G. Campbell Morgan was one of a hundred and fifty young men who sought entrance into the Wesleyan ministry in 1888. He had passed his written exam but faced the test of giving a trial sermon in front of a panel. When the results were released, Morgan’s name was among the hundred and five who were rejected.
He wired his father with one word, ‘Rejected.’ Then he sat down and wrote in his diary: ‘Very dark. Everything seems still. He knoweth best.’ The reply to the wire was quick to arrive. It read. ‘Rejected on earth, accepted in heaven. Dad.’
As G. Campbell Morgan went on to prove, rejection on earth is often of little consequence. As his father wisely recognized, rejection on earth is of no consequence in heaven.[i]
It is amazing to discover the people God choses. It is usually the people others pass over. That was certainly true for David. When Samuel came to anoint one of the sons of Jesse to become the next king, even his father didn’t bother to have David stand before the prophet. God generally chooses the weak and the nobodies of our world to manifest His grace, glory, and power.
The Lord called Moses despite his inarticulateness, then no one can claim the prophets’ excuses (Gideon’s military weakness, Isaiah’s sin, Jeremiah’s youth, or Ezekiel’s trepidation), or the weaknesses we may offer, as valid reasons to duck God’s respective call.[ii]
Scott Hafemann echoes that same sentiment: “Indeed, the call of Moses demonstrates that these very obstacles are an essential part of the call itself, illustrating clearly that God’s grace, not the prophet’s strength, is the source of his sufficiency.”[iii]
Paul is able to balance his negative declaration, ‘Not that we are sufficient in ourselves,’ with the positive counterpoint, ‘but our sufficiency is from God’ (v. 5). And Paul goes on to explain that his sufficiency comes from two things: 1) the sufficiency of the new covenant and 2) the sufficiency of the Spirit.[iv]
What we discover is that God’s transforming glory is expressed through human weakness so that people will come to understand that it is the power of God’s grace working through our lives that brings about God’s power and virtues.
Scott Hafemann explains the amazing grace of God’s covenant with us and our need to move from our self-sufficiency to totally dependency on God.
The contemporary significance of our passage revolves around one central, all-determining point: God is the source and supply of our lives, as demonstrated by his calling and equipping his people for service in a covenant relationship with him. The call of God takes place in Christ; the service takes place by means of the Spirit. This is true whether one is an apostle called to be a minister of the new covenant in the first century or a believer called to be faithful in service to others in the twenty-first. Though inherently offensive to the self-reliance and self-glorification that are so much a part of modern culture (and every culture since the Fall), Paul’s stark reminder is that we cannot claim anything as coming from ourselves (cf. Rom. 11:36; Eph. 2:8–10). All things come from God (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6; 2 Cor. 1:21). Nothing we have is earned; everything is a gift (1 Cor. 4:7).
We are not, as it were, God’s junior partners, who are called to make our contributions to his plans. There is no synergism in the covenant in which God contributes his part and we do ours in order to accomplish something together that is greater than either of us. God is not looking for help. Rather, Paul’s emphasis on the priority of the cross in salvation and on the work of the Spirit in justification and sanctification makes it evident that the initiative, inauguration, and sustenance of the new covenant, like the Sinai covenant before it, is due solely to the unilateral and merciful work of God on behalf of his people.[v]
So, what should our response be? How can we experience and then manifest God’s glory and grace to others? How should we handle those who reject us and often criticize our lives as was happening to the apostle Paul by some in Corinth, especially those who were trying to take advantage of the Corinthians? Paul responds by explaining the nature of the gospel and God’s transforming glory. We find it expressed in two ways.
THE FIRST WAY GOD’S TRANSFORMING GLORY IS EXPRESSED IS THROUGH PEOPLE
God does the work in us, then as we yield and obey, He works His glory and presence though us. He works from the inside out. Paul begins by using this as an argument for the credibility of his ministry among them. He is answering his critics.
A. In his defense of his ministry.
Paul doesn’t appeal to letters of recommendation but to the actual people who were saved through his ministry, which validated not only his ministry but their very salvation. What happened to them was the work of the Holy Spirit.
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.[vi]
Linda Belleville explains Paul’s defense of his ministry to the Corinthians in not having letters of recommendation, such as the trouble-making preachers that came distorting the gospel message. They came with letters of recommendation from others.
Paul’s approach to these intruders is quite insightful. While he does not condemn their use of such letters, he does point out to the church that the reason he and his coworkers had not brought any letters to Corinth was because they had come as church planters, ready to begin a new evangelistic work. So it is the church formed as a result of their labors (you yourselves), not a letter written with ink (v. 3), that serves as their letter of reference.[vii]
The superiorities of these living, breathing letters are explicit and implicit in Paul’s description. They are incontrovertible evidence of the power of the gospel and the fruit of ministry. Written letters may easily mislead, but living letters will reveal the truth. Living heart letters are also more intimate.[viii]
What Paul is about to explain is that God’s glory is expressed through the lives of His people. As we walk with God and allow the Holy Spirit to rule and reign in our lives, we are being transformed from the inside out.
B. Paul also points out that he is not the author of this letter.
Notice that he states, you are a letter from “Christ which is the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God… (vs. 3).”
Having done this, Paul took care to make sure that the Corinthians understood that he was not the author of the letter: ‘And you show that you are a letter from Christ’ (v. 3a). A letter of recommendation must always come from a third party, and the ultimate third-party recommender is Christ, the Messiah himself. By claiming Messiah as the author, Paul was able to claim higher authority for his credentials than his enemies could claim for theirs.[ix]
C. The letter was written, not on stone tablets but on human hearts.
God is communicating to our world through our lives. What message are we sending to our families, our neighbors, and those we encounter? One of the obstacles for many people to come to faith is the lives of professing Christians who are living a sin-dominated life. Paul now begins to describe the difference between the tablets of stone which is a reference to God’s law given to Moses and the promise in Ezekiel and Jeremiah of a new covenant that will be written on ‘hearts of flesh.’
Linda Belleville explains the difference between the two.
What is qualitatively better about the new covenant is that it is not a letter covenant—that is, an external code—but a Spirit covenant—that is, an internal power. A covenant that is letter in nature it kills because it makes external demands without giving the inward power for obedience, while a covenant that is Spirit in character gives life because it works internally to produce a change of nature. Paul describes this change of nature elsewhere as a ‘new self” created ‘to be like God in true righteousness and holiness’ (Eph 4:24).[x]
Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?[xi]
Paul is about to contrast the two approaches and explain the superiority of the new covenant.
THE SECOND WAY GOD’S TRANSFORMING GLORY IS EXPRESSED IS THROUGH THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
God mediates His work through the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of His people. Paul will explain that God’s law is good, but the issue is that we are incapable to fulfilling the law because of human sinfulness. We need the empower work of God’s Spirit in our lives to enable us to obey. “He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6).”
What does Paul mean when he says the letter kills but the Spirit gives life?
For this reason, Paul is careful in 3:6 not to establish a contrast between the law itself and the Spirit. Nor is the Spirit to be read as a code-word for the gospel, so that the letter/Spirit contrast is transformed into a law/gospel contrast. The problem with the Sinai covenant was not with the law itself, but, as Ezekiel and Jeremiah testify, with the people whose hearts remained hardened under it. The law remains for Paul, as it did for the Jewish traditions of his day, the holy, just, and good expression of God’s covenantal will (Rom. 7:12). Indeed, Paul characterizes the law itself as ‘spiritual’ (7:14). As the expression of God’s abiding will, it is not the law per se that kills, or any aspect or perversion of it, but the law without the Spirit, that is, the law as ‘letter.’ Devoid of God’s Spirit, the law remains to those who encounter it merely a rejected declaration of God’s saving purposes and promises, including its corresponding calls for repentance and the obedience of faith. Although the law declares God’s will, it is powerless to enable people to keep it. Only the Spirit ‘gives life’ by changing the human heart. In this regard, Paul can say that the gospel too kills when it encounters those who are perishing (cf. 2:16)![xii]
What Scott Hafemann is saying is that the problem is the human heart, not the message of God. When our hearts are open and responsive and we act upon the message transformation is possible because God’s Spirit is there to help us obey. Paul goes on to contrast the two covenants. One of the elements that makes the New Covenant greater, obviously, we know that the sacrifice of Jesus is at the heart of it, but it is the work of the Holy Spirit applying that work that makes it more glorious.
Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?[xiii]
Paul is reminding us here of the need for the New Covenant because the glory of the Old Covenant, as reflected in the fading glory on the face of Moses, called for something that would endure. This new more glorious covenant was prophesied by Jeremiah.
‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord. ‘This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, “Know the Lord” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the Lord. ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’[xiv]
This is the work of the Holy Spirit writing God’s law upon our minds and hearts.
If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts! Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.[xv]
What is Paul explaining to the Corinthians and to us in this portion? Simply that this ministry of the gospel and the empowerment of the Spirit help us both desire and to do what is right.
Scott Hafemann elaborates:
From Paul’s perspective, given God’s justifying and sanctifying work in the lives of his people as guaranteed and brought about by the presence and power of the Spirit, there is no excuse for habitually failing to trust God’s gracious provisions and promises in Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 1:20; 5:7; 6:11, 19–20; 10:13; 13:1–3; 2 Cor. 1:22). Faith that trusts God to meet one’s needs invariably ‘expresses itself through love’ as the fulfillment of the law (Gal. 5:6, 14; cf. Rom. 13:10).
God commands his people not to steal because he has committed himself to meet their needs. To steal is to disbelieve God’s promise in this regard. God commands his people not to covet because he has already promised to satisfy their deepest longings, ultimately in himself (note Paul’s equation of idolatry with covetousness in Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5). To say, ‘All I need to be happy is Jesus and something my neighbor has’ is to commit idolatry by failing to trust God’s covenant commitment that he will be enough for us. Idolatry is looking to something or someone other than God as the source of our happiness and contentment for the future.[xvi]
Now we come to the heart of the issue, the glory of God both in judging sin and transforming human hearts. This is a passage that seemed to imply that Moses was veiling himself to keep the Israelites from seeing the diminishing glory. Paul now explains why the Jewish people have, for the most part, not responded to the gospel that he had been proclaiming. He uses the illustration of Moses’ veil as keeping them from seeing the glory of God that transforms the human heart by the Spirit.
We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ has it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.[xvii]
The best explanation of this text that I’ve encountered comes from Scott Hafeman as he describes the meaning of what transpired with the idolatry of the golden calf.
Moses’ breaking the tablets of the law in response to Israel’s sin with the golden calf demonstrated that the Sinai covenant was broken from the beginning (cf. Ex. 32:7–9, 19). Although Israel had been rescued from slavery, her idolatry revealed that her ‘neck’ remained ‘stiff,’ enslaved to sin (32:9; 34:9; cf. Deut. 29:1–4).
This leads to the pressing theological problem of the passage: How can God’s glory continue to dwell in the midst of Israel without destroying her? Initially, God’s glory was forced to dwell outside the camp in the ‘tent of meeting,’ lest God’s presence destroy the people (cf. Ex. 33:7–11). Only Moses, as part of the faithful ‘remnant,’ could approach the presence of God. Moses is not happy with such a solution, however. He recognizes that God’s presence in Israel’s midst is the only thing that distinguishes Israel from the nations around her (33:16). So Moses has no desire to enter the Promised Land without the God of the promise in their midst.
Yet Moses also knows that God cannot dwell in the midst of a stiff-necked people. In his final petition, Moses consequently pleads that he himself, as the mediator of the covenant, might experience God’s glory as the solution to Israel’s dilemma (33:18–23). Because Moses has found favor (grace) before him, Yahweh grants Moses’ startling request. In the end, therefore, Moses becomes the answer to his own prayers and the covenant is restored (34:1–10). Moses receives the law a second time and, with the glory of God beaming on his face, mediates God’s presence to his people (34:11–35).
Moses’ veiled mediation of God’s glory permits his presence to remain in Israel’s midst without destroying her. In this regard, Moses’ veiling himself is an act of mercy. At the same time, the very fact that Moses must veil his face is an act of judgment because of the hardness of Israel’s heart. This veil not only preserves Israel from being destroyed; it also keeps her from being transformed.[xviii]
This is the very reason we need Christ in our lives; for as we repent and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit comes into our lives to bring about real transformation. It is only as we, like Moses, gaze at God. It is the Spirit of the Living God that liberates us from our sin.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.[xix]
It is only as we come into God’s presence like Moses, who removed the veil, that we truly experience God’s transforming presence. Paul is referring to a text in Exodus.
When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord.[xx]
Scott Hafemann explains the significance of this freed from sin and power to obey God’s word and see transformation in our lives.
In other words, by the power of the Spirit we are experiencing in a progressive sense more and more of this freedom to obey God, and as a result we are being changed into God’s own image by becoming obedient to his will. To be in the image of God is to manifest his ‘likeness’ by acting in accordance with his commands as an expression of God’s own nature.[xxi]
David Garland explains the exciting aspect of beholding God’s glory and being changed into the likeness we are seeing, namely becoming like God.
Paul asserts that all Christians can, like Moses, approach the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces and experience the same transformation. The emphatic ‘we all’ refers to the experience of all Christians, not just that of apostles or Christian ministers, because Paul is not simply contrasting himself with Moses. It is ‘we’ as opposed to the unbelieving Jews. In contrast to the Israelites who have a veil shrouding their hearts (3:15), Christians have the veil taken away (3:16). Christians are ‘able to bear the bold, direct revelation of God’s glory’ because the state of their heart has been changed.
It is also ‘all’ in contrast to the one, Moses. All Christians may approach the Lord as Moses did when he went up Mount Sinai into the presence of the Lord. The results are similar. Beholding with an unveiled face the glory of the Lord causes us to be transformed into the same image. We can never encounter God and remain unchanged. Beholding this glory effects our transformation as we are changed into a veritable likeness of him.[xxii]
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[i] Micael Green, Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989), 300.
[ii] Kent Hughes, 2 Corinthians: Power in Weakness, (Crossway Books, 2006), 69.
[iii] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, (Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 127.
[iv] Kent Hughes, 2 Corinthians: Power in Weakness,69-70.
[v] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 136-37.
[vi] 2 Corinthians 3:1-3, The New International Version of the Bible, Zondervan, 2011.
[vii] Linda Belleville, 2 Corinthians, TheIVP New Testament Commentary Series, Vol. 8, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 2 Cor. 3:1-3.
[viii] Kent Hughes, 2 Corinthians: Power in Weakness, 62.
[ix] Kent Hughes, 2 Corinthians: Power in Weakness, 63.
[x] Linda Belleville, 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 3:4-6.
[xi] 2 Corinthians 3:4-7.
[xii] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 132.
[xiii] 2 Corinthians 3:7-8.
[xiv] Jeremiah 31:31-34.
[xv] 2 Corinthians 3:9-12.
[xvi] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 137-38.
[xvii] 2 Corinthians 3:13-16.
[xviii] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 142-44.
[xix] 2 Corinthians 3:17-18.
[xx] Exodus 34:33-35.
[xxi] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 161.
[xxii] David Garland, 2 Corinthians, The New American Commentary, Vol. 29, (Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1999), 198-200.
