*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.