May
19
God’s Old Covenant and His New Covenant
Filed Under freedom from sin, new covenant, Obedience, old covenant
LIFE AND LIVING
THE OLD COVENANT AND THE NEW COVENANT
Introduction
Moses informed the children of Israel who had escaped from slavery in Egypt, and had subsequently wandered almost forty years in the wilderness, that “. . . man does not live by bread alone but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3). Then, obviously, man must be capable of hearing everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord in order to live.
Near the end of his address, Moses told that same audience: “Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear” (Deut. 29:4). Now Moses was not giving this information to a band of handicapped Jews who were mentally challenged, blind, and deaf! Therefore, Moses had to be talking about comprehending, seeing, and hearing things spiritual and not physical.
So how could a man live if he were spiritually unable to hear everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord?
The answer to this question is the sum and substance of the following essay.
Man’s Spiritual State as Summarized by the Apostle Paul
Centuries after Moses’ revelations to those Jews about to enter the land, the apostle Paul summarized man’s spiritual state from Adam to Moses in his letter to the saints in Rome. To wit: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and (physical) death through sin, and so it (sin) spread to all men, on the basis of which all sin” (Rom. 5:12, author’s translation).
Paul went on to write, “For until the Law sin was in the world, but a sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless (spiritual) death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s offence . . . (Rom. 12:13-14).
The following conclusions may be drawn from Paul’s statements:
- Sin is an evil, venom-like substance that was contained in the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden’s garden.
- Adam died spiritually from disobeying God’s command not to eat the fruit. Spiritual death is separation of man’s spirit from God.
- Upon eating, sin permanently infected every cell in Adam’s body.
- Sin caused Adam’s physical death. Physical death is separation of man’s spirit from his body.
- Sin is transmitted through Adam’s seed to all men (mankind). Jesus was an exception because He was born from the woman’s seed that was the sole bodily entity uninfected by sin (see Custance, Arthur C. The Seed of the Woman. Brockville, ON, Can.: Doorway Publications, 1980, 211-232).
- Sin effectively causes all men (mankind) to commit an act of sin (cf. Gen. 6:5). An act of sin likely begins with the thought, “I will . . .” in matters pertaining to God (cf. Isa. 14:13-14 for Satan’s five ‘I wills’).
- An act of sin always causes spiritual death and enslavement to sin (cf. John 8:34 for the enslavement issue).
- Before the Law of Moses, God did not post an act of disobedience to His Law to a man’s account.
- Nevertheless, an act of sin always caused spiritual death for all men (mankind), even if the particular act did not violate a specific command from God’s Law.
Application of Paul’s Summary to Moses’ Addressees
Because every one of the Jews about to enter the land had sinned (except for their little ones—Deut. 1:39), almost all were both spiritually dead and therefore enslaved to sin (cf. Lev. 26:41 where an uncircumcised heart suggests spiritual death).
However, the Lord had given a few adult Jews a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear sometime after their respective spiritual deaths. Based on his own spiritual diagnosis of that Israelite generation, Moses was one example of a Jew with spiritual life; and Caleb was another (cf. Num. 14:24). Most likely other Jews had been spiritually awakened by God—like Joshua—but the majority remained unbelieving, blind, and deaf (cf. Rom. 10:10 for the relationship between the human heart and belief).
Implications of Moses’ Diagnosis
Let’s return to Moses’ spiritual diagnosis of the Jewish generation about to enter the land (Deut. 29:4). The majority was spiritually dead and enslaved to sin. But great hope remained for their spiritual futures. And that hope stemmed from one phrase from the Lord through Moses’ address—keeping in mind that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.
The phrase was: “Yet to this day . . .” Captured in this simple phrase was the hope that for some Jews, their spiritual condition was neither permanent nor irreversible. The phrase implied that a future day might come during their respective lifetimes when God would indeed give a heart to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear.
One other fact is quite significant. It was God—and only God—who could nullify a Jew’s spiritual death. Or, in other words, spiritual revival for any Jew in Moses’ audience was completely independent of whatever they had done, or would do.
God’s Covenant with Moses Contrasted with the New Covenant
Believing Jews in the first-century church were reminded of two facts: one, the members of Jesus’ church were recipients of God’s New Covenant; and two, the New Covenant contained better promises than God’s Old Covenant with Moses (Heb. 8:1-13).
Forgiveness of Jewish sins was initially and provisionally offered under God’s Covenant with Moses via animal sacrifices prepared by an exclusively male priesthood (Num. 3:6-7, 10, 15) on behalf of an almost exclusive ethnic minority (Deut. 7:7) at specific worship locations (e.g., Jerusalem). But the New Covenant provided retroactive and efficacious forgiveness through Jesus’ death on the cross, and His resurrection from the tomb, for all saints—past and future (cf. 1 Cor. 15:17 for the importance of Jesus’ resurrection).
Furthermore, under the New Covenant, both genders and all ethnic groups located throughout the world enjoy equal spiritual status with God (cf. 1 Pet. 2:5 for a non-gender-specific priesthood; cf. Col. 3:11 for an inclusive spiritual status; cf. John 4:23 for the switch to non-specific worship locations).
However, until Christ’s post-resurrection ministry, physically dead Jewish saints remained in Abraham’s bosom until Christ could transfer them to heaven (cf. Luke 16:-31 for saints in Abraham’s bosom, and Eph. 4:8-10, plus Heb. 12:22-24, for transference to heaven of both Jewish and gentile saints whose spirits had been “made perfect”).
In contrast to the Old Covenant, both Jewish and gentile saints under the New Covenant reside in heaven either spiritually before physical death, or in an immortal state after physical death (cf. Phil. 3:20 for heavenly citizenship of saints).
A critical point: freedom from slavery to sin was not promised by God through His covenant with Moses. Also, God’s Holy-Spirit power was not given to those under the Old Covenant on a permanent basis (cf. John 14:16 for the New Covenant promise of the Spirit’s permanency).
But God’s New Covenant promises do provide freedom from slavery to sin, and for a perfect obedience from believers’ bodies infested with sin. God promised that He would cause (not enable) perfect obedience to His statutes and ordinances. Revelation of the mechanism for God’s causation of obedience awaited Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, and gift of Holy Spirit on the Pentecost soon after the ascension.
Those promises were recorded by God’s prophet Ezekiel in chapter 36, verses 25-27.
Freedom from slavery to sin, and Christ’s perfect obedience manifested through any believer who has acknowledged Christ as Lord of his/her life, are both empowered by the permanent abiding of the Holy Spirit within the believer.
In addition, intimate, personal, and routine fellowship with the Father—and with His Son Jesus Christ—was established under the New Covenant (1 John 1:3). Perhaps this fellowship was somewhat like that which Adam enjoyed before he sinned. Under the Old Covenant, personal fellowship with God alone was restricted to Moses, and once a year, to Aaron functioning as high priest.
Finally, under the New Covenant, prayer to God would be offered in Jesus’ name (John 14:13-14; 15:7, 16; 16:23-23, 26).
Conclusion
Spiritual ignorance, blindness, and deafness results from spiritual death experienced by all humans because each commit an act of sin separating their respective spirits from God.
The Old Covenant that the Lord made with the children of Israel through Moses supplied some partial and temporary solutions to the lethal and universal spiritual debacle of human sins caused by sin inherited from Adam. However, under the New Covenant that Jesus inaugurated, the restored spiritual state of some humans has been finally and perfectly instituted by God. The result: God’s ingenious and sovereignly enacted plan results in salvation from hell for sins committed, as well as for freedom from slavery to sin.
Please note: throughout this essay, all those receiving God’s New Covenant promises have been often referred to as believers. As this epithet indicates, the lone characteristic of believers is that they believe. This means that the righteous live by faith alone in God’s promises—and not by obedience the obedience of oneself. Under the New Covenant, the obedience is that of the Son’s obeying the Father’s commandments as the Son abides in the believer by the Spirit’s power through the believer’s faith.
Introduction
Early in His earthly ministry, Jesus taught His disciples a prayer at their request. Throughout Christendom, the prayer that Jesus taught has become popularly known as, “The Lord’s Prayer” (Matt. 6:9-13). Notice this was a prayer, implying that Jesus’ disciples acknowledged their daily need and dependence upon supernatural intervention in their personal lives.
Although the exact word obedience does not appear in this prayer, obedience is strongly suggested by a specific line in the prayer to our Father: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” So how exactly is God’s will done in heaven? Here are seven possible heavenly characteristics in doing God’s will:
- knowledgeably,
- timely,
- exclusively,
- exhaustively,
- without debate,
- wholeheartedly (providing that angels have hearts), and
- by the appropriate agency.
If these seven characteristics are accurate, then doing God’s will—or, obedience—on earth should reflect all five in order to accord with heavenly practices. Biblical history shows that man’s obedience—except for that of Jesus—sometimes lacks one or more of these characteristics.
This essay will focus on the seventh characteristic.
Obedience
Here are two statements related to doing God’s will on earth, or to a believer’s obedience:
- God must be obeyed.
- I must obey God.
The astonishing and counter-intuitive spiritual reality is that endorsing the second of these two statements leads to spiritual suicide by sin.
For example, shortly after his being born again, the apostle Paul chose to obey God’s commandment not to covet. He discovered that obeying God’s commandment resulted in his death from sin (Rom. 7:7-25).
The death Paul experienced was a separation from fellowship with God and Christ. In a letter to local churches, Paul later described this death as severance from Christ and a fall from grace (cf. Gal. 5:4).
Agency and Conclusion
All believers would agree—correctly—that God must be obeyed. And this agreement leads to the question: “Who, then, is the appropriate agent to carry out perfect obedience to God?” The only possible answer is Christ abiding spiritually in the believer as Lord (cf. John 15:1-8).
The apostle Paul confirmed Christ’s agency in 2 Cor. 4:10-11. The spiritual reality of Christ as God’s agent of obedience on earth is made operational simply through a believer’s faith, and by the power of the Spirit.
Introduction
In his thoroughly documented book, Dr. Joseph Dillow makes this surprising (but biblically accurate) observation. Two separate and distinct inheritances await church saints. The first inheritance is for all saints; they are heirs of God (Gal. 4:7).
However, the second inheritance is co-heirship with Christ for those saints who “. . . share in His sufferings” (Dillow, Joseph C. The Reign of the Servant Kings. Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing, 1992, 373-379).
Dr. Dillow’s fine study raises the daunting question, “What exactly comprises the sufferings of Christ?” The following essay will elaborate Christ’s sufferings.
Christ’s Sufferings
It is helpful to discover at what point Christ’s sufferings actually began. From Christ’s own revealing comment at His last Passover meal, we discover His sufferings began after that Passover. “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer (emphasis mine) . . .” (Luke 22:15). So His sufferings took place within a twenty-four-hour period ending with His death on the cross.
Gethsemane
Christ’s voluntary death on the cross posed a problem (cf. John 10:17-18 for the fact that His death was voluntary). Since He was born of a virgin, He had not received sin genetically from Joseph, His adoptive father (cf. Rom. 5:12, author’s translation: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so it (sin) spread to all men, on the basis of which all sin.”). So Christ could not die voluntarily.
Perhaps an explanation of what occurred with Adam when he ate the forbidden fruit might prove helpful (i.e., Rom.5:12). When Adam ate the fruit, he died spiritually from this act of sin. That death separated him from God.
Furthermore, the fruit itself introduced the venomous sin into Adam’s body so that he would eventually die physically, that is, the future separation of his spirit from his body.
Sin infected every cell of Adam’s body thereby effectively influencing Adam’s mind and emotions. Also, sin became an integral part of Adam’s reproductive system so that sin was passed on to all Adam’s progeny—with one exception, Jesus. Since Jesus was born of the woman’s seed alone (which had not been infected with sin), He was incapable of voluntary physical death.
For a thorough discussion on the woman’s seed, see Custance, Arthur C. The Seed of the Woman. Brockville: Ontario, 1980, 210-227.
The apostle Paul related God’s solution to His Son’s voluntary death problem. God made Christ sin (2 Cor. 5:21).
This sin was not an act of sin, but rather the agent whose venomous sting produces death (1 Cor. 15:56). The manifestation of God’s marvelous solution likely took place in Gethsemane immediately after Christ’s last Passover meal (Krummacher, F. W. the Suffering Servant. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1977 reprint, 115-125).
Possibly sin entered Christ via the last cup at the Passover meal when He declared the cup to be the inauguration of God’s new covenant in His own blood (Luke 22:20). If so, sin began to influence Christ’s thinking and feelings as He and His disciples headed for Gethsemane just prior to His betrayal and arrest.
Evidence of sin’s presence in Christ may be deduced from the following:
- Christ had never before asked His disciples to pray with Him in spiritual matters.
- Christ seemed uncertain and confused, probably because He had never experienced sin’s activity in His body.
- He requested the Father to remove this cup from Him—a cup He had been preparing for during much of His earthly ministry.
- He prayed the same prayer three times, suggesting He had become uncertain about communication with His Father. Uncertainty is one of sin’s tools to disrupt communication and fellowship with God.
- He warned His disciples about temptation, implying that He himself may have been experiencing the temptation from sin to avoid the cup.
- An angel was sent to Him from God (Luke 22:43). Angels are messengers, so the angel might have been sent by God to clear up any uncertainty and confusion Christ was experiencing from deceptive sin at work in His mind and feelings.
During Christ’s sufferings at Gethsemane, Luke reported the following: “And being in agony (emphasis mine) . . . His sweat became like drops of blood (emphasis mine) . . .” (Luke 22:44).
The writer to the Hebrews probably had Christ’s Gethsemane experience in mind when he made this observation about first-century Jewish saints: “You have not yet resisted until blood (emphasis mine) in your striving against sin” (Heb.12:4). Therefore, it’s apparent that God made Christ sin, in or before, the garden at Gethsemane.
Prompted by sin, Christ had made the unprecedented and thrice-repeated plea that His Father remove the cup of suffering caused by this never-before-experienced pressure from sin (Matt. 26:39-44; Luke 22:42). This plea came from a man who had never spoken previously on His own initiative, but only as the Father had commanded Him (John 12:49).
In spite of this horrendously uncomfortable encounter with sin, Christ did not commit an act of sin, choosing instead to embrace the Father’s will in this matter (Luke 22:42; cf. 1 Pet. 2:21 for testimony that Christ did not commit a sin).
And remember, Christ had within Himself the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt.12:28).
Therefore, for about twenty-four hours, Christ was sorely tempted by sin while the Holy Spirit was abiding in Him. And this is precisely the condition of every believer—from the rebirth until physical death. To experience sin’s presence and its deceptive temptations is to enter into Christ’s sufferings.
The Cross
While on the cross, all the sinful acts of all those who were or will be called of God were placed on Christ. The Son’s response was, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). Being forsaken by God—that is, ruptured fellowship—is always the result of acts of sin. And loss of fellowship with His Father was precisely what Christ suffered on the cross.
Believers also experience this type of broken fellowship throughout life thereby entering this aspect of Christ’s sufferings. However, all that is necessary to mend the broken fellowship is simple confession of sins to God (1 John 1:3, 9).
Conclusion
To become a co-heir with Christ, a believer has to share in the sufferings of Christ (Rom. 8:17). From Christ’s experience at Gethsemane, one discovers that part of His sufferings—sufferings in which the believer shares—is the spiritual battle against sin. That battle is won daily through prayer by asking (in belief) that the Spirit put to death sin’s practices (cf. Rom. 8:13).
The other suffering Christ experienced on the cross was estrangement from fellowship with God due to bearing the acts of sin by believers in all ages. The believer shares in this insufferable estrangement experience whenever he sins. The remedy for restoration of fellowship is simple confession of the act to God.
Sharing these two sufferings of Christ means one will be a co-heir with Christ in His coming kingdom.
Questions
Have you ever wondered if Job had any insurance policies for his house, health, family, sheep, camels, oxen, donkeys, and workforce? If he did, how big were the policies? And who issued those policies?
Answers
Hint: the policies payed double on everything Job had lost!
John 13-17
Introduction
Jesus taught three groups of people at three different times during His earthly ministry. Early in His public ministry, He taught the first group about kingdom matters. The group consisted of Jewish multitudes; His discourse has become known as The Sermon on the Mount.
The second group consisted of four of His disciples. His teaching took place after He had ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey—just days before His infamous betrayal. The subject matter was about prophetical matters in what is now called The Olivet Discourse.
His final discourse was taught exclusively to all His disciples on the night He was betrayed in an upper room while celebrating His last Passover. Jesus’ teaching content covered a number of topics, including the inauguration of the New Covenant. Much of this extraordinary content was recorded by the apostle John and is currently referred to as Jesus’ Upper Room Discourse.
This essay addresses some of the material reported by the apostle John in his Gospel, Chapters 13-17, with special emphasis on Jesus’ new commandment (John 13:34). A summary-outline for Chapters 13-17 follows:
- Jesus washed His disciples’ feet signifying all but Judas were forgiven their sins.
- Judas departed the Passover meal to complete his betrayal of Jesus.
- Jesus gave the remaining disciples a new commandment.
- Jesus taught about what was new in the new commandment.
- Jesus revealed His disciples would do greater miracles than He had done, assured His disciples of answered prayer, and promised the gift of the Spirit.
- Jesus taught the vine-branch metaphor to describe the God-designed mechanism intended for keeping the new commandment.
- Jesus prayed to His Father.
The New Commandment
The history and proceedings of a Jewish Passover meal are aptly described by Kevin Howard (Howard, K. L., and Rosenthal, M. J. The Feasts of the Lord. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997, 49-73).
One thing we discover from Howard’s pertinent description is that Jesus would not have used a teleprompter with a scripted message during His last Passover meal. Rather, the meal featured various questions posed randomly from His disciples. So the discourse in the upper room was not tailored like a theological treatise. In short, the topic of conversation jumped around so any interpreter ought to be wary of forcing the discourse content into some predetermined order.
The new commandment: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another” (John 13:34; all scripture quotations are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible). Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003).
The first thing that probably jumped into the disciples’ minds was, “so, what’s new?” The commandment to love one another dated back centuries to the time of Moses (Lev. 19:18), “so what’s new?”
Moreover, each disciple likely had listened throughout the year to the public reading of Moses on the Sabbath so they had heard the commandment countless times during their respective lives—“so, what’s new?”
Furthermore, Jesus had answered one wickedly inquiring mind about which is the great commandment in the Law by, ‘love God’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself’—adding the whole Law and Prophets depend on these two commandments (Matt. 22:34-40). “So, what’s new!?”
What’s New
To compound this ‘what’s new’ matter for twenty-first century Christians, the apostle Paul wrote, “For the entire law is fulfilled in one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself” (Gal. 5:14). In fact, one may begin to recognize just how pertinent ‘love’ is from a recent Google search of the word—8.4 trillion hits! So the question here of, “What’s new?” becomes immediately pertinent for the entire church.
The answer was provided by Jesus in the upper room: “Just as I have loved you (emphasis mine), you must also (emphasis mine) love one another” (John 13:34). Notice that Jesus did not say that He presently loved His disciples, nor did He suggest that He would love His disciples in the future. Of course, both these facts were true. However, Jesus was specifically calling His disciples’ attention to the period encompassing His public ministry by saying, “Just as I have loved you.”
Two specific examples of how Jesus had loved His disciples were: one, preserving their lives (Mark 4:35-41); and two, abundantly meeting their nutritional needs (John 6:4-13).
However, Jesus’ explanation of how He had loved His disciples was interrupted by ‘unscripted’ questions from Peter and Thomas, as well as a request from Philip.
Jesus answered the impulsive questions. Then, He used Philip’s request in order to return to the explanation of how He had loved His disciples.
Philip’s request was that Jesus show them the Father (John 14:8). We do not know what Philip had in mind. Perhaps he was asking Jesus for a vision. Or, perhaps he wanted a repeat of what had taken place with Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus’ face shone like the sun (Matt. 17:1-2). But remember, the privileged three had been commanded to silence about what they had seen until after Jesus’ resurrection (Matt. 17:9).
In any case, Jesus answered Philip with a truly astounding statement: “The one who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Next, Jesus revealed the basis for such a statement: “. . . I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me.”
Finally, Jesus explained how He could make this amazing assertion: “The words I speak to you I do not speak on My own. The Father who lives in Me does His works” (John 14:10).
In other words, one who heard Jesus’ words and saw Jesus’ works had, in fact, heard and seen the Father because Jesus had said or done nothing on His own initiative (cf. Matt. 12:28 and Acts 2:22).
Therefore, Jesus had achieved the goal of loving His disciples through the mechanism of the Father speaking and acting in Him. And this mechanism was part of what He meant by what was “new” in the new commandment. To wit: “Just as I have loved you, you must also (emphasis mine) love one another.”
Maybe an illustration from the world of football might help in understanding. Following a touchdown, the scoring team has the chance to add one point to their score. The point is awarded by the place-kicker successfully kicking the ball through the uprights of the goalpost positioned in the end zone.
The back judge and the side judge are positioned respectively under each upright of the goalpost to be sure the kicked ball stays squarely between the goalpost’s uprights. If this happens, the team is awarded one point—the goal of the kick.
But if the kicker throws the ball between the uprights—instead of kicking it—no point is awarded because the wrong mechanism was used in getting the ball between the uprights. Both the ball traveling squarely through the goalpost’s uprights, and the mechanism of getting it there, must conform to the rules. It is the same with “loving one another.” The goal is to love one another, but must be combined with the correct mechanism of loving according to God’s rules.
Back to the discourse: in addition, through the vine-branch metaphor (John 15:1-12), Jesus gave further details about the “new” commandment. The supplemental information made it clear to His disciples that it would be Jesus, Himself (rather than the Father), abiding in them, speaking and doing His Father’s words and works as His disciples abide in Jesus (rather than in the Father).
Jesus made three promises to His disciples. One, the disciples would do greater miracles than Jesus had done (John 14:12; cf. Gal. 3:5 for fulfillment of this promise where “among you” should read “in you”). Two, the disciples’ prayers would be answered (John 14:15). Of course, the content of those prayers most likely related to loving one another. And three, Jesus would request the Father to give the Spirit of truth to dwell in the disciples (John 14:16-17; cf. Acts 2:4 for fulfillment of this promise). And the fruit of the Spirit is love (Gal. 5:22).
Here is a clarifying note about Jesus’ meaning of “greater miracles.” The disciples all had sin permanently resident in their bodies. Jesus did not have sin resident in His body during the period He loved them. So “the greater miracles” the disciples would do, under Jesus’ command and control as their Lord, would be to miraculously manifest God’s righteousness by the Spirit’s power through faith—from bodies permanently infested with sin. And, instead of only the three-plus years that Jesus had loved them, they would love one another throughout the several years of their remaining lives.
Remember, Jesus had taught His disciples that miracles resulted from faith (Matt. 21:21-22). And such faith derives its contents from Gods’ relevant promises.
Love
Before concluding, perhaps a definition of love is in order. In a general sense, love is using one’s assets to meet another’s need. Love requires both a giver and a receiver. Were a potential receiver be unwilling to receive, love cannot take place.
How, then, can one love God—what does God need? Simple: God needs a physical habitation in which to dwell. Jesus’ body was such a dwelling place (John 2:19).
At Pentecost following Jesus’ ascension, believers became the potential habitation for God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (cf. Eph. 3:19). For the believer, the implications of this reality are enormous.
Through a believer’s knowledge and words, God can give the gift of life to another who has been equipped by God to receive the gift. Dwelling in a believer, Jesus can give wisdom and knowledge to another (cf. Col. 2:3), and the Spirit can give love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).
Since all these come from the Godhead, they are miraculous and unhindered by the vessel’s limitations in whom the Godhead dwells—with one caveat. Without faith in the reality, the Father, Son, and Spirit choose to let the believer’s assets alone be the source of love.
Conclusion
During the final moments in the upper room, Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant using the elements from the Passover meal. The New Covenant had been clearly described in God’s promises to His prophet Ezekiel. “. . . I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean” (Ezek. 36:25). Jesus symbolically fulfilled God’s promise of cleanliness (except for Judas) when He washed His disciples feet in the upper room (John 13:5-10). The reality of forgiveness would await Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Back to Ezekiel: “. . . I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you (not enable you) to walk in My statutes and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezek. 36:26-27). The reality of this promise for freedom from slavery to sin by God’s Spirit was fulfilled at Pentecost, about five weeks after the upper room experience of Jesus’ disciples.
So, what’s new? The ascended Christ living spiritually in those forgiven, who also acknowledge Him as Lord, will manifest His perfectly obedient life of loving one another by the Spirit’s power through the faith of those in whom He dwells.
Epilog
Let’s revisit the football illustration, fashioning the illustration into a spiritual analogy. God becomes the owner of His spiritual team—perhaps named, ‘The Saints!’ Instead of a physical exam, each team member must pass a spiritual exam. The team owner offers a free gift to prospective team members—forgiveness of sins through Jesus—so that anyone who accepts the gift will successfully pass the spiritual exam and become a permanent team member for life.
The team’s goal—loving one another—will be judged by God. Only instead of the traditional human mechanism of kicking the ball through the goalpost’s uprights, God decrees that the kicker will throw the ball through the uprights in order to put points on His scoreboard.
The team is initially in an uproar for two reasons: one, only the kicker gets to score; and two, not everyone is able to throw the ball with the necessary accuracy and power.
The fans in the stadium, and watching on TV, reject totally God’s game changes. And the defensive unit of the opposing team has orders from Satan to knock the kicker out of the game.
Not to worry. God promises that every member on His team is a potential kicker. Furthermore, God puts Jesus in the kicker’s command and control center so the kicker’s impeccable choices and decision making skills come from Jesus through the kicker’s faith in his Resident. Also, God puts the Spirit within the kicker so ample power is available for getting the ball through the goalposts.
And Satan has been suspended by the league’s Commissioner.
Points on the scoreboard are registered by the scorekeeper (God) in gold, silver, and precious stones—items that have permanent existence and recognized value. However, some on God’s team elect not to throw the ball, but to resort to the old way: kicking the ball. Their points are registered in wood, hay, and straw—items that are transitory and with no value.
And, oh yes. God’s team wins the Superbowl!
At the outset, it is important to acknowledge that the content of what one believes does not ipso facto make that content true. To wit: because one believes a god exists does not validate God’s existence.
To learn about God and me, one must consult the only true and authoritative source that accurately addresses both subjects—the Bible. The Bible, together with belief in its Old and New Testament content, are both God’s gifts to man.
From the Bible alone, one learns that everyone—me included—has descended from Adam following his eating of the God-forbidden fruit. The fruit contained an evil venom-like substance known as sin that permanently infected every cell in Adam’s body, including his brain, senses, endocrine system, and genes.
Because Adam’s brain was infected by sin, his intellect and emotions became sin-controlled so that his reasoning and feelings were consistently influenced by evil.
Furthermore, Adam’s genetic material was disseminated to everyone with one exception—Jesus of Nazareth, whose male genetic material (absent sin) came directly from God. So everyone’s reasoning and feelings are always effectively influenced by evil. The results: at some point in everyone’s physical development, everyone commits an evil act thereby enslaving each person to sin.
In other words, sin becomes the slave master of each one’s command and control center.
Through one’s brain, senses, and endocrine system, the primary thought that sin implants in most everyone is, “I, myself, must do what God requires of me in order to please Him.”
However, from the Bible alone God has made it quite clear that He is pleased only when a person believes His unilateral promises to do what He, Himself, requires of a person. Of course, such an idea that God Himself does what He requires of man is counterintuitive to most humans because of having to reason or feel with their sin-influenced brains, senses, and endocrine systems.
To illustrate what has been written, consider Adam’s sin-influenced actions after eating the forbidden fruit. Adam felt shame because he was naked. So he fashioned himself a cover from fig leaves to assuage his feelings of nakedness. However, Adam’s actions of eating and dressing himself did not please God.
After Adam’s confession of his sinful act (blaming it on his wife), God took His own action. God took the initiative of filling the role of a hunter, butcher, tanner, tailor, and valet. He crafted a covering from animal skin, and then dressed Adam with a covering suitable to Himself.
Generations after Adam, God Himself took another initiative and sent from heaven His Son whose death, resurrection, and ascension provide the free gift of permanent and irreversible forgiveness for all the sins of each one who believes God’s promise to do so. Furthermore, by God’s promise, Christ and the Spirit provide freedom from slavery to sin so that Jesus’ perfectly obedient life can be manifested through each one who confesses Him as Lord of his life.
Man had nothing whatsoever to do with either of God’s unilateral and perfectly adequate initiatives illustrated by the lives of Adam and Jesus. Thus, it is God Himself who does what He requires of a person.
2 Corinthians 2:14-4:18
Introduction
According to the apostle Peter, Paul’s letters are difficult to understand, but they are scripture—that is, Paul’s letters are the very words of God (2 Pet. 3:16).
Because of some difficulty in understanding Paul’s letters, probably one of the least taught sections of the New Testament is 2 Cor. 2:14-4:18. Yet this extraordinary section of Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth unveils the essence of new-covenant living from the promises God made to His prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Jer. 31:33-34; Ezek. 36:25-27).
Some may argue that God promised this new covenant to a yet-future generation of Israel, and therefore, the new covenant has no relevance to today’s church. However, Paul reported in his first letter to the church at Corinth that the new covenant does indeed relate to the church through the introductory and symbolic meaning of the cup in the Lord’s Supper (cf. 1 Cor. 11:25; also 2 Cor. 3:6 for mention of Paul’s specific new-covenant ministry to the church). Furthermore, the writer of Hebrews made it abundantly clear that Jesus was the new-covenant mediator for those first-century Jews who were members of the church (cf. Heb. 8:6-13; 9:15; 12:22-24).
Since Jew and gentile alike are equally members of Jesus’ church (cf. Eph. 2:11-16), the new covenant applies to gentiles as well; thus, it was appropriate for Paul to teach about new-covenant living to all the Jewish and gentile believers in Corinth.
Some of the confusion about the new covenant’s relevance to the church may be resolved from the fact that the new covenant was also known as the “eternal covenant” (Heb. 13:20). The word “eternal” means the new covenant has no time component specific to any one of the ages because it functions outside of time, so forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ death was effectual for Noah, Job, Daniel, as well as Paul and Timothy.
However, what is “new” is that through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and the gift of the Spirit, freedom from slavery to sin is now available to all living Jews and gentiles called of God, from Pentecost when the Spirit was poured forth (Acts 2:17) until the end of the millennial kingdom. Obviously, all believers who had died physically prior to that Pentecost are now resident in heaven and have no need to be free from slavery to sin on earth.
Using the NASB, (New American Standard Bible. Anaheim, CA: Foundation Publications, 1960) this essay will offer in six parts an exposition of the Second Corinthians section cited above in an attempt to fill the void in the teaching curriculum of twenty-first-century local churches. Biblical vocabulary is used as much as possible so the reader can use a biblical concordance to locate and verify word meaning from context.
The six parts are:
- Christ at the core.
- Communication of the message.
- Contrast between the old and new covenants.
- Concerted opposition.
- Conduct keys for new-covenant living.
- Credit (i.e., honorable recognition) beyond all comparison.
Exposition of the Second Corinthians Section
1. In verses 2:14-16, the apostle Paul made it emphatically clear that Christ is at the core, and the exclusive essence, of new-covenant living.
2 Cor. 2:14
14. . . thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him (Christ) in every place.
The apostle Paul immediately acknowledged, with thanks . . . to God, that God alone is responsible for always leading us in His triumph in Christ. The plural pronoun us referred specifically to the believers Paul and Timothy (2 Cor. 1:1). A believer was any Jew or gentile who had accepted God’s free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus (cf. Rom. 6:23).
A clear inference is that God single-handedly took the perfectly effective and completely adequate initiative in His triumph in Christ. Thus, God’s triumphant initiative is always effective among those He leads, that is, those whom He calls and chooses.
God’s effective and adequate triumph in Christ was twofold. First, by God’s design and direction, Christ was responsible for providing forgiveness of sins to those called by God (even retroactively to those preceding Paul’s generation, Rom. 3:25; cf. Heb. 9:15). Belief in God’s promise of forgiveness brought new-covenant life, as well as fellowship restoration with the Father and Son after a believer sinned and confessed his sin (cf. 1 John 1:7, 9).
Second, by God’s design and direction, Christ was also responsible for securing and manifesting the believer’s freedom from slavery to sin (cf. Acts 13:39). Life free from slavery to sin is termed new-covenant living in this biblical essay which is grounded on exposition of the text. Note: a covenant is an autonomous agreement containing promises that God has unilaterally made with those whom He calls and chooses.
Paul’s great boldness (cf. 2 Cor. 3:12) in his assertion that God . . . manifests through us the sweet aroma . . . was probably Paul’s vocabulary adaptation from Exod. 29:18 wherein (under God’s old covenant) animal sacrifices had been offered by the sons of Israel on the altars before the tabernacle, and subsequently, the temple.
Instead of a sweet aroma, those sacrifices had been referred to as a “soothing aroma” to the Lord. The “soothing aroma” was likely intended to sooth the Lord’s wrath provoked by the offerer’s sins and sin. The reference to an aroma possibly highlighted the nature of those sacrifices as illustrating spiritual life and death (somewhat similar to Jesus using the wind’s sound to illustrate spiritual activity in John 3:8).
Note: in the Bible, the word “death” does not mean annihilation. “Death” simply means separation; the specific separation referred to may be determined from context. At least four kinds of death are mentioned in scripture:
- Physical death—separation of the human spirit from the body.
- Spiritual death—separation of the human spirit from God.
- A believer’s death by committing a sin—separation from fellowship with God and Christ.
- A believer’s death to sin—separation from sin’s control over a believer’s life.
Aroma is a metaphor for a believer’s new-covenant behavior—including words works, and attitude.
Paul switched the old covenant vocabulary of a “soothing aroma” to a sweet aroma. The switch in vocabulary to sweet aroma was probably intended to convey God’s complete satisfaction and permanent approval with the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ that accomplished both new-covenant spiritual life, and new-covenant living for believers.
Remember, Jesus said, “I came that they might have (spiritual) life, and have [it] abundantly” (John 10:10). Jesus’ statement to some spiritually blind Pharisees revealed the two-fold nature of the Lord’s mission: one, to provide spiritual life to those called by God; and two, to provide abundant spiritual living free from slavery to sin (cf. John 9:41 for sin’s slavery).
Recognize that the aroma of baking bread only fills the house when someone is at work in the kitchen. So too, the sweet aroma of Christ only fills the throne room of heaven when He is at work in His believers.
The sweet aroma was not manifested by animal sacrifices on altars. Rather, the sweet aroma was manifested by believers’ knowledge of what Christ’s voluntary sacrifice on the cross (coupled with His resurrection) accomplished regarding sins and sin. Here the phrase, the sweet aroma, itself became a metaphor for knowledge of God’s accomplishments through Christ’s death and resurrection. The accomplishments were forgiveness of sins, as well as freedom from slavery to sin. Thus, such knowledge resulted in new-covenant living being manifested by God’s Christ through believers like Paul and Timothy in words, works, and attitudes.
Content of the knowledge for spiritual life and new-covenant living likely encompassed both the believer’s knowledge as well as Christ’s knowledge.
A believer’s knowledge was as follows: Christ’s sacrificial death paid the penalty—permanently and irreversibly—for all past, present, and future sins committed by the believer so the believer will never experience hell (i.e., eternal judgment, cf. John 5:24). However, throughout new-covenant living, a believer’s present and future sins can cause death from separation of fellowship with the Father and Son—a separation that can be repaired by confession to God of the sinful deeds (cf. 1 John 1:3-10).
Furthermore, Christ had been placed by God under sin’s influence (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21, probably in the garden called Gethsemane sometime before His betrayal by Judas. For a thorough and biblical discussion about Gethsemane, see Krummacher, F. W. the Suffering Savior. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997 reprint, 115-125).
God’s likely purpose in making Christ sin was so that Christ could voluntarily relinquish His life to sin’s control resulting in His physical death (John 10:18). However, from Gethsemane to the moment of His physical death, Christ never succumbed to sin’s influence so He never committed an act of sin (1 Pet. 2:22; cf. Heb. 12:1-4). Christ’s resurrection by God freed Him permanently and irreversibly from the control of sin and death (cf. Acts 2:24; Rom. 6:9-10).
In addition to the believer’s knowledge just described, appropriate portions of Christ’s knowledge became available to a believer through the Spirit’s ministry (John 16:13-14). That this knowledge was likely available to new-covenant believers was suggested by Paul in Col. 1:27; 3:3.
Knowledge about spiritual life and new-covenant living is received by a believer’s faith—meaning, simply believing the content of God’s revealed promises. Faith is, itself, bestowed and received as a gift from God (cf. 2 Cor. 4:6; Eph. 2:8-9).
Faith in the knowledge was manifested in every place—likely to unbelievers, but also to the brethren in every local church (cf. Acts 15:30, 36, 41). The manifestation was recognized by others practicing new-covenant living as well as by those believers not practicing new-covenant living. Furthermore, since the sweet aroma of Christ’s sacrificial death was manifested by God’s design in every place, it was (and is) universal and therefore no longer restricted to a specific location or nation like the Jews at the temple altar in Jerusalem (cf. John 4:21-24).
Later in the Second Corinthian letter, Paul will expand the knowledge to include the reality that the resurrected and ascended Christ dwells spiritually in the believer with the result that His perfectly obedient life (free from sin’s control) can be manifested through the believer daily, or on a continuous basis, by the believer’s faith and the Spirit’s power (2 Cor. 4:10-11; 1 Cor. 15:31; cf. Gal. 3:2-5). This is the essence of new-covenant living.
Elsewhere, Paul referred to this new-covenant living as “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). Paul’s abbreviated phrase in his letter to the Roman believers meant ‘the obedience of Christ manifested by the believer’s faith,’ which fulfills the biblical adage: “the righteous will live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4).
However, some believers chose to take an initiative upon themselves and please God by personally attempting to obey Him. Paul himself had taken such an initiative to personally obey God and had experienced the ruinous spiritual results: death (Rom. 7:7-24, Paul’s death meaning separation from fellowship with God and Christ). The apostle’s unfortunate but spiritually instructive experience probably provided the spiritual insights and reality he later described in Second Corinthians (i.e., 2 Cor. 3:6; 4:10-11).
2 Cor. 2:15-16
15For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are ruining themselves; 16to the one an aroma from death (to sin) to death (from sin), to the other an aroma from (Christ’s) life to (Christ’s) life. And who is adequate (emphasis, mine) for these things?
The apostle switched metaphors from sweet aroma to a synonymous metaphor, a fragrance. Paul may have switched because the word aroma generally carries the connotation of being pleasant—particularly since Paul had heretofore used the adjective sweet (v. 2:14)—and he wanted to introduce a reality utterly unpleasant—those who are ruining themselves.
A fragrance can be either appealing (sweet) or unappealing (odious), suggesting different responses by God—and by some believers—to the knowledge above described. Remember, the fragrance of Christ to God is always appealing to God among those who are being saved.
Note: the biblical phrase being saved has at least two meanings. One meaning relates to unbelievers being saved from hell (Acts 11:14); the other meaning relates to believers being saved from slavery to sin (Rom. 5:10; cf. 1 Tim. 4:16).
Accordingly, Paul further explained the effect of this fragrance of Christ to God on two groups of believers in the local churches. The first group of believers was comprised of those who are being saved from slavery to sin.
The second group of believers was comprised of those who were ruining themselves by choosing to live life under the old covenant.
Having established that aroma can carry a decidedly negative nuance by using the word fragrance, Paul next switched back to using the metaphor aroma, omitting the adjective sweet.
To those believers who were ruining themselves spiritually, their aroma to God was odious because Christ was not at work in their bodies thereby rendering them dead from sin (dead, meaning separated from fellowship with God and Christ).
Surprisingly, Paul’s own new-covenant living (dead to sin) was odious to those believers living under the old covenant (cf. Acts 21:21). Paul’s odious aroma had become particularly evident early in his ministry.
Following his ministry to the four churches of Galatia, he had to write his first letter about new-covenant living because his odious aroma had aroused strong opposition from itinerant Jewish believers who aggressively suggested that gentile believers in Galatia must be circumcised in accordance with the old covenant.
As was mentioned briefly above (v. 2:14), the apostle Paul had reported his own personal experience in law keeping, and its ruinous spiritual effects, when he decided—shortly after being born again—to keep God’s Tenth Commandment that had been engraved on stones at Mt. Sinai. Paul failed miserably.
God had allowed Paul to fail in his own effort to obey the Law. Or, in other words, God did not enable His believer to obey. However, through God’s mercy, the apostle’s own spiritual journey didn’t end in failure. God used the Law, and its role in enlivening (or, activating) Paul’s sin, to actually lead him to the experiential knowledge of Christ fulfilling the Law in and through him (Rom. 7:25-8:2; Gal. 3:24).
Under new-covenant living, the whole Law is summarized in one statement: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Gal. 5:14).
Because of Paul’s personal experience in law keeping, he unhesitatingly exposed those who were ruining themselves to new-covenant living, realizing that God might also mercifully save some of them from slavery to sin (2 Cor. 4:12; cf. Rom. 10:1, 9).
Comments on the second group of believers and their spiritual malaise can best be understood from a lexical clarification of the English text for 2 Cor. 2:15.
To wit: in 2 Cor. 2:15, the Greek verb describing the spiritual effects on the second group is often translated into English as “are perishing” (e.g., in the NASB). However, a more appropriate choice of word meaning is “ruin”—a legitimate lexical translation of this particular Greek verb (cf. Matt. 9:17 where the same Greek verb is translated “ruined,” warning of the impact when old wineskins are filled with new wine).
Furthermore, the Greek verb (the one often translated as “are perishing”) is a verb in the middle voice. The middle voice can mean that the subjects’ own actions affect themselves. So a better translation for the verb in 2 Cor. 2:15 is: are ruining themselves. Such a translation is consistent with the scriptures that teach believers can ruin themselves spiritually by making the wrong choices or decisions (e.g., Rom 7:8-11).
Exploring the reality of ruining themselves is helpful. Remember, believers choosing to live by obeying God’s law themselves were ruining themselves spiritually. By deciding to obey God themselves, they had become dead from their sin that had become enlivened by their choice, and personal execution, of obedience to law. Elsewhere, Paul had described this spiritual reality of law-keeping as boasting in the Law (Rom. 2:23; cf. also similar to boasting, James and the Jerusalem elders had described Jewish believers as “zealous” for the Law in Acts 21:20).
The spiritual state occurred because law cannot produce freedom from sin, producing only death (cf. 2 Cor. 3:6-7; Rom. 7:11-13). Remember, this death was separation from fellowship with the Father and Son, but did not mean that they had lost their salvation from hell, or had never been saved from hell in the first place. They had, in fact, become severed from Christ, and had fallen from grace (cf. Gal. 5:4).
Writing to the Corinthians, Paul himself was living under the new covenant (2 Cor. 3:6). Therefore, he had become dead to sin—meaning that sin had become un-enlivened in his life because Christ had become his Lord instead of sin (2 Cor. 4:5; 5:21 cf. Phil. 3:8-9; Rom. 10:9; and 1 Pet. 3:6 combined with vv. 15-16). Since sin had been made un-enlivened in his life, Paul remained a fragrance, or sweet aroma, of Christ to God.
But to those believers attempting to obey God themselves, he had become a foul fragrance. Paul’s foul fragrance sometimes erupted in opposition from those believers (Acts 15:5; 21:21; Gal. 2:11-13).
Paul’s abbreviated way of stating this in his Corinthian letter, using the metonymy of effect, death, for the cause, sin: to those ruining themselves, Paul was an aroma from death (to sin) to death (from sin). But to those who were being saved (from slavery to sin), Paul was an aroma of life (Christ’s life in His apostle, Gal. 2:20) to life (Christ’s life in other believers dead to sin).
Although Paul did not mention sin literally until 2 Cor. 5:21, he had mentioned sin itself twice in 1 Cor. 15:56 so the Corinthian believers were not unfamiliar with the meaning of sin. In the 1 Corinthians passage, Paul had revealed two things about sin: one, physical death results from sin; and two, sin is empowered by law.
Some theological misunderstanding about sin has arisen from an erroneous translation of Rom. 5:12. The correct translation should read: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world—and death through sin—and so it (sin) spread to all men (i.e., mankind) on the basis of which all sin.”
So sin is a venom-like entity, inherited from one’s biological father, that permanently permeates all human cells (causing both spiritual and physical death), and efficaciously prompts through the intellect and emotions all humans to commit acts called sins which result in spiritual death. “Sins” are human acts that violate God’s righteousness. In common parlance, God’s righteousness is His personal evil-free standard by which He judges all His creatures.
For believers, sins cause death, i.e., separation from fellowship with the Father and the Son.
For those living under the new covenant, the reality of Christ’s life from within Paul enlightened, encouraged, reassured, strengthened, and enhanced the consistency of Christ’s life being manifested in other believers so that both Paul and his new-covenant-living brethren could continue to bear fruit for God (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18 and Rom. 1:11-12; 7:4 for the mutual efficacy of an aroma of life to life).
This important reality of mutual enrichment in new covenant-living underscores the spiritual significance of local-church believers interacting, or fellowshipping, with one another. Since Jesus’ life is being manifested in local-church believers, their conversation often-times centers on spiritual and prophetical matters that focus upon the Father and His grace to humanity as revealed in the scriptures.
Finally, Paul raised the critically important rhetorical question—later to be answered literally in 2 Cor. 3:5—regarding believers contributing their own adequacy, or augmenting, God’s triumph in Christ.
The rhetorical question, “. . . who is adequate (emphasis mine) for these things?” Adequate related to spiritual matters, not sports! So these things, referred to by Paul, no doubt related to matters spiritual.
Three possible answers to the apostle’s rhetorical question are:
- God alone is adequate for new-covenant living.
- No believer himself is adequate to the task of new-covenant living.
- Adequacy for new-covenant living is proportioned between God who enables the believer himself (i.e., some percentage by God and the remaining percentage by the believer himself).
The correct answer resides in 2 Cor. 3:5.
Unfortunately, not only in Paul’s time but also in today’s churches, believers are inclined to erroneously offer the third answer to the adequacy question: to wit, “God demands that I, myself, be adequate.” A popular variation on this particular answer is often: “God’s Spirit enables me to be adequate to some extent.” Remember, as was pointed out above, God never enabled His newly-minted believer (Paul) to obey His Tenth Commandment (cf. Rom. 7:8).
And, in today’s churches, the erroneous conclusions about a believer who eventually proves himself inadequate through a continual lifestyle of sinning are: either, that one was never saved (from hell) in the first place; or, that one has lost salvation (from hell). A lifestyle of sinning can simply be a believer living enslaved to sin.
2. In verses 2:17-3:3, the apostle Paul discussed the accurate communication of God’s word about new-covenant living.
2 Cor. 2:17
17For we are not like many, corrupting the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.
Paul emphatically contrasted his communication of God’s word with many who were corrupting the word of God. Notice, the apostle did not say that many were ignoring, denying, or rejecting God’s word. The corrupters were probably believers who had at least believed some portion of God’s word. The apostle Peter made a similar observation about distorting God’s word in his letter to Diasporal Jewish believers (2 Pet. 3:15-16).
An ancient example of distorting God’s words can be observed biblically from Eliphaz the Temanite, together with his friends Zophar and Bildad. God’s evaluation of their words: “. . . you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has” (Job 42:7-8). Since God mercifully ordered sacrifices to be offered for these three, it’s quite likely that they were believers who had corrupted or distorted God’s words.
A new covenant case of corrupting or distorting God’s word: the many likely believed the portion of the word of God that taught Jesus had died for forgiveness of their sins under the new covenant (Matt. 26:28) and were therefore heaven bound. However, when it came to the Law of Moses, they corrupted God’s word by asserting that both Jew and gentile believers must keep the Law (Acts 15:5). Notice: those who corrupted the word proved to be many—perhaps even a majority—in the early church (cf. Acts 21:20).
On the other hand, Paul taught the word of God . . . from sincerity, that is, with a purity absent the corruption of adding personal reasoning, personal beliefs, speculations, traditions, or initiatives that did not originate from God.
The apostle was indeed Jesus’ called messenger by God’s will and set apart for communicating God’s gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 1:2 and Rom. 1:1-2). Therefore, Paul delivered the revealed promises from God unadorned by his own inclinations and initiatives, plus—with inerrant interpretations—the content of what had been promised in the relevant holy scriptures through God’s prophets (e.g., Jeremiah, alluded to in 2 Cor. 3:3, 6).
Furthermore, Paul spoke in Christ, a phrase the apostle sometimes used to mean that Jesus was exclusively Lord of his life (cf. Phil. 3:8-9). This meant Paul was dead to sin (see comments on Paul’s being dead to sin, v. 2:16 above). As Lord, Christ was the one who directed and guided Paul’s decisions, choices, and words.
Not only was Christ alone directing the apostle’s words (cf. 2 Cor. 13:3), but also Christ in the sight of God always followed precisely God’s will as the Father oversaw His Son. Christ never said or did anything spiritual on His own initiative, or literally, “of Himself” (cf. John 5:30; 8:28, 42; 12:49; 14:10).
Finally, God would bear witness to the truth of His word from Paul’s lips—perhaps by the Spirit (cf. 1 John 2:27; see also Ezek. 10:12 where in the sight of God—mentioned by Paul in 2 Cor. 2:17—may have been represented symbolically by eyes on the whirling wheels depicting the Spirit’s ‘observation’ ministry in Ezekiel’s vision).
These assurances about the unadorned accuracy of God’s word from Paul were necessary because of the sometimes counterintuitive understanding of God’s grace (i.e., grace is God’s exclusive, perfect, and complete adequacy supplied for new-covenant living by believers, or God Himself doing what He requires of the believer).
For the twenty-first-century church, God has accurately and precisely recorded, preserved, and delivered His various apostles’ words in the New Testament Scriptures—the very words of God.
2 Cor. 3:1
1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you?
Paul recognized that his words of great boldness in previous contacts with the Corinthians, as well as in 2 Cor. 2:14-17, might sound a bit too self-confident and self-serving (i.e., beginning to commend ourselves again).
One possibility for validating his words’ authenticity might have been the sometimes-used approach of carrying and presenting letters of commendation to you from other recognized theological sages and experts within the Jerusalem church—or even letters from you, that is, from some of the Corinthian believers themselves.
However, as explained in the following verses (vv. 3:2-3), Paul had decided against this written form of authentication for an approach he had used early in his ministry with those of “high reputation,” “pillars” of the church in Jerusalem (cf. Gal. 2:1-9). That approach: putting a believer on display (e.g., Titus in Jerusalem), and hearing the believer’s own convincing testimony about spiritual matters and new-covenant living. What had successfully worked in Jerusalem would work world-wide!
2 Cor. 3:2-3
2You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; 3being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for 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.
Like Titus giving testimony in Jerusalem, Paul wrote to the Corinthians living under the new covenant, You (emphasis mine) are our letter written in our hearts . . . known and read by all men. Letter in v. 3:3 was a metaphor for spoken and living testimony. The spoken and living testimony from those Corinthians, which validated the authenticity of God’s words from the apostle, had been nurtured by Paul’s ministry to (and at) Corinth.
To avoid confusion, note that Paul used the word “letter” later in this epistle as a synecdoche for the whole Law (v. 3:6).
If one traces Paul’s initial journey to Corinth—and his subsequent stay there—it is quite apparent that the apostle’s travels, destination, and residence were all under the direction of the Spirit and the Lord (Acts 16:6-18:11). Paul’s reflections upon how he and his fellow workers had arrived and stayed in Corinth were written in our hearts so that he confidently believed his presence in Corinth was not because of some random sequence of events. Paul’s travel experiences and belief in Divine guidance meant those Corinthian believers could rightly conclude that God Himself had sent His apostle to them specifically at a timely moment.
The following statistics underscore why Paul rightly claimed the Corinthian believers were written in our hearts, and cared for by us:
- Commentators suggest Paul actually wrote an unprecedented four letters to the Corinthian church (two letters of the four didn’t make it into the New Testament Scriptures).
- Paul himself once spent about a year-and-a-half ministering in Corinth.
- The apostle probably made three separate personal visits to Corinth.
- By one estimate, the word count of the two combined Corinthian letters in the New Testament significantly supersedes (by almost 50 percent) Paul’s other very lengthy letter to the believers in Rome. Were one able to recover Paul’s other two ‘lost letters,’ and do a word count, it would become overwhelmingly apparent that the church at Corinth received more written information from Paul than any other local church on record in the New Testament.
Obviously, Paul’s consistent interest and comprehensive attention to the believers at Corinth showed his heartfelt care for this local congregation of believers (cf. 2 Cor. 6:11-13).
Paul used the metaphor (our letter, and a letter of Christ) to highlight his credentials. As mentioned, the metaphor letter probably meant the personal testimonies of the Corinthian believers who manifested new-covenant living (i.e., Christ’s life) which effectively validated the authenticity of Paul’s credentials and message—like Titus had done in front of the recognized church leaders in Jerusalem.
That Corinthian validation impacted all men. Understandably, Paul did not mean every individual on planet earth. In Jewish thinking, two categories of men existed: those who were Jewish and those who were not—that is, gentiles. Thus, by all men, the apostle likely meant chiefly Jew and gentile believers, and perhaps even some unbelievers from either category.
The letter was sourced, authored, and displayed or manifested, by Christ (via the Spirit’s ministry). At the end of the Second Corinthian letter, Paul had challenged the Corinthians to some self-examination: “. . . do you not recognize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?” (emphasis mine, 2 Cor. 13:5). The same sentiments for self-examination were enunciated by Peter to Jewish believers in the Diaspora (cf. 2 Pet. 1:1-11).
This challenge may well be applied by all in the twenty-first-century church. At various points in a believer’s life, the believer should recognize that his behavior—either in words, works, or attitudes—is not the way he would naturally, intuitively, or habitually respond to his surroundings. That is to say, the believer should recognize his response under some challenging circumstances was not of himself but had been, in fact, that of Christ’s.
One example might be a no response to ‘road-rage’ under provocative circumstances. Something like a no response would be highly personal, and roundly reassuring, evidence of new-covenant living by faith. Along the same lines, one pastor used to pray for ‘mother-in-law’ grace.
Next, Paul alluded to God’s new-covenant promises made to His prophet, Jeremiah, and that had been believed by some believers at Corinth: “. . . I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it . . . (Jer. 31:33),” . . . written not (as Baruch had done for Jeremiah) with (scribal) ink . . . (on the book mentioned in Jer. 36:18). This statement set the stage for revealing God’s own perfectly exclusive and adequate power for instilling new-covenant living from His promise written . . . with the Spirit of the living God.
A more complete and explicit statement of God’s new-covenant promises from another prophet may be found in Ezek. 36:25-27. Why New Testament writers avoided citing Ezekiel’s prophecies remains an enigma.
The substance upon which the Spirit of the living God writes the letter was not stone tablets as God had done with Moses when engraving His Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai—commandments on tablets that were external to Moses’ person. Rather, the substance upon which the Spirit of the Living God does His ‘writing’ is the internal (i.e., spiritual) tablets of (new) human hearts given individuals by God (upon removing their hearts of stone) immediately preceding the spiritual re-births of those individuals (Ezek. 36:26).
Significantly, God’s law is internal to new-covenant believers in striking contradistinction to its externality under the old covenant.
Furthermore, it is important to understand that, in Paul’s spiritual vocabulary, the new human heart is the ‘organ’ of belief (Rom. 10:10). Therefore, new-covenant living is appropriated by the believer through simple belief in God’s promises and not by self-effort—like the intuitive initiative of personal obedience to God’s law.
Christ the Lord in the believer is the one who obeys God’s will perfectly (cf. Rom. 6:16 where Paul used the word “obedience” as a metonymy of effect—the effect of “obedience” for the cause, i.e., “Christ”).
3. In verses 3:4-13, the apostle Paul contrasted the superiority of new-covenant living with life under the old covenant.
2 Cor. 3:4-6
4Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. 5Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything (emphasis mine) as [coming] from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6who also made us adequate [as] servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
This new-covenant living by faith endowed Paul with a . . . confidence through Christ toward God because Christ (not sin) was Lord of Paul’s life.
Paul next gave the correct answer to his question posed above (v. 2:16): “Who is adequate for these things?” Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything (emphasis mine) as [coming] from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. Summary answer: God alone is adequate for new-covenant living, as He is incontestably for new-covenant life.
A believer’s only role in new-covenant living: Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything (emphasis mine) as from ourselves. A believer’s only role is to acknowledge God’s adequacy by simply believing God’s promises. Paul’s later description of ourselves was the metaphor of “earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7) meaning that believers’ role in new-covenant living is nothing more than being a believing human body for God’s presence and adequacy.
Anything . . . from ourselves often includes one’s own initiative and self-determination to be obedient to God’s law—an initiative both understandable and commendable, but spiritually lethal. God’s adequacy is His promise—appropriated by faith alone—that He will cause (not enable) obedience to His law by Christ’s God-centered spiritual life in His servant—that is, the Spirit manifesting Christ’s perfectly obedient life in the believer (cf. Ezek. 36:27, wherein the cause recorded by the prophet remained unrevealed under the old covenant until Jesus’ earthly and subsequent heavenly ministries culminated in the new covenant’s inauguration).
Paul’s answer about the respective adequacies of humans and God was of primary importance in all of Second Corinthians—if not the entire New Testament—and was written based on Paul’s personal report of how his own initiative and determination to obey God’s Law had proved completely inadequate to new-covenant living by faith.
So important is Paul’s answer is that it should be the opening hymn or chorus in every twenty-first-century church.
Furthermore, this adequacy . . . from God had also made Paul and Timothy adequate servants of a new covenant. Paul’s adequacy from God started at birth (Gal. 1:15) while Timothy’s adequacy from God could be traced to his grandmother and mother (2 Tim. 1:5). God’s adequacy in their respective lives gave Paul and Timothy confidence that some of the Corinthian believers (Paul and Timothy being servants to them) were indeed living testimony to the obedience of Christ toward God (cf. 2 Cor. 2:2; 3:4). Such living testimony was all that Paul needed as his “letters of commendation” from them (cf. 2 Cor. 3:1).
Paul and Timothy’s adequacy as servants (note: the new covenant had innumerable servants) was supplied from God through the gift of His Spirit promised under the new covenant (Ezek. 36:27). Paul introduced the Spirit with a vivid contrast between the effect of the old covenant Law (which had only one servant, Moses, Heb. 3:5) and the effect of the Spirit’s ministry under the new covenant. That contrast in v. 3:6: the letter—Paul’s synecdoche of (letter) as a part for the whole (Law)—kills but the Spirit gives life.
From the phrase, the letter kills, two things may be inferred: one, Paul was not writing about the Law killing people physically; and two, the people were already alive spiritually when the Law had its lethal effect. Spiritually dead people cannot be killed spiritually!
Paul reported the alarming and chilling reality of the Law’s effect in his own personal testimony recorded in Rom. 7:7-25. Soon after his conversion, Paul had decided to keep God’s Law “not to covet” (Rom. 7:9). From Paul’s own personal testimony, it was sin’s deception—a deception that suggested he could and must obey God’s Law himself—which prompted his own ruinous initiative and determination to obey the Law. The result: several covetous acts of sin, followed by his own “death.” Remember, this “death” meant separation from fellowship with the Father and Son.
However, under the new covenant, the Spirit does two things of primary importance: one, the Spirit gives spiritual life to those spiritually “dead in their trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) so that those people are “born again” (cf. John 3:3-8). And two, the Spirit manifests Jesus’ life in the believer through faith so that the Law’s killing effect on the believer’s fellowship with the Father and Son can be effectively avoided (cf. Rom. 8:6, 13).
2 Cor. 3:7-8
7But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, 8how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be with even more with glory?
In the following passages of Second Corinthians (vv. 3:7-16), Paul used the episode of Moses’ delivery of God’s commandments to illustrate two things: one, the superiority of the new covenant over the old (vv. 3:7-11; and to introduce sin’s effect on new-covenant living (vv. 3:12-16).
Since “the letter kills” (v. 3:6), Paul referred to the Law as the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones.
Next, Paul referred to an unprecedented anomaly described by Moses in Exod. 34:30-35. To wit: because of Moses’ external exposure to God’s glory on Mt. Sinai (a glory Moses had requested to see, Exod. 33:18), the skin of Moses’ face had begun to shine—an anomaly of which Moses was totally unaware, and for which he had done nothing to achieve except to ask God.
Moses’ shinning face was the glory that had accompanied his delivery of the letters engraved on stones from Mt. Sinai—a glory to which the sons of Israel had reacted in fear—they could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was. One might easily imagine that Moses looked like an alien from another planet, thus engendering an understandable fear in the sons of Israel. This fear prohibited them from looking intently at Moses’ face (Num. 34:30).
Where Paul got the information that the glory of Moses’ face was fading is uncertain. Perhaps Paul had deducted that Moses’ face faded because of Moses use of a veil, which he always removed when speaking with God (Exod. 34:35). Thus, the glory had originated and was maintained from a source external to Moses.
In dramatic contrast, under the superior new covenant, God’s Spirit permanently resides internal to the believer (unlike Moses external exposure to God). So Paul posited the rhetorical question, . . . how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be with even more glory? The obvious but unstated answer: “It can’t fail!”
2 Cor. 3:9-11
9For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. 10For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses [it]. 11For if that which fades away [was] with glory, much more that which remains [is] in glory.
The glory of God’s temporary old covenant (cf. Heb. 8:13)—that by the Law brought God’s death sentence upon innocent animals through sacrifices (the ministry of condemnation) because of mans’ sins and sin—was displayed by way of the glory of one person’s temporarily-shining face. In a dramatic contrast of glories between the old and new covenants (the new covenant being much more), God’s non-fading, or permanent, new covenant is the Spirit’s ministry of displaying God’s righteousness abound(ing) in glory through some believers (e.g., Timothy and Paul) living by faith in Christ as Lord of their lives (see 2 Cor. 5:21 for God’s righteousness, and Phil. 3:8-9 that indicate the glory is God’s righteousness through Christ being one’s Lord).
In a glory contest between one Jew’s temporarily-shining face and God’s righteousness permanently on display world-wide through multitudes of generations of believers by faith, the Judge would unquestionably find the latter (new covenant) out-performs, or surpasses, the former (old covenant). In fact, so great is the latter (with its compelling and continually attractive generational display of God’s glorious righteousness) that its superiority dwarfs the former to such an extent that the former appears to have no glory (attractiveness) whatsoever—especially if the Judge were to base His findings on Moses’ fully-faded face!
2 Cor. 3:12-13
12Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in [our] speech, 13and [are] not like Moses, [who] used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away.
Paul’s hope was both future and certain because it was based on God’s unaugmented adequacy. In belief of God’s adequacy, the apostle simply stated God’s message with great boldness, without any contributions from himself, to both Jews and gentiles—and even without endorsements from others! (2 Cor. 3:1).
It might be useful to review Moses’ initial job interview with God to help understand Moses’ notorious lack of boldness in speech (Exod. 4:10-17).
God had provided Moses with three signs to validate his credentials as God’s spokesman to the sons of Israel in Egyptian captivity:
- Moses’ staff became a serpent when thrown on the ground.
- Moses’ hand became leprous when he put it in his bosom.
- Water from the Nile became blood when poured on dry ground.
In spite of God’s adequate provisions, Moses complained to God that he was “heavy of tongue and heavy of speech.” Clearly implied in Moses’ complaint was his unbelief in God’s adequacy.
God’s interesting retort to Moses’ complaint (fostered by Moses’ perceived speech impediment leading to his lack of boldness): “Who has made man’s mouth?” In other words, God asserted He was indeed an adequate creator of mouths—even faced with Moses’ implied claim of His inadequacy. And so, God’s anger burned against Moses, and He appointed Moses’ brother Aaron as an alternate spokesman.
However, in Paul’s case (who himself might have had a speech problem—2 Cor. 10:10), he recognized God’s adequacy in mercifully assigning him the role of apostle and servant of the new covenant. So he used great boldness in his speech as God’s spokesman—not like Moses.
Furthermore, in unbelief of God’s adequacy, Moses had personally augmented God’s messages to the sons of Israel. Moses put a veil over his face after delivering God’s messages. Moses’ intentions were to prevent the sons of Israel from being preoccupied with his face.
Paul explained the consequences of Moses’ veil act. The sons of Israel would not look intently at the end (emphasis mine) of what was fading away. The end of what was fading away was a Jewish male’s face covered with a beard in obedience to God’s Law (Lev. 21:5, where priests were to have full beards—like Aaron and his brother, Moses).
To understand Moses’ reluctance for the sons of Israel to witness a law-abiding Jew, it might be helpful to reflect on Moses’ earlier experience with God’s Law and its calamitous effect on those who had determined to keep it.
At a pre-delivery assembly before Moses’ first delivery of God’s stone tablets at Sinai, the sons of Israel determined—not once, but thrice—to obey God’s laws (Exod. 19:8; 24:3, 7). The results of their three-times-proclaimed determination to obey: they straightaway fashioned a golden calf and worshipped it in direct disobedience to what would be revealed about calf-worship in God’s Law (cf. Exod. 20:4-5; 32:1-6).
Had Moses not intervened as an advocate, God would have killed them all for their sins (Exod. 32:22, 10). From this incident, Moses may have concluded that resolve and determination to obey God’s Law consistently ended in wild sinning—even by his brother Aaron, who mercifully became God’s high priest. If Moses had recognized the shocking correlation between the Law and man’s determination to obey, then Moses use of a veil becomes more understandable.
Ironically, Moses’ veil had the unintended and directly opposite consequence of actually causing what he had tried to prevent. The sons of Israel arrived at the erroneous conclusion from the veil that the glory of the old covenant was permanent so that a believer’s own personal obedience to God’s Law was not only a timeless requirement, but also a universal requirement (cf. Acts 15:5 where believers of the Pharisaical sect asserted that gentiles must keep the Law of Moses).
4. In verses 3:14-18, the apostle Paul discussed concerted opposition to new-covenant living from some believers and from sin.
2 Cor. 3:14-16
14But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is being made powerless in Christ. 15But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; 16but whenever a person, ‘turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.’
But their minds were hardened. The verb, were hardened is passive, meaning some minds of believers among the sons of Israel were acted upon by another agency—and that agency was none other than sin and its deceitfulness (cf. Heb. 3:13). Sin’s deceitfulness is, “You must do something rather than believing God will do it.”
Here was a major spiritual problem for believing Jews. It may also have been a problem for gentile proselytes to Judaism who had converted to Christianity, but had been, and continued to be, taught from the Hebrew Scriptures which emphasized obedience to Torah—the Law delivered by Moses.
The minds of the sons of Israel in Moses’ generation had been hardened into believing the old covenant was timeless and universally binding. Because of this erroneous belief, the same veil—installed because of Moses’ unbelief in God’s adequacy—functioned among the Jewish believers, even to Paul’s day.
Obviously, when Paul stated the same veil, he was not referring literally to the 1500-year old piece of material Moses had used. Rather, Paul was writing figuratively, using a metaphor of the veil (the same veil) for sin based on the same effect that both veil and sin produced—that is, hiding God’s glory.
Paul used an analogy to illustrate the sameness between what the veil did in Moses’ case, and what sin does in the case of believers (cf. Gal. 4:21-31 for Paul’s use of analogy in his letter to the Galatian churches). Both the veil and sin function to hide God’s glory. In Moses’ case, God’s glory was manifested by Moses’ shinning face; in the case of believers living under the new covenant, God’s glory is manifested by His righteousness.
The veil (i.e., sin) was particularly at work among the sect of the Pharisees who had believed (cf. Acts 15:5). Sin in those Pharisaical believers had hidden God’s righteousness. Instead of God’s righteousness, the Pharisees manifested their own righteousness by keeping God’s Law themselves.
Remember, in Paul’s spiritual vocabulary, the heart is the ‘organ’ of belief and plays a major role in believers’ minds (i.e., their minds).
That their minds were minds of believers is suggested by the words were hardened. Under the new covenant, God replaces one’s heart of stone with a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:26). The heart of stone—implying quintessential hardness—belongs to an unbeliever before conversion and so, understandably, cannot be hardened. But a believer’s heart of flesh can be hardened in spiritual matters.
God’s solution of the veil/heart problem is that sin is being made powerless (contra NASB, “is removed”) in Christ. The Greek verb is passive and better translated as being made powerless (cf. Heb. 2:14 wherein the writer stated Jesus’ death made the devil “powerless”) because sin is never “removed” as suggested by the NASB translation. As discussed above, one of Paul’s uses for the phrase in Christ meant that Christ was Lord of one’s life.
The apostle next revealed the essential role of the Spirit in new-covenant living. To do so, Paul applied a general principle he had abstracted from Moses’ veil routine spelled out in Exod. 34:34. Whenever a person, ‘turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.’ Note: for clarity’s sake, Paul’s general principle is put in single quotation marks to highlight that it is not a direct quote.
The phrase taken away meant: “to take away from around something.” Spiritually, this would mean that sin’s practices and resultant effects are taken away from around a believer’s heart (cf. Rom. 8:13). What this does not suggest is that sin itself is removed permanently. Remember, the veil—representing sin in the apostle’s analogy—existed, and was actively used, throughout Moses’ life the same as sin actively exists throughout a believer’s life.
2 Cor. 3:17
17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, [there] is liberty.
Now (in Paul’s day) the Lord is not the Lord God of the old covenant who appeared externally to Moses on Mt. Sinai or in the tabernacle, but rather is the Spirit permanently indwelling believers under new-covenant living (cf. John 14:16-17). Finally, . . . and where the Spirit of the Lord is—that is, the Spirit sent by the Lord God to dwell in the believer’s body—there is the very real potential of liberty from slavery to sin (cf. Rom. 8:13).
Paul’s warning and exhortation about the Spirit’s ministry recorded in Rom. 8:13 explained how liberty can be lost “by walking according to the flesh.” This last phrase, used exclusively by Paul in all the epistolary literature of the New Testament, was a technical phrase that meant a believer was living as a slave to sin. But when the Spirit was at work “putting to death the practices of sin,” liberty from sin became a spiritual reality for the believer.
The Spirit’s liberating ministry against sin’s enslavement takes place on a continual basis (cf. 1 Cor. 15:31), probably through daily prayer as the Lord had taught “. . . do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil . . .” (Matt. 6:13; cf. Jas. 1:13-15 for the complete spiritual sequence in believers, from temptation to death).
2 Cor. 3:18
18But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
The we all Paul referred to are those believers who enjoyed new-covenant living by faith. With unveiled face meant that those particular believers had not, in unbelief, taken some initiative upon themselves (like Moses) to augment God’s adequacy in accomplishing His plan for their lives, or for the lives of other believers with whom they interacted.
For example, such believers had consciously renounced their own personal obedience to God’s law, rather believing that, in accordance with God’s new covenant, Christ’s perfectly obedient life in them would be manifested through them by the Spirit.
Next, Paul used the simile of beholding as in a mirror. A mirror is an instrument of self-inspection combined with self-reflection. A new-covenant believer practicing self-inspection would recognize the reality that Jesus Christ lives spiritually within so the believer’s words and works are not his own, but rather the glory of the Lord, that is, Christ’s own glorious and righteous words and works manifested by the Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 13:5-6).
Paul had recorded his own experience of being transformed into the same image by the life-changing reality of Christ in him (cf. 2 Cor. 12:7-12). Recall that the Lord Jesus had rightfully claimed His own body was the “temple of God” meaning God the Father was in Him (John 2:19; Matt. 26:61). God’s presence in Jesus may well be the same image Paul had in mind—that is, God dwelling in a human body under the new covenant.
Here is a particularly ingenious part of God’s plan. Mutual observation between two believers practicing new-covenant living ( the literal reality of Paul’s mirror simile) can transform both from glory (of the one) to glory (for the other). This process had already been described by Paul in 2 Cor. 2:15-16 as a fragrance of Christ—as an aroma from life to life.
Rather than being harangued weekly in the twenty-first-century church, and being hectored about what a believer must do and what a believer must avoid doing, God’s plan for new-covenant living features exposure to new-covenant believers whose righteous lifestyles are seductively enticing to emulation.
As an aside, one outcome of the Spirit dispensing spiritual gifts may have been to promote interaction among the disparate mix of people in the first-century local church, each one seeking out another for his respective gift, and thereby producing a forum for the from glory to glory interaction.
Paul’s thought behind the words, being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, was likely adapted from Moses’ experience with the Lord God when God’s glory had transformed the flesh on Moses’ face into a shining glory. And to remind his readers that Moses’ facial transformation was not something Moses himself had achieved or produced, Paul added just as from the Lord (i.e., the Lord God of the old covenant) to highlight that the same process of transformation is at work under new-covenant living, only by the Spirit. The Spirit is the one who transforms believers from glory to glory, not the believers who are just vessels for Deity.
5. In verses 4:1-12, the apostle Paul reviewed the key requirements for conduct under new-covenant living: confession and prayer.
2 Cor. 4:1-2
1Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, 2but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
Shortly after his conversion from Judaism—having been a law-abiding Pharisee almost from adolescence—Paul decided to supplement God’s adequacy by keeping the commandment not to covet (Rom. 7:7-25). The outcome of his resolve to obey the commandment may be summarized in his own words: “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). The outcome, in one word: ‘failure!’ Please note that God did not enable Paul, the believer, to obey Him (cf. v. 2:15 above).
‘Enable’ has become a popular definition for God’s grace. But the biblical definition for God’s grace is God Himself doing what God requires of man.
God left Paul to fail so He could teach His apostle-to-be about new-covenant living (cf. Rom. 8:1-17 to discover Paul’s critically important lesson from God). God had used the Law lawfully (1 Tim. 1:8) as Paul’s tutor to Christ (cf. Gal.3:24). God’s teaching qualified Paul as an apostle so he could declare, we have this ministry (as a servant of the new covenant—2 Cor. 3:6), as we received mercy (from God, following Paul’s sinful failures to obey God’s law).
The mercy Paul had received from God was his ministry as an apostle after confessing he had indulged in “coveting of every kind” right after resolving to keep God’s Tenth Commandment, “You shall not covet . . .” (cf. 1 John 1:7, 9). Therefore, confession is key to new-covenant living.
From this episode, Paul discovered that God allows believers to fail and then still uses them (cf. Rom. 11:23). So, Paul did not lose heart because he realized he served a God who sometimes responded with mercy to the sins of believers.
Now our curiosity about exactly what shameful things Paul had coveted is not satisfied because he chose not to reveal them. But we have renounced (emphasis mine) the things hidden because of shame, so we are assured Paul’s conscience about the things he had coveted was clear before God.
Further, we are reassured that he was . . . not walking in craftiness . . . (a possible allusion to either Moses’ actions with the veil, or the word corrupters’ law-keeping lifestyle). Nor was he . . . adulterating the word of God . . . with his own personal biases, views, interpretations, traditions, or improvisations.
On the contrary, Paul’s life as God’s apostle was a . . . manifestation of truth . . . by the Spirit’s ministry within him. Finally, he was . . . commending ‘himself’ [NASB correctly, “ourselves”] to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. In other words, those listening to the apostle’s words could judge for themselves the accuracy of his words, providing such judgment was done in the sight of God and not in place of God.
Perhaps Paul’s confidence in this process of individual believers judging the truth was alluded to by the apostle John when he commented on the believers’ ability to judge rightly the truth through the Spirit’s ministry within them (1 John 2:27).
2 Cor. 4:3-4
3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are ruining themselves, 4in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so they might not see the light of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Paul’s gospel was two-fold (cf. Acts 13:38-39). For unbelievers on the way to hell, the first part of the gospel was forgiveness of their sins through Jesus. For believers, the second part of the gospel was freedom from slavery to sin which the Law of Moses could not accomplish. The second part of this two-fold distinction is often ignored in twenty-first-century churches to the spiritual detriment of believers.
Note: the Roman church augmented God’s adequacy for forgiveness with man’s works; the Reformed and evangelical churches have augmented God’s adequacy for freedom with man’s obedience himself.
First-century believers were divided into two groups: one, those who believed the gospel’s second part; and two, those who did not believe the second part—that is, those who didn’t live by faith (cf. Rom. 1:17). Paul referred to this group as the unbelieving, not ‘the unbelievers’—‘unbelievers’ being a biblical term reserved for outsiders who had not yet been born again (1 Cor. 6:6). Furthermore, the writer to the Hebrews warned believers of those “among them” (not “in them” as per the NASB) with an evil unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God (Heb. 3:12). Unbelievers don’t fall away from the living God.
Twenty-first-century believers are divided into the same two groups.
For an example of the two groups: Paul wanted to preach the gospel of God to the believers in Rome (Rom. 1:15). All the Roman believers were already permanently and irreversibly bound for heaven. So the only way preaching the gospel to believers could make sense is if it were the gospel about freedom from slavery to sin—a freedom not experienced by Jews who boasted in the Law (cf. Rom. 2:23-29). Further on in Romans, Paul used the metaphor of the rich-root (i.e., Jesus) of the olive tree with its metaphorical natural branches (Jewish believers). Some natural branches (Jewish believers) were broken off from the root because of their unbelief (Rom. 11:20).
Another example of believers at spiritual risk came early in Paul’s ministry to the four churches of Galatia. Some gentile believers were being encouraged to keep the law by itinerant Jewish brethren. Paul’s diagnoses and warning, in the event any believers in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe had decided to keep the law: “You have been severed from Christ . . . you have fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:4).
Does this mean those believers would lose their salvation and go to hell? No! It meant ‘the veil of sin’ would come into play with the second part of the gospel and they would become enslaved to sin; their words, works, and attitudes would no longer be those of Christ. They would no longer be a part of new-covenant living and thereby would lose the heavenly rewards attached thereto (cf. 2 Cor. 4:16-18 for rewards). This was the spiritual warning Paul delivered in this section of his letter to the Corinthian believers.
Paul next introduced one probable spiritual mechanism whereby unbelief led to Satanic opposition for believers who failed to believe the second part of Paul’s gospel: . . . in whose case the god of this world has blinded the eyes of the unbelieving . . . (2 Cor. 4:4). The god of this world is none other than Satan! Satan is part of the concerted opposition to new-covenant living (cf. 2 Cor. 3:14-18 above).
Remember Jesus’ parable of the four soils? (Matt. 13:3-9). In His parable, Jesus identified the birds as the evil one (i.e., Satan) who came and snatched away the word of the kingdom sown in a person’s heart. Observe, ‘snatching away’ is quite a different activity from ‘blinding’ which Paul had just described.
Then, how is the different activity of ‘blinding the minds’ carried out by Satan? The answer was provided by Paul in 2 Cor. 11:13-15. Satan’s activity was carried out by false apostles and their deceitful teachings. That is one reason why Paul had taken such pains earlier to identify himself as God’s authentic apostle (2 Cor. 2:14-3:6, particularly v. 2:17).
Satan’s activity was likely through seductive teachers that were unbelieving Jewish believers who believed they had to supplement God’s adequacy to fulfill His new-covenant by doing something themselves (the Law) rather than by just believing something (God’s promise). The spiritual consequence for believers who listened to those teachers: their ‘unbelieving’ choice enlivened sin so they were unable to see . . . the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God living spiritually through Paul. And Christ was the image of God, not an image produced by human hands, but fashioned and given by God Himself as the exact representation of His nature in a human body, including godliness (cf. Heb. 1:3; 1 Tim. 3:16).
Hence, Paul, who had died to sin, became an aroma of death (to sin) to death (from sin) for those believers who, from sin, were ruining themselves by their catastrophic choice (2 Cor. 2:15-16). Death—separation from fellowship with Christ and God—had come to those believers because they had rejected Paul’s accurate teachings by his own death to sin.
2 Cor. 4:5-6
5For we do not preach ourselves (emphasis mine) but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
For we do not preach ourselves (emphasis mine) . . . was Paul’s repeated affirmation of v. 3:5. That affirmation was founded upon his own death to sin with the resultant spiritual reality that Another had control of his life. In sin’s place, the authority over the apostle’s life was none other than . . . Christ Jesus as Lord . . . Therefore, Paul was Jesus’ bond-servant (cf. Rom. 1:1). And having Jesus as the Lord of one’s life was Paul’s consistent message for the essence of new-covenant living.
However, Paul also included the Corinthians as those to whom he served as a bond-servant: . . . and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. For those Corinthian believers that still served sin rather than Jesus as Lord of their lives, it had been—and continued to be—Paul’s stated intention to become their bond-servant so he might save some from slavery to sin (1 Cor. 9:19-22; cf. Rom. 9:1-4).
Paul was quick to acknowledge that it was not he, himself, who would save some believers from slavery. Salvation was exclusively—with complete adequacy—God’s work. To illustrate this point, the apostle cited God’s own words recorded by Moses in Gen. 1:3 (‘Light shall shine out of darkness’). God forced darkness to produce light. Some conjecture that the Light may have been God’s Shekinah glory (because it preceded the sun’s creation), which had also subsequently caused Moses’ face to shine temporarily because the glory was not intrinsic or internal.
In any event, what is truly remarkable about Paul’s use of God’s words is that no human existed at the point in time when God made darkness produce light. Therefore, God’s light-command and its fulfillment were unarguably God’s adequacy alone for the task because no human existed to help God! (cf. Job 38:4). Incontestably, no human could have accomplished this illuminating feat within the physical creation.
An aside: one other possible demonstration of God’s adequacy occurred in another creation that was, and will remain, unparalleled in human history. God created the man—Jesus—without sin. God did this by His Spirit conceiving Jesus using only the material from Mary’s seed. Known biblically and doctrinally as the virgin birth, Jesus was created apart from Adam’s DNA which carried the sin venom to every cell of all his progeny except the woman’s seed (cf. Custance, Arthur C. The Seed of the Woman. Ontario, Canada: Doorway Publications, 1980, 213-214). The virgin birth was a dramatic example of man’s total inadequacy in matters spiritual. Thus, from the very beginning, God alone is perfectly adequate for His salvation from sins and sin.
Using a comparison between the physical creation and God’s work within His spiritual creation, Paul next acknowledged that God . . . is the One who has shown in our hearts to give the Light . . . The point in Paul’s comparison was that, since God was the acknowledged exclusive adequate agent of the physical creation, He is also the exclusive, adequate agent of spiritual enlightenment: . . . the One who has shown in our hearts . . . the new heart being the seat of belief. In other words, Paul and Timothy, themselves, were not adequate to save any believer from slavery to sin—spiritual enlightenment and belief were entirely and exclusively a demonstration of God’s adequacy. Note: for additional evidence that believers can have darkened hearts, see Rom. 1:21.
Paul acknowledged that his education, dedicated and disciplined training in Judaism, and exposure to the finest religious minds of his generation had contributed absolutely nothing to his spiritual enlightenment.
This is probably one of the more humbling revelations in the scriptures, and has profound implications for all who would assume teaching roles in contemporary Christianity—not to mention their students. Teachers should—by God’s illumination—understand new-covenant living. Next, those teachers, no matter how erudite, well prepared, and articulate, should realize that members of the flock only ‘get it’ because of God’s illumination.
Paul next defined God’s spiritual enlightenment of believers’ darkened hearts—the Light—as . . . the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
The face of Christ to which Paul referred was likely not Jesus’ appearance during His earthly ministry because He looked just like any other Jewish male with a bearded face (cf. Isa. 53:2). Also, Paul’s reference was not based on Paul’s experience on the Damascus road when he and his travelling companions were suddenly surrounded by a blinding light flashing from heaven (Acts 9:3; 26:13). So, to what did Paul refer?
For Paul personally, following his spiritual birth, there were likely at least two possible occasions where he may have seen . . . the glory of God in the face of Christ. The first occasion may have been when the ascended Christ revealed Himself to Paul in Arabia (cf. Acts 26:16 where Jesus promised Paul that He would reveal Himself; and Gal. 1:17-18 where Paul reported his approximately-three-year stay in Arabia). The other possible occasion was mentioned by Paul (later in his Second Corinthian letter) when he “. . . was caught up to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:1-4).
In all likelihood, Paul’s third-heaven experience was probably much the same as that of the apostle John’s experience in the Spirit when he saw, “. . . one like the Son of Man . . .” (Rev. 1:13). According to John, “. . . His face was like the sun shining in its strength” (Rev. 1:16).
Believers who had not been privileged to personally see the ascended Christ—like Timothy—could rely upon Paul’s own personal testimony of his experience (or, the post-resurrection testimonies of Peter, James, and John regarding Jesus’ Transfiguration).
In any event, the knowledge consisted of the following five facts:
- Christ’s face shone like the sun.
- Unlike Moses, Christ did not cover His face with a veil because His face did not fade.
- Christ’s face did not fade over time because His shining face was intrinsic internally.
- Christ’s continuously shinning face manifested His deity (glory of God) and His humanity (face).
- Acknowledging His shinning face denoted Deity, Christ accepted John’s worship (Rev. 1:17). In contrast to Christ, another heavenly being (an angel who was Jesus’ messenger) would not accept John’s obeisance (Rev. 22:8-9).
Therefore, choosing Christ as Lord over one’s life is tantamount to Deity ruling one’s life. Servitude to Christ does not demean, dishonor, nor circumvent God the Father. Furthermore, Christ dwelling spiritually in the believer brings all the power and authority in heaven and on earth necessary to deliver from slavery to sin and manifest His obedient lifestyle of new-covenant living by the believer.
2 Cor. 4:7
7But we have this treasure in (emphasis mine) earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.
In contrast to Christ’s glorified body, . . . we (believers) have this treasure (i.e., Deity) in (emphasis mine) earthen vessels (a metaphor for sin-infested human bodies). Here is the spiritual reality that Christ lives in the believer’s body.
The vital importance of Christ being in a believer has been stressed by two things: one, Paul’s prayer for Ephesian believers that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith (Eph. 3:17); and two, Paul’s work among his spiritual children in the Galatian churches so that Christ would be formed in them (Gal. 4:19).
Recall that Jesus had once described His human body as a “temple” because it housed the Father (John 2:19). Therefore, Deity dwelling in a human body is not a bizarre concept.
The earthen vessels probably hark back to God’s using dust from the ground (earth) as the original material for His creation of the man’s body (Gen. 2:5). Remember, a vessel is no more than a container. And a container is not the contents. But the container has a flaw. After Adam’s fall, all human bodies—except one—were permanently infested with sin.
The human-body problem is with sin which infests the human brain thus impacting both the entities known biblically as the mind and heart. So sin operates in the spiritual realm. The enemy—the god of this world—is likewise operating in the spiritual realm (cf. Eph. 2:2; 6:12). Therefore, material man is totally inadequate and powerless for dealing with matters in the spiritual domain.
On the other hand, God is completely adequate and forthcoming with . . . the surpassing greatness of the power . . . required to completely and perfectly resolve mankind’s spiritual problems. Thus, Paul juxtaposed God’s adequacy with man’s inadequacy in spiritual matters: . . . the power will be of God and not from ourselves (again, emphasizing 3:5), acknowledging Deity dwells in our earthen vessels and no longer in a tabernacle or temple as under the old covenant.
2 Cor. 4:8-9
8[we are] afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
The twenty-first century church is sometimes confronted with the ‘health and wealth’ gospel. However, Paul’s experience in new-covenant living had been filled with anything but health and wealth. Rather, he had been universally afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. Why?
The answer: for discipline or training leading to spiritual maturity (cf. Jas. 1:2-4) as well as providing a forum for the visible manifestation of new-covenant living under horrid living conditions.
Probably most believers recognize that if life were filled with health and wealth, there would be little-or-no incentive to seek God or to change one’s thinking, or biblically ‘to repent.’. But the writer to the Hebrews explained that part-and-parcel with new-covenant living—that is, striving against sin—are the goads of the Father’s discipline in order to train His children so they might yield the peaceful fruit of (God’s) righteousness (cf. Heb. 12:4-11). As the Hebrews writer aptly recorded, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful . . .” (Heb. 12:11).
Notice with Paul, all the trials and tribulations were dramatically contrasted with human responses that were not ‘natural:’ not crushed, not despairing, not forsaken, and not destroyed. The responses were, in fact, supernatural thereby manifesting new-covenant living.
For example, after Paul and Silas had been savagely beaten and then incarcerated in a Philippian jail, they had begun—in a very unnatural way—to pray and sing hymns to God (Acts 16:22-25). A more natural response would have been to scream invectives and curses at those inflicting pain, discomfort, and detention.
The spiritual bases for their out-of-the-ordinary and naturally-unorthodox responses follow.
2 Cor. 4:10-11
10Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our (the believers’) body. 11For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death (to sin) for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
The spiritual reality of always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus pointed to the period on the cross when Jesus had cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt.27:46). During those moments, Jesus paid the penalty for the sins of those God calls. Those sins ruptured the fellowship between Jesus and God.
For Paul and Silas in Philippi, through their belief in the above spiritual reality, forgiveness of their sins was only a confession away, thus insuring continued fellowship with the Father and Son. That fellowship was expressed in prayer and song.
Jesus was without sins but suffered terribly on behalf of those His Father calls. Yet, He withstood the awesome trial of the cross, together with the indignities leading up to His death, without retaliation or repudiation—but simply with a prayer for His Father’s forgiveness of His detractors and hecklers. Thus, as mediator of the new covenant, He became the archetypical pattern for unorthodox responses for all those who would live under the new covenant.
One of the ultimate goals of Jesus’ dying was so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our (the believers’) body. Paul next explained the mechanism whereby Jesus’ life is manifested in the believers.
For we who live (i.e., have eternal life) are constantly being delivered over to death (to sin) . . . A believer can easily become a slave to sin by sinning (John 8:34). To be delivered constantly from this potential spiritual catastrophe of slavery to sin—often initiated by a believer’s determination to obey law himself—the believer simply believes God’s promise to put to death the practices of sin by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:13).
A constant reminder of God’s promise is the mechanism that brings about . . . constantly being delivered over to death . . . This death, on a daily basis, (cf. 1 Cor. 15:31) is for Jesus’ sake, so that . . . He can be Lord of one’s life and not sin. As Lord, . . . the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
This brief statement by Paul summarizes two key requirements for maintaining a God-honoring spiritual life under the new covenant: one, confession of sins; and two, through prayer, daily putting to death the practices of sin in the body by the Spirit’s power (cf. Rom. 8:13). But, what about those believers who were not living under the new covenant?
2 Cor. 4:12
12So death (to sin) works in us, but (eternal) life in you.
Paul next added these words of encouragement to those believers not living under the new covenant. Because death (to sin) works in us, his theologically-correct knowledge and encouragement was spiritually valid for those who had eternal life—but (eternal) life in you.
All that was necessary for believers who believed in their own adequacy for spiritual living was to confess their sins and thus be restored to fellowship with the Father and Son (cf. 1 John 2:7, 9), followed by the simple confession that Jesus was their Lord, resulting in being saved from their slavery to sin (Rom. 10:9). These simple beliefs would provide living testimony that only God Himself was adequate for spiritual life and new-covenant living.
They could put to death the practices of sin by the Spirit (cf. Rom. 8:13) and discover that Jesus’ life was being manifested through them; by so doing, believers not living under the new covenant would begin enjoying the abundant life under the new covenant.
6. In verses 4:13-18, the apostle Paul elaborated the eternal credit (recognition) beyond all comparison for earthly living under the new covenant.
2 Cor. 4:13-14
13But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed, therefore I spoke,’ we also believe, therefore we also speak, 14knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.
Paul reassured the Corinthian believers—both those believers living, and not living, under the new covenant—that they had the same spirit of faith as did he. That spirit of faith, the new spirit installed in those who had been called by God (Ezek. 36:26), caused all those born again to believe God’s promise of forgiveness of their sins through Jesus’ death. Such belief resulted, permanently and irrevocably, in new-covenant life.
Quoting Psalm 116:10 (I believed, therefore I spoke), Paul underscored his own belief in God’s promise of forgiveness of his sins—we also believe. Based on Paul’s faith, or belief in God’s promises and adequacy, it followed logically from the psalmist statement that we also speak. Much of what Paul had boldly spoken about in this section of Second Corinthians was about new-covenant living, even for those unbelieving believers.
It follows that those who do not believe God’s promises for freedom from enslavement to sin are simply incapable of speaking or teaching the truth about the issues Paul had written or spoken about to the Corinthian church. Perhaps this may explain the silence about new-covenant living in today’s churches.
For both believing and unbelieving believers, Paul asserted from his experiential knowledge acquired by meeting his ascended Lord that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. Paul knew indisputably that his eternal destination was heaven and assured both groups they were also irreversibly on their respective journeys to heaven.
The phrase will raise us could imply Paul and Timothy were near physical death (cf. 2 Cor. 4:16). Or, an alternate explanation might be that the us Paul had in mind were all presently deceased believers (cf. 1 Cor. 15:6; 1 Thess. 4:13-14). Irrespective of the explanation, Paul was assured that he was permanently and irrevocably saved from the lake of fire judgment (cf. Rev. 19:20)—an assurance applicable to all believers and one in which they can all enthusiastically rejoice (cf. John 5:24).
2 Cor. 4:15
15For all things [are] for your sakes, so that the grace which is being multiplied through the many may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.
Paul explained to the Corinthian believers that all things he had written about God’s promises and adequacy were for your sakes. The apostle’s purpose: so that the grace which is being multiplied through the many may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. Five noteworthy facts are:
- The grace was God’s grace—God Himself doing what He required of Corinthian believers living under the new covenant.
- The grace was multiplied, not simply added to, implying God’s continuous applications of His grace to His grace already dispensed to those living under the new covenant as well as to those believers who were about to adopt new-covenant living.
- The many were those believers manifesting new-covenant living and therefore did not include all believers.
- Believers could readily recognize God’s continual grace in their lives and respond with the giving of thanks.
- Their thanks would abound to the glory (correct credit or recognition) of God; personal credit—that is, suggesting one’s own adequacy for new-covenant living—would be implicitly acknowledged as non-existent.
2 Cor. 4:16-18
16Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17For momentary, light affliction (sins and sin) is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Because spiritual life and new-covenant living are rooted in God’s grace and promises, and appropriated by those He calls through His gift of faith to them, Paul could write we do not lose heart . . . though our outer man is decaying. Although new-covenant living did not reverse or terminate physical mortality, it did provide courage and boldness in Paul’s life of many trials because of God’s adequacy.
Furthermore, Paul realized that his inner man (new heart and new spirit) was being renewed day by day through a daily God-focused and God-enlightened perspective that remained positive and optimistic despite the world’s obviously deteriorating spiritual and moral condition, and even his own personal deteriorating physical condition.
What possibly could maintain the apostle’s overwhelmingly positive attitude? The answer most assuredly did not originate with any motivational speaker or seminar! Paul’s attitude originated and was sustained from his awareness that this momentary light affliction (a metonymy for sin) is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. Here are five factors buttressing Paul’s positive attitude:
- From an eternal perspective, life’s experiences on earth were momentary, meaning they were neither permanent nor enduring.
- All Paul’s challenges and sufferings could be correctly categorized as light (emphasis mine) affliction from sin when compared to living under the Law that produced unending slavery to sin (i.e., the old covenant; cf. Acts 15:10).
- Affliction was neither by chance nor random happenstance; God’s purpose for Paul’s experiences was ingeniously constructive and positive for His child’s spiritual development (cf. Jas. 1:2-4). In essence, God is using evil to produce good (cf. Rom. 3:8 for an egregious distortion of this reality). The reality is that manifesting God’s righteousness (good) under the tyranny of evil—that is, sin—requires the believer to believe God’s promises for new-covenant living. The believer’s faith is credited to the believer’s account, eventually resulting in great honor.
- God was producing for us (Paul, Timothy, and the Corinthians believers) an eternal weight of glory. This eternal weight of glory was independent of time and therefore changeless. Glory can be understood in biblical terminology as unambiguous credit for new-covenant living free from sin’s slavery by faith leading to extensive positive recognition from those who count like God, Jesus, the church, other believers, and God’s chosen angels.
- The glory is far beyond all comparison with anything known or experienced on planet earth. In short, human description is haplessly incapable of capturing the essence of this recognition.
Coming from an ordinary human, Paul’s words might sound like a sports coach regaling his team at half-time because of some difficulties suffered at the game’s outset. But Paul was no ordinary man. He had been caught up to the third heaven and heard things not permissible for a man to describe (2 Cor. 12:2-4). Thus, what was behind Paul’s positive thinking had been a revelation or vision from God Himself, so magnificent that to tell other believers might well end up in their immediate and premature departure for the third heaven.
So Paul’s worldly perspective was not biased by looking at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. In the apostle’s mind’s-eye of faith, he was privileged to picture the third heaven.
For the things which are seen are temporal. That is, temporal things are temporary, changing, partial, distorted, incomplete, and oftentimes evil. In contrast, the things which are not seen are eternal. That is, eternal things from new-covenant living are good, permanent, unchanging, complete, without distortion, and perfect. Above all things, eternal things are good coming from God Who alone is good! (cf. Mark 10:18).
Conclusion
New-covenant living has been unveiled. From 2 Cor. 3:5, the principle of new-covenant living may be stated simply as: “Nothing coming from us; everything coming from God!” (Stedman, Ray C. Authentic Christianity. Grand Rapids: Discovery House Publishers, 1996, 45).
God’s promise for new-covenant living given His prophet Ezekiel: “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause (emphasis mine, not ‘enable’) you to walk in My statutes, and you will be (emphasis mine) careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezek. 36:26-27).
God “causes” perfect conformance to His statutes and ordinances by the Lord Jesus living spiritually in the believer and manifesting His perfectly obedient life by the Spirit’s power through the believer in response to the believer’s belief alone in God’s promise of new-covenant living.
God alone is adequate for new-covenant living.
The major obstacle to new-covenant living is the believer’s resolve, decision, or determination to obey God’s law himself. Such a spiritually devastating choice by any believer activates sin causing the believer to commit sins, thereby becoming a slave to sin, and rupturing fellowship with the Father and the Son.
Ruptured fellowship can be repaired by confessing the act of sin—or, sins—to God.
Finally, the difficulties experienced by believers living under the new covenant are producing for them an eternal recognition far beyond all comparison.
Failure to live by God’s new covenant has at least five results:
- God’s glory is hidden so He is robbed of duly-deserved thanks.
- Heavenly rewards will be denied some believers.
- Other believers will be denied spiritual enrichment from those believers who do not practice new-covenant living.
- A plus: old-covenant living sometimes maintains a modicum of civility among Christians.
- Pastors and teachers, who focus on the obedience reflected in old-covenant living, place spiritual obstacles before believers who might embrace new-covenant living.
Introduction
In the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus used the metaphor of the vine and branch to explain fruitfulness in the life of a believer. Jesus is the true vine; the nation Israel would no longer be the vine of Isa. 5:2. His eleven disciples present for His metaphorical teaching were the branches.
Our Lord used the word “abide” ten times in this metaphor, thereby stressing the critical relationship for fruitfulness in the believer. The relationship would be to abide in Him—meaning that He would be Lord of the fruitful believer’s life. Furthermore, the fruitful believer would recognize and believe that it was Jesus dwelling spiritually within Who would produce fruit for God (cf. Rom. 7:4).
Fruit bearing of the eleven would prove they were Jesus’ disciples (John 15:8). Sometimes this correlation between fruitfulness and Jesus’ disciples provides the basis for encouraging discipleship in the church.
Finally, the Holy Spirit would play an important role in the believer’s fruitfulness (cf. Gal. 5:22-23).
The Spirit of God
Early in His Discourse, Jesus had mentioned briefly that, at His request, the Father would give the Holy Spirit to the disciples. The Spirit would be with them forever, dwell spiritually in them, and teach them all pertinent things (John 14:16-17, 26).
Following the vine/branch metaphor, Jesus again touched upon the Spirit’s teaching ministry, emphasizing that the Spirit would not embellish, elaborate upon, or adapt the precise words of Jesus intended for His disciples (John 16:7, 13-15).
Perhaps recalling Jesus’ Upper Room teachings, the apostle John wrote a letter to Jewish believers highlighting the Spirit’s teaching ministry (1 John 2:20, 24, 27). Some commentators estimate that John’s letter may have been written almost six decades after the Upper Room Discourse. If so, church doctrine, policies, practices, and communiques about disciple making would have been well established, generally known, and communicated.
In any event, John makes the startling assertion in his letter that his readers had no need for anyone to teach them because the Spirit would teach them about all pertinent things. Teaching is essential to disciple making (Matt. 28:20, a Gospel written essentially for Jews about the Messianic Kingdom). Maybe John’s surprising assertion is the reason behind the fact that the word “disciple” is never mentioned in any of the epistles. For believers in local churches, it is the Spirit who makes disciples.
Discipleship In The Church
One of the popular programs in today’s churches is discipleship. Discipleship means that a spiritually informed believer commits himself for a significant period of time to teaching or mentoring those young or uninformed in the faith.
However, recall the astonishing reality that the word “disciple” is found nowhere in the Bible’s epistolary literature. The epistolary literature is devoted primarily to church matters, so from the absence of the word “disciple,” one might tentatively conclude that discipleship was not a priority for first-century saints. This conclusion agrees precisely with John’s letter to Jewish believers.
The counter argument to this conclusion is often to quote The Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20). In The Great Commission, Jesus commanded that disciples be made of all nations, baptizing the disciples in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The content of the teaching would be restricted to all that Jesus had commanded His disciples. And Jesus’ promise was that He would be with the disciple makers to the end of the age. The overwhelmingly common understanding of this passage is that The Great Commission applies to the church.
The Great Commission
One of the daunting challenges from Islam is that Christianity is polytheistic rather than monotheistic. That is, Christianity has three Gods (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) rather than the one God of Islam—Allah. But notice that baptism under The Great Commission is in the name—singular, and not plural—of the Father, Son, and Spirit.
This observation raises the question, “What exactly did Jesus mean by the singular name of the Father, Son and Spirit?” The three persons of the Godhead (cf. Gen. 1:26 for God’s plurality–indicated by the plural pronouns–and simultaneous singularity–indicated by the singular nouns “image” and “likeness”) obviously are not individual gods, but a singular God (cf. Deut. 6:4).
A possible answer to this question of what Jesus meant may be suggested from Moses’ early job-interview with God (Exod. 3:13-15). Moses asked God His name, to which God replied, “I AM,” which is My memorial-name to all generations (of Israel). In Hebrew, that name is YHWH, used 5,321 times in the Hebrew Bible, and thus quite familiar to Jesus’ disciples.
Therefore, it’s possible that disciples of The Great Commission should be baptized in the name of Israel’s God, YHWH. Further indication of this possibility stems from the fact that baptisms in the Book of Acts were in Jesus’ name:
- Acts 2:38, reporting Peter’s command to baptize Jews on the first Pentecost in Jerusalem,
- Acts 8:16, reflecting Philip’s work among the Samaritans,
- Acts 8:38, probably in Jesus’ name for the Ethiopian eunuch’s water baptism by Philip,
- Acts 10:48, when Peter ordered baptism of the gentile Cornelius in Caesarea (together with his relatives and friends); note that Peter baptized both Jewish and gentile believers in Jesus’ name—Peter who had been present at The Great Commission’s promulgation, and had been commanded by Jesus to do all He had just commanded, and
- Acts 19:5), recording Paul’s work in Ephesus with 12 men who had previously been baptized into John’s baptism.
Believers in the Book of Acts were never baptized in the name of YHWH. So had Peter deliberately and consistently disobeyed Jesus’ command about baptizing Jews and gentiles in the name of YHWH?
A tentative deduction may be proffered. Peter did not disobey his Lord because The Great Commission was not intended for the church. Rather, Jesus intended The Great Commission for believing Jews dispatched from Israel following the God-defeated invasion of Israel by Gog’s coalition (Ezek. 38:2-3, wherein Gog is prince of Rosh, aka Russia). Following His victory, God makes His holy name (singular) known in the midst of His people Israel (Ezek. 39:7).
Some corroborating evidence for this deduction that the Great Commission was never intended for the church can be offered. Jesus had revealed—to three of His disciples—the Son of Man coming in His kingdom on a mountain traditionally held to be in Galilee (Matt. 16:28-17:9). The three disciples were instructed to tell no one of the vision until after Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Following His resurrection, Jesus ordered His eleven disciples to a certain mountain in Galilee (Matt. 28:16). Here is a bit of speculation: on their way to the mountain in Galilee, Peter, James, and John informed the other eight disciples of their favored experience on the mount of Transfiguration.
Upon arrival at the mountain, some of the disciples worshiped Jesus when they saw Him—including Peter, James, and John plus some of the other disciples who had believed what they had been told by the favored three (Matt. 28:17). But some were doubtful (Matt. 28:17) because they were anticipating an inaugural celebration in Jerusalem (not on a mountain in Galilee) for the King who had recently entered the city on the colt of a donkey in accordance with Zechariah’s prophecy about Israel’s King (Matt. 21:1-10). The doubtful disciples had not seen the Transfiguration for themselves and might have been skeptical about the report from the favored three (cf. 2 Pet.1:16 for Peter’s response to such skepticism). Note: preoccupation with the Kingdom’s arrival even persisted right up to Jesus’ Ascension (Acts 1:6).
To reassure the doubtful, Jesus told them all authority had been given Him in heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18) validating the response of the disciples who had worshiped Him. He was, in fact, King!
Next, Jesus issued The Great Commission—in the context of His being legitimately Israel’s King. Those He commanded referred to believing Israeli Jews who, going into all nations, would make disciples of Jews in the Dispersion as well as gentiles, thereby preparing them for citizenship in the Messianic Kingdom. The Israeli Jews might well be part of the 144,000 mentioned by John in The Revelation (Rev. 7:4, keeping in mind that the 12,000 from the tribe of Levi might remain in Israel to serve in the rebuilt temple).
The teaching content for the Israeli Jews would be limited to what Jesus, Himself, had commanded—meaning the content would come almost exclusively from the Gospels with only marginal reference to the Epistles that deal with matters of an already raptured church.
Jesus’ promise was that He would be with these Israeli Jews even to the “end of the age.” This latter phrase came from Daniel’s prophecy related to resurrection of Old Testament saints just prior to inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom (Dan. 12:13).
Finally, Jesus’ closing post-resurrection command to His eleven disciples was to be His witnesses, not disciple makers (Acts 1:8). This particular command by Jesus was exactly what Peter had obeyed (Acts 10:40-42). Jesus’ command did not encompass disciple making as indicated by Peter leaving Cornelius’s premises a few days after the gentile’s baptism in Jesus’ name (Acts 10:48). Peter, a church member, had totally ignored The Great Commission.
Witnessing and disciple making are two very different activities. Witnesses preach (Mark16:20; Acts 10:42) or proclaim forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name (Luke 24:47; Acts 10:43) to unbelievers. Disciple making is the focused personal-and-interactive teaching of specific learners who already have believed. Disciple making takes place over a protracted period of time, perhaps up to three years as Jesus had done with His disciples. In stark contrast, witnessing can take place with a single individual, or sometimes with larger audiences, over a short-term time period and, many times, with sequential groups of different listeners.
Conclusion
Discipleship is likely not intended as a program for the church because the indwelling Holy Spirit will teach believers from God’s word.
The Great Commission most probably applies to believing Jews sent from Israel to prepare both Jews and gentiles for Kingdom citizenship.
Introduction
In a recent discussion about the Rapture of children, it was suggested that pre-adolescent children of believing parents would be raptured based on their having no knowledge of good or evil (cf. Deut. 1:39 for evidence of the lack of this knowledge in children; cf. 1 Cor. 7:14 for a believing parent causing the children to be holy). The suggestion was countered by citing the doctrine of Total Depravity. The following essay will demonstrate biblically that the doctrine of Total Depravity is a spurious doctrine.
Definition of the Doctrine
Total Depravity means that sin and the consequence of Adam’s act of sin (i.e., spiritual death) are both inherited by all humanity from Adam. While it is true biblically that sin is inherited by all from Adam, it is not true that the consequence of his spiritual death was also inherited from Adam.
Some Biblical Evidence Contradicting Total Depravity
God said, “an eye for an eye . . .” (Exod. 21:24; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21; Matt. 5:38). God said this to limit retaliation–so those who were victims of losing an eye from an assailant did not retaliate by putting out both eyes of his/her assailant.
So based on God’s law, it would seem out of character if God punished Adam for his sin of eating the forbidden fruit (which God did), and then God were also to punish every person born into the human race for Adam’s sin as well. Such punishment would be akin to, ‘billions of eyes for an eye . . . .’
Also, the argument of Reformed theology is that the race was in Adam when Adam sinned. Justification for this theological idea comes from Heb. 7:9, where the writer said Levi was in Abraham when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, and thus Levi also paid tithes to Melchizedek hundreds of years before Levi was born.
However, the sentence, stating ‘Levi paid tithes,’ is introduced in three English Bible translations by the following: “it could be said” (New English Translation Bible); “in a sense” (Holman Christian Standard Bible); and, “so to speak” (New American Standard Bible). Those introductions indicate that the writer to the Hebrews was not speaking literally when he wrote: ‘Levi paid tithes.’ Rather, the author of Hebrews was writing figuratively.
Obviously, in the literal sense, Levi was also partially in a woman’s seed (i.e., Sarah’s) so the totality of the person “Levi” could not literally reside in Abraham’s loins.
It is literally true that the human race was in Adam’s seed. At the fall, Adam’s seed was genetically altered by sin becoming a permanent part of Adam’s genetic makeup which was passed on (in this sin-infected state) to every human, whether male or female, thereby permanently infecting all the cells of their physical bodies.
And this is what the apostle Paul wrote: “Therefore, just as through one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and (physical) death through sin, and so it (sin) spread to all men (i.e., mankind), on the basis of which all sin” (Rom. 5:12). (Note: an individual’s spiritual death results from sin causing all to commit an act of sin and does not result from a direct inheritance of the penalty for Adam’s sin.)
The above translation of Rom. 5:12 is supported by some of the Greek manuscripts. Historically, Augustine accused Pelagius–sometimes referred to as a British monk–of substituting the word “death” for “it” in the last phrase of Rom. 5:12 which meant Augustine was reading a Greek manuscript that had the correct wording.
Therefore, “original sin” means only Adam’s genetic sin-infected material was spread to the entire human race, and not the act of sin in breaking God’s command not to eat of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Total depravity means not only sin was transmitted to all humans through Adam, but also all humans were joined to Adam in the Garden of Eden and literally also committed the act of sin in eating the forbidden fruit. (Note: two theological doctrines promulgated to support this hypothesis are Adam’s Federal Headship or Seminal Headship.)
Therefore, Adam paid for his sin, and we must also pay for the same sin. This means nothing less than “double jeopardy” a billion times over! And unless the biblical record explicitly exempts Jesus from Adam’s act of sin–which the record does not–then Jesus also committed the act of sin by eating the forbidden fruit.
Further, Paul pointed to a specific group of humans who lived between Adam and Moses, and who “. . . had not sinned (emphasis mine) in the likeness of Adam’s offense . . .” (Rom. 5:14). This statement from the apostle Paul effectively nullifies the theological doctrine that all humanity sinned in Adam.
And finally, in his letter to the saints at Ephesus, Paul diagnosed the former spiritual state of his readers as “. . . you were dead in your (emphasis mine) trespasses and sins . . .” (Eph. 2:1). Paul’s analysis of these physically living saints was that they had suffered spiritual death from their own trespasses and sins, not from Adam’s act of sin!
Conclusion
Young children will not be disqualified from the Rapture of the church due to the doctrine of Total Depravity because said doctrine has no basis in the biblical text.
A CHRISTIAN OXYMORON: AN OBEDIENT SAINT
Introduction
An oxymoron is a combination of contradictory words, like “cruel kindness.” So why is an “obedient saint” a Christian oxymoron? The following essay will provide the theological answer to this question.
Definition of a Christian Saint
Some of the apostle Paul’s letters are addressed to “saints.” A Greek lexicon defines the word saints as meaning “human beings consecrated to God, holy, pure, reverent” (Bauer, W., Danker, F. W., Arndt, W. F., and Gingrich, F. W. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 10.1.a.b.a).
The adjective “Christian” qualifying the word “saints,” therefore, designates those human beings who have simply believed that Jesus Christ of Nazareth died on the cross, and was subsequently resurrected, to provide them personally with forgiveness of their sins.
Thus, all Christian saints are holy to God because they have simply believed in Jesus’ death and resurrection for forgiveness of their sins. Theologically, such a person has eternal life, will not come into the judgment of hell, and has passed from spiritual death into eternal life—permanently and irreversibly (cf. John 5:24).
A Saint and His/Her Obedience to God
However, Christian saints commit sins when they, themselves, try to obey God (Rom. 7:7-11 reports the apostle Paul’s experience in this matter).
The reason a saint sins is because he/she is constantly encouraged by Christian pastors and teachers to obey God. Responding to those sometimes intense and always sincere admonitions, the believer resolves to personally please God by obeying His law. Such a resolution automatically makes sin that dwells permanently in every believer’s body until physical death (or his/her rapture) the controlling power in the believer’s life. And sin’s control makes the believer commit sins.
The problem of sin in the believer makes the word combination “obedient saint” an oxymoron because a saint is incapable of being obedient to God in and of himself/herself.
God’s Solution for The Saint’s Sin Problem
God’s solution to the problem is at once simple and elegant. God promises He, Himself, will cause obedience from His saint (Ezek. 36:27). To avail oneself of God’s solution, all the saint has to do is believe God’s promise.
The way God circumvents the sin problem in His saint is to have His Son, Jesus Christ (Who is always perfectly obedient to the Father) live spiritually in His saint and control His saint’s bodily members by the Holy Spirit so that those saints manifest Jesus’ obedient life. For this, God alone gets the glory for His grace.
On the other hand, if the saint himself/herself were to accomplish obedience to God, the saint’s heart would become proud and he/she would forget God (cf. Deut. 8:14). And remember, God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble (Jas. 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5).
Avoiding the Christian Oxymoron
How might a saint avoid being tagged with the oxymoronic label, “Obedient Saint?” Simple! Believe God’s promise of Christ’s obedient life being manifest by His Spirit, and thereby becoming known as a “Believing Saint.”
keep looking »