2 Corinthians 3

2 Corinthians 3:1

D. Paul’s Credentials for the Ministry (3:1-5) 3:1 In the latter part of 2Co_2:17, the apostle had used four distinct expressions to describe his ministry. He realized that this might sound to some, especially his critics, as if he were commending himself. And so he begins this chapter with the question, Do we begin again to commend ourselves? The again does not imply that he had commended himself previously. Rather, it simply means that he had been accused of doing so, and now he anticipates the repetition of such a charge against him. Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? The some others to whom Paul is here referring are the false teachers of 2Co_2:17. They came to Corinth with epistles of commendation, perhaps from Jerusalem. And possibly when they left Corinth, they carried with them letters of commendation from the assembly there. Letters of commendation were used in the early church by Christians traveling from one place to the other. The apostle does not at all seek to discourage such a practice in this verse. Instead he is stating rather subtly that the only thing these false teachers had to commend them was the letter they carried! Otherwise they had no credentials to offer. 3:2 The Judaizers who had come to Corinth raised questions as to Paul’s apostolic authority. They denied that he was a true servant of Christ. Perhaps they raised such doubts in the Corinthians’ minds in order that the latter might demand a letter of recommendation from the Apostle Paul the next time he visited them. He has already asked them if he needs such a letter. Had he not come to Corinth when they were heathen idolaters? Had he not led them to Christ?

Had not the Lord set His seal upon the ministry of the apostle by giving him precious souls in Corinth? That is the answer. The Corinthians themselves were Paul’s epistle, written in his heart but known and read by all men. In his case there was no need of a letter written with pen and ink. They were the fruit of his ministry, and they were enshrined in his affections. Not only that, but they were known and read by all men in the sense that their conversion was a well-known fact in the whole area.

People realized that a change had come over these people, that they had turned to God from idols, and that they were now living separated lives. They were the evidence of Paul’s divine ministry. 3:3 At first glance, verse 3 seems to contradict verse 2. Paul had said that the Corinthians were his epistle; here he says that they are an epistle of Christ. In verse 2, he says that the epistle is written in his heart; in the latter part of verse 3, it seems clear that Christ has written the epistle on the hearts of the Corinthians themselves. How can these differences be reconciled? The answer is that in verse 2 Paul is stating that the Corinthians were his letter of recommendation. Verse 3 gives the explanation.

Perhaps we might get the connection by joining the two verses as follows: You are our epistle … because you are clearly declared to be an epistle of Christ. In other words, the Corinthians were Paul’s letter of recommendation because it was clear to all that the Lord had done a work of grace in their lives. They were obviously Christians. Since Paul had been the human instrument in bringing them to the Lord, they were his credentials. This is the thought in the expression ministered by us. The Lord Jesus is the One who had done the work in their lives, but He did it through the ministry of Paul. Whereas the letters of recommendation used by Paul’s enemies were written with ink, Paul’s epistle was written by the Spirit of the living God and was therefore divine. Ink, of course, is subject to fading, erasure, and destruction, but when the Spirit of … God writes in human hearts, it is forever. Then Paul adds that the epistle of Christ has been written not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are hearts of flesh. People visiting Corinth did not see Christ’s epistle engraved on some great monument in the middle of the market place, but rather the letter was written in the hearts and lives of the Christians there. As Paul contrasted tablets of stone and tablets that are hearts of flesh, there is little doubt that he also had in mind the difference between the law and the gospel. The law had, of course, been inscribed on tablets of stone on Mount Sinai, but under the gospel, God secures obedience through the message of grace and love that is written in human hearts. Paul will take up this subject in greater detail shortly, so he merely alludes to it here. 3:4 As we have listened to Paul speak with such confidence about his apostleship and the ministry the Lord had committed to him, we might well ask, How can you dare to speak with such assurance in the matter, Paul? The answer is given here in verse 4. Defense of his apostleship might seem like self-commendation, but here he denies that. He says that his confidence is toward God, i.e., confidence that can withstand God’s scrutiny. He does not have any confidence in himself or in his own ability, but through Christ, and in the work which Christ had done in the lives of the Corinthians, he finds proof of the reality of his ministry. The remarkable change in the lives of the Corinthians commended the apostle. 3:5 Here, again, Paul disclaims any adequacy in or of himself that would enable him to reckon himself to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. The power for his ministry did not come from within, but from above. The apostle was not anxious to take credit for himself. He realized that if God had not made him sufficient for the ministry, then nothing would have been accomplished.

2 Corinthians 3:6

E. The Old and New Covenants Contrasted (3:6-18) 3:6 Having discussed his own credentials, and his qualification for the ministry, Paul now launches into an extended account of the ministry itself. In the verses to follow, he contrasts the Old Covenant (the law) and the new covenant (the gospel). There is a good reason why he should do so at this point. Those who were criticizing him so severely in Corinth were the Judaizers. These were the men who sought to mix law and grace. They taught Christians that they must observe certain portions of the Law of Moses in order to be fully accepted by God.

And so the apostle is here going to demonstrate the superiority of the New Covenant to the Old. He prefaces his remarks by saying that God has made him competent as a servant of the new covenant. A covenant, of course, is a promise, an agreement, or a testament. The Old Covenant was the legal system delivered by God to Moses. Under it, blessing was conditioned upon obedience. It was a covenant of works.

It was an agreement between God and man, that if man did his part, God would do His also. But because it depended on man, it could not produce righteousness. The new covenant is the gospel. Under it, God covenants to bless man freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Everything under the New Covenant depends on God and not on man. Therefore, the New Covenant is able to accomplish what the Old could never do. Paul gives several striking contrasts between the law and the gospel. He begins here in verse 6 with the first by saying, Not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit, or spirit (NKJV mg.) gives life. This is widely interpreted to mean that if you just take the outward, literal words of Scripture and try to be obedient to the letter without desiring to be obedient to the full spirit of the passage, then it harms you rather than helps you. The Pharisees were an illustration of this. They were scrupulous in their tithing to the very minutest extent, but they did not show mercy and love to others (Mat_23:23). While this is a valid application of this passage, it is not the interpretation.

In verse 6 the letter refers to the Law of Moses, and the spirit refers to the gospel of the grace of God. When Paul says that the letter kills, he is speaking of the ministry of the law. The law condemns all who fail to keep its holy precepts. By the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom_3:20). Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them (Gal_3:10). God never intended the law to be the means of giving life.

Rather it was designed to bring the knowledge of sin and to convict of sin. The New Covenant is here called spirit. It represents the spiritual fulfillment of the types and shadows of the Old Covenant. What the law demanded but could never produce is now effected by the gospel. J. M. Davies summarizes: This ministry of the letter that killeth is illustrated in the 3000 killed at Sinai, at the inauguration of the Old Covenant; and the ministry of the Spirit, the life-giving ministry, is illustrated in the 3000 saved on the day of Pentecost. 3:7 Verses 7 and 8 continue the contrast between the two covenants. Here the apostle is particularly contrasting the glory which attended the giving of the law with the glory which is connected with the gospel. The words glory and glorious are found in chapters 3 and 4 seventeen times. The Old Covenant is called the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones. This can only refer to the Ten Commandments. They threatened death to all who did not keep them (Exo_19:13).

Paul does not say that there was no glory connected with the giving of the law. That certainly was not the case. When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, there were great manifestations of the divine presence and power (Exodus 19). In fact, as Moses stood there communing with God, his own face began to shine, a reflection of the splendor of God. Thus the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance. It was too dazzling for them to view constantly.

But then Paul adds the significant words which glory was passing away. This means that the bright shining which appeared on the face of Moses was not permanent. It was a temporary, passing glory. The spiritual meaning of this is that the glory of the Old Covenant was temporary. The law had a very definite function. It was given to reveal sin.

It was a display of the holy requirements of God, and in that sense was glorious. But it was given until the time of Christ, who is the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to those who believe (Rom_10:4). It was a shadow; He is the substance. It was a picture of better things to come, and those things find their reality in the Savior of the world. 3:8 Now if the law did have this glorious character, how much more glorious is the ministry of the Spirit? The expression the ministry of the Spirit refers to the gospel. The Spirit of God works through the preaching of the gospel, and in turn the Spirit of God is ministered to those who receive the good news of salvation. The will in how will the ministry of the Spirit does not express future time but the inevitable consequence. If one fact or condition exists, then another will certainly follow. 3:9 Here the Old Covenant is called the ministry of condemnation. That was its result. It brought condemnation to all men, because no one could perfectly keep the law. Yet there was a certain glory connected with it. It had a real purpose and a real usefulness for that time. But the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. Hodge says, The ministration of righteousness is that ministration which reveals a righteousness by which men are justified, and thus freed from the condemnation pronounced upon them by the law. The glories of the gospel are not the kind that appeal to physical sight but those deep and lasting excellencies that appeal to the spirit. The glories of Calvary far eclipse the glories of Sinai. 3:10 Although in one sense the law was made glorious, yet when you compare it with the New Covenant it really had no glory at all. The verse expresses to us a strong comparison and says that when the two covenants are placed side by side, one completely outshines the other, that is, the New Covenant surpasses the Old. A. T. Robertson states, The greater glory dims the less. In one point at least, the old seems to have no glory at all, because of the superabundant glory of the new covenant.

Denney comments: When the Sun shines in His strength, there is no other glory in the sky.3:11 For if what is passing away was glorious (literally, with glory), what remains is much more glorious (literally, glorious in glory). We should notice the two prepositions, with and in. The thought is that glory accompanied the giving of the law, but it is the very element of the New Covenant. Glory was in attendance when the Old Covenant was delivered, but the gospel of God’s grace is glorious in itself. This verse also contrasts the transient, temporary character of the law and the permanent character of the gospel. What is passing away can only refer to the Ten Commandmentsthe ministry of death, written and engraved on stones (v. 7). Thus this verse refutes the claims of Seventh Day Adventists, who say that the ceremonial law has been done away but not the Ten Commandments. 3:12 The hope which Paul refers to here is the sharp conviction that the glory of the gospel will never fade or become dim. Because of this strong assurance, he speaks the word with great boldness. He had nothing to hide. There is no reason to use a veil. In many religions of the world today, there are supposed mysteries. New converts must be initiated into these deep secrets. They pass from one order to the next. But with the gospel it is not so. Everything is clear and open. The gospel speaks plainly and with full assurance on such subjects as salvation, the Trinity, heaven, and hell. 3:13 Unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. The background to verse 13 is found in Exo_34:29-35. There we learn that when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, after having been in the presence of the Lord, he did not know that his face was shining. The children of Israel were afraid to come near him because of the glory of his face. But he beckoned them to come near, and they did so. Then he gave them as commandments all that the Lord had told him.

In Exo_34:33 we read: When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. In 2Co_3:13, the apostle explains why Moses did this. He did it so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. The glory on his face was a fading glory. In other words, the law which God had given to him had a transient glory. It was fading even then, and Moses did not want them to see the end of it.

It was not that Moses wanted to hide the glory itself, but rather the passing of the glory. F. W. Grant has beautifully stated, The glory on the face of Moses must give way to the glory in Another Face. That has taken place with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The result is that the minister of the New Covenant does not have to hide his face.

The glory of the gospel will never grow dim or fade away. 3:14 But their minds were blinded. The children of Israel did not realize the true significance of what Moses was doing. And down through the centuries it has been so with the Jewish people. Even at the time of Paul’s writing they still clung to the law as a means of salvation and would not accept the Lord Jesus Christ. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament. In other words, at the time the apostle wrote, when the Jews read the Old Testament, they did not discover the secret which Moses hid from their forefathers beneath the veil. They did not realize that the glory of the law was a passing glory, and that the law had found its fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. The veil is taken away in Christ. The word veil here is in italics (supplied by translators), and some suggest that it is not the veil but the Old Covenant which is done away in Christ. An even more likely meaning is that the difficulty in understanding the Old Testament vanishes when a person comes to Christ. Hodge puts it well: The Old Testament Scriptures are intelligible only when understood as predicting and prefiguring Christ. The knowledge of Christ … removes the veil from the Old Testament. 3:15 Here the figure changes slightly. In the OT illustration, the veil was over the face of Moses, but now a veil lies on the hearts of the Jewish people. They are still trying to obtain righteousness on the principle of doing, never realizing that the work has already been done by the Savior on the cross of Calvary. They are seeking to gain salvation by their own merit, not realizing that the law utterly condemns them and that they should flee to the arms of the Lord for mercy and grace. 3:16 The one in verse 16 may refer to the heart of an individual Jew, or it may refer to Israel nationally. When either turns to the Lord and accepts Jesus as Messiah, then the veil is taken away, the obscurity is gone. Then the truth dawns that all the types and shadows of the law find their fulfillment in God’s beloved Son, the Messiah of Israel. If the nation of Israel is in view, then the verse points forward to a day yet future when a believing remnant will turn to the Lord, as prophesied in Rom_11:25-26, Rom_11:32. 3:17 Paul has been emphasizing that Christ is the key to the OT. Here he re-emphasizes that truth by saying, Now the Lord is the Spirit. Most versions, including NKJV, capitalize Spirit, interpreting it as the Holy Spirit. But the context suggests that the Lord is the spirit of the OT just as the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev_19:10). All the types and shadows of the OT find their fulfillment in Christ. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty means that wherever Jesus Christ is recognized as Lord or Jehovah, there is liberty, that is, freedom from the bondage of the law, freedom from obscurity in reading the Scriptures, and freedom to gaze upon His face without a veil between. 3:18 In the Old Covenant, Moses alone was allowed to see the glory of the Lord. Under the New Covenant, we all have the privilege of beholding … the glory of the Lord. Moses’ face had to be veiled after he had finished speaking with the people, but we can have an unveiled face. We can keep our face unveiled by confessing and forsaking sin, by being completely honest with God and ourselves. As a veteran missionary to India once said, we must drop the veils of sin, of make-believe, all play-acting, all putting up of unreal fronts, all attempts at compromises, all halfway measures, all Yes and No.The next step is beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. The mirror is the word of God.

As we go to the Bible, we see the Lord Jesus revealed in all His splendor. We do not yet see Him face to face, but only as mirrored in the word. And note that it is the glory of the Lord that we behold. Here Paul is not thinking so much of the moral beauty of Jesus as a Man here on earth, but rather of His present glory, exalted at the right hand of God. The glory of Christ, as Denney points out, is that: He shares the Father’s throne, that He is the Head of the Church, possessor and bestower of all the fulness of divine grace, the coming Judge of the world, conqueror of every hostile power, intercessor for His own, and, in short, bearer of all the majesty which belongs to His kingly office. As we are occupied with the glory of the risen, ascended, exalted Lord Jesus Christ, we are being transformed into the same image. Here, in a word, is the secret of Christian holinessoccupation with Christ. Not by occupation with self; that brings only defeat. Not by occupation with others; that brings disappointment. But by occupation with the glory of the Lord, we become more and more like Him. This marvelous, transforming process takes place from glory to glory, that is, from one degree of glory to another. It is not a matter of instant change. There is no experience in the Christian life that will reproduce His image in a moment. It is a process, not a crisis. It is not like the fading glory of the law, but an ever-increasing glory. The power for this wonderful process is the Holy Spirit of Godjust as by the Spirit of the Lord. As we behold the Lord of glory, study Him, contemplate Him, gaze on Him adoringly, the Spirit of the Lord works in our life the marvelous miracle of increasing conformity to Christ. Darby points out how Stephen was changed by beholding: We see it in Stephen when he is stoned, and he looks up and sees the glory of God and Jesus. Christ had said, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do; and the view of Jesus in the glory of God draws from Stephen the prayer, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And again on the cross, Christ says, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit; and Stephen says, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. He is changed into Christ’s image. Consider then the transcendent glory of the New Covenant. Whereas only one man had the glory on his face in the Old Covenant, today it is the blood-bought privilege of every child of God. Also, instead of merely reflecting the glory of God in our faces, we all in the New Covenant are actually being transformed (lit., metamorphosed) into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Whereas Moses’ face reflected glory, our faces radiate glory from inside. Thus Paul brings to a close his rather mystical and deeply spiritual exposition of the New Covenant and of how it compares with the Old.