Finishing up my paper on the Holy Spirit and came across this quote by Philip Hughes in his commentary on 2 Corinthians 3:18:
“The glory is ‘the glory of the Lord’, and we behold it ‘as in a mirror’. to gaze by faith into the gospel is to behold Christ, who in this same passage is described as ‘the image of God’ (4:4) and elsewhere as ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Col. 1:15) and ‘the effulgence of the Father’s glory and the impress of His substance’ Heb. 1:3) To see Him is to see the Father, and to behold His glory is to behold the glory as of the only begotten from the Father (Jn. 14:9; 1:14). And to contemplate Him who is the Father’s image is progressively to be transformed into that image. The effect of continuous beholding is that we are continuously being transformed ‘into the same image’, that is, into the likeness of Christ–and increasingly so: ‘from glory to glory’.” (pp. 117-118)
To set anything else as a goal is settling for something infinitely less. But this is not a goal we reach by our own strength but by the work of the Spirit who works this transformation in us. So we are not less hopeless and defeated but victorious and exceedingly hopeful.
