Why is there liberty where the Spirit of the Lord is (2 Corinthians 3:17)?

The central portion of the chapter, from verse 7, contains not only the remarkable allusion to Moses veiled and unveiled, but the contrast between the ministry of letter in the law with that of the Spirit. The parenthesis being closed, he forthwith recurs to that contrast of letter and spirit which preceded it. "Now the Lord is the spirit, but where the Spirit of the Lord [is, there is] liberty." (Ver. 17) Scarce any scripture shows more instructively than this the necessity of understanding the mind of God, in order even to present it correctly in form. For it is an utter mistake to give "the spirit" in the first clause a capital letter, which would imply the Holy Ghost to be meant; and where would be the sense, where so much as the orthodoxy, of identifying the Lord with the Holy Ghost? To me the meaning, without doubt, is that the Lord Jesus constitutes the spirit of the forms and figures and other communications of the old covenant. These, if taken in the letter, killed; if in the spirit, quickened. "The Lord" was their real scope; and now this comes out into the fullest evidence. Faith sees in Him contrast with Adam, analogy with Abel; the light of which shines even on Cain and Lamech. Yet more manifestly do we see types of Him in Joseph and Moses, and in that vast system of sacrifice and priesthood which, coming in by Moses, furnished those shadows so abundantly. Unbelief never laid hold of the coming One, faith always did; though it might not apprehend the bearing of all, nor perhaps fully of anything, till He actually died and rose. But "the Lord is the spirit," and the new testimony is so precise, that there is no excuse for misapprehending the old longer. "The true Light now shines," and "we who were once darkness are now light in the Lord." In the light we walk, and we ought to walk as children of it; and an immense help it is to our souls intelligently to apprehend the Lord in every part of the word. It is this which gives the deepest interest, and truest solemnity, and living power, to every part of the Old Testament. Thus only have we communion with the mind of God with positive and growing blessing to our own souls. Now that He is revealed, all is plain.

But there is more than this, for "where the Spirit of the Lord [is, there is] liberty." Here the truth requires that there should be a capital, for the apostle means not merely the true inner bearing of what was communicated of old, but the presence and power of the Holy Ghost now; and He is not a spirit of bondage unto fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind; not a spirit of bondage, but the Spirit of the Son, whom God had sent into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Hence the effect is liberty, not alone because it is the Son that makes us free, but the Spirit of life in Him risen from the dead, after the mighty work in which God, sending Jesus in the likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Thus all was condemned that could be condemned, and we by grace are delivered — free indeed. "Where the Spirit of the Lord [is, there is] liberty," as opposed to Gentile license as to Jewish bondage.

The Lord is the life-giving Spirit of the New Covenant, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. Life and liberty go together, just as law and bondage are associated. The divine life is not to be hampered or entangled within legal restraints. There is no need that it should be. 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 when once the Spirit has given life. Then liberty can be safely accorded, for the Spirit of the Lord holds sway.

In the seventeenth verse of the third chapter of 2nd Corinthians, we have another great truth in respect of the Spirit, "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Bondage marks the soul under law; liberty is the portion of the one who possesses the Spirit. Are you in liberty? I find many dear children of God groaning, and moaning, and bowed down like bulrushes. Now this should not be, for "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Not merely are you to know, that you are forgiven, but you are to know, experimentally, that you are out of bondage. If you have the Holy Ghost dwelling in you, there is liberty to gaze on Christ in glory. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:17-18). It is the Holy Ghost having His own way in your heart. Upheld by grace, you are kept going through this world, in the liberty of the Holy Ghost, and the joy which the liberty of God alone can furnish.

Verses 7 to 16 form a parenthesis. Passing over this section to verse 17 we read: ‘Now the Lord is the Spirit[3], but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.’ The Spirit is here as the representative of the Lord Jesus and as such is fully identified with Him. He leads those in whom He dwells to the practical acknowledgement of Christ’s lordship and wherever this is the case Christian liberty is enjoyed. This contrasts with the bondage gendered by the law. Furthermore, ‘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’ (v. 18). Paul speaks of what is normal or characteristic of the Christian. If place is given to the working of the Spirit He will always turn the eyes of our hearts upon Christ. There is nothing to hinder this. There is no veil on Christ’s face, nor a veil on our hearts or faces that prevents our gazing on Him where He is. The result of this is that the Christian is transformed. An inward change is wrought in us which is manifested outwardly. What is then seen in the Christian believer is the life and character of Christ.

Continuing this theme the Apostle now says "the Lord is the Spirit." Probably, as scholars have pointed out, the word Spirit, in this clause, should have a small letter instead of a capital. The capital makes the word refer to the Holy Spirit, and this hardly seems to be intelligible (see W. Kelly on Corinthians). 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 prefigured 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, but faith apprehends the Lord in every part of the Word, and never more plainly than in the tabernacle, its sacrifices and services.

The Apostle then passes from speaking of the Lord as being the spirit, as giving "true inner bearing of what was communicated," to speak of the Spirit of the Lord. Here, without question the capital is rightly used, for all will agree that this is the Holy Spirit. The Apostle states that "where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." 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 are not afraid of the glory of the Lord. They can view the glory seen in the face of Jesus without a veil, for the One in whose face the glory shines has met the claims of glory.

"But," he continues, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." The Spirit who is the Lord is, under an altered designation, the Spirit of the Lord. Divinely and essentially one, though personally distinct, Christ and the Spirit of Christ are, as might be expected, so spoken of in Scripture as to bring into prominence sometimes the former, but much oftener the latter of these inseparable truths. Now the Spirit of the Lord is the Spirit of the Son, and where He is the reign of bondage has an end (Rom. 8:15-16; Gal. 4:6). It is evident that the first intention of the apostle's words here, is to place in contrast the- state of the believer, as sealed with the Spirit, and that of the "concision," who are still under the dominion of "the letter" — Jerusalem which now is being in bondage with her children, while our mother is Jerusalem above (Gal. 4:25-26; Phil. 3:2-3); and humbly yet boldly to assert, and by faith to abide and walk in, the liberty with which Christ has made us free (Gal. 5:1; 1 Peter 3:15), is in truth the main business of Christian life. But liberty of conscience in the sight of God is not the only effect of-the presence of the Spirit of the Lord. His very title indicates the new relationship in which the captives which He has liberated stand for ever to Himself. He is indeed our own, and that in the unmeasured fulness of a love which knows no bound. But we are also His; now and for ever He remains the Lord; and they that own Him by this Name confess themselves His slaves. Hence spiritual liberty is bondage of another and more welcome sort.

"As in a glass" (v. 18) is better left out; "we all with open face, looking on the glory of the Lord." There is no veil now on the glory of Christ, nor is there on our hearts when we believe. There is no idea of reflection in the passage: the Greek means 'looking into a mirror' sometimes, but not necessarily. I do not like the idea of Christ being a reflection. People talk of our mirroring Christ from this verse: it is all absurd; how can our mirroring the Lord change us? I look with perfect liberty, for "where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty," and I see (I do not mirror) "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," and the effect of seeing is that I am "changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord." The reason is plain. If the law looks for righteousness in man, man has it not, and so is afraid of the glory; the moment there is the least glory shewn out, man shrinks from it. But now the glory of God is shewn in the face of Jesus Christ, and what is that from? It is the effect of His having glorified God, and therefore God has glorified Him, and every ray of that glory is the proof that my sins are gone. "From glory to glory" means that I make progress. "Changed" is the same word as "transformed" in the Gospels.

Thus the apostle says, "Our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (vv. 5, 6); and then he adds, "Now the Lord is that Spirit" (v. 17 ); i.e. not the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit of the "New Testament," which he thus identifies with the Lord — the glorified Christ. In other words, he teaches us that the Spirit that runs through and underlies "the letter" is a glorified Christ. But when he says in the next clause, "And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," he speaks of the Holy Ghost because he is now speaking of the power by which Christ glorified is apprehended, and the liberty into which we are consequently brought.

The parenthesis springs out of the contrast between "the letter" and "the spirit;" the former — the law, in fact — being a "ministration of death" and of "condemnation" (vv. 7, 9); the latter of "the Spirit" and of "righteousness." (vv. 8, 9.)

But then we come to another thing. What we find here is not law, though the holiness of the law is maintained and secured. The veil is taken off. There is no veil at all: "We all with open face, beholding the glory of the Lord," etc. And what is the consequence? Boldness, where there is faith. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

The last verses of 2 Corinthians 3 bring us to the focus of the contrast of the Christian's position with that of Moses and Israel. Only we must read verse 18 a little more true to the original. It is not our face that is unveiled: it is the glory of the Lord. "We all beholding [or looking upon] the glory of the Lord with unveiled face are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit." Moses had to put a veil upon his face for Israel: the Lord Jesus has not to do so for us; though the difference is great between the reflection of partial glory in Moses' face, and the whole glory of God shining in the face of the Lord Jesus. What would have been Moses' destruction is the holy liberty of the Christian in the power of the Holy Ghost: for "where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." The light of that glory tells of peace made by the blood of His cross, and of the perfection of the work on the ground of which we are identified with Him in life and righteousness. Every motive of divine and unutterable love engages our hearts to be occupied with that glory as it shines for us in His face. Look round the circle of the nearest and dearest to us; is there any face we have the same title to look into as His who gave Himself for us, all radiant as it is with the glory of God?