What should we do when we realize that our behavior is copper and not gold? We should go to the Lord desperately and say to Him, “Lord, now I have the revelation. I see what is You and what is me. The best I can be is bright, shining copper. But, Lord, You are gold. When I compare myself to You as the gold, I begin to loathe my copper behavior. I hate my own submission, obedience, and love. Lord, I need You to be my submission. Lord, I want to experience You as my obedience and love. Lord, if You don’t love in me, I won’t love either. Lord, I don’t want to do anything without You. Lord, You live in me. Come in to replace my copper with Your gold. O Lord Jesus, replace me!” Then, throughout the day we should contact the Lord by calling on Him and allow Him to replace us with Himself. Gradually, we shall experience the Lord’s living in us. We shall realize that our behavior does not originate with ourselves. Rather, it is the resurrected Christ Himself. This is glory.
If we practice this day by day, we shall be transformed from glory to glory. Furthermore, others will notice the difference in us. They will see a difference in our submission, obedience, and love. Yes, we are still submissive, but this submission is different in nature. Formerly, our behavior was copper; now it is gold. Because it is gold, it is much brighter than before. It is even glorious.
I hope we shall all see the difference between the copper and the gold. Once we were going from copper to copper, but now we are being transformed from gold to gold, from glory to glory. Over the years I have often said to myself, “You are still a mixture of copper and gold.” However, I can testify that the copper has been decreasing and that the gold has been increasing.
We all need to be impressed with what it means to be transformed. To be transformed is to have Christ added into our being to replace what we are so that Christ may increase and our natural life may decrease. As the process of transformation takes place within us, the old element of our natural being is carried away, and the glory, the blossoming Christ, the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit, is added into us to replace the natural element. Today is different from yesterday, and tomorrow will be different from today, for each day we have less of the natural element and more of Christ. This is what it means to be transformed from glory to glory.
I did not acquire this understanding of transformation merely from reading books. None of the books I have read helped me to have a thorough understanding of “from glory to glory.” Throughout the years, I have learned from my own experience and from my observations in the church life what it means to be transformed from glory to glory. More than twenty years ago I could not have given such a message as this. At that time I still did not have a clear understanding concerning Paul’s expression “from glory to glory.” Now I see that the glory here is the blossoming Christ, Christ in resurrection. Furthermore, this Christ as the glory is the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, both from my experience and observation I can testify that the glory in 3:18 is actually the life-giving Spirit.
The more we live and walk in this life-giving Spirit, the more glory is added into our being. Therefore, we live glory to glory. We are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, that is, from the Lord Spirit to the Lord Spirit. This is the experience of everyone who lives Christ for the church. Paul was a pattern of this kind of life, and this was his experience.
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