(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.