The word translated "transformed" is found only four times in the New Testament. It is used both in Matthew and Mark to describe the change in the appearance of our blessed Lord on the mountain when "His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light." In these places it is rendered "transfigured." It is met with finally in 2 Cor. 3:18, where it is given as "changed." Who can doubt that there is an intended connection between these scriptures? When the Lord was "transfigured" on the mount, God showed out, in anticipation, the glorified state on which His beloved Son would enter after His death and resurrection. (See John 17:5.) But we—believers—shall by His grace be glorified together with Him (John 17:22; Rom. 8:17; etc.); and we learn from the above scriptures how this will be accomplished. Rom. 12:2 teaches that it is, first of all, a moral work within—a spiritual change effected by the renewing of our mind. From 2 Cor. 3:18 we gather that while Christ in glory is the model to which we are to be conformed (compare John 17:19; Rom. 8:29), it is by beholding His glory that we are gradually "transfigured"—from glory to glory—into the same image. God thus uses by the Holy Spirit the glory of the Lord to change us morally into the likeness of His beloved Son. But, as 1 John 3:2 tells us, we shall not be like Him until we see Him as He is. We wait, therefore, until His coming, for the full accomplishment of the counsels of God, when our bodies as well as our souls will be conformed to the image of His Son (see Phil. 3:21). In the meantime our moral growth in His likeness will be in proportion to our present occupation with Him in the place where He is.
"And is it so? I shall be like Thy Son;
Is this the grace which He for me hath won?
Father of glory, thought beyond all thought,
In glory, to His own blest likeness brought."