corinthians 3:12-16)

What a wonderful thought. When we turn to the Lord and come into Christ the spiritual veil is removed. Only in Christ does this happen. The symbolism of the foreshadow is telling. When he came off the mountain from his world-changing encounter with God, Moses’ face shone so brightly that the people literally could not even look at him. His face shone with such glory that Moses had to put a veil over his face to prevent them from being blinded. According to Paul, the literal veil Moses used corresponds to a metaphorical veil which remains over the spiritual eyes of any Jew who refuses to come to Christ. Over time, the glory that shone from Moses’ face receded. This stands in stark contrast to the glory that shines from those whose veil has been removed in Christ, and reflect his glory. The way Paul put it, “And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts.” (2 Corinthians 3:11)

Here Paul is talking about a veil which obscured the vision of Jews who looked through glasses colored by a false understanding of God. The veil which covered their spiritual vision was so opaque that they could not see God, even when they were face-to-face with him in the form of his Son, Jesus Christ. The Jews may have had their own particular style of veil, but a similar veil obscures the vision of all of non-Jews who are outside of Christ as well. Different version, same basic story. If you are in Christ, perhaps you can remember the moment when you finally were able to see.

None of us likes to admit it when we are lost or confused. The male half of humanity seem to be particularly susceptible to this vision problem. When we were outside of Christ, we were not completely spiritually blind, so we fooled ourselves into thinking we were pretty spiritual—at least most of us did. Looking back, I am embarrassed about how foolish I was outside of Christ, yet, at the time I thought I was “spiritual.” I have studied the Bible with hundreds of unbelieving people over the last forty years or so. I cannot count the number of

times I have studied some of the most basic passages of Scripture with such people, and then asked them what it meant. Their response seems to have almost nothing to do with what is said in the Scripture. Where did that answer come from? But, fast forward just a few weeks to a point after their heart has changed and the veil removed. Ask the same question about the same passage, and the response is spot on. What causes the transformation? God has removed a veil so that they can see.

Jesus had a similar problem with his disciples. “I am going to Jerusalem, where the Son of man must die, because God’s Messiah cannot die outside Jerusalem.” It seemed that no matter how many times he told them this basic truth, which, by the way, was written all over the Hebrew Bible, they simply did not get it. He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” He might as well have talked to himself. Their thick-headed reply: “Are you at this time going to restore the (physical) kingdom?” But then Jesus breathed on his apostles and they received the Holy Spirit, the veil was lifted, and suddenly all began to make sense.

That it how it is when we come into Christ. The Holy Spirit, who will “guide us into all truth” enters into our life, the veil is removed, and suddenly a dense fog is lifted from our mind. We are finally able to get it. Then we are able to receive the truth, and that truth will set us free.

This is a wonderful, inspiring truth about being in Christ, but if there is any of the things we receive when we come into Christ which is “already but not yet,” it is this spiritual unveiling. Paul describes this brilliantly in the follow-up passage in 2 Corinthians. “But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:16-18)

When we come into Christ—when we are baptized into Christ—we are given the promised Holy Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing our salvation (paraphrasing 2 Corinthians 5:5). It is when we receive the Holy Spirit that the veil is removed. Paul tells us here that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Freedom from what? Freedom from the ignorance that comes with being outside of Christ—from the veil which blinded us to the knowledge of things of God. But, according to this passage of Scripture, this unveiling is not just the end of our blindness. It is also the beginning of a life-giving process of transformation. We, whose faces have been unveiled, are freed and are now able to contemplate the glory of God. That contemplation leads from one degree of glory to another.

A wonderful thing about this passage is that the word which is translated as “contemplate” can also be translated as “reflect.” The Greek word is katoptrizomenoi, which means, literally, beholding as in a mirror. In English the ideas of contemplating and reflecting are near-opposites, but this Greek word carries both meanings, which is reflected in the fact that some English translations have contemplate and others have reflect. Because we have had

the veil removed in Christ, we are able to fully behold and contemplate the glory of the Lord, but then because of our contemplating that glory, we also are able to reflect the glory of God to others as well. Contemplating the glory of the Lord leads to reflecting his glory, which leads to further contemplation and even greater reflection of his glory and so forth. It is like this: contemplate, reflect, contemplate, reflect, contemplate reflect. In Christ the veil is removed. Therefore we can contemplate the glory of the Lord, but then we can reflect the glory of the Lord and, over time, we are transformed into the likeness of Christ. As Paul puts it, we have ever-increasing glory. We look more and more like Christ, who is the image of God.

Let us consider for a moment the word glory, which is found eleven times in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18. It is the Greek word doxa, which means a divine quality or splendor. It is a shining forth, as in the burning bush or in the face of Moses when he came off the mountain. Because the veil is removed in Christ, we can see the splendor of God, and we can reflect that splendor. Paul continues the thought in 2 Corinthians 4:1-2. “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart… On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” All of us are tempted to lose heart at times, but because we reflect the glory of God in Christ, we can and we should commend our glorified lives to the consciences of those around us. Or, as Paul puts it, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. This is our ministry—the ministry of reconciliation, as we are ambassadors for Christ (paraphrasing 2 Corinthians 5:18-20). What an encouraging thought: in Christ the veil is removed. Therefore we do not lose heart, even if, outwardly, we are wasting away, because, inwardly we are renewed every day (2 Corinthians 4:16), as we reflect the Lord’s glory from one degree to another.