“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? (2 Corinthians 3:1)
Traveling in the ancient time was vastly different than today. Letters of recommendation were needed because, without hotels everywhere, without inns and Airbnb, travelers relied on the hospitality of locals. Letters of recommendation were, therefore, needed. What Paul is saying is that, on his apostolic authority, and through the special care of the Lord, that he’s traveling on faith. These letters aren’t sinful in themselves (see Acts 18:27) but Paul’s point is that his ministry is quite distinctive from the world.
The Lord has seen it to be such in order that sinful mouths may be stopped. There were no earthly riches awaiting the “greatest generation” who set the world on fire.
“You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.” (2 Corinthians 3:2-4)
What happened in Corinth was clearly known throughout the region. Corinth was a city in which sexual sin and vice was so prevalent – and infamous – that even the rest of Rome thought they were extreme. They had their own verb: to Corinthianize. It’s like our Vegas today…what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Paul is saying that their conversion is so dramatic that this is his letter.
There’s a joke about Chuck Norris that he went to a feminist rally and left with an ironed shirt and a sandwich. That’s funny, of course, but let’s imagine an evangelist going to Vegas, or some highly debauched place, and starting a church there. What a letter!
“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:4-6)
This much should be obvious, right? Only the Spirit can save. As Jesus said, He will come to convict the world of sin and righteousness (John 16:8-11) and no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him (John 6:44). Thus, the proof of Paul’s authenticity is the fact that the Lord used Paul to plant the church in Corinth. The conversion of sinful Corinthians is a far better letter than anything written by human hands.
“For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?” (2 Corinthians 3:7-8)
The critics of Paul at Corinth were likely Jewish legalists who downplayed the glory of the New Covenant. They insisted on the permanency of the Mosaic institutions and law, written on tablets of stone. This appeal to the law is what Paul answers. Yes, there was great glory in Moses’ ministry but the ministry of Christ is greater. It alone is permanent.
“For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.” (2 Corinthians 3:9)
The gospel of Jesus Christ is literally a ministry of God’s righteousness because it shows that God is both just and justifier of the one who has faith in Christ. By works of the law no human being will be saved because all have sinned. Every heresy starts with a rejection or diminishment of the doctrine of total depravity. All forms of legalism and antinomianism are, in their purest form, rejections of God’s righteousness.
Faith isn’t the thing. The thing is the object of our faith, which is the righteous Son of God, Jesus Christ. In Him alone there’s salvation. Thus it’s fair to say that the gospel of Christ is literally about righteousness – God’s…and our sin. Only this way can we properly understand grace.
“Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it.” (2 Corinthians 3:10)
Wow. No glory at all, he says! Let that sink in. We are dead to the law. Romans 6 and 7 nail shut the argument that Christians are under the law. We’re dead to it and alive to Christ.
“For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened.” (2 Corinthians 3:11-14a)
It’s quite possible to know the Bible very well and yet not know Christ. This is, perhaps, the most dreadful thing of all. To know the Scripture but not the God of them is to miss the most elemental point about them, which is to turn to Jesus, confess our sins, and be saved. The veil and the hardened minds are due to our refusal to honestly appraise ourselves in light of the holy and eternal God who we have offended in sin. If we are saved it’s through a humble and contrite heart that cries out in its moral poverty for the Savior. Hardened minds will incessantly see the sins of others, yet never their own. Sure, they admit they aren’t perfect, but that’s a deflection. The truth is that we’re dead in sin and only the miracle of being born again by the Spirit will save us.
For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:14-15)
We learn in Romans 10 that the Jews have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God they seek to establish their own. What a perfect description of legalism…and of missing the point of the law in the first place. Any honest self-evaluation of the commandments should send us to the cross in great tears. Only the pure in heart will see God! And how can our hearts, dead in sin, stone cold, be made alive but through that miracle of rebirth?
Wretched man that I am…who will deliver me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
For Christ is the end of the law for everyone who believes!
“But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed”. (2 Corinthians 3:16)
For everyone who confesses with their mouth and believes in their heart will be saved. Saved from wrath…and saved to Him, brought to Him for a real relationship that will transform us one step at a time in beautiful harmony with and through His word. Salvation isn’t to “clean up our act” though living in the Spirit certainly does make a man a more moral man. But it does it in the most unexpected way: through love and wisdom and awe of the righteousness of God. There will be tears of repentance on our journey, yes, but they will be wiped away as we are changed through the heart by the Spirit. The veil is gone – that veil that made us think of God’s righteousness and love, His justice and His grace, as separate things.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:17-18 ESV)
The gospel isn’t behavior modification; it’s heart renewal. The freedom we have in Christ is not, repeat not, an antinomian (lawless) freedom; it’s the liberty of love and gratitude. It’s the liberty of being “slaves” of righteousness in Christ rather than sin and Satan. In this way are we transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. Our minds are renewed and transformed as we gain deeper and deeper insight of the word of God, led by the Spirit who leads us to truth; and that truth is Christ.
A new life of understanding God’s word in light of Christ is ours! A “bold” life of prayer where we go to adore Him, thank Him, confess our sins, and petition Him for our needs and deepest desires, is our possession thanks to Christ. No man stands higher and more proud than he who kneels low in the dust before God in prayer and humbles himself there. Such a man knows the most important thing of all: God. And he knows the Scripture more and more, not tossed to and fro by earthly doctrines like a babe in the woods, because that veil of self-righteousness has been torn asunder and cast aside.
So, now we are free; whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. And we no longer walk according to the flesh, but in the Spirit and with transformed minds we assess every particular in our lives as sent by God to mold us into sons and daughters of the most High God.
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