The common experience of God's glory...
Our text deals with both the glory of Christ (3:18) and the freedom He brings (3:17). We need encounters with these visions of God's glory to help us in our struggles with doubt. Social critic Alain de Botton notes that in settings where religion provides stunning beauty (like the vision of the Transfiguration) to our shared experience, doubt and anxieties occasioned by our insecurity about our place, significance, or importance in the community tends to vanish, as we all experience our Lord in awe, regardless of our social standing (Status Anxiety, pp. 250ff).
