2 Corinthians 3

CHAPTER III

VIII. “You Are Our Epistle!”

2 Corinthians 3:1

1 For the restoration of the right relation between the Corinthians and Paul the right view of his office, work, and affliction is of essential importance, and when Paul now dwells on these different points in due order he neither digresses nor diverges into abstract, unletter-like discussion but writes most directly in line with his great aim and object, that of re-establishing the original, sound relation that existed between the Corinthians and himself. This, of course, includes also his assistants, hence he uses the plural “we.”

He has just characterized himself and his assistants in a striking way in contrast with all false preachers, some of whom had invaded Corinth. Such entrance as they had found was due, as it seems, to letters of commendation which they had submitted in Corinth. Here again there is a mighty difference between Paul and his helpers and these false teachers. Are we beginning again to recommend our own selves? Will someone, perhaps, make this fling at us because of what I have just written in order to discredit us as though we were compelled to write our own letters of recommendation since nobody else was willing to do so for us? “Are we beginning” implies that Paul expects to write more on this subject; and “again” implies that he has written in this vein about himself and his helpers. He has done so in First Corinthians.

Letters of recommendation were as common in Paul’s time as they are in our own. Many of them are letters of introduction. We may note Acts 15:25, etc.; 18:27; Rom. 16:1; less pertinent 1 Cor. 16:10, etc.; 2 Cor. 8:22, etc. It is in a way incongruous that a person should recommend himself, especially should write a letter recommending himself.

Paul adds a further, broader question; but he now uses the interrogative particle μή which implies the negative answer: “Certainly not!” Or do we (really) need, as certain people do, recommendatory letters to you or from you? The verbal adjective συστατικός is derived from the preceding verb συνίστημι. It is a little ridiculous to think that Paul and his helpers might be needing introductory and recommendatory letters to the Corinthians who knew them for so long a time and so well. The reason for adding this with an acknowledged negative answer lies in the point that such letters from others would be more valuable; but if they are not needed and thus are foolish when they are offered, why would Paul and his helpers offer less valuable self-recommendation? This is true also as far as others of Paul’s congregations are concerned. Does anybody think that Paul needed recommendations from the Corinthians?

But there are, of course, τινές whom Paul does not deign it proper to characterize again (the hucksters mentioned in 2:17), who certainly need many letters in order to have people accept them, for they would have nothing in themselves to recommend them. These false teachers who broke into Corinth seem to have come with letters of recommendation. It is usually assumed that it was by this means that they obtained entrance in Corinth although Paul merely says that these people needed them. Paul and his assistants did not.

2 Corinthians 3:2

2 In a typically Pauline manner a startling turn is given to the idea of recommendatory letters. Our letter are YOU, written in our hearts, known and read by all men, on public display because you are a letter of Christ, ministerially by us, written not with ink but with the living God’s Spirit, not on stone slabs but on slabs that are fleshen hearts.

“A bold use of the figure of a letter of recommendation!” say some of the commentators, but they do not see how great and wonderful it is. Their “bold” is not intended as a compliment to Paul, for they think that he becomes too bold. All of them find an incongruity: at one time this letter, Paul says, is written in our hearts, and in the next breath he says it is written in fleshen hearts, meaning the Corinthians. This supposed incongruity disturbed even the ancient copyists; some changed the ἡμῶν in v. 2 into ὑμῶν: in your hearts; others changed the καρδίαις in v. 3 into the genitive singular καρδίας: on fleshen slabs of heart. The former change alters the sense so that all of the writing is done on the hearts of the Corinthians; the latter so that all of it is found on the hearts of Paul and his assistants. This letter must be written on both sets of hearts. And the moment we see this, not only other objections will disappear such as the question as to how all men can read a letter which is written in the hearts, but also the perfect mastery of Paul in the use of the figure and the perfection of what he expresses by means of this figure will move into our line of vision.

Some of the commentators think only about a letter and reason that, since the Corinthians are called “our letter,” Paul means that he needs no other letter. But disconcertingly he says: “written in our hearts,” which seems to make Paul and his helpers the letter and not the Corinthians as Paul has just so emphatically said. To cap all, he says that this letter which is written in our hearts is known and read by all men. “All men” cannot refer to the whole universe of men; “all men” means anybody and everybody, the public in general. But how can the public “know and read” writing that is in our hearts? If the Corinthians are the letter, how is it written in our hearts so that all men may read? That is the riddle, and many cannot solve it.

2 Corinthians 3:3

3 The solution lies in v. 3, a solution that is complete, for every angle is cleared up. The key to the interpretation lies in the fact that in v. 2 Paul has advanced from the idea of a letter as a letter (v. 1) to the idea of what a letter of recommendation actually does, namely unites the hearts of those who are recommended to the hearts of those to whom they are recommended. For this reason ἡμῶνὑμεῖς are united, and for this reason Paul does not write: ὑμεῖςἐστεἡἐπιστολὴἡμῶν, separating the two significant words as our versions translate: “Ye are our letter.”

But this is only the half of it. “All men” reading this uniting letter is yet to be considered. Paul is thinking of a vaster letter than one that is written on paper and transmitted to the elders of the Corinthians to be read to the congregation. He writes φανερούμενοι, which means public display, and he writes about “slabs” that are made of even grander material than stone. Paul has in mind a letter which is engraved on a public monument. He thinks of a grand unveiling of this monument, a displaying the writing to public gaze, all men being gathered about it and afterward passing by it and reading it, reading how indissolubly the Corinthian congregation is united in heart and in soul with the heart and the soul of Paul and of his assistants.

Extravagant? Not a bit. These are the public facts. The Corinthian congregation is a great public body in the city of Corinth. “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid,” Matt. 5:14. The congregation is greater than any public monument in Corinth. As men come and go in Corinth, this world-city, as hosts from many a land also come and go, they pause to look with interest.

Here is a grand, new kind of monument that is not like common ones which are made of stone slabs. It is covered with writing. Not a writing with ink such as a mere letter that is made of parchment or papyrus would show, one that is simply submitted and thus read in a private gathering. “You are a letter of Christ,” “a Christ-letter,” you as a public body in Corinth. You are better than cold, dead “stone tablets” that are erected in a public place; “tablets that are hearts of flesh,” living, pulsating, receptive flesh (καρδίαιςσαρκίναις an apposition). Christ himself has inscribed you. And he used “God’s living Spirit” who alone is able to indite plastic hearts.

This does not make the Spirit a spiritual ink as some think but something that is vaster than any ink. For ink of any kind cannot be used to inscribe even stone slabs, and hearts of flesh are greater than the finest marble. Nor have these stone slabs anything to do with those that are mentioned in v. 7 as some suppose.

Διακονηθεῑσαὑφʼ ἡμῶν is the adverbial participle as is φανερούμενοι and means: “ministerially by us.” The aorist is historical to indicate the ministration which made this letter what it was, ὑπό is the regular preposition to indicate the agent with passives. This word is beautifully chosen for its place. It was, indeed, διακονία that had made this monumental letter what it was, ministry rendered to the Corinthians for the sake of their benefit alone and for no selfish end. Paul and his helpers were the hands which Christ employed, for the Spirit always comes through the preached and taught Word. Some think of the Lord’s pen, but this adheres too closely to the figure of a letter; and no diaconate of a pen is possible, and no personal agency of a pen such as ὑπό demands.

We now see why we twice have the perfect participle ἐγγεγραμμένη, once “having been written (the writing being still there) in our hearts,” and again “having been written on slabs that are hearts of flesh,” the hearts of the Corinthians. This writing, once made, stands forth so that all men may read it as it is recorded on both sets of hearts even as this writing has united them on the grand, living monument that is inscribed by Christ as his monument in Corinth, inscribed by the living God’s Spirit. The “living” God matches the hearts of flesh which beat with life. Stone is dead.

What connects the two sets of hearts is the participle “ministerially by us,” the success of our ministry for you and in you. By that ministry you were written in order to remain so (perfect participle) in our hearts when by us Christ wrote us in your hearts. Letters of recommendation join hearts, and here is the joining of your hearts and ours—our ministry united them in permanence. The great public of Corinth reads the inscription which Christ has set up in Corinth so that all may know and read it (present participles, durative, ever and again know and read); and when the public does this it cannot read you alone, it ever reads you and us together, our hearts that ministered to yours, yours for what they are by that ministry of ours. The union is insoluble. “This letter of ours YOU are.” The perfected recommendation, not as it is intended to recommend, but, as already long ago being effected and made a permanent thing, is public before the eyes of all men who look at you, the Corinthian church in the capital of Achaia.

The whole thought simply overwhelms. Here come these deceivers who steal into a true church that was founded by Christ through the Spirit by the ministry of men sent out by him and try to worm their way in by recommendatory letters from foolish people whom they have previously deceived. These base proselyters have had many successors. Talk about Paul and his assistants needing such letters for the Corinthians or needing anything like self-recommendation! Look at what all men read and continue to read when they regard the Corinthian church! They read Paul and his assistants written all over that church.

They read what Christ wrote. They read the writing of the Spirit of the living God. They read our ministry to you in the fruit of this ministry. They read it as having been written on a great, monumental, living heart tablet, the greatest ever erected in Corinth. Paper letters now at this late date? Here is perfected recommendation itself, the Corinthian church of our ministry.

Paul again presses the Corinthians to his heart. They belong together in their hearts, not merely secretly, but before the whole outside world. All glory of it is Christ’s. He who wrought it was God’s living Spirit. Paul’s delight is based on the fact that the ministry of it was allotted to him. What a grand view of a true minister’s and missionary’s work in a congregation! Surely, when the Corinthians read this passage, their hearts were drawn mightily to Paul. No “I” appears, it is always “we,” yet Paul was the apostle. We, of course, think of the founding of the church, but “we” certainly includes Titus and his recent work in Corinth.

This paragraph applies to the work of any pastor who has made and kept any congregation what it should be. The fact that grave faults had recently crept in and were not yet fully overcome, the fact that deceivers were still present in Corinth, changes nothing in regard to past accomplishment with all of it that still stood so that all men might see it. So often the recommendation of which Paul speaks is seen by men without the church but is by the church members themselves perceived too late, perhaps not until the faithful minister’s eyes are closed in death. Here, too, one may think of the pitiful epistles which some produce by their “ministry.” The invaders tried to wipe out and to rewrite Paul’s epistle in Corinth.

IX. “Our Sufficiency Is from God”

2 Corinthians 3:4

4 Because the word “sufficient” occurs in 2:16 and is the key word in 3:4–6, the intervening paragraph (3:1–3) has been called “an insert.” Such criticism substitutes words for the connection of thought. Without self-recommendation Paul has declared his and his assistants’ sufficiency over against the hucksters (2:16b, 17), his recommendation to the Corinthians being the church at Corinth itself. Where did they get this sufficiency of which the church at Corinth was such a public attestation? Its source involves its genuineness even as its product does (3:1–3). Δέ adds this somewhat different point. Moreover, such confidence (as just expressed in 2:16b–3:3) we have through Christ in regard to God. It is the sure confidence which Paul and his assistants have in their office and thus in the genuineness of its product.

It comes to us, and we have it, Paul says, “through Christ.” He mediates this confidence; he is the channel through which it flows into them. Paul does not as yet name the source; this follows in v. 5. “Through Christ” connects with v. 3: “You are Christ’s letter,” one which he has written so that all men may see us, our office, and our work.

This confidence through Christ is “in regard to God,” πρός, the face-to-face preposition especially when it is used with persons (R. 625): “when we face God, and he us.” Many are confident enough in themselves and boldly assert their confidence in order to quash any doubts which men may have regarding their sufficiency. They often do this even when they are facing God, calling him to witness, claiming that they speak “as from God” (2:17), but the work which they do cries out against them. For this reason v. 1–3 precedes, the Corinthian church was a letter that had been signed, as it were, by Christ himself. ΙΙρὸςτὸνΘεόν is easily said, but woe to him who says it lightly, in false self-assurance! It will not remain a mere word, such men will soon enough stand face to face with God, and Christ will disown them, and God’s judgment will be against them.

2 Corinthians 3:5

5 What are the facts with regard to this sure confidence of ours? Not that of our own selves we are sufficient so as to claim anything as (emanating) from our own selves, on the contrary, our sufficiency (is one emanating) from God (alone). Οὑχὅτι is like the English abbreviation “not that” which means: “it is not that.” This is simpler and better than the usual explanation of the Greek: “I do not say that”; and Οὑχὅτι is not the same as ὅτιοὑκ: “because not,” etc., R. 423.

There is, first of all, a denial that sufficiency is derived ἀπό, from our own selves. The sufficiency referred to is a sufficiency “for these things” (2:17), those implied in 2:14–17 and again in 3:2, 3, namely ability to achieve results such as have been described, results such as rightly fill us with the confidence we have. “We are not sufficient (with any sufficiency derived) from our own selves” to accomplish such work, such results that could lend us the confidence we have. As to the confidence, it is already stated that this comes to us solely “through Christ,” which already declares that it and our sufficiency are from (ἀπό) a higher source than our own selves.

Denying this is therefore also denial that we can lay claim (aorist) to a single thing in the way of title, credit, praise, etc., as having its source in our own selves (ἐκ, source). The infinitive means “to reckon” and is used in its ordinary force as it is in 10:2; 12:6; 1 Cor. 4:1. The aorist refers to one act of reckoning, the mental act of accounting that anything, no matter what, originated or had its source in our own selves and thus came “out of” (ἐκ) our own selves. We translate: “so as to claim (by this reckoning in our own minds) anything (whatever) as from our own selves (originating from this source).” Our versions labor with this infinitive. The A. V. says that we cannot even think anything of and from ourselves; and although we let the context restrict this thinking to right thoughts in the work of the ministry, the point is, nevertheless, lost in the A.

V’s. translation. The R. V’s.: “to account anything as from ourselves,” leaves no clear impression unless one has obtained it in advance from the Greek.

The infinitive λογίσασθαι does not depend on the adjective ἱκανοί: “sufficient to think or to account” (our versions). This gives a wrong sense to the last clause by having it mean that God makes us sufficient to think or to account something although the clause does not say this. The infinitive modifies the whole clause “that of our own selves we are sufficient”; it states contemplated result and forms an infinitive clause: “so that as a result we may reckon or claim something” (no matter how little) as having originated from our own selves. No, Paul says with ἀλλά: we have no sufficiency whatever and hence can reckon and claim nothing as our own product. Cancel the very idea. All our sufficiency is derived from God.

He is its one source (ἐκ). This agrees with ἐκΘεοῦ in 2:17 and explains how our confidence comes “through Christ” and is thus confidence that dares to stand “before God” (v. 4). He supplies the sufficiency in toto, he does it through Christ; the results are apparent, our confidence is according. There is nothing about which to reckon, nothing on which to enter a claim to our own credit.

Do both phrases belong together: “sufficient of our own selves, as from our own selves”? They most emphatically do not; Paul even separates them as widely as possible. “To reckon as from our own selves” is likewise not to be construed together. God is not enabling Paul to reckon, think, account. Construe together: “anything as from our own selves.”

In the C. Tr. 787, 885, 891 our passage is used as proof for the natural man’s total inability in spiritual things, in fact, it has been generally used as such proof. This use is assailed on the plea that here Paul speaks only of his sufficiency for the ministry. We must, of course, correct the translation of Luther, which the A. V. followed, and which the R. V. has bettered only in part; but the pertinency of the passage as proof for the total inability of the natural man remains, in fact, is made clearer and stronger by the correct rendering. The basic sufficiency for the ministry is all that makes a genuine Christian, the special features needed in the office are only moderate additions that can and dare never be dissociated from their great basis.

Paul is not speaking about the whole of it. All of it is from God alone; ministers can claim not “anything as from themselves.” All Christians must do the same. Paul has described the sufficiency of ministers in 1 Tim. 3:2–7, and Titus 1:6–9. The bulk of what he lists, the real basic requirements are Christian in general with only the teaching ability and the maturity added. All is from God alone, all the basic elements in particular; these no natural man ever possessed. This passage may, therefore, be used as proof. Christ and the apostles have used a large number of passages in the same way in which this passage is used in C. Tr.; take the striking instance recorded in Matt. 22:31, 32.

2 Corinthians 3:6

6 We are told what this divine sufficiency has made of Paul and of his assistants. We see how God’s own act produced this confidence in “regard to God,” how they are happy and assured when they face him. We further see how all their success is fully explained, and that there is nothing they can claim or reckon to their credit. He who also made us sufficient as new testament ministers, not (a testament) of letter, but of spirit, for the letter kills, but the spirit makes alive.

Ὅς is here not the common relative, it is demonstrative, for it adds a strong, independent statement. See other examples in Rom. 1:25; 2:29; 3:8, 30, which are elucidated in the author’s volume on Romans. We translate not “who,” but “he who,” “he the One who.” Nothing as coming from our own selves is reckoned and claimed for our own account; everything is set down to God’s account, to his credit.

As he does so often, Paul at once goes to the basis and does not stop at the intermediate points. Everything intermediate is covered, and that as it really ought to be when we at once go right to the bottom. Paul does not stop with his conversion, with his call to the ministry, with his personal spiritual equipment, he does not consider how God has made him zealous, courageous, faithful, etc. All these features of his sufficiency have a deep, rich, glorious, divine, objective source.

God “made us sufficient as ministers of a new testament,” etc. Our boast concerns him alone. Note the turns on the same word: ἱκανοί (adjective)—ἱκανότης (noun)—ἱκάνωσεν (verb). This is not an affectation nor a mere play on words; it is natural, simple, and most effective. This is not false humility: Paul and his assistants do possess full sufficiency. They must also declare this fact when there is need for so doing; failure to do so would be denying credit to God.

The point is not that God “sufficiented” (coining a verb to indicate the Greek) us “as ministers,” as men who serve others for the sake of benefit to others, but “as new testament ministers.” Like a fountain of life, this testament flows with life for all men, and God has let us drink from it and has bidden us to dispense its living waters to others. Here is our whole sufficiency. If it were not for this testament, we should be nothing and could accomplish nothing.

The R. V.’s translation “a new covenant” (“testament” in the margin) is not an advance on the A. V.’s “a new testament.” Commentators also waver. See the author’s exposition of 1 Cor. 11:25, from which we repeat only the main point: the Hebrew berith is “covenant,” which is rendered διαθήκη, “testament,” by the LXX which thus conserves the main idea of one-sidedness: this covenant is like every testament that is made by God to Israel and is not a mutual agreement between equals. Its substance was promise, Christ fulfilled the promise, and this fulfillment is now laid down in a testament. All believers are named as the heirs who are to be paid out with all the gospel blessings.

We may call the ministers of God the administrators (1 Cor. 4:1), yet they themselves are heirs. So in the New Testament διαθήκη = “testament.” And we should render, not “ministers of a new testament,” but as one concept: “new testament ministers.” The newness lies in the fulfillment of the former covenant promises by Christ.

Now the greatness of this testament is the fact that it is one, “not of letter, but of spirit,” and what this means is at once briefly stated: “for the letter kills, but the spirit makes alive.” The genitives are qualitative or descriptive, and the absence of the articles with the genitives makes prominent their qualitative force. When we remember that γράμμα = Vorschrift, law put into writing by the legislator, Paul’s words become plain. Then we shall see the contrast with πνεῦμα and shall note that this is “spirit” and not, as is often argued, the Holy Spirit. We have the same contrast in Rom. 7:6. This new testament is not one whose characteristic quality is Vorschrift, law fixed in writing, external, with which to confront us to our undoing. Its great mark is “spirit,” the opposite of the “letter” of the law, an inward, living force. The word γράμμα already reminds us of the two tables of stone on which God’s finger wrote the ten holy demands; we shall have the plural γράμματα in a moment.

The difference is tremendous, as great as that between death and life. “The letter kills.” It cannot help it because we are all sinners. Confronted with the letter of the law, our death warrant is sealed. “But the spirit makes alive.” It enters the sinner’s heart, quickens, regenerates, gives him life. The articles are anaphoric (second mention), R. 762: the letter and the spirit just mentioned. One may well compare Rom. 7:6 (see the author’s exposition).

It is incorrect to assume that the Old Testament was entirely “letter,” all law, and that not until Christ came did men have the gospel with its quickening “spirit.” Hosts of Old Testament saints were saved, just as we are, by “the spirit” that makes alive and not by “the letter”: “Ye could not be justified by the law of Moses,” Acts 13:39. This is true, the old covenant was marked by the gramma of Sinai which was inscribed on stone tables; but the covenant consisted of promise. Abraham had it long before Sinai.

The gramma killed the Jews who were faithless to the covenant promise and tried to win life by the gramma and not by the covenant promise. Yet the promise always quickened and saved those who believed the covenant promise. Then came Christ who brought, not another gramma, but the complete fulfillment of the old promise. The old covenant was turned into a new testament. The gramma of Sinai still threatened death, but more mightily than ever the fulfilled gospel, which was all pure “spirit,” bestowed life on all who fled from that death.

By some the whole written Word is made “letter,” and “spirit” is made its opposite, something that is not bound to the written words but is a so-called inner, spiritual meaning at which one arrives by an immediate inward illumination of the Spirit. What the written Word says is thus set aside; to adhere to that as its real meaning “kills.” What the Word is said to mean although it be contrary even to what its writing says, this alone “quickens.” To this we answer that the meaning of Scripture is one. What the writing records, the Spirit means, that and that alone. No double or multiple meaning exists such as literal and spiritual, patent and occult, ordinary and allegorical, and the like. The writing is the one honest as well as adequate medium by which the Spirit speaks, and what he thus says is spirit and life. All else is imagination, self-delusion, deceit. Luther says in regard to the Schwaermer (fanatics): “They cry Geist, Geist! (spirit), but this Geist is the devil!”

X. Our Ministry Exceeds in Glory

2 Corinthians 3:7

7Because Paul was at one time a Jew, this section (v. 7–18) has been called a Midrash (a little Jewish exegetical treatise) on Exod. 34:29–35. Others use the word “digression.” The style is said to differ from the context. If this section is omitted, we are told, v. 6 could be joined to 4:1 without difficulty. But if we make this omission, a break in thought is at once felt; if we reject the omission, all is smooth and in order. The personal note is said to be absent, but in v. 12 “we” appears and in v. 18 “we all.” Even the verbal connection is close. The four διακονία occurring in v. 7–9 continue the διακόνους used in v. 6.

The other key word δόξα which is found in v. 7–11 is directly suggested by the contrast between “letter” and “spirit,” “kills” and “makes alive” which occur in v. 6. When v. 7 begins: εἰδὲἡδιακονίακτλ., the continuation with the preceding is so close that even the R. V. does not make a new paragraph. In the case of any other writer these things would be reckoned with; we shall not treat Paul less fairly.

Others say that he speaks about Moses and becomes didactic; he “leaves the communicative letter style.” But Paul has already dropped all reference to subjective excellence as this might appear in himself and in his assistants and has begun to tell about the office they have and what they have in it: “we have” in v. 4, “accordingly having” in v. 12. He impresses the Corinthians with a reference to the office “we have” and shows them that, having this office, we have confidence (v. 4), hope (v. 12), and do not faint (4:1, 16). How could Paul better show the glory of this office, aside from pointing to its results (v. 2, 3), than by contrasting it with the greatest Old Testament office, that which Moses had held? The fact that a polemical edge is intended by thus utilizing Moses, an edge that is turned against Judaistic invaders in Corinth, is not apparent. In order to cement anew the relation between himself and his assistants and the Corinthian church instruction such as this given in v. 7–18 is eminently in place.

Now if the ministry of the death, engraved in letters on stones, was in connection with glory so that the sons of Israel were not able to gaze upon the face of Moses because of the glory of his face although it was being done away with; how shall not rather the ministry of the spirit be in connection with glory?

Paul asks the Corinthians to consider the greatest minister of the Old Testament and to compare the ministry which Paul and his assistants now have in the New Testament with the ministry which he represented. Who will say that it is not rather the latter that must have glory? The whole Old Testament ministry is represented in Moses, and the very pinnacle of his ministry is selected, the incident when he brought from the mount, where he had been face to face with God, the tables of stone that were inscribed with the divine grammata of the law.

The Corinthians are reminded of the fact that Moses’ face shone with a light of divine glory so that the sons of Israel (υἱοί, “sons,” not “children,” our versions) were unable to gaze upon that face of glory but were compelled to look away or to cover their eyes. That certainly was glory for that ministry, glory directly from God. The condition of reality, εἰ with the aorist, deals with the well-known historical facts. The Koine prefers the aorist passive ἐγενήθη to the middle and has it here in place of the aorist of εἶναι which was not formed; note ἔσται, the future of εἶναι, in the apodosis.

All this glory for Moses, yet his was only “the ministry of the death.” This is not the subjective genitive (R., W. P.): death did no ministering. This genitive is objective: Moses’ ministry caused death. His ministry is named according to its effect. “The ministry of the death” is that of the whole Old Testament. It had other ministers, but they were all second to Moses; he is the great representative of all of them, and his mighty ministry of death continues to this day. The writing inscribed on those tables of Moses still stands and deals death to all transgressors. For this reason the participle ἐντετυπωμένη is perfect: “having been engraved in letters on stones” and standing thus engraved forever.

It is striking to say that the ministry was graven in letters on stones (dative of place); yet these letters are the message of Moses’ ministry, and so it is true that his ministry is graven in them. Because it brought death, how could it be glorious? Because these grammata, Vorschriften, graven laws, were God’s own and voiced his judgment on all transgressors. God’s judgment is glory, his righteousness and his justice are attributes of his glory. Its refulgent light blazed on the face of this great minister of God. The sons of Israel could not endure it to gaze at this glory-light even when it was transferred to Moses. How, then, shall sinners endure the glory-light that is on God’s own face when he comes to judge them?

The glory on Moses’ face was temporary. Paul adds the articulated present participle which has concessive force: “although (it had the quality of) being done away with,” the Israelites could nevertheless not look upon it. The glory served its purpose in God’s minister of the law by revealing the glory of the great Lawgiver. The record that it did this continues the revelation. In the Word Moses still stands before us with those grammata on stone tables as God first gave them by his glorified minister.

How soon the divine light faded from Moses’ face, whether suddenly or gradually, is immaterial. The idea that the Israelites were not to see the fading, and that for this reason Moses covered his face, is fanciful. The participle must be passive; even when it is regarded as a middle it could not mean that the glory “was passing away,” to obtain this sense the verb παράγω would be used. God was doing away with it, putting it out of effect, and so it was gone. Paul’s addition of this statement is significant. God intends that the glory of the grammata of judgment and death shall disappear before another glory that is to abide forever, the glory of grace in Christ, the glory of pardon and life which is conveyed by the New Testament ministers, Christ’s apostles. See v. 11.

In order to exclude a misunderstanding let us remember that the old covenant was established with Abraham 430 years before Moses (Gal. 3:17), and that it was into this covenant that the ministry of Moses was placed. The law entered in order fully to reveal sin (Rom. 5:20) and thus to lead to the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20) in true contrition so that faith in the gospel might follow. It would be incorrect to think that Moses and Israel had only the grammata of law; they had them in conjunction with the covenant. Every Israelite who was made contrite by the law found forgiveness and salvation in the covenant.

Now the covenant that was inherited from Abraham was entirely promise, simply promise. All that Moses added to it with his ministry was the law set in fixed grammata; he could not bring the fulfillment which those promises had to receive, the fulfillment on which all the saving power of the promises rested. Jesus had to bring that. John 1:17. But the bringing of the grammata gave Moses a distinct office for the world; it stands ever: “The law was given by Moses” (John 1:16); he and those stone tables, which still pronounce death on all sinners, ever belong together in one diakonia. We should misconceive God’s intention if we should make Moses all law and only law or all law for Israel.

God would never have added this engraved law if it were not for the sake of the far greater covenant with its promise and the future fulfillment of the promise. But it is ever Moses and his ministry that function to this day in the law that was divinely given to be our guardian slave (παιδαγωγός) to lead us to Christ, Gal. 3:24, 25.

2 Corinthians 3:8

8 So another “ministry” had to follow, “the ministry of the spirit,” objective genitive, that bestowed the spirit which makes alive (v. 6; Jer. 31:33). It had to follow when the promise of the old covenant received its fulfillment in Christ, when what was at first covenant (promise) became “testament” (v. 5) by fulfillment. The supreme function of this ministry was to act as administrator of this testament by paying out to all the heirs according to the testamentary provisions. This was the apostolic ministry. As Moses still ministers with his tables of law, so the apostles still minister with Christ’s testament. The apostles still speak and minister, and all true believers still adhere steadfastly to the doctrine of the apostles (Acts 2:42), who with their doctrine (Christ’s testament) are the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20) on which we are built as living stones, a spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:5, etc.).

As with the law which God introduced through his ministry Moses led the sons of Israel by faith to embrace the covenant of Abraham, which freed from death and gave life to all the Old Testament saints, so Moses now leads to Christ and the fulfilled promise, the great gospel testament, which dispenses life over all the world. For the sake of this vast dispensation of what is now far more than promise, of what is now actual fulfillment for “all nations” (Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15) the apostolic ministry was established, its distinctive function being the administration of the fulfilled gospel. To all those who are still condemned to death by Moses’ ministry this apostolic ministry brings life. As the minister of law pointed to the promised Christ (Deut. 18:15–19; John 5:46), so the gospel ministers point to Moses and the law (Rom. 3:20). Moses died, but his ministry went on; the apostles died, and their ministry goes on. All who ever proclaimed the law have been Moses’ assistants as all who now proclaim the apostolic gospel are still assistants of the apostles (such as Timothy, Silas, Titus, Luke, etc.).

Two great ministries thus stand forth, one that is centered in Moses for death, the other that is centered in the apostles for life. They are only ministries, neither produces what it brings. The death brought by the one is God’s judgment; the spirit of life brought by the other is God’s gift of grace. The ministers are only God’s “slave-stewards,” his “underlings” (ὑπηρέται), 1 Cor. 4:1. He made the face of the one shine with his own glory, with the blinding, unendurable light that shows forth his holy righteousness. Paul asks how, having done this, God could leave the other, the great apostolic ministry, without glory.

Does not this ministry minister God’s love, grace, mercy; plant spirit and life in place of death? Is there no glory in these attributes of God that can reflect itself in the human ministers of these attributes? It will not be blinding glory light, which accompanies divine justice. It will not be a light that shines upon the sinners as judgment comes upon them but a light that “shines in our hearts” even as this ministry puts spirit and life in our hearts; it will match the love, mercy, and grace of God; it will be and is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (4:6). This light will never be “done away with.” This light shines not only in the hearts of the ministers but likewise in the hearts of the New Testament believers.

Οὑχί is only the stronger οὑ; it is here the interrogative particle which implies an affirmative answer. “How shall not rather” (μᾶλλον) implies two things: first, the fitness of glory for the ministry of Moses, secondly, the even greater fitness of glory for the ministry of the apostles when this is compared with that of Moses.

2 Corinthians 3:9

9 “For” means: in order to explain. The explanation is a restatement in which other, namely explanatory, words are used. For if the ministry of the condemnation (is) glory, by much more does the ministry of the righteousness abound with glory.

From the self-answering question Paul advances to a direct assertion. Yet the “if” of a condition of reality is retained, which retains the idea of comparison of the two ministries. The elucidation lies in the two contrasted genitives: “of the condemnation” and “of the righteousness.” All the Corinthians know from the Old Testament how glorious the ministry of Moses was and remains. Yet it is “the ministry of the condemnation,” of that one well-known condemnation which needs only the article to bring it to mind.

Κατάκρισις is the act of condemning and not the result as some think; the suffix -σις indicates the act, -μα the result (R. 151). The act is here referred to; compare “the letter kills.” It kills by an act of condemnation; it causes death in this way. It is, of course, God’s act. Although they are ascribed to the letter (v. 6) and now to the ministry, these are only God’s means of condemnation. The genitive is objective just as is the genitive in the phrases “the ministry of the death” and “the ministry of the spirit.” They are blinded who see only the letter and the ministry and then scoff at these as being unable to kill by condemning; they overlook the fact that God acts in the letter and in the ministry. Every sinner has to deal with him. Heb. 4:12 states how the Word is like a sword; and 1 Cor. 2:4 how the ministry is a demonstration of divine power.

Paul does not reduce the glory which he ascribed to Moses’ ministry in v. 7. When he says without a copula and thus more effectively that the ministry of the condemnation “(is) glory” he actually identifies that ministry with glory. It is all glory. It would be a mistake on the part of Paul to minimize the glory of Moses’ ministry when his object is to show the full glory of the apostolic ministry: the less the one is, the less would be the other by comparison; but the greater that of Moses is, the greater is that of the apostles since the latter exceeds the former. Nor is there the least question in regard to Moses. God’s righteousness and holiness are always most glorious when they execute eternal condemnation as the whole universe will see at the final day of judgment. And were not the thunders and the lightnings of Sinai, which were swathed in unearthly smoke, terrible in gloriousness?

Only one other glory exceeds this, it is again that which is found in God, his grace, which bestows the quality of righteousness on the sinner who repents and believes. It exceeds because it is a greater matter to acquit the condemned sinner than to condemn him; because it takes only the letter of the law on stones to condemn him but the blood of God’s own Son and the Spirit’s power that produce repentance and faith to acquit the already condemned. In regard to δικαιοσύνη study Rom. 1:17; Rom. 3:21, etc.

The explanatory point lies in these two, κατάκρισις and δικαιοσύνη, as forensic terms (see them in C.-K.). The latter is the quality produced by the divine verdict alone when by grace for Christ’s sake it acquits the sinner and thus changes his status before God. In Romans it is called “God’s righteousness,” here it is connected with the apostolic ministry: “the ministry of the righteousness” (again objective genitive; again the article to indicate the one well-known and only righteousness). God conveys it through his Word by means of this ministry. This ministry preaches Christ and thus works faith and thus secures acquittal and righteousness for the sinner. “By much more then it abounds with glory,” dative of means, of respect, R’s (W. P.) instrumental, all are only grammatical terms.

2 Corinthians 3:10

10 Paul comes to the climax. For even what has been glorified has not been glorified in this point (or part): on account of its transcendent glory. It has been glorified (perfect tense, and forever remains so) in all other points; it is lacking only in this one, in which the ministry of the righteousness is not lacking. “What has been glorified” is the ministry of the condemnation, and the perfect tense has the same sense: what has been and forever remains glorified. The subject and the verb are passive, but Paul is not the agent who has been doing this glorifying of Moses’ ministry; God has done this, and therefore also the glory of that ministry remains.

In one μέρος, part, point, respect God has not glorified Moses’ ministry, namely in this point of making its glory superlative, transcendent beyond the glory of all other ministry. Such superlative, all-transcending glory God bestowed on the apostolic ministry. What a mighty fact for all true ministers of Christ, the present assistants of the apostles, to contemplate! We all share in this superlative glory which outranks that of Moses. “On account of its (the) transcendent glory” is said from the point of view of the ministry which has this transcendent glory.

2 Corinthians 3:11

11 “For” explains the one point that is still left open although it was incidentally touched upon in v. 7: just why the ministry of Moses is not equally superlative with that of the apostles. For if what is being done away with (is being done away with) despite glory, much more what remains (remains) with glory.

The Greek needs no verbs; their omission makes the contrast all the sharper. Both participles are substantivized presents. Here is one thing the nature of which is that it is being done away with; here is another the nature of which is that it remains. In our comment on v. 7 we explained the first participle: the condemnation is to give way to the righteousness. The condemned sinner is to be pardoned. This does not merely happen, it is God’s arrangement. He always and always wants to put out of commission the condemnation of the grammata by his grace and pardon, by the righteousness of faith in Christ Jesus. This righteousness is the thing that remains, which is never to be superseded by anything else.

The other contrast is between διὰδόξης and ἐνδόξη. This is the use of διά which is not listed in grammars and in dictionaries. R. W. P., says “with glory—in glory” is a contrast between the phrases; in his Grammar, page 583 he states that the διά used in Rom. 2:27 is a shading off between means and manner. In regard to Rom. 2:27 B.-D. repeats the view of Winer, Kuehner-Gerth, etc.: Umstaende, circumstances, Beziehung is usually added. A late German commentator has διὰδόξης = ἐνδόξη occurring in v. 7 with the remark that Paul loves to change prepositions without always wanting to express the finer nuances; he faults those who search for a difference in the two prepositions that are used here. Some suppose that διά = with and denotes a transient flash while ἐν = in and denotes permanence.

Διά = “despite glory” while ἐν, of course, is “in or with glory.” And the difference is great and vital to the thought. We may add the two samples occurring in Rom. 2:27 and 4:11 where we have the same use of διά with the meaning “despite” or “in spite of.” The original idea “between” is retained. The action is sometimes favorable and in harmony with an object; but when it is contrary and inharmonious, the resultant sense of διά is “despite.” So here it means despite glory, in spite of all the glory with which the condemnation is done away with by God; but the righteousness remains in glory. In every justified believer the condemnation has been made to disappear despite its glory; righteousness, which abides for him, remains in all its glory.

What a glorious ministry, then, is that of the apostles which ministers this righteousness! Unbelievers, are, of course, left to the ministry of Moses, whose glory blinds and kills them with judgment and condemnation.

XI. Our Ministry Bestows Glory

2 Corinthians 3:12

12 The point of this paragraph is not the hope of Paul and of his assistants, not the openness of speech they use, not the liberty with which they operate; all these are subordinate. The point is that the glory inherent in their ministry (v. 7–11) is one that brings glory upon glory upon us all, upon those who are served by this ministry as well as upon those serving in it. Paul once more draws the Corinthians to his heart. By showing them the true exaltation of his ministry he is showing them the true exaltation of themselves as affected by that ministry, an exaltation that goes from glory to glory and cannot be obtained by any means other than this ministry.

Could Paul use a better way to heal the breach that had been made between himself and the Corinthians, a breach that was now almost healed? By turning from his ministry and by listening to voices that are hostile to it the Corinthians could only lose this glory; it would fade away instead of increasing. The loss would be fatal. Not, however, on this negative side does Paul dwell; he presents the positive side, which is most effective.

As he used Moses’ ministry when he was showing the glory of his own ministry, so he again uses Moses when he is showing the glory which the Corinthians have by this ministry of his. He uses the very same feature of Moses’ ministry, but now another point of that feature, namely the veil. Thus he adds the effect made upon the sons of Israel in contrast to the effect of his own ministry upon the Corinthians. It is so simple and so obvious. In v. 7–11 the two ministries, Paul’s and Moses’, suffice for the comparison; now the comparison is between the effects of these ministries as exhibited in the Jews and in the Christian Corinthians. To be sure, the effects are to be found in the people. In v. 7 “the sons of Israel” are mentioned only incidentally and not for their own sakes but to show what the ministry of Moses is.

Paul has been criticized because of his treatment of the veil, nor has this criticism always been adequately met. An unwarranted canon has been set up, namely that Paul should not go beyond an exegesis of Exod. 34:29–35. Paul evidently goes beyond that canon; hence the criticism of him. It all depends on the commentator’s mind as to how severe he makes this criticism. Some accuse him of falsification, of allegorizing, and the like. In fact, they serve Moses no better. He is called a hierophant who practiced deception upon the Israelites; Paul is called a mystagogue who initiates his adepts into his wisdom. Pagan ideas are the stock in trade of this exegesis.

Paul changes nothing in the account of Exodus in regard to Moses and the veil. He uses what is there said about the veil as being illustrative of the blindness of the Jews regarding their entire Old Testament and contrasts this with the effect of the gospel in “us all.” Instead of remaining on the surface of the account in Exodus, Paul sees and uses the full illustrative possibilities in regard to the Jews and in regard to all of us Christians. He sees the veil shutting out the Jews from Christ by their refusal to use the glorious ministry of Moses as God intended them to use it. He sees the veil removed for the Christians by Christ and his ministry so that their faces now shine with ever-increasing glory that is reflected from Christ himself. The very glory of Moses’ ministry is left far behind in the beneficiaries of the apostolic ministry who are transformed “from glory to glory.” All this is done by using the great fact that the veil is to be done away with even as the glory of the ministry of Moses is to fade and to disappear during the apostolic gospel ministry. The key to the illustration is the significant verb “to be done away with.” We have had it twice, in v. 7 and 11 (participles), and its opposite “that which remains” (v. 11); we now have it twice, in v. 13 and 14 (participle and finite verb) plus its synonym in v. 16, and in v. 18 the full unveiling with ever-increasing glory.

Having, therefore, such hope, we continue using full openness of speech and not as Moses kept putting a veil upon his face so that the sons of Israel should not get to gaze on the end of what was being done away with, but their considerations were made like stone.

In v. 7–11 Paul writes objectively about the two ministries, the Mosaic ending in the enduring apostolic. He is through with the comparison of the ministries as such. When he advances to their effects he speaks subjectively, first about us who are in the apostolic ministry and then about “us all” who receive its gift of glory (v. 18). We of the apostolic ministry, he says, “have such hope,” namely that ours is the ministry with transcendent glory, never to be done away with, always to remain in glory (v. 10, 11). The condemnation brought by the ministry of law despite its glory ends when the righteousness of faith in Christ acquits the condemned sinner, and the glory of this ministry and its effect, this blessed righteousness, remain forever. We have this hope, Paul says, not as though we are yet uncertain but as being fully assured and certain. It is “hope” because the Parousia, the last great day, has not yet come with its full and final revelation of what our ministry is and brings to all believers.

Having this divinely assured hope in regard to our ministry, Paul says, “we continue using full openness of speech,” παρρησία, which means speaking with full openness, withholding nothing, without reservation of any kind. Throughout our whole ministry we ever continue such openness. The verb is the durative present, the durative of constant continuation, and matches the iterative imperfect which is used when he is speaking about Moses. So the Corinthians have ever heard Paul and his assistants speak, so he speaks to them also in this letter. This is in contrast to the ministry of Moses.

We may go farther and include all the Old Testament prophets. Their message was preparatory even for Israel. Because of its nature it withheld much, for the fulfillment in Christ had not yet come. But the apostolic ministry had that fulfillment, the complete manifestation of grace and salvation for all men for all time. All reason for reserve or for withholding had disappeared. Moses and the prophets had to leave much to the future when Christ should finally come. Pagan religions had their esoteric doctrines which were at best to be communicated only to the initiated. The gospel of Christ ever speaks with “full openness” and dispenses all its blessings with utmost prodigality.

2 Corinthians 3:13

13 Paul makes the comparison with the distinctive feature of Moses’ ministry, his bringing the law on tables of stone to Israel and telling them all the commandments of God. In the whole section, v. 7–18, the prophetic phase of Moses’ ministry is not mentioned: “The law was given by Moses,” John 1:17. Moses = the law. Our versions alter the construction, but the Greek is not elliptical. “And not as” simply adds the opposite, but it adds this in the form of a negative comparative clause. R. 1159 is obscure; B.-D. 482 says ellipsis.

There is considerable dispute in regard to just what Moses did, and still more in regard to the purpose of what he did (πρὸςτόκτλ.). The iterative imperfect states in accord with Exodus 34 that Moses repeatedly put a veil over his face. Exodus 34 states that Moses spoke the commandments to Israel with his face unveiled; that whenever he was done speaking he put on the veil; that when he spoke to God he again removed the veil. In v. 7 Paul says that the glory on Moses’ face was so great that the Israelites could not gaze upon it, which means that they were compelled to cover their eyes. It is incorrect to say that Moses had his face covered and spoke to the Israelites only through a veil. All that both Exodus and Paul say is to the effect that the glory of Moses’ face was to be seen by the Israelites, for this divine glory gave the effect to the divine commandments as they came from Moses’ lips.

The fact that the eyes could not endure this glory was due to the death, the killing power, the condemnation of the commandments which Moses spoke (v. 6–9). The glory on Moses’ face was the glory of the divine law and the judgment that was reflected by God’s minister of law.

All of this occurred at Sinai, and we hold that it ended there after the communications of the law to the Israelites were concluded. The opinion that this veiling and unveiling continued for the entire thirty-eight years of the journey until Moses died is unacceptable to us.

On the reluctance of the grammarians to admit that πρὸςτό with the infinitive means result and not always purpose see R. 1003, who here speaks of subjective purpose (1075). In spite of this stand of the grammars we confess that here result is better than purpose. This does not evade the issue involved in the idea that God had such a purpose, but we note that the positive ἀλλά clause, which is a counterpart to the negative πρὸςτὸμή clause, states result, this clause also having an aorist. So we submit the question whether we do not here have result: “so that the sons of Israel did not get to look earnestly on the end of what was being done away with but got their thoughts hardened” (both verbs are ingressive aorists, ἀτενίσαι and ἐπωρώθη).

We have had this “being done away with” twice before (v. 7 and 11), in v. 11 it was substantivized as it is here. We have seen what “this thing being done away with” means and thus have no trouble regarding what “the τέλος or end” of it signifies. The gramma and the grammata which are death, which kill by their condemnation of the sinner, are done away with, their “end” is reached when the gospel brings “the righteousness” of justification by faith in Christ. The glory of the former, which is a glory of divine judgment and justice that was reflected on the face of Moses when he came from Sinai, yields to the greater glory which ever remains and shines in the pardoning righteousness of God, shines as gospel glory in the apostolic ministers and then in “us all,” the gospel believers (v. 18). The condemnation which Moses brings is done away with and reaches its end (τέλος) when the righteousness of Christ comes. “End of law (τέλοςνόμου) Christ for righteousness for everyone believing,” Rom. 10:4.

If πρὸςτὸμή = result, Paul says that the sons of Israel were not permitted to gaze upon this end, in fact, they never saw it at all because they remained in unbelief. This ending of the law or function of Moses and something of greater and ever-abiding glory that follows in the gospel and the function of Christ, Paul sees in the acts of Moses when, after speaking the legal commandments to Israel, he again and again covered his blazing face with a veil.

Ἐτίθει, Moses kept doing this until he had concluded this speaking of the commandments, the repetition emphasizing this coming to an end, this being done away with, so that another, who is greater than Moses, might come and speak as the covenant of Abraham promised, the covenant which Israel had, yea, to speak of salvation from the condemnation. A result clause would state the tragic fact that all this was lost upon the Israelites, the ἀλλά clause adds that they were hardened. To state the two historical facts as resultant facts does seem to be Paul’s meaning.

If we regard the expression as indicating purpose, then the clause says that it was God’s intention that the sons of Israel should not see this end, this would point to Christ and to righteousness. But how could God have such an intention regarding “the sons of Israel,” this very name pointing to their covenant relation to him? Predestinarianism is not the answer, but the punitive justice and judgment of God are. They who will not believe shall finally not believe. Read Matt. 13:14, 15; Acts 28:26, 27; Rom. 11:8–10, and similar passages that refer to judgment. No Bible student will have difficulty with this divine intention. He will know, too, that God at all times had a believing remnant who were true sons of Israel.

2 Corinthians 3:14

14 So “their considerations were made like stone,” petrified or hardened to stoniness because of unbelief. Regarding this verb see Rom. 11:7, and regarding the noun 11:25. The other verb which indicates a hardening like that of a branch or twig which is cut from a tree is seen in Rom. 9:18. The subject of self-hardening, which is followed by God’s judicial hardening, is treated in connection with these passages in Romans. We need not hesitate to supply the agent for the passive ἐπωρώθη as though Paul purposely left the agent unnamed, or as though the passive is to be taken in the sense of the middle “became petrified.” The Scriptures are too plain in regard to God’s agency in judicial hardening; and we gain nothing by trying to evade it here.

However, instead of saying “they were hardened” or “their hearts were hardened,” Paul predicates this hardening of their νοήματα, their thoughts with which their minds considered what Moses said and did. Their “considerations” did not respond in a proper way but grew obstinate like stone. Read Stephen’s description in Acts 7:37–53 and note his significant reference to Sinai and to the Mosaic law in v. 38 and 53. The aorist is again ingressive: “got to be petrified,” it at the same time states the historical fact. We note that we here certainly have result whether the infinitive clause with ἀτενίσαι also denotes result or only purpose.

“For” explains by pointing to what we see in the case of the Jews today. The marvel was great already in Paul’s day, so many centuries after the Jews saw the end of each display of glory on the face of Moses with unbelief—they were still in the same unbelief. Now the marvel is still greater—after twenty centuries they retain the identical stoniness of unbelief. For to this day on the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted because (only) in Christ is it (ever) done away with. Yea, till today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart. Yet whenever it turns to the Lord, the veil is removed all around.

Paul might have stated all this with stark literalness. He uses rich figurative language instead because it conveys so much more both directly and indirectly. The Jewish unbelief of Paul’s own day is exactly like that unbelief which was manifested at Sinai. The Moses of Sinai still appears to the Jews of today every time they gather in their synagogues where they regularly read “the old covenant,” διαθήκη is here the Torah or Pentateuch. They have it divided into parashas, regular lections for their Sabbath services, so that it shall be duly read.

Paul does not say “the reading of the gramma or grammata” which was once engraved by God on stone tables (v. 6, 7), the divine law of commandments which is now in the Pentateuch. This law was also read when the respective parashas were reached; but the five books of Moses were “the (whole) old covenant” which was made with Abraham and was continued with the sons of Israel until Christ came. Here διαθήκη = “covenant,” the Hebrew berith, because it refers to the unfulfilled promise that fills the Pentateuch; in v. 6 the word should be rendered “testament,” for there it refers to the fulfilled promise. See v. 6 on the subject and the elucidation by C.-K.

Compared with the fulfillment, the covenant of promise was “old,” antedating the fulfillment. It remained “old” until Christ came; then the “new” arrived, καινή, “new” as related to the old (not νέα or “new” as unrelated to anything old). The point to be noted is the fact that in the synagogues the Jews faced the whole Moses, not only as one who brought them the law of death that kills by the condemnation of all sinners (v. 6. 7), not only his ministry of death, but also the Moses who brought them the covenant promise of Abraham with its gospel deliverance from condemnation by faith in the promised Messiah. The whole Moses, the entire covenant together with the law that was added to it 430 years after Abraham (Gal. 3:17; Rom. 5:20), were constantly read to the Jews.

Paul means that what happened at Sinai is ever and ever repeated in the case of the Jews. There Moses spoke the law to the sons of Israel with glory on his face; here, after speaking it, he put a veil over his face to show that the condemnation of the law was to have an “end,” was to be done away with (καταργούμενος, v. 7, 11, 13) by the righteousness of justification (v. 9) which ever does away with condemnation. This gospel righteousness was announced already in the old covenant of Abraham (Rom. 4) as a promise. At Sinai Moses ministered also this old covenant and this promise (gospel) although God there made him the minister of the law to serve as such for all time. So, Paul says. as the Jews had him at Sinai they have him at every reading in the synagogue to this very day.

And they ever respond in the same way. As they did at Sinai, so they have done through the centuries in the synagogue when Moses speaks to them. Their thoughts harden like stone with the opposition of unbelief. The thought is not that they discard the Pentateuch. They read it continually, revere it and laud Moses to the skies; but they do not believe him and his writings (John 5:46, 47) nor what the veil on his face tells them so effectively, what his whole ministry and his writings ever expound to them: condemnation done away with only by the righteousness of faith in the promised Redeemer. Paul states this figuratively by using the veil in an illustrative way just as God had Moses use it: “to this very day the veil remains unlifted,” literally, “not being drawn up to reveal.” The original idea of the veil is retained, for Paul says “the same veil.”

The veil does not mean covering the eyes so as to prevent vision and to make people blind. The veil on Moses’ face means the end of the glory of the law as it is condemnation for the sinner. The glory soon disappeared from Moses’ face, and he discarded the veil. The abiding glory of righteousness is to extinguish (καταργεῖν) the glory of the judgment that condemns. But in the case of the unbelieving Jews it is as though the veil still hangs over Moses’ face, as though the glory of the condemning judgment of the law still burns on Moses’ face under that veil. For them his ministry lies altogether only in that glory of the law.

This glory and the veil ever go together; if it were not for the one, the other would not exist. By leaving the veil the glory is left. And that glory ever means condemnation. It is a glory of judgment, that alone. So if the veil “remains” (present, durative: ever remains), which means that the burning glory of condemnation continues to burn under it with a destructive light that no man can endure (v. 7), the Jews are lost. But that is the manner in which “up to this very day” they read Moses, with only “that same veil” and the glory of the law under it.

Because they read in this way they never see “the end of what is intended to be done away with” (v. 13), the glory of righteousness which is to quench the glory of condemnation and is then to remain forever (v. 11). The wrong thing remains for them. They are adamant in these their perverted thoughts, νοήματα (v. 14a).

For the unbelieving Jews the veil remains unlifted “because (only) in Christ is it (ever) done away with.” This is added for the sake of the Corinthians who know it. They also know how the unbelieving Jews hate Christ. “In Christ” = in union and connection with him, this ἐν always involves faith. The thought is perfectly plain, the construction simple, and ὅτι means “because.”

Our versions and R. 729 prefer the reading ὅτι, a relative: “which (veil) is done away with.” The R. V. margin construes still more abstrusely: “remaineth, it not being revealed that in Christ it is done away.” This makes μὴἀνακαλυπτόμενον an accusative absolute participle, a rare construction. The idea that otherwise the use of μή with the participle cannot be explained is answered by the fact that any participle whether it is predicative or not, is regularly negatived by μή.

2 Corinthians 3:15

15 Ἀλλά is not adversative, it is continuative and climacteric (R. 1186); it adds no opposite thought, no “but,” “on the contrary.” It carries the precious thought to its climax: “Yea, till today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies (durative: continues to lie) upon their heart.” To read Moses is the same as to read the old covenant, the Pentateuch. “Till today” is the same as the previous “to this day.” These repetitions emphasize the fact that the old unbelief continues down to the very present, continues when Moses is constantly read, is constantly before the Jews. Only here in the New Testament does the classic ἡνίκαἄν appear, it is indefinite and has the note of repetition: “whenever,” R. 971.

The climax is reached in the statement: “a veil keeps lying on their heart.” In v. 14 “the same veil remains unlifted” leaves the thought unfinished. What must be added is the fact that this is meant subjectively with reference to Moses. The reader could have understood this without assistance, but it is better that Paul say it in so many words. Moses and the veil which he wore at Sinai have passed long since; the Pentateuch is fully clear as to how the law with its condemnation leads us to the gospel of righteousness in Christ. On the objective side all has been done.

But these unbelieving Jews disregard all that in their νοήματα or “considerations” (v. 14a). Subjectively and for themselves they are bound to have “a veil” (note, not “the veil”). They cannot veil Moses nor his Pentateuch (objectively) so they put a veil over their own heart (subjectively). What this veil is has been intimated, the stoniness of their unbelieving thoughts whenever they read the old covenant or Moses. They refuse to understand what Moses really was and what he really wrote; they are fixed in their own thoughts about him and also about all that he wrote. They keep, as it were, a veil of their own making wrapped around their hearts.

2 Corinthians 3:16

16 Paul adds, and we know that he does it with a happy heart: “Yet whenever it turns to the Lord, the veil,” this self-imposed veil (article of previous reference), “is taken away all around.” Not all the sons of Israel pass into hopeless hardness. Although they were reared as Jews with their ancient veil upon them, in all ages and even now not a few nevertheless come to conversion. Then the hand of divine grace takes the veil away from around them. The present tense περιαιρεῖται is iterative.

Chiliasts refer this to the national conversion of the Jews at or in the millennium; but then we should have the future tense; and then, too, ἡνίκαἄν does not fit with its indefinite note and its repetition: “whenever.” See the author on Rom. 11:7, 25, 26. Paul has no subject with ἐπιστρέψῃ. Our versions supply “it” (R. V. margin: “a man”), others “their heart” or “Israel” as implied in the context. The singular is noteworthy after the plural αὑτῶν as though Paul indicates that this turning is an individual matter as it, indeed, always is. Since no subject is written out, the sense is: “whenever there is a turning to the Lord,” the aorist to denote a definite, decisive turning.

Ἐπιστρέφειν is the regular verb to denote the act that is called conversion (Acts 9:25 and repeatedly). To turn “to the Lord” includes turning from sin, falsehood, etc. The turn includes contrition and faith. “Lord” needs no article in the Greek, it is like a personal name, here it denotes Christ. The expression “to turn to the Lord” with the veil taken completely away is a beautiful allusion to Exod. 34:34, where Moses faces the Lord with the veil removed.

2 Corinthians 3:17

17 The statements of this verse are transitional, preparatory to the climax which is reached in v. 18. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit (is, there is) liberty. In the phrase πρὸςΚύριον (v. 16) no article is needed, but when it is the subject of the sentence, and when it is mentioned a second time, the article is in place: ὁΚύριος. This Lord is Christ. The Greek usually indicates the predicate by omitting the article; but πνεῦμα would then mean only that “the Lord is spirit,” i.e., has spirit nature as this is said about God in John 4:24. Paul, however, means that “the Lord is the Spirit,” the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead.

The fact that Paul is not fusing the two persons of the deity into one is at once apparent when he writes “the Spirit of the Lord.” They are two persons but of identical essence and do the same work. Where the Lord is, there is his Spirit, and where the Spirit is, there is the Lord. In the presence of the Spirit we see the glorification of the Lord, and in the presence and the glorification of the Lord we see the Spirit and his work, John 16:14. This is what Jesus told Philip about himself and about the Father: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” John 14:9–11; 12:45; or still stronger: “I and my Father are one,” John 10:30. This is true also with regard to the Lord and the Spirit.

Now this about the Lord and the Spirit is said because “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” liberty in the fullest sense of the word. Paul says this in order to show what turning to the Lord really means: it means turning to the Spirit, and this means “liberty.” In v. 16 he speaks about Jews turning to the Lord. What do they leave behind when they thus turn? Gather the answer from v. 6, etc.: the gramma and grammata that bring death, that kill, that minister condemnation; gather the rest of it from the reading of the covenant and of Moses with a veil: hardened thoughts that are like dead stones and lack everything that Christ brings. Now we see what turning to the Lord is: it is the most blessed spiritual liberty.

But why mention the Spirit, why not ascribe this liberty to the Lord alone? We have the answer in John 14:16, 17, 26; 15:26, 27; 16:7. The Lord ever works through his Spirit. The graven letters of Moses have no power to convert and to give liberty, only the Lord’s Spirit can do that. Those letters bind and condemn so that we may flee to Christ and to his Spirit and be freed. Therefore also there is this “ministry of the spirit” which is the opposite of the “ministry of the letter,” which makes alive whereas the latter only condemns and kills. It is the ministry “of the spirit” because it is the Lord’s gospel ministry, one that works with his Spirit in order to make men turn and be free.

2 Corinthians 3:18

18 We reach the climax of the entire paragraph: But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are ourselves being transformed into the same image from glory to glory as from the Lord (who is) the Spirit. The apostolic ministry has abiding glory (v. 11). The incumbents and the beneficiaries of this ministry, “we all,” have this glory, in fact, it transforms us from glory to glory.

Paul is not yet through with Moses. The wonderful presentation as it has followed Moses from v. 7 onward has Moses as the basis in the climax. From the glory which his face reflected on Sinai we reach the glory that is in us all. From his transient glory which was intended to yield to another we come to the fulness of this other that is glory upon glory. From the law of Moses which drives to Christ we come to Christ and his Spirit, to rest in glory forever.

These two paragraphs are a most marvelous structure of thought as they present the mighty facts of salvation. Paul shows his ministry as what it really is to the Corinthians. It ministers to the Corinthians, and they are shown what they are by means of this ministry. How this fact must draw them to this ministry, to it alone and to Paul, its chief minister, their apostle! Only an inspired apostle could offer a presentation like this that is so mighty and so glorious for its purpose. Lord, help us by thy Spirit to read it aright, and let no one dim the words for us in the least!

“We all” = Paul and his assistants and the Corinthians, those in the ministry and those beneficiaries of his ministry who are now entirely on the same level, for also the ministers arc beneficiaries. We all are like Moses: “with unveiled face reflecting the glory of the Lord,” with a face that has been and that remains unveiled (perfect participle) and that, unlike Moses’ face, we never veil. As Moses’ face reflected the glory of God on Sinai, so our face now ever reflects the glory of the Lord. Note the turning “to the Lord,” πρός, face to face, in v. 17. What was granted only to the highest minister of the old covenant and in a transient outward way is granted to all of us in the New Testament in a permanent, inward way. None of the sons of Israel had a reflected glory on their faces, they hid their eyes even from that which was reflected on Moses’ face; we all shine with glory.

The dictionaries are unsatisfactory in regard to the middle participle κατοπτριζόμενοι. B.-P., for instance, leaves us with the idea of catching something or of beholding something in a mirror. The Latins have speculantes in the sense of “beholding” or contemplantes. The idea of the κάτοπτρον or mirror is retained: to behold in or by the help of a mirror, which the commentators frequently understand as a reference to Christ or the Word or the believer’s heart. This idea lacks linguistic evidence, especially here where, if “beholding” is meant, we have had ἀτενίζειν twice already (v. 7 and 13); moreover, the dative “with unveiled face” points plainly, not to “the sons of Israel,” but to Moses who faced God without a veil, and to believers who turn to the Lord by having the veil forever removed. The context as well as the original Greek usage compel us to discard these unsatisfactory views (“beholding as in a glass,” A.

V.; “beholding as in a mirror,” R. V. margin) and to prefer the meaning “reflecting as in a mirror.” On the face of Moses the glory of the judgment of God was reflected; on our face the Lord’s gospel glory is to be reflected.

Already this is much, namely becoming a mirror which reflects the brilliant sunrays of Christ’s glory of grace and salvation. But in all of us who have turned to the Lord there is vastly more. A mirror only reflects, Moses’ face only reflected. His face, like the mirror, remained only what it was. Christ’s glory of grace enters into us, transforms, metamorphoses us “into the same image from glory to glory.” The passive μεταμορφούμεθα retains the accusative that is used in the active, τὴναὑτὴνεἰκόνα, in loose fashion (R. 486). Paul speaks about this spiritual transformation in Rom. 12:2 without the use of a figure and thus furnishes us the best commentary.

This transformation consists in losing conformity to the world, in renewal of the mind to prove what is the good, acceptable, and complete will of God and thus ever to follow it. This is no less than a metamorphosis, an inward change of the very μορφή or “form” of our being. At one time it had a form that corresponded to the world, sin, flesh; now it is more and more receiving a form that corresponds to “the same image,” that of the Lord. “That ye may become partakers of the divine nature,” 1 Pet. 1:4; “until Christ be formed in you,” Gal. 4:19 (where μορφωθῇ is the verb); “Christ liveth in me,” Gal. 2:20.

Some commentators refer to pagan metamorphoses because Paul uses this word. But what did pagans know about a spiritual transformation? How can pagan darkness illuminate glorious gospel effects? The verb is passive: “we are being transformed,” namely by the Lord’s Spirit; it is present and durative: the transformation begins with regeneration and the new birth (John 3:3, 5) and continues in sanctification through life (John 17:17). It has been well said that this transformation is spiritualis and not essentialis. We remain we, the Lord remains the Lord. Hence Paul writes “into the same image,” the image of the glory of the Lord which we reflect.

Εἰκών is Abbild which presupposes a Vorbild; the image is drawn from the original: a child is the image of its father, the head on a coin the image of the monarch, the reflection of the sun in a mirror the image of the sun. Ὁμοίωμα = likeness and does not connote derivation: one egg only resembles another, one person, one house, one object resemble a similar one. See Trench, Synonyms. The word is most fitting in the present connection. “The glory of the Lord” is the original; we are transformed into its image.

The glory of our Lord is so constituted that no one can in the least reflect it without first himself having become transformed into an image of that glory. Christ’s glory shone fully upon the Jews; they reflected none of it. The reflection begins at the moment of transformation, and the transformation instantly results in the reflection. Paul writes: “we are being transformed into the same image,” i.e., “into that very image,” which is only stronger and more emphatic than “into his image” (the Lord’s), and truer than “into its image” (that of the Lord’s glory). C.-K 401: “into the same form, Gestalt.” “From glory to glory” = progressively as we become spiritually more Christlike and finally reach the heavenly glory. Some prefer: from the glory in this life to the glory of heaven; yet the tense is the progressive singular, and we do progress already in this life.

“As from the Lord (who is) the Spirit” = as one might expect from such a source or agent. The work corresponds to the workman. Καθάπερ = κατά + ἅ + πέρ: “fully in accord with what things” come from the Lord, ἀπό indicates derivation. The Lord is not called the agent (ὑπό) but rather the source and fountain of our transformation. To be sure, ἀπὸΚυρίουΙΙνεύματος can be construed in several ways, but here only the construction indicated in v. 17 is proper, namely that of apposition: “from the Lord, the Spirit.”

This phrase and its two nouns, together with v. 17, have produced a good deal of discussion. We need note only this, that here more is said than das Geist-Sein Christi (the Spirit-being of Christ), for then τὸΙΙνεῦμα in v. 17 ought to be only πνεῦμα, and the third person would not be referred to; nor is dynamic union of Christ and the Spirit all that is here expressed, a union of their power and their work. Unless the union is one of the divine essence in the Trinity so that one divine person is in the other, the full import of Paul’s brief expressions is not fully understood. We might, indeed, translate, “from the Lord’s Spirit,” yet we hesitate because in v. 17b, where this is said, Paul writes τὸΙΙνεύμαΚυρίου (the article, the nouns in reversed order from that found in the phrase). Our whole transformation is the work of the Lord in and by and through the Spirit. All Scripture agrees in regard to that.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, 4th ed.

C. Tr. Concordia Triglotta. The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church, German-Latin-English. St. Louis, Mo., Concordia Publishing House.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. D. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

B.-D Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage, besorgt von Albert Debrunner.