2 Corinthians 3:6–7

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yet this glory was only temporary, a glory only reflected in the face of Moses, not by any means intrinsic.

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."