What does it mean that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6)?

Lastly, in the former case, the law was made void by the commandments of men; in the latter, the Church, the power of whose testimony consists in her separation from the world, has by mingling with it become the betrayer, rather than the witness of the name by which she is called.") And this is true ministry, witnessing to Christ not alone in the proclamation of the Gospel, but in life and walk. "That ye may be blameless and harmless, the children of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world" (Phil. 2:15). And such was Paul's confidence through Christ to Godward. He trusted the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish this. In himself, he acknowledges, there is no sufficiency for anything, "all our sufficiency is of God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." The latter statement is often wrongly interpreted. The word "letter" does not mean the entire written Word of God. Many have taken this view and declare that the Bible must not be taken literally, just as it says. (This is mostly said in connection with Prophecy, the Second Coming of Christ, etc. More than once the word "the letter killeth" has been used to explain away the literal meaning of things to come.) It is not the question at all between the literal words and meaning of the Scriptures and the spiritual meaning, but it is a contrast between the old covenant and the new covenant, between the law and the gospel. The word "letter" stands for the law, which in its ministration kills and cannot give life. What the purpose of the law is and what it can do and cannot do is learned from the following passages: Romans 3:20, 5:20, 7:5-11, 8:3; Galatians 3:10, 19.

This was Paul's confidence with regard to his ministry; his competency came from God for the ministry of the new covenant, not of the letter (not even the letter of this covenant, any more than the letter of anything else) but of the Spirit, the true force of the purpose of God, as the Spirit gave it. For the letter kills, as a rule imposed on man; the Spirit quickens, as the power of God in grace — the purpose of God communicated to the heart of man by the power of God, who imparted it to him that he might enjoy it. Now the subject of this ministry brought out the difference between it and the ministry of the law yet more strongly. The law, graven on stones, had been introduced with glory, although it was a thing that was to pass away as a means of relation between God and men. It was a ministry of death, for they were only to live by keeping it. Nor could it be otherwise ordered than on this principle. A law was to be kept; but man being already a sinner by nature and by will, having desires which the law forbade, that law could only be death to him — it was a ministry of death. It was a ministry of condemnation because the authority of God came in to give to the law the sanction of condemnation against every soul that should break it. It was a ministry of death and of condemnation because man was a sinner.

Again in verse 6 the living character of the Gospel ministry is emphasized, whereas the law brought in death. We get the expression "the letter" twice in verse 6, and the same word (in a slightly different form) occurs in verse 7, where it is translated, "written." The New Translation renders it, "the ministry of death, in letters, graven in stones," which shows that in this passage the term, "letter," refers to the law. The law kills. Its ministry is to death. The Spirit quickens.

But thus, God was no more addressing men with a message carved upon inanimate tables, but by living messengers, His own wonderful workmanship. Such confidence with regard to them the apostle had through Christ. He knew that, alas, the flesh was in believers, and even prominent in them, and that his confidence as to them must be confidence through the Lord. But this is, therefore, an unfailing ground of confidence, and of this, — satisfied that they were after all truly the divine workmanship, — he could speak as he does here. It was not to make much of himself, of his competency in the ministry which God had given him. All competency was derived from God Himself, who in fact works in all this for the glory of Christ, and will not suffer Christ to be without His testimony amongst men. Thus had he with others been made the competent ministers of a new covenant, a covenant not of letter, as the old covenant of the law, but a covenant which was of spirit. In fact, 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 that which He works for and in men. It is of grace, therefore, necessarily. The covenant of law, the letter, killed; but the power of the Spirit which effected that of which the new covenant speaks, gives life.

We are carefully to observe that he is speaking here not of the letter of Scripture, as some would have it, but of the letter of the old covenant, which was the law. It is not true that the letter of Scripture kills. Even the letter of law, apart from its covenant character, is not against us, clearly, but the safe lesson of an old schoolmaster under whom indeed we may not be, but whose lessons still do us good. But the covenant of law kills, and only that. If law is to be the condition under which we live, we shall soon find that it is a ministration of death and not of life.

Now then comes the contrast, briefly yet fully told out, — the law with the ministration of death indeed. We have seen in Romans how really it had that character. When the commandment came to the apostle, when he realized the power of it, sin revived, he says, and he died. Death also was the public sentence written upon man at large, of which the law availed itself in order to work conviction in the souls of those to whom it was addressed. The death of which it spoke was just what we ordinarily call such. Upon every child of man it stamped the character of a convicted criminal, one sentenced as such to be removed from the sphere into which creation had brought him, and no one, however comparatively well he might appear in contrast with those around him, could escape this sentence. "Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Grace indeed has brought in a greater blessing, but it leaves this testimony unaffected. It is a blessing of grace, not a reward of works. We are debtors simply to the compassion of God, and in order to realize the blessing we have to accept in that sense the sentence of death in ourselves. Then indeed the glory of the new covenant appears to us, and God's wonderful and sweet "I will"s are the joy and satisfaction of the soul.

Upon the face of this then, the apostle in "the letter" that "killeth" is speaking of the "ministration of death," and that as what was written upon the "tables of stone," the law and nothing else. It is this that he is contrasting with the "new testament," or gospel, as "the ministration of righteousness" and life by the Spirit. The law, the letter, killed: was designed by its manifestation of what God required from man to give him the sentence of death in himself. "When the commandment came," says the apostle, speaking of its proved effect, "sin revived, and I died" (Rom. 7:9). The gospel on the other hand "ministered righteousness" — provided, not required it, and so was life to souls, not death. In the one "the letter" of a mere commandment "killed." In the other the power of the Spirit wrought, giving life. Paul was a minister of the "New Testament," not the Old, "not of letter, but of Spirit."

"Not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." He is plainly speaking here of the cold, rigid letter of the law, the old covenant, in contrast to the living power of the Spirit of God in the new covenant. This in no way belittles the exactitude of every word of Scripture, as given in the original languages; for it is the Spirit of God who has inspired every "jot and title:" indeed, Paul communicated "words" "which the Holy Ghost teacheth," not merely thoughts (1 Cor. 2:13). But the new covenant is not on the principle of peremptory legal requirement, "the letter" therefore that demands obedience; but on the principle of that living grace that supplies the Spirit of God as the power for devoted and willing obedience. The letter of the law only sentences man rightly to death. But the Spirit gives life, so infinite a contrast.

The letter kills, but the Spirit quickens

Paul adds that ‘the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens’ (v. 6). He is emphasising that if our relationship with God is made to depend on an obligation we have to meet it is bound to break down (cf. Col. 2:14). Every blessing that God confers brings added responsibility, but our standing in grace is not affected by any failure on our part to live up to that responsibility. For example, we are called upon to follow in the steps of the Lord Jesus (1 Pet. 2:21). If this was something we had to do in order to obtain a standing in the favour of God the end will be no different from trying to keep the law: failure and death. It is by grace that we are saved and by grace that we stand, and not by our own efforts.[2] In writing that ‘the letter kills’, we must not suppose that Paul is in any way denigrating the Word of God. It is by the Word that the Spirit sovereignly imparts life and the Word feeds and directs that life. What kills is the legal principle (implying that we must meet a given standard in order to obtain life and be reckoned righteous by God).

This expression occurs in Rom. 2:29; Rom. 7:6; 2 Cor. 3:6, where the apostle contrasts it with 'the spirit:' "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." Whether of the law or of the gospel, the mere intellectual reception of the words only leads to formality and death; it is only what is 'of the Spirit' that can result in life. The Lord is the spirit of all that is written in letters in scripture.

The bare letter of God's truth, apart from the Spirit's work in us, does not give us life. The word of God does not take root in our old fallen nature; on the contrary, that word only condemns our old and fallen nature, and teaches us the truth about ourselves. Apart from the Spirit of God, the letter kills. What more could it do? for the word tells us that we are in our sins and require life, and shows to us that life is the gift of God. "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." (2 Cor. 3:6.) The words which Jesus spoke, He said were spirit and life (John 6:63), but the souls of the hearers were rendered receptive by the Holy Ghost. To deal with the word of God as if a man could take it up and make it his own in his natural strength, is practically to assume for man a power which the truth of God denies that man possesses. Whether religious or profane, learned or ignorant, the flesh is flesh in itself, just as an oak is an oak, though there are varieties of the tree. It is written, "It is the Spirit who quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." (John 6:63.)

Referring to chapter 3, he speaks of those to whom he wrote as Christ's epistle ministered by the apostle, the writing of the Spirit of the living God, not, as of old, upon stone tables and ordained by angels, but on the fleshy tablets of their hearts. And the apostle had confidence before God about this; for, disclaiming personal competency for such service, he avows his competency to be of God, who had made him a competent minister of the new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit. Then rising higher, with one inspired touch he marks the contrast between the two things; the letter condemns, but the Spirit giveth life - thus bringing forward the Spirit of God objectively, to whom he returns in the 17th verse, after the digression of verses 7-16, which form a parenthesis, and at which we will now look for a little.