Is There a Veil Over Your Face?

Is There a Veil Over Your Face?

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

You have to be genuinely converted to have an unveiled face. In other words, you have to forsake everything—be circumcised. The majority of believers look up to the things that are great in this world and have plans in this world. In certain areas their minds have become hardened. V. 14. When they read God’s Word, they meet the commandments written on tablets of stone. The truth becomes precept upon precept and line upon line for them. They discover that this is bondage. But instead of getting converted and removing the veil from their face, they reject the truth and want to hear only about grace and the blood and about Jesus’ finished work. Thus they have rejected Jesus who came full of grace and truth, the One who said, “I am . . . the truth.”

“Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”

Whatever you have not forsaken lies like a veil over your face so that you do not see the glory of the Lord, but only the commandments on tablets of stone. This is why you don’t find it exciting and interesting to read the Scriptures. But when you get converted—forsake everything—the hardening of your mind will vanish, and the veil is taken away. Now when you read the Scriptures it is not precept upon precept that puts you in bondage, but you will see the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, and you will be transformed into the same image.

There is an exceedingly great difference between meeting the commandments on tablets of stone and beholding the glory of the Lord. The commandments become a burden to you because of the hardening of your mind. Jer. 23:33. But if you see the glory of the Lord, you have become apprehended of something, something you admire; you want to become like that. You enter into the perfect law of liberty. The result will be that you pursue something in order to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of you. Phil. 3:12.

If you are thus minded, then the veil has been taken away, and you are in the Spirit of the Lord. All of these are transformed into the same image and all of these are blessed in what they do. Jas. 1:25.

This liberty is only in the Spirit of the Lord. You cannot just take this liberty. You cannot study yourself to the glory of the Lord with your intellect. Not at all! You will not see it until the veil has been taken away from your face, and it will not be taken away until you are converted—when you forsake everything. You no longer have to consider this or that and ponder the matter from different perspectives. You have come into liberty in the Spirit of the Lord, and you can rejoice because you are being transformed into the image of Christ—from glory to glory.