2 CORINTHIANS 3: 1-6 [GAINING PERSPECTIVE Series]
THE SPIRIT GIVES LIFE
[Acts 15:1-11 / Jeremiah 31:33 & Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26]
Whose endorsement is more important to you, the endorsement of men or the endorsement of God's Spirit? Would it be an endorsement of a letter of reference or the endorsement of the effectual working of the Spirit of God?
Wherever you find the genuine, you will find somebody promoting the counterfeit. Even art critics have been fooled by fake "master pieces," and sincere publishers have purchased "valuable manuscripts," only to discover them to be forgeries. The genuineness of a ministry is seen in the spiritually transformed lives not in conformity to external rules.
No sooner did the Gospel of God's grace begin to spread among the Gentiles than a counterfeit "gospel," a mixture of Law and grace, appeared. Those that spread this false gospel major emphasis was that salvation was by faith in Christ plus the keeping of the Law (Acts 15:1ff). They also taught that the believer is perfected in his faith by obeying the Law of Moses. Their "gospel of legalism" was very popular, since human nature enjoys achieving religious goals instead of simply trusting Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to work. It is much easier to measure "religion" than true righteousness or spiritually. But God gives maturity and Christian growth as we follow His Spirit not as we follow the law (CIT). The Spirit gives life, the letter of the Law kills.
I. LIVING LETTERS; 1-3.
II. AN ADEQUACY OF GOD; 4-5.
III. THE SPIRIT'S COVENANT; 6.
Verse 1 reviews some charges leveled against Paul. "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you?
Having had to affirm his own motive in contrast to the gospel-peddlers, Paul is sure that he will be attacked as egotistical and self promoting. No utterance of his was safe from perversion at the legalists' hands. Since Paul states "again" apparently this commending [ƒ¶ƒ¼ƒ¬ƒ¤ƒ¶ƒºƒ¤ƒ°ƒ¬ - "to place together, placing one person with another as a way of introduction or recommendation"] was repeatedly required because of the constant accusations empowered by the vicious Accuser of the godly.
Infiltrators had succeeded in penetrating the ranks of the leadership in the Corinthian Church on the strength of certain "letters of commendation" which they produced on their arrival. Thus, those false teachers said they had letters that authenticated their authority but Paul had none, he had to commend himself, which is not proper.
There is an element of the ludicrous in any suggestion that Paul might stand in need of letters of recommendation or that his ministry and personal character needed to be documented. His work spoke for his character. Now Paul is not saying that letters of commendation are a deplorable practice, he was simply saying that there is better proof. (Rom. 16:1-2; 1 Cor. 10:10-11).
The best proof of authenticity of ministry is given in verse 2. "You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men."
Nothing is more delightful to faithful ministers, or more to their praise, than the spiritual lives of those among whom they labor. Paul told the Corinthian believers that they were his letter. The effect of his ministry in their lives was his letter of recommendation testifying to his authenticity. They were his fruit, saved through the word he brought them. They certainly did not need any other verification of authenticity for they themselves were the proof of it.
He says they were written -perfect tense- meaning they were permanently written in each others hearts. The heart is the center of love and devotion and it was in the heart that these believers were written. They were secure in his heart and he should be in theirs.
Paul continues saying they were "known and read by all men." Professing Christians are the letters, the only bibles than men read and know. I can guarantee you that the only Bible most your acquaintances are reading is you.
Some people believe that OUR HANDWRITING reveals our character. Experts in the field of graphology watch for things like the slant of letters, the way they are formed, where the "t" is crossed, and how the "i" is dotted. Based on these distinctions, conclusions are drawn about one's personality. We are told that the style of our writing shows whether we are outgoing or withdrawn, individualistic or of a conforming nature.
While some may question the reliability of this practice, it does reminds me that Christians are epistles "known and read by all men." The conduct of our life is composing a letter which details the kind of person we really are.
If we are trying to please the Lord Jesus Christ, the handwriting of our lives will reveal a love for others and responsiveness to their needs. We will also express individuality and a willingness to stand alone for righteousness' sake if duty demands it. Each day we will try to adjust our behavior to the will of our heavenly Father.
Allow the Savior to live through you by relying on His power. Then the handwriting of your life will communicate to others you belong to Him.
The following poem written by Paul Gilbert is intended to encourage Christians to write a persuasive testimony for our Savior with their life.
You're writing a "gospel,"
A chapter each day,
By the deeds that you do,
By the words that you say;
Men read what you write,
Whether faithless or true;
Say, what is the "gospel"
According to you?
Christian lives have often been living letters that recommend Christ to others. Frank W. Boreham, in his book Faces in the Fire, tells about a Japanese man who walked hundreds of miles to talk with some Christian missionaries about how to discover the secret of "the beautiful," as he described it. He had seen in the missionaries' lives a beauty that he too wanted.
Sir George Burns, founder of the Cunard Steamship Company, was another living epistle. Biographer Edwin Hodder had this to say about him: "If the Bible were blotted out of existence...[and] if there were no visible church at all, I could not fail to believe in the doctrines of Christianity while the living epistle of Sir George Burns' life remained in my memory." No higher compliment could be paid to anyone.
May we too be living letters that recommend the Lord Jesus to others. A Christian's life is the world's Bible.
[Sometimes, however, our writing is done with scratchy pens. Maybe the message is badly blurred and so illegible that God's love can't be deciphered.
Hannah More, an outstanding witness for the gospel [in the 19th-century England,] sometimes felt discouraged about the quality of her spiritual penmanship. [Although she organized schools for the unevangelized poor and wrote many tracts and hymns, she had a low opinion of her effectiveness.] She wrote as her self-appraisal, "God is sometimes pleased to work with the most unworthy instruments--I suppose to take away every shadow of doubt that it is His own doing. It always gives me the idea of a great author writing with a very bad pen."
Don't be discouraged by your spiritual penmanship. God is a great Author who is quite able to use even scratchy pens like you and me to communicate His message to people around us. Regardless of how we appraise our living message, keep on writing for His glory. Remember, we're not called to write for God, but to let God write through us.]
Verse 3 makes clear that the best letters of recommendation are the lives lived by those we disciple. "being 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."
They and we are being manifested, revealed or open for all to read and we are a letter written by Christ. Christ Himself is imprinting His character upon our hearts. The Spirit of the Living God is taking the truths taught and writing them upon our heart. The instrument used for writing was not ink but the Spirit of the Living God. Ink will fade and perish the Spirit is eternal. The most central part of our being bears the eternal engraving of Christ which marks us as eternally His own. When the temporal ink of this world fades, [and it will for the final writing is ready to be written upon the wall "Mene, mene, Teki, Parsin."] those who have Christ's name written on their heart will be delivered by angels to a new heaven and a new earth.
The powerful imagery of writing on the tablets of human hearts comes from the Old Testament passages that predicted a new day when God would give men new hearts (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 11:19; 36:26). It is imagery [not the sign] of the New Covenant of new beginnings for God's people which has been fulfilled in Christ. No longer are the Ten Commandments, the external law written in the stone of the Old Covenant our guide, but internal living laws written in hearts at Pentecost, the day that celebrated the giving of the stone law. At Pentecost God poured forth His Spirit to write His living law on the hearts of the redeem granting them a living power to fulfill it and live for Christ.
When God gave the Law He wrote it on tablets of stone, and those tablets were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. Even if the Israelites could read the two tablets, this experience would not change their lives. The Law is an external thing, and people need an internal power if their lives are to be transformed. The law admonish us to "Do this!" or "Don't do that!" but it cannot give us the power to obey. [If we do obey, often it is not from the heart and we end up worse than before!] When the Spirit of the Living God guides our life, He also gives us the power to obey Him.
II. AN ADEQUACY OF GOD, 4-5.
The following verses continue the topic of the New Covenant which was just introduced [in verse 3]. Verse 4 indicates the true source for confidence in ministry. "Such confidence we have through Christ toward God.
Paul's confidence rests in Christ, not in human resources. The living letter Christ wrote in their [& our hearts] is real and is the proof for any who are seeking for Paul's authenticity and authority [which was being belittled].
So Paul credits God for all his accomplishments giving God the glory instead of boasting in his own prowess. The point made is that the real change in the lives of the Corinthian Christians had been the work of God rather than of himself. God had merely allowed Paul to be the minister through whom it had all happened.
Verse 5 teaches that our adequacy comes from God by His grace alone. "Not that we are adequate (capable from) in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is out of God,"
No one is adequate to carry on the Holy Spirit's ministry. God is the One who enables us to proclaim and stand firm in the gospel, not our own natural strength or power. So Paul expresses his total dependency upon God and cast aside self-competence.
No one is competent to carry out the responsibilities of God's calling in his or her own strength. Without the Holy Spirit's enabling our natural talents lead us only to earthly ends. As Christ's witnesses we need the character and empowering only God gives. We who have received all things from Christ look with confidence through Christ to God for all things.
III. THE SPIRIT'S COVENANT, 6
Verse 6 informs us that Paul's new covenant ministry was not empowered by a legalistic letter but by the power of God's Spirit. "who also made us adequate (capable) as servants of a New Covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Unlike his rivals in Corinth, Paul could look back to a definite occasion when God called him into ministry and gifted him for service (Acts 9:3ff; 26:16-18; 22:14f). Paul was made a servant of a New not the Old, Covenant. It is the permanent covenant not established in the blood of often repeated animal sacrifices but established in the once for all sacrifice of the shed blood of Jesus. This new covenant is the last will and testament of Jesus Christ.
Paul's emphasis on the New covenant implies that his opponents were ministers of the Old Covenant. Legalists told people that people could obey the law and become spiritual [Wiersbe, Warren. The Bible Exposition Com. Victor Books. Wheaton, IL. 1989. Vol. 1. p. 638]. But the Old Covenant letter could not give life, it is a ministry of death (Gal.3:21). The New Covenant of grace "gives life" to those who believe because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
The difference between old and new covenants is that under the old law is written on tablets of stone confronting man with external ordinances and condemning Him of his failure to obey its commandments because of sin. Where as the new law is written internally within the redeemed heart by the dynamic regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, so that through faith in Christ the only law keeper an inward experience of His power gives man life and enables man to walk in God's will.
In themselves words cannot produce righteousness, even though they be God's words. There has to be the vitalizing Spirit to charge the words with transforming power [Harris, Murray. The Expositor's Bible Commentary. 2 Corinthians. Zondervan. Grand Rapids. 1976, p 335].
Notice that "the letter kills." The law is not evil but no man will be justified or sanctified by law. The law is used to slay the sinner and prove him helpless before God, condemned and deserving of death and eternal separation from God. This realization prepares the way for life giving grace for all who will recognize their need. The true outside life can only be produced by the true inside life.
A legalistic ministry brings death. Preachers who major on rules and regulations keep their congregations under a dark cloud of guilt, and this kills their joy, power, and effective witness for Christ. Christians, who are constantly measuring each other, comparing "results," and competing with each other, soon discover that they are depending on the flesh and not the power of the Spirit. There never was a standard that could transform a person's life, and that includes the Ten Commandments. Only the grace of God, ministered by the Spirit of God, can transform lost sinners into living epistles that glorify Jesus Christ [Wiersbe, p. 638].
A group of ministers attending an evangelistic conference were giving their TESTIMONIES of how they came to know Christ. Most of them spoke of dramatic conversions. One pastor stated that he had been born into a Christian home and had grown up in the church. "It seems from my earliest years I have always known and loved the Lord," he said. The other clergymen couldn't identify with this, since most of them remembered a definite time and place when they trusted in Jesus. When questioned the minister stated that, "I do remember when the 'have to' became 'I want to.' "
Yes, that's the key to knowing that our faith is real. If our service for the Lord is made up of all "have to" but no "want to," we have probably become legalistic, having substituted adherence to man-made rules for loving obedience to God's commands. We need to ponder again the great price Jesus paid for our redemption. God exposed His heart of love for you and for me. He inflicted on His beloved Son the punishment our sins deserve so that we could be forgiven. As we confess our sins and ask the Holy Spirit to fill us, we'll experience afresh His marvelous love. And this will bring us back to the place where our "want to" replaces our "have to."
I'm free from the law with its stern demands
No longer defeated by its commands;
I'm filled with God's Spirit who lives in me,
And He is the One who has set me free. [Our Daily Bread.]
Yes, "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives live" The verdict pronounced over a law breaker is death (Rom. 5:12, 6:23; Eccl. 18:4,20; Prov. 11:19). The grace of the New Covenant is life giving in Christ. As God, He was the law giver, and as man He is the only law keeper. He vicariously endured each sinner's death penalty ridding us of the legal accusations documents by nailing them to the cross with Him (Col. 2:14f). Thus Pentecost could occur and the Spirit of God could come down communicate His life and give His obedience to every trusting heart. This same spiritual life is given to every believer.
IN CLOSING,
The New Covenant, or eternal agreement, was inaugurated by Christ in His sacrifice on the cross (Lk. 22;20), and is entered into by faith (Phil 3:9), and lived out in dependence on the Spirit (Rom. 7:6; 8:4). As we follow our calling and live in the Spirit, Christ makes us competent in our service for Him. Is your adequacy, your competence, or your confidence in God who has written a love letter upon your heart? Is the Spirit revealing it to the World?
If your competence is in self-you are living under law and not under Christ. If you are under law you will be judged by the law, but if you are under Christ you have fulfilled the law in Him. Are you spirit led or law led? Are you finding Christ's Spirit your adequacy to do all things? Even enabling you to live out the Christ kind of righteousness?
