here in a rite, there in a type,
there again in an obscure prophecy, but never or scarcely ever
fronting the world with an unveiled face and the light of God shining
clear from it. Christianity is, and Christian teachers ought to be,
the opposite of all this. It has, and they are to have, no esoteric
doctrines, no hints where plain speech is possible, no reserve, no
use of symbols and ceremonies to overlay truth, but an intelligible
revelation in words and deeds, to men's understandings. It and they
are plentifully to declare the thing as it is.

But he gets far beyond this point in his uses of his illustration. It
opens out into a series of contrasts between the two revelations. The
veiled Moses represents the clouded revelation of old. The vanishing
gleam on his face recalls the fading glories of that which was
abolished; and then, by a quick turn of association, Paul thinks of
the veiled readers in the synagogues, copies, as it were, of the
lawgiver with the shrouded countenance; only too significant images
of the souls obscured by prejudice and obstinate unbelief, with which
Israel trifles over the uncomprehended letter of the old law.

The contrast to all this lies in our text. Judaism had the one
lawgiver who beheld God, while the people tarried below. Christianity
leads us all, to the mount of vision, and lets the lowliest pass
through the fences, and go up where the blazing glory is seen. Moses
veiled the face that shone with the irradiation of Deity. We with
unveiled face are to shine among men. He had a momentary gleam, a
transient brightness; we have a perpetual light. Moses' face shone,
but the lustre was but skin deep. But the light that we have is
inward, and works transformation into its own likeness.

So there is here set forth the very loftiest conception of the
Christian life as direct vision, universal, manifest to men,
permanent, transforming.

I. Note then, first, that the Christian life is a life of
contemplating and reflecting Christ.

It is a question whether the single word rendered in our version
'beholding as in a glass,' means that, or 'reflecting as a glass
does.' The latter seems more in accordance with the requirements of
the context, and with the truth of the matter in hand. Unless we
bring in the notion of reflected lustre, we do not get any parallel
with the case of Moses. Looking into a glass does not in the least
correspond with the allusion, which gave occasion to the whole
se