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.