When we behold and reflect the glory of the Lord, He infuses us with the elements of what He is and what He has done. In other words, He dispenses these elements into us. The result is that we are being transformed metabolically to have His life shape by His life power with His life essence. We are then transfigured, mainly by the renewing of our mind (Rom. 12:2), into His image. The words “being transformed” indicate that we are in the process of transformation. The “same image” here is the image of the resurrected and glorified Christ. We are being conformed to the image of the resurrected and glorified Christ (Rom. 8:29); we are being made the same as He is.
Paul tells us that we are being transformed into the same image “from glory to glory.” This means that we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another degree. This denotes an ongoing process of life in resurrection.
In this verse Paul says that we are being transformed “from the Lord Spirit.” The Lord Spirit may be considered a compound title like Father God and Lord Christ. This expression again proves strongly and confirms the fact that the Lord Christ is the Spirit and the Spirit is the Lord Christ. In this chapter this Spirit is revealed as the inscribing Spirit (v. 3), the life-giving Spirit (v. 6), the ministering Spirit (v. 8), the freeing Spirit (v. 17), and the transforming Spirit (v. 18). Such an all-inclusive Spirit is crucial to the ministers of Christ and to their ministry for God’s New Testament economy.
After speaking about the ministry of the new covenant, Paul continues to speak about the ministers of the new covenant. From verse 12 to 18, he first depicts the new covenant ministers as persons whose hearts have turned to the Lord, whose faces are unveiled, who are enjoying the Lord as the Spirit freeing them from the bondage of the law, and who are being transformed into the image of the Lord by beholding and reflecting Him. Through such a process of transformation, they are constituted to be ministers of Christ by the Spirit with the elements of Christ’s Person and work. Hence, their person is a constitution of Christ, and their ministry is to minister Christ to others, infusing them with the all-inclusive Christ as the indwelling, life-giving Spirit. All believers should imitate them to be the same kind of person and to accomplish the same kind of ministry.
In order to be transformed into the image of Christ, we need to behold and reflect His glory. As we behold Him, His element is transfused into us. This transfusion, this infusion, is altogether a matter of the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity.