Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or do we need, as some, commendatory letters to you, or [commendatory] from you?
Paul has just defended the honesty of his preaching. Now he stops himself: does that sound like self-promotion? His question opens a chapter about what proves that a ministry comes from God. The answer is people, not paper.
Opponents in Corinth denied that Paul was a true apostle. Defending himself forced him into words that can sound like boasting.
The evil in the Corinthian church had troubled Paul greatly, as we see in 2 Corinthians 2:17. Some were disputing his apostleship, and he was forced to speak of himself. … This leads him to use an expression that shows well the character of the Christian: "You are our letter." It is as if he says, "If I want a letter of commendation, I only have to say, look at the Corinthians."
The custom was familiar and accepted. The problem was who demanded it of him, and why.
It was customary in the church to give letters of commendation (Acts 18:27; Romans 16:1). Did the apostle need, as some others did, letters of commendation to the Corinthians, or such letters from them? Probably it was his enemies who demanded such letters — teachers who upheld the law and its ordinances. They may have said: he did not come from Jerusalem; who then is Paul? Why has he no letters of commendation?
A good custom can still be twisted. One writer names the danger on both sides:
Then, as now, there was clearly a practice of giving and receiving letters that commend visiting believers to the assemblies. It is a valuable means of introduction and also a safeguard, provided we hold it in spirit and not in letter. Otherwise we might fail in two ways. We might refuse those who ought to be received, when circumstances have prevented the necessary letter. Or we might receive deceivers, who can supply themselves with any letter that will mislead all the more effectively. The aim of all such arrangements is to give the assembly of God enough testimony. The assembly is in no way bound to a form, however good, when the letter is missing, provided other means give godly satisfaction and leave no reasonable hesitation to those who judge fairly and in love. It does harm when legalism twists something God uses for our mutual comfort into an instrument of spiritual torture. That sometimes happens over a missing letter of commendation, or some similar irregularity.
Paul's credential was the church he had been used to found. What makes his choice striking is which church he picked.
What confidence he must have had in the gracious power of God, that his letter of commendation could be the Corinthian saints! He does not look around to choose the most striking examples of those converted through him. He takes what was perhaps the most humbling scene he had ever experienced. He points even to these saints as a letter of commendation. And why? Because he knew the power of life in Christ.
This confidence rests on recent news from Corinth.
At this time they were doing well. They had received the first letter, and the apostle had seen Titus and learned that it had produced its effect. They were brought back to a right walk. His heart went out to them (2 Corinthians 7:11), and he could say, "You are our letter." He could hardly have said this in the first letter, though he was the means of their conversion.
Paul's answer was not only an argument. It also told the Corinthians what place they held with him.
He speaks of them as a letter in two ways. First, as written on his own heart. In saying this, we believe he wanted them to realise how deeply they were engraved, as it were, on his affections. They little realised the intensity of his love in Christ for them.
Paul's reputation is not the end of it. The Corinthians commended him because they commended Christ, and that makes the point true of every believer.
They were Paul's letter of commendation because they were Christ's letter of commendation. … He sets Christians in contrast with the law. The Christian is a person in whose heart Christ is engraved. Just as people could read the ten commandments on the tablets of stone, so they are to read Christ in you.
- Attacked — some in Corinth denied that Paul was an apostle, so he had to speak about himself.
- Asked — letters of recommendation were a real and useful custom, but his opponents demanded one, asking why he brought none from Jerusalem.
- Answered — his proof was living people. He pointed to the church that had cost him the most grief, because he knew the power of life in Christ.
- Affection — he could say it only now that they were walking well, and he said it warmly: they were engraved on his affections.
- Advanced — they recommended him because they recommended Christ. The law was cut in stone; Christ is written on hearts, for all to read.
*Ye* are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read of all men,
Rival teachers at Corinth accused Paul of promoting himself. They wanted the credentials that travelling workers usually carried. He offers no document at all. The Corinthians themselves are his letter, written on his heart.
Letters of recommendation were normal in the church. Paul's critics used their absence against him.
It was customary in the church to give letters of commendation (Acts 18:27; Romans 16:1). Did the Apostle need letters of commendation to the Corinthians, as others did? Or such letters from them? Probably his enemies demanded them — the teachers who pressed the law of Moses and its rules. They may have said, he did not come from Jerusalem; who then is Paul? Why has he not letters of commendation?
Paul's answer to the demand for paperwork was to point at people. Their changed lives were the proof. The timing mattered too — he could not have said this in his first letter.
He had them so much on his heart, that, if people asked him for proof of his apostleship, he just said, Look at the Corinthians. At this time they were going on well. They had received the first letter, and the apostle had seen Titus, and learnt that it had done its work. It had brought them back to a right walk. His heart was open wide towards them (2 Cor. 7:11), and he could say, "You yourselves are our letter." He could hardly have said this in the first letter, though he was the means of their conversion.
Two things stand side by side here. The writing on Paul's heart was already complete and permanent. The public reading was still going on.
He adds, with as much beauty as affection, "You yourselves are our letter." They were not in the process of being "written." That was already done, and it stood permanently "on our hearts." Meanwhile they were only becoming "known and read by all," and in the same way it was becoming clear that they were Christ's letter.
They were Paul's letter because they were first Christ's letter. So the world learns what Christ is like by watching people.
Any gathering of the saints is the letter of Christ, "to be read by all." They are His letter of recommendation to the world. The world needs to find out what Christ is from the lives of the saints. They might learn it from the word, it is true. The unspoken contrast with the law, "written on tablets of stone," shows how important this place of witness is. The ten commandments declared the mind of God while the law was in force. In the same way, the church is now the engraving of Christ.
There is a reason this matters. People may question the Bible, or misunderstand it when they do read it.
It is true that the world can form some estimate of Christ from the Word of God. But people may question the Word, or fail to understand it even when they read it. So besides the Word, God intends the lives of His people to present Christ, "known and read by all."
Paul states this as something already true, not as a goal to reach.
The responsibility of any gathering of saints is not to walk well to become a letter. They already are a letter of Christ. So they are to walk well, so that the letter may be read by all. If anyone writes a letter of commendation, it is to commend the person named in the letter. That is why, when the Spirit of God writes Christ on the hearts of believers, it is so that together they may become a letter of commendation, commending Christ to the world around.
The letter stays a letter even when nobody can make it out.
The writing may become indistinct, but it does not stop being a letter because it is blotted and blurred. Christians are often like the writing on some ancient tombstone. There are faint traces of an inscription, a capital letter here and there, showing that some name was once written on the stone. But it is so weather-worn and dirt-covered that the writing can hardly be made out.
- Written — Paul carried no letter of recommendation. The Corinthians themselves were the document. When challenged, he pointed at them.
- On the heart — the writing on his heart was already complete and lasting. Only the public reading was still going on.
- By the Spirit — God once engraved the law on stone. Now the Spirit engraves Christ on hearts. That is what makes a gathering a letter, not their own effort.
- Read by all — people may question the Bible or not understand it. They still read the lives of Christians they know, and form their view of Christ from what they see.
- Kept clear — the letter cannot stop being a letter. But it can weather into an unreadable inscription. Walking well is not how you become one. It is how you stay readable.
being manifested to be Christ's epistle ministered by us, written, not with ink, but [the] Spirit of [the] living God; not on stone tables, but on fleshy tables of [the] heart.
People at Corinth asked who Paul was and where his letter of recommendation was. His answer: the Corinthians are the letter. And the handwriting on them is not his but the Spirit's.
Paul answers by pointing to the Corinthians themselves — and through them to Christ.
It is all as if a person said, "Who is this Paul? Where is his letter of commendation? What kind of a man is he? He did not come from Jerusalem." Well, he says, Look at the Corinthians: that is the kind of man he is. He has been blessed to all these souls, and, more than that, they are walking well. And one of the first things he brings in is, "You are in our hearts." Then he gives a reason he could not give in the first letter: "You are my letter, because you are Christ's letter." They were a recommendation of Christ. That is, the saints are Christ's letter of recommendation to the world.
Paul does not tell them what they should become. He tells them what they already are — and that difference decides how a Christian tries to live.
Christians sometimes say: "We ought to be letters of Christ." But the Apostle does not say, "You ought to be." He says, "You are … a letter from Christ." … So he distinguishes between being Christ's letter and being shown to be such, known and read by all men. … If we hold the wrong thought that we ought to become Christ's letter, we will set to work to become it by our own efforts. That would leave us busy with ourselves under law, and it would also shut out the work of the Spirit of the living God. The fact is that we become Christ's letter, not by our own efforts, but by the Spirit of God writing Christ upon our hearts.
The phrase "letter from Christ" works in two directions at once. And "delivered by us" — "ministered by us" in older translations — keeps Paul in a smaller place.
They were "the letter of Christ" in a double sense. What is written is, in one word, Christ. And it is Christ Himself who is the great and effective Writer. True, He writes by the hand of His servant, and so we find the words, "ministered by us." Paul was only the minister. Still he was the minister, and this was enough to commend him.
Ink and the Spirit do not leave the same kind of mark.
Men write their letters with ink, but God writes by His Spirit. The law was written on tables of stone by the finger of God, but there is no response from a stone. God, the living God, has been writing on our hearts. He writes so that there may be a living response to Himself in our lives. That response shows Christ to people, and it brings pleasure and praise to God. What is written in ink fades with time; what is written by the Spirit is eternal.
The two writing surfaces stand for two systems. Stone stays hard; a heart can answer.
In contrast to the ten commandments written on tables of stone, this letter is written on fleshy tables of the heart. For the law was as hard and cold and impersonal as the stones upon which it was written. The Spirit of God writes on what is living and yielding. He presses on the heart and moves it. And the heart answers with thanks and love, freely.
Older translations say "fleshy tables"; the word points to the material:
"Fleshy" means the different fact of the physical material, consisting of flesh, in contrast with stone.
Writing needs a surface that will hold it. The Spirit does that first work too.
God lets His light shine on our hearts so that He may write His writing. But you must have the right material to write on. Unless the Spirit of God has been at work within you, producing that "inward man" which is of Himself, there is no "fleshy table of the heart" on which Christ can be written.
A letter exists for someone to read. Here the readers are the people around us.
God wrote the law on stone for Israel. In the same way, the Spirit now engraves Christ on the fleshy tablets of the Christian's heart, so that the world may read Christ in the church. … If we are Christ's letter, as the apostle declares to the Corinthians, we should certainly convey His mind and affections truly, without a blot.
- Writer — Christ is the author of this letter, and Paul only the hand that delivered it.
- Ink — Human letters fade; what the Spirit of the living God writes lasts.
- Stone — God carved the law on a surface that could never answer back. A living heart answers.
- Surface — The Spirit first makes the heart able to receive before He writes Christ on it.
- Readers — You already are Christ's letter. The world reads Him in you. The only question is whether the writing is blotted.
And such confidence have we through the Christ towards God
Paul has just called the Corinthians themselves a letter from Christ, written by the Spirit of the living God. This verse names the ground of that bold claim: the confidence runs "through Christ," and it faces "toward God," not Paul's own record as a worker.
Can a believer be sure of where he stands with God? One writer answers first for every Christian, then for Paul's own service:
"Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God." Christianity does not only shut out despair; it gives assurance. And that assurance stands on the firmest ground there is with God — Christ Himself. His work puts the believer into the same acceptance, nearness and favour that our Lord enjoyed through His own personal relationship with God and His perfection as man. That is what a Saviour like Him means, aims at, and achieves. Anything less would treat Him and His work lightly. But here the apostle speaks of confidence about his ministry, which is just as true and flows from the same grace.
The little word "such" ties the confidence to something already said. The changed lives Paul has just described gave him his footing:
The effect of his preaching was a joy to see in the changed lives of the Corinthians, which the Spirit had produced. This leads the Apostle to speak of his confidence about his ministry. He was confident that, by the grace of God given to him through Christ, his ministry was the truth that the Spirit could use to give life.
The evidence at Corinth was mixed. One commentator explains why the confidence had to run through Christ, not through what the converts looked like:
He knew, sadly, that the flesh was in believers, and even stood out in them. So his confidence about them had to be confidence through the Lord. And that is why it is a ground of confidence that never fails. He was sure that they really were God's own workmanship, and so he could speak as he does here.
Commentators differ over where the emphasis falls. Some read the trust as covering Paul's own fitness for the work. One writer argues the main subject is the effect of that work. He pictures Christ's letter at Corinth as a blotted, half-readable document:
What trust? Is he thinking here of his own fitness as a minister of the Church by the grace of God, or of the effect of that ministry? I have no doubt that the second is the main meaning of these words, though the first is of course included… And to an eye that saw as Paul saw, Christ's letter, then on open display at Corinth, might look ugly. It was full of blots and rubbed-out lines. Its genuineness even looked doubtful, because God's finger had traced it so faintly, while the flesh had written in its own bold insertions. Yet Paul did not stumble at this evidence of the enemy's power. He still trusted, through Christ, in the One who is above that proud enemy.
This confidence is not self-belief. It is real, but the ability behind it is on loan. Cut it off from its source and it goes:
God had not chosen the apostles because they were able in themselves for matters so great and wonderful. Such work is far beyond any human ability. But when He chooses someone, He supplies the ability to carry out the work He entrusts to that person… Paul would not separate the ability from its source in any way. Do that, and the ability is lost at once.
The same writer puts both sides together. Paul was "unshaken in his trust" in the face of everything that could oppose him, and that was "because he trusted no longer in himself" (A. Pridham).
- Christ is the channel. The confidence runs "through Christ." His work sets the believer in the same acceptance, nearness and favour that He Himself enjoys as man. No ground is firmer.
- God is the direction. The trust faces toward God, not toward other people, and not toward the servant's own record.
- Souls are the evidence. The Spirit changed lives at Corinth. Paul pointed to them as proof that his message was truth the Spirit uses to give life.
- Flesh does not cancel it. The flesh was still at work in the converts, so the confidence had to run through the Lord. That is why it could never fail.
- Competence is on loan. God supplies the ability along with the calling. Separate the two, and the ability is gone.
not that we are competent of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our competency [is] of God;
At the end of chapter 2 Paul asked who is equal to such a ministry. This verse answers in two halves: he has no resource in himself, and his fitness comes wholly from God.
Paul asks his question in 2 Corinthians 2:16 and leaves it hanging. One writer traces the reply to this verse:
Eternal issues hang on the true preaching of Christ, whether the words are Paul's in the first century or ours today. No wonder the question comes up: "Who is sufficient for these things?" Paul raises it there but does not answer it at once. He answers it in verse 5 of the next chapter. The whole thing is of God, so there is no sufficiency but of God. If only every servant of God kept this in mind! It would make us deeply earnest and dependent on the power of God.
The denial reaches further than we might expect. Other translations read "not that we are competent of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves," and the writers below follow that wording. Paul cannot even think the work out of himself.
The thoughts of man are not the thoughts of God, and an apostle of Christ is no exception… Self-help is the most attractive of nature's idols, and as a minister of God he would have nothing to do with it. What is right and even necessary in everyday matters must be given up in the true service of Christ, and overcome there as an obstacle… Paul admits that he can neither think nor act out of himself. The thought is the parent of the work, and man's thoughts can neither plan nor direct the work of God. He was emptied of self so that he might be filled more completely with the energy of God.
That has a sharp edge for anyone who handles the Bible with confidence in their own mental powers:
Even the apostles, who were able ministers of the new covenant with wonderful gifts and qualifications, used to say that they could not of themselves think anything as coming from themselves, and that their sufficiency was of God. If such mighty men of God declared their inability to think a right thought apart from the teaching of the Spirit, how appalling it is in these days to find so many relying on learning and natural ability, and expressing their opinions of the Scriptures with such boldness.
Verse 4 speaks of confidence; this verse denies all confidence in self. Both stand together:
"Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God." Christianity not only shuts out despair but gives assurance, and on the firmest ground with God, even Christ… Yet with it goes the most earnest denial of any competency of his own, while he owns that God gave it to him for service under the new covenant.
Older translations end the verse "our sufficiency is of God." One writer weighs that small word "of":
Paul does not allow that the power is "from" God, as something apart from Him, given over to us. No — it is divine, and yet inseparable from Him who works. It is "of God" and yet not "of us." That does more than deny that the power could be ours: the word Paul uses stresses even more strongly that the power is of God and not from us.
God's choice of a servant is never based on what the servant already has:
God did not choose the apostles because of any competency of their own. Matters so great and wonderful lie far beyond human competency in any case. But when He chooses a vessel, He supplies the ability for the work He entrusts to it… Paul would not separate the competency from its source in any way. Cut it off from its source and it is gone at once.
The lesson is not Paul's alone:
All the Lord's servants must learn this lesson sooner or later. They have nothing in themselves, in their position, or in their circumstances that God can use. In a word, all our resources and strength lie outside ourselves, in Him: our sufficiency is of God.
Skipping the lesson has a name:
Everyone who works for the Lord should remember that the work needs power from on high. To take up His work apart from His grace and His Spirit is presumption. It slights the Lord, it harms us, and it gives Satan an opening he is quick to seize.
- Question — Paul asks in 2 Corinthians 2:16, "Who is sufficient for these things?" This verse answers: there is no sufficiency but of God.
- Emptied — Paul cannot even think the work out of himself. Emptied of self, he is filled with the energy of God.
- Confident — He claims no competency of his own, yet his confidence through Christ toward God stands firm. Both are true at once.
- Inseparable — the power stays in God's hand and is never handed over. Cut it off from its source and it is gone.
- Chosen — God does not pick the qualified; He qualifies the ones He picks. To work apart from His Spirit is presumption.
who has also made us competent, [as] ministers of [the] new covenant; not of letter, but of spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens.
Paul has just called the Corinthians a letter written by the Spirit, not with ink. Now he says what God has made him: a minister of a new covenant, "not of the letter but of the Spirit." Readers have argued over two questions ever since. Which covenant does he mean? And what is "the letter" that kills?
God makes men fit for a work no man is fit for:
The apostle had confidence before God about this. He claims no personal competency for such service. He says instead that his competency comes from God, who had made him a competent minister of the new covenant — not of letter, but of spirit.
So what makes this covenant new?
So God had made him, with others, a competent minister of a new covenant. It was not a covenant of letter, as the old covenant of the law was, but a covenant of spirit. The new covenant is, as we know, entirely the declaration of God's "I will"s: not a demand upon man, but an assurance of what He works for and in men. So it must be a covenant of grace.
Paul calls himself a minister of this covenant. Yet its promises name Israel:
With whom is the new covenant primarily made? With the house of Israel and the house of Judah. We, as Gentiles, are neither one nor the other, and so may well ask what application it has to us. 2 Corinthians 3:6 gives the answer — we are ministers of it, not exactly of the doctrine of it, but of its practical reality and present application. Look at what comes next: "not of the letter, but of the spirit." The letter is what we have literally, in Jeremiah. The spirit is what lay behind God's mind: the principles on which He will deal with Israel when they are restored under the new covenant. He applies those principles to us now… We get all the blessings of the new covenant now, in the spirit, but not in the letter.
The next verse settles the meaning. The same word appears there for the writing on stone tablets:
We get the expression "the letter" twice in verse 6. The same word, in a slightly different form, comes again in verse 7, where it is translated "written." The New Translation renders it "the ministry of death, in letters, engraved on stones." This shows that in this passage the term "letter" refers to the law. The law kills. Its ministry is to death. The Spirit gives life.
The difference is not between a harsh text and a kind one. It lies between a demand and a gift:
For the letter kills, as a rule imposed on man. The Spirit gives life, as the power of God in grace — that is, God's purpose brought home to the heart of man by the power of God, who gave it to him so that he might enjoy it.
The gospel gives the righteousness the law demanded:
The law, the letter, killed. It was meant to show man what God required, and so to give him the sentence of death in himself. The gospel, on the other hand, ministered righteousness. It provided righteousness instead of requiring it, and so it was life to souls, not death.
Some use these few words to argue against the plain sense of Scripture:
This statement is often wrongly interpreted. The word "letter" does not mean the entire written Word of God. Many have taken that view. They declare that the Bible must not be taken literally, just as it says… The question here is not between the literal words and meaning of Scripture and its spiritual meaning. It is a contrast between the old covenant and the new, between law and gospel.
Commentators differ on how far "letter" reaches. Some apply the principle to any handling of God's words by the mind alone:
Whether the words are the law's or the gospel's, taking them in with the mind alone only leads to formality and death. Only what is "of the Spirit" can result in life.
Yet no one reaches the spirit of Scripture by leaving its words behind:
We must never suppose for one moment that we can do without the letter of Scripture. Nor can we have its spirit apart from the letter… If we tried, we would land in mysticism of a most dangerous kind, and fall prey to the imaginings of the human mind.
- Not from us — Paul claims no personal competency; God alone makes a man fit to minister this covenant.
- Not a demand — the new covenant is God's series of "I will"s, an assurance of what He works in men, and therefore pure grace.
- Not yet in letter — its literal terms belong to Israel and Judah; believers now enjoy its blessings in spirit.
- Not the Bible — "the letter" here is the law engraved on stone, not the written Word taken plainly; the law demands and kills, the Spirit supplies and gives life.
- Not without the words — the spirit is sought through the letter of Scripture, never apart from it.
(But if the ministry of death, in letters, graven in stones, began with glory, so that the children of Israel could not fix their eyes on the face of Moses, on account of the glory of his face, [a glory] which is annulled;
Paul grants the law given at Sinai all its splendour. Yet he calls that same shining system "the ministry of death," and says its glory was already fading.
The problem was never the law. It was the person the law addressed.
The law is holy, just and good, but man is unholy, unjust, and bad, and cannot fulfil its requirements. "If there had been a law given which could have given life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law" (Gal. 3:21); but the law is the ministry of death (2 Cor. 3:7). It judges man for not obeying its commands, and demands his death as the penalty of disobedience.
That sets up a hard irony — and a contrast with the gospel.
But the law demands righteousness, and man is a sinner who cannot give it. So the law can only be a ministry of death (v. 7). The brighter God's goodness shines, the worse it is for the sinner, for it only proves him more worthless and guilty. In the gospel God reveals righteousness to faith instead of demanding it, for Christ Himself is the righteousness of the believer.
Paul points back to the second moment at Sinai, not the first — after God had spared a guilty nation.
It is worth noticing that the apostle reasons here on Exodus 34, not on Exodus 20 as in Hebrews 12. This is not about law pure and simple, when God's voice shook the earth... It is about the law given a second time, along with the mercy that not only forgave but accepted a mediator. It was a mixture of law with grace, and precisely what people now conceive to be Christianity. Yet this is what Scripture calls the ministry of death in letter, engraved on stones... The mercy that had spared Israel did not change its character. Neither did the glory that shone in the Mediator's face.
Two things are worth watching here: what that brightness did to the people, and what it said about Moses himself.
Yet this fatal ministry was "in glory." What God does glorifies Him, whether as a Lawgiver or a Saviour... But the glory of that earlier ministry clothed the Mediator with an outward radiance. Even so, it shed no light and no joy into the people's hearts. It was a brightness that dazzled and repelled. It had no power to attract, and it put no living warmth into the soul. The glory Israel saw also rested on the face of a man who was only mortal. He was a servant, under the same law he delivered... Moses broke the law he ministered, and came under its sentence like everyone else.
Paul adds that this glory "was being brought to an end." Other translations point to its start rather than its end.
First, the law was but a ministry of death: the Gospel is a ministry of the life-giving Spirit. Yet there was a glory connected with the law: a glory so great that the children of Israel could not look at it... That glory was to be done away. Before long it faded from the face of Moses, and in time the signs of God's presence left the top of Sinai. So our verse says the law system "began with glory," not just that it "was glorious." It began, but it did not continue.
The light on Moses' face was never his own.
Yet this glory was only temporary, a glory only reflected in the face of Moses, not by any means intrinsic.
If God calls the stone tablets a ministry of death, they cannot double as a believer's rule of life.
Yes, my reader, so far from the moral law being your rule of life, it will be found as God describes it — the rule of death (2 Cor. 3:7). As a young man said to me the other night, "I have been trying for twenty-five years to keep the law, as I was told I must, and I have only got worse."
- Death — the law is holy, but it meets an unholy man, so it can only judge him and demand his death as the penalty.
- Glory — Paul grants Sinai its splendour. He points to Exodus 34, where law came mixed with mercy and Moses' face shone.
- Reflected — the glory was borrowed light, not Moses' own. It dazzled and repelled; it warmed no one's heart.
- Fading — the system began with glory. It began, but it did not continue, and its light left Moses' face.
- Freedom — God Himself calls the stone tablets a ministry of death. They are a rule of death, not the Christian's rule of life.
how shall not rather the ministry of the Spirit subsist in glory?
Paul has just called himself a minister of a new covenant, and now he argues from the lesser to the greater. If the ministry that killed still came with glory, the ministry of the Spirit must shine far brighter.
The comparison is not with the thunder of Sinai. Paul looks at Moses coming down the mountain the second time, after God had shown mercy. So the law he weighs here already had mercy mixed into it.
It is important to notice that the apostle reasons here on Exodus 34, not on Exodus 20 as in Hebrews 12. This is not a question of law pure and simple, when God's voice shook the earth. It is a question of law given the second time, along with the mercy that not only forgave but accepted mediation. It was a mixture of law with grace, and precisely what people now think Christianity is. But this is what is called the ministry of death in letter, engraved on stones.
The Spirit is not a wage for obedience. God gives Him because of what Christ has done.
It is a ministry of the Spirit also. God never even proposed to give this as the result of law-keeping. The holy anointing oil could not be poured on flesh (Ex. 30:31-32). God could not grant the Spirit as the reward of man's work. But God has put this honour on the work of Jesus. The Spirit has come out from the glory into which He has entered, and is God's gift to all who believe the gospel of God's salvation.
The old ministry could only make a claim on a person. The new one works the other way round.
It would be impossible for the law from Sinai to shape anyone, either in its nature or in its effects. If it gave anything to man, it would stop being what it was in principle — a demand upon man. But it is not so with this ministry from the heavens, whose very nature is to impart and so to be formative. In this respect its contrast with the law is its glory. It ministers righteousness and the Spirit. By these the believer has both the title and the power to gaze at the full and undimmed glory of God, seen in the face of Jesus Christ.
Some translations say the old covenant began with glory, while the new one subsists in glory. One was a flash; the other is a foundation.
The law that is done away was introduced with a glimpse of glory; that which abides not only exceeds in glory, but subsists in glory. It depends for its existence upon the full revelation of the glory of God in Christ.
Moses' face carried a glory that had to give way. The glory that replaced it does not fade, and it does not drive a sinner back.
The glory on the face of Moses must give way to the glory in another Face, and the ministry of death to the ministry of the Spirit, who reveals Christ. Here the glory remains, for it is glory which the sinner, hopeless in himself, may see with gladness and satisfaction.
The Spirit's witness is not about our record. It is about a Man, and about what His death settled.
The Spirit testifies to a man at God's right hand, who suffered once for sins on the cross. He declared that through Him everyone who believes is justified from all things — things the law of Moses could never justify them from. So the Holy Spirit sealed Christ the righteous One without blood while He was on earth. Now He seals us once His blood has washed our sins away, and He rests on us as the Spirit of glory and of God. We are therefore put in association with Christ on high, and we wait for His coming to bring us there.
- Demand — the law could only ask. By its very nature it had nothing to put into a person.
- Death — the second giving of the law came with mercy and with glory on Moses' face. It is still called a ministry of death. Mixing grace into law does not change what law is.
- Gift — God never offered the Spirit as payment for law-keeping. The Spirit comes out from the glory Christ has entered, as God's gift to everyone who believes.
- Glory — the old covenant began with a glimpse of glory that had to give way. This ministry does not just have more glory. It stands in glory, resting on the full revelation of God in Christ.
- Abides — a hopeless sinner can now look at that glory with gladness. The Spirit points him to a Man at God's right hand, and links us to Him until He comes.
For if the ministry of condemnation [be] glory, much rather the ministry of righteousness abounds in glory.
Paul sets two ministries side by side. One was carved in stone and sentenced its hearers. The other brings righteousness to them. Verse 9 does not ask which one had glory. Both did. It asks how much more glory belongs to the ministry that gives what the other only demanded.
The difference lies in what each one does to the person who meets it. One asks for something man does not have. The other supplies it.
Again, the law was a ministry of condemnation, while the Gospel is a ministry of righteousness. The law demanded righteousness from man, and because he had none, it condemned him completely. The Gospel brings righteousness and gives it to man through faith. Without question, a ministry that gives righteousness, and so lets sinful man stand in the presence of God, far exceeds in glory a ministry that only demands righteousness where there is none, and condemns as a result.
The fault was never in the law itself. It presses a righteous claim on people who cannot meet it, so its verdict is guilt. And the brighter God's goodness shines through it, the clearer that guilt becomes.
But the law requires righteousness, and man, being a sinner, cannot give it. So the law has to be a ministry of death. The brighter God's goodness shines, the worse it is for the sinner, because he is only shown up more clearly as worthless and guilty. In the gospel God reveals righteousness to faith; He does not demand it. Christ Himself is the righteousness of the believer, and the work was done and accepted before God sent out the gospel of His grace to man… The law, on the other hand, not only kills but condemns. It brings a sense of guilt to the conscience, and it shows God as a judge of the evil that has been done.
Paul draws his illustration from Moses coming down the mountain a second time. Israel had made the golden calf, and God had spared them. Mercy was in the scene, yet the result was still a ministry of death.
The question here is not about law on its own, when God's voice shook the earth… but about the law given a second time, along with the mercy that both forgave and accepted a mediator. It was a mixture of law and grace — exactly what people today take Christianity to be. Yet this is what is called the ministry of death, written in letters carved on stone… The mercy that had spared Israel did not change what the law was, and neither did the glory that shone on the Mediator's face.
The phrase "ministry of righteousness" turns the direction around. Righteousness is no longer something God waits for us to produce. It is handed to us, and that is where the greater glory comes from.
The law made a claim for righteousness, but it could never minister righteousness. Righteousness is now given to us, not worked out by us, and so the glory of God is shown as nothing else could show it. His deepest heart is told out in righteousness — but love in righteousness, and what a marvellous love, shown in the gift of Christ for men!
The glory on Moses' face was real, but it was second-hand. He had caught that light in God's presence, and it shone only on the outside of him.
The covenant of law was made glorious, seen in the shining skin of Moses' face — the outside of him. This was reflected glory, and it cannot begin to compare with the surpassing glory that is God's own, seen in the face of Jesus Christ. So the first is rightly set aside, to make room for the second, which remains in glory.
This ministry gives instead of demanding. So it does something to the believer that the law from Mount Sinai never could.
The law from Sinai could never shape a person, either in its nature or in its effects… but this ministry from heaven is different. Its very nature is to give, and so to shape. That contrast with the law is its glory. Through what it gives — righteousness and the Spirit — the believer has both the right and the power to gaze at the full, undimmed glory of God, seen in the face of Jesus Christ… Righteousness and the Spirit are the basis; being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another, is the result.
- Demand. The law asked righteousness of people who had none. Its only verdict could be condemnation. The failure lay in man, not in the law.
- Gift. The gospel does not demand righteousness. It reveals and gives it. Christ Himself is the believer's righteousness, and His work was finished before the message went out.
- No blend. Law mixed with mercy is still the ministry of condemnation. Moses climbed the mountain a second time, but mercy beside the law never changed what the law was.
- Excess. The comparison is not good against bad. It is glory against greater glory: borrowed light on a man's face against the glory that belongs to the face of Jesus Christ.
- Result. This ministry gives rather than demands, so it reshapes the one who receives it. Righteousness and the Spirit are the basis; transformation from glory to glory is the outcome.
For also that [which was] glorified is not glorified in this respect, on account of the surpassing glory.
Paul has just set two ministries side by side: the law engraved on stone, and the ministry of the Spirit. Verse 10 pushes that comparison to its edge. The older system did shine. But next to what has come since, it is as if it never shone at all.
The glory attached to the law was not imaginary. It showed on Moses' face when he came down from Sinai, but it was light falling on him from somewhere else.
The covenant of law was "made glorious," as we see in the shining skin of Moses' face — the outside of him. That was reflected glory, and it comes nowhere near the surpassing glory that is God's own and shines in the face of Jesus Christ. So the first is rightly set aside, to make room for the second, which "stands in glory."
Paul is not saying the old ministry never had glory. He is saying it keeps none when measured against the new. One writer points to the scene where Moses appeared in glory beside Christ.
This triumphant overstatement presses the greatness of the later ministry more strongly still. The first has no glory next to the last... because pictures fade when the real thing arrives, and faint gleams are forgotten once the full day comes... Moses and Elijah are seen there in glory, but that glory no longer shines out of the face of Moses. His official honour as the mediator of the law is past and forgotten in the presence of that Life which is the light of men.
A picture from the sky makes the logic plain. The lesser light loses nothing. You just cannot see it any more.
The one was glorious. You can look at a star-filled sky on a dark, cloudless night and see worlds upon worlds, a real galaxy of glory. The other is glorious beyond compare, like the rising of the sun. The millions of stars go on shining just as brightly. But you see none of them once our sun rises and pours such a glorious flood of light over the scene.
The difference is not one of volume but of direction. The law demanded righteousness from man. The new ministry hands it to him.
The law made its claim for righteousness, but it could never minister righteousness. Righteousness is now ministered to us, not worked out by us, and so God shows His glory as nothing else could show it... So what had glory in the past had in itself no glory compared with this surpassing glory.
The scene behind these verses is Exodus 34. There God gave the law a second time, after the first stone tablets were broken, and He gave it with mercy. That kinder setting still did not change what the system was.
The subject here is not law pure and simple... but law given the second time, along with the mercy that both forgave and accepted a mediator. It was a mixture of law with grace, exactly what people today take Christianity to be. Yet this is what Paul calls the ministry of death, in letters carved on stone... The mercy that had spared Israel did not change the character of the law, and neither did the glory that shone in the Mediator's face.
This is not just theory. What you put yourself under decides whether you can bear to look at God's glory.
If I put myself under a mixture of law and grace, I must ask God to hide His glory from me as unbearable, just as the people asked this of Moses. But when I see that glory in Christ, through the ministry of righteousness and of the Spirit, I can gaze at it with unveiled face. And I am changed into the same image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord.
- Reflected. The old covenant's glory was real, but it stayed on the outside. It was light on Moses' face — borrowed and passing, not his own.
- Eclipsed. "No glory at all" is comparison, not insult. Stars still shine, but they vanish when the sun rises.
- Surpassing. The new ministry wins because it gives man righteousness instead of demanding it from him.
- Unchanged. Mercy softened the second giving of the law, but it stayed a ministry of death. A kinder setting did not change the system.
- Unveiled. Mix law with grace, and you must beg God to hide His glory. See it in Christ, and you can gaze with open face — and be changed.
For if that annulled [was introduced] with glory, much rather that which abides [subsists] in glory.
Paul has been comparing two ministries: the law Moses ministered, and the ministry of the Spirit. Here he makes the contrast plain. One was on its way out. The other stays. So the question is not which system had glory, since both did. It is what happens to a glory meant to end.
The force of the verse sits in how each glory is described. One system arrived with glory attached to it. The other exists in glory. The wording below comes from an older translation, which brings out the two verbs.
So our verse states that the law system "began with glory," not simply that it "was glorious." It began, but it did not continue. Then comes the question: how much more must the ministry of the Spirit subsist in glory? The glory of the law began, but it was soon put out in the ministry of death for everyone who came under it. When the ministry of the life-giving Spirit comes in, it stays in glory.
That distinction is easy to push into the future, as though "what remains" meant a glory still to be revealed. One writer warns against exactly that:
It is a mistake to think the future tense here is about time. It is drawn as a conclusion. There is no reference here to the coming glory. The apostle points straight to what the Spirit is ministering now.
The glory Israel saw was real. But it shone on the face of a dying man, and it pushed people back instead of drawing them in.
It was a brightness which dazzled and drove people back. It had no power to attract, and it put no living warmth into the soul. And the glory Israel saw rested on the face of a man who was only mortal. He was a servant, under the very law he delivered. And the servant does not stay in the house for ever. Moses ministered the law, and he also broke it, and came under its sentence like everyone else. That glory, therefore, had to be done away. But if that first ministry had its honour, how much greater is the glory of the ministry of the Spirit? For what gives life must surpass what only kills.
The second glory does not merely last longer. It has a different source, and therefore a different kind of permanence.
The law that is done away came in with a glimpse of glory. What abides does not only exceed in glory; it subsists in glory. Its very existence depends on the full revelation of the glory of God in Christ. Christ and His work have now fully met the glory of God, so God can now reveal that glory fully in the gospel of the glory.
Israel had to turn away from the shining face. The change is not only that this glory stays, but that it can be gazed at without dread.
Here the glory remains, for it is a glory which the sinner, hopeless in himself, may look at with gladness and satisfaction… The law made its claim of righteousness, but it could never minister righteousness. Righteousness is now ministered to us, not worked out by us, and so God shows His glory as nothing else could show it.
The believer is not waiting for the permanent thing to begin. He is already in it, and nothing ahead can undo it.
We come to what abides — to what never can be shaken… In Christ we have come to this permanence of blessing, no matter what else may come. Death may come for us; judgment will come for the world… But we have already arrived at what remains. No destruction of the earth can touch its security. Being taken to heaven will do nothing but bring out its brightness and lastingness.
The verse marks one system as ending. So making it the pattern for Christian living runs against the verse. One writer puts it bluntly:
Law came in as a side matter. It was not given as a rule of life, as people wrongly imagine, but as a rule of death and condemnation. Christ is that rule — Christ as revealed in the whole word of God, and applied by the Spirit.
- Began — The law "began with glory," but it did not continue. The glory came with it; it did not belong to it.
- Faded — That glory shone on a mortal man who broke the law he delivered. It had to go.
- Subsists — The glory that stays does more than last. It exists in glory, resting on the full revelation of God in Christ.
- Attracts — The first glory dazzled and drove people back. A hopeless sinner can look at this one with gladness, because righteousness is ministered to him, not demanded of him.
- Remains — Believers have already arrived at what cannot be shaken. Going back to law as a rule of life turns the verse around.
Having therefore such hope, we use much boldness
Paul has just set the glory that fades beside the glory that stays. That leaves two questions: what hope makes a preacher bold, and why did Moses cover his face?
The glory Paul serves is not yet on display. That is why he speaks of hope.
What remains not only continues in glory; it is greater in glory, and it all shines in the face of the Lord Jesus. It helps to focus on the word "hope" in verse 12. This hope looks forward to the day when God puts the New Covenant into effect for Israel. Then what is good to faith inwardly now will come into open view. The verse sums up the position of the Christian. He looks forward to that final moment when this glory will appear.
The older wording, "great plainness of speech," points to a way of speaking with nothing held back.
The ministry entrusted to the Apostle had a wonderful character, and that character shaped the way he presented it. What the Gospel ministry presents is not yet on full display, but it will be in due season. So he speaks here of having a hope, and such a hope. Having it, he could confront men with "great plainness of speech," or "boldness." He spoke with great openness and no reserve. Reserve was necessary with the law, because men could not stand in the presence of its glory.
The boldness rests on what a servant of the new covenant may announce.
The ministers of this new covenant can use great boldness. It is boldness to declare the justification of the ungodly, and to make sinners in Christ the righteousness of God! Grace has given us this boldness. Now nothing is to be hidden. Instead there is to be the plainest speech and the fullest display of what glorifies God and is at the same time the complete blessing of man.
The comparison in the next verse is not a criticism of Moses. His veil suited the ministry he carried.
With such a hope and such a ministry, and in the power of a sufficiency God lent him, Paul might well be bold. But his words in verse 12 have to do with the character of his ministry more than with any personal feeling. What Paul preaches, Moses veiled. Those whom the Lord now sends out as heralds of His grace have one first duty. It is to make the marvellous truth of God's gospel as clear as daylight to the human conscience. Whatever is obscure or puzzling is not now of God… Moses was the open minister of law, but the veiled prophet of grace. Before God he was unveiled, and he looked with open vision on the mystery of the Lord's ways. But to Israel his covered face pictured the incomplete and unsatisfying ministry given into his charge.
Once the message is God's good news about His Son, holding anything back would work against the message itself.
He glories that in the gospel all is open. It is no longer the unhappy though wholesome exposure of sin in man. It is the plain revelation of good from God in Christ. This comes righteously through His cross, and gloriously in His place at God's right hand in heaven… In Judaism man could not bear to hear the truth, for that truth was the sentence of death to the flesh. Among the nations all was doubt or deception. In the gospel we can speak plainly: it is God's good news of His Son. There is no reason or motive for reserve, but just the opposite. We cannot be too open.
This openness also decides how a messenger handles the message he carries.
With the courage which grace gave him through this doctrine, he held back nothing and weakened nothing of this glory. He did not corrupt the teaching; he showed it in all the purity and brightness in which he had received it. It was the word of God. As he had received it, so they received it from him — the unaltered word of God. In this way the apostle commended himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Not everyone could say this.
If the glory is fully out in the open, then any remaining obstacle has changed location.
The apostle's statement is this: there is now no veil over the glory of God. If there is any veil now, it is on our hearts. This is a solemn truth. All the glory, all that God is, shines in the face of Jesus, and there is no veil over it. The veil is all on us.
- Hope first. The glory Paul serves is not yet on display. Faith holds it, and that is the hope behind his boldness.
- Boldness next. The phrase means openness and the absence of reserve — a way of speaking, not just a mood.
- Content that earns it. Grace lets a servant announce the justification of the ungodly, and news like that leaves nothing to hide.
- Moses reversed. He went unveiled before God and veiled before the people. The gospel preacher stands unveiled before both.
- Nothing held back. The messenger passes on the glory undimmed, just as he received it — the unaltered word of God.
and not according as Moses put a veil on his own face, so that the children of Israel should not fix their eyes on the end of that annulled.
Paul has just called his ministry more glorious than the one written on stone. Now he turns to how he delivers it. He points back to a scene in Exodus. Moses came down the mountain with a shining face, then covered it. Paul reads that veil as a picture of something Israel never saw.
The contrast is not between two men's characters but between two ministries.
Paul contrasts the plainness and boldness of his ministry with the dimness of the veil of Moses. His ministry speaks openly of two things: the hopeless ruin of man and the abounding grace of God. Israel saw both only dimly through that veil. This dimness had its necessary place for that time. God had made His ways known to Moses himself and shown him the mystery of His grace. Yet the ministry Moses carried to the people was law, not grace.
One word carries the point. Commentators read "end" as the goal the law aimed at.
What has been annulled had an "end" which they did not see. "End" here does not mean the finish or stopping point of the law. It means God's purpose in the law, which was Christ, as Romans 10:4 tells us. The law gave man a very thorny road to walk, but it led to Christ. Every other road God lays down leads to Christ too. The glory that shone in the face of Moses was really a faint reflection of Christ. But Israel could not see it. If they had seen it, they would have condemned themselves and waited eagerly for the coming of Christ, the Deliverer.
Israel had just turned away from God. A face lit with His glory was a threat to them, not a comfort.
Moses then put a veil on his face until he had finished speaking with them. As Paul points out in verse 13, they could not look steadily at the end of what was being set aside. The people were afraid because the very glory shining from the face of Moses told of the claims of a holy God. From their recent sin and turning away from Him, they knew that if God pressed those claims, it would mean their judgment and destruction.
The ESV says the veil kept Israel from gazing at that end. Was that the aim of the veil, or only its effect? Darby weighs the wording.
The verse reads "that the children of Israel should not look." "Could" is not right either; the sense lies about halfway between the two… In the words "look to the end," the apostle took the law as so many commandments about sheep and cattle, without ever looking beyond. Christ is really the end of it all… The veil was not put on to hinder them; but putting it on did hinder their looking.
The verse opens with a contrast: Paul is not like Moses.
What Paul preaches, Moses veiled. The Lord now sends men out as heralds of His grace, and their first duty is to make the wonderful truth of God's gospel as clear as daylight to the human conscience. Whatever is obscure or puzzling is not now of God… It could not be like this with Moses. He was the open minister of law, but the veiled prophet of grace… Before God he stood unveiled and saw the mystery of God's ways with open eyes. But to Israel his covered face was a picture of how incomplete and unsatisfying the ministry given to him was.
The veil does not stay on Moses' face; it settles on the heart.
As disciples of law who went no further, they could not see, sadly, the end of the law itself. They could not grasp the sweet grace of God, which underlies its pictures and parables everywhere… That veil still lies on the face of Moses, while in Christ it is done away. God has on His part done with it. They on their part have chosen it. It lies on their heart — a heart taken up with its own self-righteousness and turned away from the Lord. They must turn to the Lord to have the veil removed.
- Veiled. Moses' covered face pictured an incomplete ministry: he was the open minister of law, but the veiled prophet of grace.
- Missed. "End" means God's purpose in the law, not its stopping point. That purpose was Christ, and Israel never looked beyond the commands.
- Feared. The glory pressed the claims of a holy God on people who had just turned from Him. To them it could only mean judgment, so they would not look.
- Disputed. Was the veil meant to stop them looking, or did it only have that effect? Darby reads it as the effect.
- Unveiled. Nothing is hidden in this ministry. One thing lifts the veil that still lies on the heart: turning to the Lord.
But their thoughts have been darkened, for unto this day the same veil remains in reading the old covenant, unremoved, which in Christ is annulled.
Moses once covered his face so Israel could not watch a fading glory. Paul says that same covering is still there — which raises two questions: what is "done away," and why do people holding the Scriptures miss their point?
Israel had the text. Their problem was not eyesight. Commentators group the word Paul uses here with words that mean hardening.
Used in a figurative sense to describe the state of man by nature under the influence of Satan (2 Cor. 4:4); also a professing Christian who hates his brother (1 John 2:11); also the state of Israel in their heartless profession (Matt. 23:16-26); and the judicial blindness on Israel (John 12:40). In Rom. 11:7, 25; 2 Cor. 3:14; Eph. 4:18, it is rather "obduracy or hardness," from πωρόω, "to harden."
In Exodus the covering lay on the face of Moses. Paul says it now lies somewhere else, and that shift is the whole force of his argument.
The whole argument of the Apostle rests on the glory being hidden in Moses' case. He veiled it so that they should not see the end of it. There is no veil on the glory of Christ. Moses was veiled — the glory is not; in Christ the veil is gone, but it is on their hearts. When the Jews turn to the Lord, the veil will be taken away from their hearts. Then the object of the Old Testament will be clear, just as Moses took the veil off when he turned to the Lord.
The veil is not on God's side any more. So why does it stay?
Their minds are blinded. They read the Old Testament and see nothing of how it keeps pointing them to the New Testament. They prefer to have the veil there, to keep them from too close — and too precious — contact with the living God. In actual fact, the veil is done away in Christ, but they refuse Christ, and choose the darkness of the veil.
"The old testament" here means the covenant God made with Israel, not a book. Older translations end the verse with "done away," where the ESV has "taken away." Paul uses that word again and again in this chapter.
The word "annulled," or "done away," sometimes sounds a little harsh here. But the apostle uses it as a set formula for the old covenant done away in Christ. Keep that in mind and the harshness disappears, and his own use of the word makes the sense clearer.
This one phrase of Paul's later gave a whole collection of books its name.
It is interesting to trace how the terms Old and New Testament arose. Here in 2 Cor. 3:14 the phrase "the old testament" is applied to the law. Little by little it came to cover the whole of the Jewish Scriptures — 39 books in all. In the same way "the New Testament" (Matt. 26:28) would take in the 27 books of the later revelation.
So what keeps a religious person from seeing? Israel's long history answers.
Their history teaches us still more. It shows us how strongly traditional religion blinds people — even when God Himself set up the system at the start. Such a system only tends to blind a man about his position before God… Think of their own history in the desert, the song of Moses testifying against them (Deut. 32), and the ministry of the prophets bringing down their pride. Then came the ministry of the Lord Himself, and later that of His apostles with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. None of it removed the veil from the face of Moses.
The veil comes off in one way only. The man who wrote this verse learned it firsthand.
The conversion of Paul the Pharisee to faith in Jesus gives us a remarkable example of the removal of the veil in Christ. The Lord appeared to him on the road. He saw that Jesus of Nazareth was in truth the Lord of glory — the same Jesus against whom he sincerely thought he ought to do many things (Acts 26:9). From that moment the veil was removed from the face of Moses as well as from his own heart.
What happened to one man is promised to the nation.
The veil is now on their hearts, because they rejected their Messiah. It will be taken away when they look on the One whom they pierced and realise that He is their long-promised Christ… The old covenant did its work: it exposed to man his complete inability to save himself, or to be for God's glory in the flesh.
- Hardness. The problem is not weak eyesight. It is a hard mind — the same state Scripture describes in unbelievers and in the Gentiles.
- Moved. The veil once hid a fading glory on Moses' face. Now it lies on the reader's heart, while the glory of Christ shines uncovered.
- Annulled. "Done away" is Paul's term in this chapter for the old covenant being set aside. That same phrase, "old testament," later named the 39 books.
- Inherited. Religion held by tradition blinds, even when God set the system up. Prophets came, Christ came, apostles came — and Israel's veil stayed.
- Turned. There is one cure. Paul saw Jesus of Nazareth as the Lord of glory, and the veil lifted at once — from Moses and from his own heart. Israel will yet see Him so.
But unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil lies upon their heart.
Paul is still tracing the shadow of Moses' veil, but now he moves it. It once lay on a shining face. Now it lies on the heart of the reader. People hear the Scriptures read week by week and still miss the One they speak of.
The verse does not say God has hidden anything. The covering is somewhere else.
The apostle's statement is this, that there is now no veil over the glory of God. If there is any veil now, it is on our hearts. This is a solemn truth. All the glory, all that God is, shines in the face of Jesus; and there is no veil over it. The veil is all on us.
"Whenever Moses is read" points to a settled practice. Synagogues read the books of Moses aloud then, and still read them, yet the hearing brings no light.
They trust in Moses, yet they do not believe his words. They admire the man falsely and boast in his name, while they refuse to believe what he wrote. So his words are darkness to them and not light... Moses is read and preached in every synagogue. Yet they never taste his blessing, and the curse still clings to the rebellious people, because the veil is still on their hearts.
The same writer shows how deep this goes. Their own study of Scripture does not lift it.
They search the Scriptures. But the veil of their fathers' unbelief is still on their hearts, so they do not recognise the One that both law and prophets speak of.
Israel's long history is a warning, and not only to Israel. People can turn a God-given system into a screen against God Himself.
It shows us in a special way the blinding power of traditional religion. This is true even where that religion is tied to an organisation God Himself set up at the start. Such a system only tends to blind a person about his position before God... Their own history in the desert, the song of Moses testifying against them, the testimony of Samuel against the evil of the priesthood, the ministry of the prophets bringing their pride low... none of that removed the veil from the face of Moses. Neither did the ministry of the Lord Himself, nor later that of His apostles with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.
Israel treated the law as a mark of national status. This describes the nation, not every individual in it.
They used the law like a feather stuck in their cap, to give them a leading place among the nations. It is as though the veil that once lay on the face of Moses has moved to their minds and hearts. There is of course an election of grace today from among Israel. Yet it is still true of them as a nation that they read the Old Testament with the veil on their hearts.
Moses himself shows the remedy. Everything depends on which way the heart turns.
Today if there is a veil anywhere it is on the heart. What will make that veil drop off? It will drop off if your heart turns to the Lord. When Moses turned to the Lord to speak to Him, he took off the veil. In this he was a picture of Israel... So Israel is turned away in heart from the Lord now. They have turned their back on Him. While they stay in this state the veil is on their heart. But when that heart of theirs turns to the Lord, as it will in a coming day, the veil will drop off.
Another writer weighs how much this short verse tells us about Israel's future.
In 2 Cor. 3:15 we have a brief and passing, but very clear, hint that the judgment Israel lies under is not final and permanent... He speaks of Israel's restoration as a settled, established truth, and he expects his reader to know it already. Passing references like this are all the more convincing because they come in so incidentally.
The verse describes a nation, but the principle reaches any reader of the Bible.
When they read the law they cannot see the One the law points to, because of the unbelief of their hearts. The veil that was on the face of Moses is now on the hearts of Israel. When Israel at last turns to the Lord the veil will be taken away. So with ourselves: only as we turn to the Lord will the blindness and darkness of our hearts pass away.
- Veil moved. It no longer hides the glory; it covers the reader. All that God is shines in the face of Jesus, uncovered.
- Veil named. It is unbelief, not obscurity — Scripture is read, Moses is honoured, and Christ is still missed.
- Veil hardened. Inherited religion, even one God once gave, can blind a person to his own standing before God.
- Veil lifted. Moses removed his covering when he turned to the Lord; hearts that turn lose theirs the same way.
- Veil temporary. "To this day" is not "for ever" — Israel's blindness has an end, and some from Israel already see today.
But when it shall turn to [the] Lord, the veil is taken away.)
Paul has just said that a veil lies over Israel's heart whenever Moses is read. Now he adds that the veil is not permanent: it comes off at a turning to the Lord.
Nothing on God's side is hidden now. The problem has moved from God's face to the human heart.
All about God has come out. He no longer hides Himself as He once did, dwelling in "thick darkness." So if God is still unseen and unknown, the veil is on man's heart, not on God's face... There is no veil now, except on the human heart. That stands in contrast with Moses, who put a veil over his face.
Paul is drawing on a scene from Exodus. Moses wore a covering over his face in front of the people, and took it off when he went in to God.
Still a moment is coming when the veil will be removed. Verse 16 of our chapter refers back to Exodus 34:33-35. Moses veiled his face when he dealt with the people. But when he turned to the Lord and had dealings with Him, he took the veil off. This pictures what will happen with Israel. At last they will turn to the Lord in sincerity and repentance. Then the veil will be lifted from their minds, and the glory of the Christ they once crucified will burst upon them.
Older translations read "when it shall turn to the Lord," where "it" points back to the heart in verse 15; the ESV has "when one turns." Paul makes the point in passing, but it carries a settled hope.
In 2 Corinthians 3:15 we have a brief, passing, but very clear hint. The judgment Israel lies under is not final and permanent... "But when it" — Israel's heart — "turns to the Lord, the veil is removed." The apostle does not follow the subject up here. It is not the point he is developing. But he mentions Israel's restoration as a settled truth the reader is expected to know already. He brings it in as an aside, and that only makes it more convincing.
Another writer puts the same hope in four words: the judgment on that nation has run its full course, "but there is an end."
So where does the turning come from? One writer answers that no lesser power can produce it.
Only one power can turn the evil heart of Israel to the Lord, and miracles cannot do it. The history of that people was full of miracles from the beginning, and still they were "a crooked and twisted generation."... But though the Lord could do no more for Israel, He can, for His own sake, do the wonderful work in them of turning their hearts to Himself. And this will happen. "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean... And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you" (Ezekiel 36:25-26)... The Spirit gives life. God alone has life in Himself; He alone can give life. Where the Spirit works for salvation, He opens the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Then the veil drops from the heart, and the heart is won for the Lord.
One writer finds the pattern in Joseph's brothers. They stood before the brother they had sold, and did not know him.
It was as they turned to him that the veil was taken from their eyes and they knew him. So it will be with Israel in the coming day... Then they will discover who Jesus the Nazarene really is. They sold Him for thirty pieces of silver and crucified Him. He is the Lord of glory, and at the same time the very picture of generosity and love.
Israel's turning is still future. But one writer points out that the Lord has already made the first move toward us.
But we do not wait here for their turning to the Lord, which will be their portion by and by. Meanwhile the Lord has turned to us. In His great grace He has turned us to Himself. He has brought us into righteousness and peace, and into glory in hope — yes, into present communion with Him, through redemption.
The same is true for us:
So with ourselves — only as we turn to the Lord will the blindness and darkness of our hearts pass away.
- Veil — It is no longer on God's face or on the glory. If God is unseen, the covering is on the human heart.
- Turning — One movement removes it, pictured by Moses taking off the veil each time he went in to speak with God.
- Gift — No one turns his own heart. God gives the new heart and the Spirit opens the eyes; then the veil drops.
- Sight — What the turned heart sees is a Person: the crucified Jesus recognised as the Lord of glory.
- Now — Israel's national turning is still future. But the Lord has already turned to us in grace, and the rule is the same for anyone: turn, and the darkness goes.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, but where the Spirit of [the] Lord [is, there is] liberty.
Paul has just set two ministries against each other: the letter that kills and the spirit that gives life. Now he sums that contrast up in one sentence. Two questions sit inside it. In what sense is the Lord the Spirit? And what is the freedom — older translations say "liberty" — that His Spirit brings?
Kelly reads "spirit" in the first clause as the opposite of "letter":
I have no doubt about the meaning. The Lord Jesus is the spirit of the forms, figures and other messages of the old covenant. These, if taken in the letter, killed; if in the spirit, gave life. "The Lord" was their real scope; and now this comes out into the fullest evidence.
Hamilton Smith takes the same line and shows what it does to the way we read the older Scriptures:
The meaning would appear to be that the Lord Jesus is the spirit, or essence, of the old covenant. All its forms, sacrifices and ceremonies pictured Christ in different ways. The law had a shadow of good things to come, but Christ is the substance (Heb. 10:1; Col. 2:17). Unbelief fails to see Christ in all the Scriptures. Faith grasps the Lord in every part of the Word, and nowhere more clearly than in the tabernacle, its sacrifices and services.
The verse moves from "the Spirit" to "the Spirit of the Lord." Dennett explains the shift:
The apostle teaches us that the Spirit that runs through and underlies "the letter" is a glorified Christ. But in the next clause he says, "And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Here he speaks of the Holy Spirit. He is now speaking of the power by which we grasp Christ glorified, and of the liberty this brings us into.
Kelly describes the Spirit's own character, and the two errors this freedom stands against:
The apostle means the presence and power of the Holy Spirit now. He is not a spirit of bondage leading to fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. He is not a spirit of bondage, but the Spirit of the Son, whom God sent into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father… "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," as opposed to Gentile license as much as to Jewish bondage.
Hole shows why rules belong to one order and freedom to another:
Life and liberty go together, just as law and bondage are associated. The divine life is not to be held back or tied up by legal restraints… Legal restraints are necessary and suitable enough when the flesh or the world are in question. They are not effective, for the flesh and the world break through them and transgress. In another way the law is effective, for it curses and brings death in upon the transgressor. All is changed once the Spirit has given life. Then liberty can be safely given, for the Spirit of the Lord holds sway.
What occupies the mind tells the two apart. Hamilton Smith sets teachers who turn people in on themselves against the Spirit's work:
Those referred to in 2 Cor. 2:17 would bring the saints into bondage by occupation with themselves: the Spirit brings into liberty by turning the soul to Christ in the glory. Such people are not afraid of the glory of the Lord. They can look at the glory seen in the face of Jesus with no veil over it. The One in whose face that glory shines has met the claims of glory.
Wolston presses the verse as a personal question:
Bondage marks the soul under law; liberty is the portion of the one who has the Spirit. Are you in liberty? I find many dear children of God groaning, and moaning, and bowed down like bulrushes. This should not be… You are not only to know that you are forgiven. You are to know, by experience, that you are out of bondage.
- Key — The Lord Jesus is the spirit of the old covenant. Its forms and sacrifices killed when taken as bare letter. They gave life when faith saw Him in them.
- Power — The second clause turns to the Holy Spirit. He is the power by which we grasp the glorified Christ, and liberty follows.
- Freedom — This liberty comes from the Spirit of the Son, crying "Abba, Father." It stands against Jewish bondage and Gentile license alike.
- Safety — Rules restrain the flesh, and the flesh breaks through them. Where the Spirit has given life, liberty is safe, for the Spirit rules.
- Proof — A free soul stops watching itself and looks at the glory in the face of Jesus. Know that freedom by experience, not by belief alone.
But *we* all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by [the] Lord [the] Spirit.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.