This earth has glory: the one thing I forgot, when I discussed the national day twice, was to say that New Zealand is beautiful. It is: this is google automagically making panoramas of the photos I took with the cellphone last night.
We live in an age where that which had to be done carefully and manually: aligning frames with precision and no overlap, is done by a server farm. For free.
But that glory is nothing compared to the glory of the Law of Moses. A time when there was fire, and earthquakes, and strong men were reduced to terror. Where the glory of God was so reflected in Moses’ face that no one could stand to look at him.
And the glory of the Law is good, but it is not the greatest glory. That is to come.
Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
(2 Corinthians 3:7-18 ESV)
Why are we allowed to be anywhere near the Glory of God? Why does he call us? Why are we supposed to be holy? For there is no manner in which we can do this on our own. None at all. We are broken, and the glory we have is all to often exploited. The Lord of the Rings movies were good indeed — but the scenery was not made by the director. It was (with the exception of hobbiton) used.
And we are all left with bad habits that we have to daily fight. We know that certain foods or acts (or lack of activity) is bad for us: we do it anyway. We need to correct our attitude: we need to become more like God.
For if God shewed his glory in the face of Moses, then we also should be showing the glory of God. It is not for our sake that we should strive for holiness, but that of God. If you want long words, then sanctification is something that happens to us not for our sakes, but for those around us.
And how we judge is if those around us praise God.
