You will find it in a letter--the second to the
Corinthians--written by him to some Christian people who, in a city
which was a byword for depravity and licentiousness, were seeking
the higher life. To see the point of the words we must take them
from the immensely improved rendering of the Revised translation,
for the older Version in this case greatly obscures the sense.
They are these:
"We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of
the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
even as from the Lord, the Spirit."
Now observe at the outset the entire contraction of all our previous
efforts, in the simple passive: "WE ARE TRANSFORMED."
We ARE CHANGED, as the Old Version has it--we do not change
ourselves. No man can change himself. Throughout the New Testament
you will find that wherever these moral and spiritual transformations
are described the verbs are in the passive. Presently it will be
pointed out that there is a RATIONALE in this; but meantime do not
toss these words aside as if this passivity denied all human effort
or ignored intelligible law. What is implied for the soul here
is no more than is everywhere claimed for the body. In physiology
the verbs describing the processes of growth are in the passive.
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