This paper explores the theme of the vision of God as a means of sanctification throughout Scripture. That is, in seeing God we are transformed more fully into his image. While this topic is prevalent throughout the Bible, this paper’s analysis will be limited to Exodus 34, wherein Moses’s face glows from beholding the Lord on the mountain, and 1 John 3, which speaks of the end blessedness wherein we see God and are transformed into his image.
The paper argues that the vision of God is a mechanism of transformation. It develops this in three parts: first by briefly defining the meaning of the vision of God, second through an exegesis of the two passages, and third through a succinct evaluation of the theme of the vision of God as transformation throughout the larger storyline of Scripture, while engaging with the ancient, reformed, and contemporary scholarship on the issue of the vision of God and sanctification (especially Gregory of Nyssa, John Calvin, and Hans Boersma). Specifically, while humans are created for the sight of God and to be holy unto him, they ultimately look away from God and downwards toward themselves, leading to their destructions. But one day God promises that “They will see his face” (Rev 22:4), a promise that reveals a reversal of the curse from Genesis 3 and restoration of the tree of life. The sight of God, among other things, leads to the utter transformation of his people.