2 Corinthians 3:1

In these verses,

I. The apostle makes an apology for seeming to commend himself. He thought it convenient to protest his sincerity to them, because there were some at Corinth who endeavoured to blast his reputation; yet he was not desirous of vain-glory. And he tells them, 1. That he neither needed nor desired any verbal commendation to them, nor letters testimonial from them, as some others did, meaning the false apostles or teachers, Co2 3:1. His ministry among them had, without controversy, been truly great and honourable, how little soever his person was in reality, or how contemptible soever some would have him thought to be. 2. The Corinthians themselves were his real commendation, and a good testimonial for him, that God was with him of a truth, that he was sent of God: You are our epistle, Co2 3:2. This was the testimonial he most delighted in, and what was most dear to him - they were written in his heart; and this he could appeal to upon occasion, for it was, or might be, known and read of all men. Note, There is nothing more delightful to faithful ministers, nor more to their commendation, than the success of their ministry, evidenced in the hearts and lives of those among whom they labour.

II. The apostle is careful not to assume too much to himself, but to ascribe all the praise to God. Therefore, 1. He says they were the epistle of Christ, Co2 3:3. The apostle and others were but instruments, Christ was the author of all the good that was in them. The law of Christ was written in their hearts, and the love of Christ shed abroad in their hearts. This epistle was not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; nor was it written in tables of stone, as the law of God given to Moses, but on the heart; and that heart not a stony one, but a heart of flesh, upon the fleshy (not fleshly, as fleshliness denotes sensuality) tables of the heart, that is, upon hearts that are softened and renewed by divine grace, according to that gracious promise, I will take away the stony heart, and I will give you a heart of flesh, Eze 36:26. This was the good hope the apostle had concerning these Corinthians (Co2 3:4) that their hearts were like the ark of the covenant, containing the tables of the law and the gospel, written with the finger, that is, by the Spirit, of the living God. 2. He utterly disclaims the taking of any praise to themselves, and ascribes all the glory to God: "We are not sufficient of ourselves, Co2 3:5. We could never have made such good impressions on your hearts, nor upon our own. Such are our weakness and inability that we cannot of ourselves think a good thought, much less raise any good thoughts or affections in other men. All our sufficiency is of God; to him therefore are owing all the praise and glory of that good which is done, and from him we must receive grace and strength to do more." This is true concerning ministers and all Christians; the best are no more than what the grace of God makes them. Our hands are not sufficient for us, but our sufficiency is of God; and his grace is sufficient for us, to furnish us for every good word and work.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ch. 2Co_3:1-6. St Paul’s Ministry no self-assumed task, but the communication of the Spirit

1. Do we begin again to commend ourselves?] A charge had been apparently brought against St Paul that he had before (probably in 1Co_2:16; 1Co_3:10; 1Co_4:11-14; 1Co_9:20-27; 1Co_14:18) indulged in unseemly self-laudation. He supposes that the same charge will be brought against him for his language in ch. 2Co_2:14-17.

as some others] The opponents of St Paul had no doubt come armed with letters of commendation from some Apostle (as the Judaizers in Gal_2:12) or Church, and some of them had received similar letters from the Corinthian Churches on their departure, with a view to their reception by some other Church. St Paul appeals to the nature of his work among them as rendering such a proceeding on his part not only unnecessary but absurd.

epistles of commendation] Tyndale and Cranmer, better, letters of recommendation, the word from its derivation signifying rather introduction than what we now understand by commendation, i.e. praise, though it would seem to have come to this meaning in New Testament Greek. See last note but one. Instances of such letters commendatory are to be found in Act_15:25-27; Act_18:27; Rom_16:1; Col_4:10. They became a common, almost a necessary, feature in the life of the early Church, and were known as literae formatae.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co_3:1-5

Do we begin again to commend ourselves?

or need we … epistles of commendation?

A pastors claim

1. The voluntary relations of men are founded upon mutual confidence, and even those which are involuntary require reciprocal reliance. The parent who does not duly trust his children will soon ruin them, and the child who does not rely upon his parents will certainly become prodigal. Distrust in a master will make him a tyrant, and want of confidence in a servant will produce miserable eye-service. The suspicious prince is always cruel, and the distrustful subject is a revolutionist; and the functions of the ministry are nullified by distrust in the Churches and in the world.

2. This confidence is easily disturbed and soon destroyed. A whisper on Change against the credit of the successful merchant will sometimes gather force and sweep him into ruin. A question addressed in an incredulous tone to a master about the fidelity of an honest servant will make him watch that servant with an eagles eye. In like manner may the confidence of the Churches of Christ in their chosen pastors be impaired or crushed. Of the danger to which confidence in this case is exposed, these Epistles to the Corinthians afford illustration. Note--

I. The grounds of a Christian pastors claim upon the confidence of the Churches.

1. There is a peculiar writing on the tablet of the Christians soul. The old covenant was engraven upon slabs of stone, but the new covenant is written upon the sensitive and everlasting tablet of the heart. On this is written the good news that God so loved the world and spared not His own Son. There is other writing. Science writes. But science, beautiful writer though she be, and wise and useful, cannot write about the highest subjects, nor can she reach by her pen the fairest tablets of the human soul.

2. The writing on the tablets of the true Christians soul is effected for Christ by the Holy Spirit.

3. In writing, the Spirit employs men--pastors and teachers--as pens.

4. Those upon whose hearts Christ has written are Christs chief means of communicating with the outlying world. In plain language, the works of the true pastor bear witness of him, and establish his claim to loving confidence. We ask, then, firm and loving confidence for the proved ministers of Christ. To require this from their own converts is to ask a small thing. To no creature on earth or in heaven is a man so largely indebted as to the instrument of his conversion. But say that you have no such personal obligations to the true ministers of Christ, they may claim confidence for their works sake. Give us your confidence for your own sake, for without it we cannot minister to your profit; for your childrens sake, for, if they detect distrust, in vain do we try to help you bring them up; for our works sake among the ungodly. I do not say that we cannot work without it, but I do say that we can work more hopefully with it.

II. The ground of a pastors own confidence with respect to his work.

1. The confidence of any worker with respect to his work is essential to his success. The basis of such confidence may be either his own independent resources or the help which he obtains from those stronger than himself. The latter is the foundation of the confidence of Christs ministers. Their sufficiency is of God. To say God is sufficient is only like saying God is God, but to declare our sufficiency is of God is to exhibit a spiritual fact which among the children of men is exceedingly rare. This is not to sit talking of the Almighty God, but to walk leaning upon Gods arm, and to work, God working with us. This is to take such advantage of the Divine resources as this special work demands. Without this, a man may be scholarly, eloquent, and popular, but in the sight of God he must be a failure. The work of the true pastor can only be done as God would have it be done, as our sufficiency is of God.

2. Why, then, are we not filled with the fulness of God? It may be that we prefer the cistern to the fountain, and that we cleave to it after it has become leaky, and it may be because of our many false gods. One thing is certain--we are always half mad about something which, however good, is not God. The organisations and associations, better psalmody, more ornate architecture, a denominational press, wealth, are the false gods after which we too often have gone a-whoring. Why are we not filled with the fulness of God? It may be that we do not sufficiently recognise the mediation of Jesus Christ and the ministry of the Holy Ghost; it may be because our sins have separated us from God. One thing is certain--we could do our work with God if everything external and circumstantial which now we have were taken clean away. The first preachers and teachers had none of our appliances, and yet succeeded, because their sufficiency was of God.

3. And now let me entreat you to commend your pastors in ceaseless prayer to the help of God.

4. Our sufficiency is also yours. (S. Martin, D. D.)

Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men.--

Sacred penmanship

Self-praise is no recommendation, and the sounding of ones own trumpet is not to be applauded. False teachers had entered into the Corinthian Church, and they had found it necessary to have letters of recommendation, but Paul needed no such introduction. Truth and righteousness recommend themselves in the work they accomplish. Our translation admits of another rendering--namely, Ye are our epistles written in your hearts, and this would imply that Paul had been enabled to pencil something in the hearts of others which could be read by all men; and it is with this idea I shall deal in speaking about sacred penmanship.

I. Observe the requisites for writing. The accessories must be provided, however, for a letter to be written, and let us briefly notice these--pen, ink, and paper.

1. In the third verse we have the pen: Forasmuch as ye are declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us. Here is the instrument in the hand of God. The Church was divided, for one said, I am of Paul, another, I am of Cephas; but these good men were only the pens whereby God, through His Spirit, had written upon the fleshy tables of their hearts. Among these instruments there must ever be a variety. The rough and rude can, however, be made to write well. Paul, though he was not eloquent of speech, but somewhat blunt, had power to get hold of mens hearts, and he wrote upon them, with dark, indelible lines, great truths. Apollos could speak with eloquence of diction, and finely pencil the Scripture, so that the Jews were mightily convinced that Jesus was the Christ. John was another such instrument. Soft in love, sketching in poetry the wonderful revelations he had of the better land, he would win hearts for Jesus.

2. Then there must be the ink. The sacred fluid is the Spirit of God. Written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. The mysterious influence that flows through us is not of earthly manufacture.

3. The next requisite is the paper. It is not written upon stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. A soft heart best absorbs the ink, a living tablet best retains impressions. Lord, write first in us, and then make us as the pen of the ready writer, to make our mark on others.

II. The readers of the writing. Known and read of all men. The writing is real--no fiction, for the author is Christ. We are the autograph letters of our Lord, and bear His signature. The writing is clear, for we are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ. Now, this document is a public one. Believers are the library for the world; they are a Christian literature; each saint is a volume to expound the grace of God. Known and read of all men. We may consider the readers of this writing to be of three classes--

1. The intelligent. Many are real students of Christian character, desirous of gaining knowledge for their own good in spiritual attainments.

2. Then there are the interested readers--our friends who like to see if we make progress in Divine things. The first series of Christian experiences are interesting, and are studied with deep anxiety by those who love young converts.

3. The last class I have called the inquisitive. They only peruse to find fault. Ours must be so correct an epistle that fault-finders shall find it difficult to gratify their morbid taste. The schoolmaster says to his boys, Be sure you dot your is and cross your ts; and we too must be mindful of little things. (Charles Spurgeon.)

Pauls testimonials; their publicity

The conversion and new life of the Corinthians were Pauls certificate as an apostle. They were a certificate, he says, known and read by all men. Often there is a certain awkwardness in the presenting of credentials. It embarrasses a man when he has to put his hand into his heart pocket, and take out his character, and submit it for inspection. Paul was saved this embarrassment. There was a fine unsought publicity about his testimonials. Everybody knew what the Corinthians had been; everybody knew what they were; and the man to whom the change was due needed no other recommendation to a Christian society. (J. Denney, B. D.)

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ.--

Soul literature

Christianity written on the soul is Christianity--

I. In the most legible form.

II. In the most convincing form. Books have been written on the evidences of Christianity; but one life permeated by the Christian spirit furnishes an argument that baffles all controversy.

III. In the most persuasive form. There is a magnetism in gospel truth embodied which you seek for in vain in any written work. When the Word is made flesh it is made mighty through God.

IV. In the most enduring form. The tablet is imperishable. Paper will moulder, institutions will dissolve, marble or brass are corruptible.

V. In the divinest form. The hand can inscribe it on parchment or stone, but only God can write it on the heart, (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The epistle of Christ

I. The designation of Christian people.

1. An epistle is a fact of production. No epistle is self-produced. It must have a writer. Nor is it a creation; all the elements existed before. So with the epistle of Christ.

2. An epistle is a production of intelligence. An epistle must have a direct intelligent end, must be worth reading and knowing.

3. A letter is the expression of the thoughts and purposes of the writer. So Christians are the transcript of Christs design, morally impressed with the counterpart of His principles and character as their Exemplar.

4. A letter is a medium of communication. So what is communicated to Christians must be communicated by them to others. It must be communicated as it is; it must not be obliterated or shown partially.

II. The writing agent, and the manner in which the epistle is composed. The Spirit of the living God, etc., who--

1. Works according to His own plan.

2. By the use of suitable means, and according to established laws. The act is not a thing done in some rare instances, but in the heart of all good people.

3. By the concurrence and co-operation of man himself--the object of His work. Man is an agent of his own culture and all which belongs to him in life. He is also the agent of his own salvation. If he neglects his work, no one can do it for him.

III. The instrumental means ministered by us. The ministry of the gospel--

1. Brings the materials of truth and salvation to men.

2. Prepares also the pages of the soul to receive true impressions and the blessings offered in the gospel. There are stains to be erased, misconceptions to be corrected, habits and prejudices to be destroyed, before clear and true writing can be made.

3. Brings the human soul and Divine truth face to face, so by Divine light and love a photographic image is printed upon the whole soul. Whilst it is a Divine power it is a Divine art, printing upon the human heart and life a true image and right language.

4. Perpetuates the means of truth and right life.

IV. The tablet of record, the fleshy tables of the heart. As the heart is the centre of our natural life, it is also, in a moral sense, the centre and base of our spiritual life.

1. The work of God in the heart is carried on quietly and secretly, but is powerful in its results, like the forces of God in nature. What more secret than thought, love, faith? but what more powerful and clear in their results? The letter is secret in the writing, but known in the reading.

2. Though unseen to sense, ii is nevertheless a matter of consciousness to the subject of it,

3. It is a process which purifies and develops human affection. The end is to make the heart belier and larger.

4. It is a process intended to govern the springs of human life. Mankind is governed through its heart. It is a happy and high state when the sentiment of the heart is one with reason.

5. Whatever is good and happy, if written on the heart, is an immediate source of life and comfort.

6. It is a thing to be highly estimated and remembered. When we wish to gain esteem, we try to reach the heart; when we desire not to be forgotten, we try to print our name on the tablet of the heart. (T. Hughes.)

The epistle of Christ

I. The Christian is an epistle of Christ.

1. Its writer. Christ.

2. Its purport, Christ has blotted out guilty and written in no condemnation. He has erased earthly and supplied heavenly. Licentiousness has given place to purity, profanity to prayerfulness, selfishness to love, etc. We judge of the authorship of an epistle, not merely by the penmanship and signature, which a clever forger might imitate, but also by its contents. A hypocrite, a false professor, is like forged letter.

3. Its design. To convey the mind of Christ to men. Men may refuse to listen to the gospel, but they cannel ignore the testimony of a consistent Christian life.

II. The responsibility devolving on the Christian as an epistle of Christ.

1. As a letter is written for the purpose of being seen, a Christian should let his Christianity be visible. We do not write letters merely for the sake of writing them, but that they may be read. So, if Christians do not let their Christianity be seen in their lives, they defeat one chief end which Christ had in view in making them what they are. Those who are Christians in name only are in no sense of the term epistles of Christ; ii were vain to exhort such to let what Christ has written in them be seen by men, for they have nothing to show.

2. A letter being written for the purpose of being read should be legible. A letter may be so written that it is impossible to make out the writers meaning. Such a letter may be worse than useless, for, owing to its illegibility, it may convey a wrong meaning. When the letters of men are illegible ii is the fault of the writers, but this is not the case with Christs epistles. He never writes illegibly. The fault lies on the side of the epistles themselves. Note one or two things which render writing illegible.

(1) Indistinctness of character. One word may be mistaken for another, and thus the whole meaning of a sentence may be altered. And Christians may be illegible as epistles of Christ through the wavering, unsteady character imparted to the writing that is in them by their want of decision for Christ and their compromises with the world. What we want is boldness on the part of Christians in testifying for Christ in their everyday lives.

(2) Blots. Perhaps the most important word in a sentence is completely hidden by a blot. Alas! in how many cases is the testimony of a Christian for Christ made of none effect by the unsightly blot of some gross inconsistency, some dark sin, which the eye of the world rests continually on, and refuses to see anything else.

3. A letter is written that it may be understood. What prevents letters from being intelligible?

(1) Omissions. Were the little word not, e.g., left out, the meaning of a sentence would be entirely reversed. In like manner, the lack of one essential Christian grace-charity, e.g.--if it do not render the character of a Christian unintelligible, makes it less easily understood.

(2) Contradictions. We cannot possibly make out the meaning if one sentence says one thing and the next the opposite. And haw can men understand our testimony for Christ if we have one kind of conduct for the Church and another for the world? (J. Bogue, M. A.)

Epistles of Christ

I. The epistle.

1. How it is written.

(1) The apostle does not speak of a vague oral tradition, or of shifting impressions, but of a written epistle. The material on which this epistle is written is the heart of man. Not merely in his understanding, for he may know what is right and yet not do it; not merely in his conscience, for he may acknowledge his duty, yet neglect it; but in his heart, that it may be his desire and his delight, the very law and tendency of his being.

(2) Like the pages of this book when they came from the hands of the manufacturer, the mind of man by nature is a perfect blank in regard to Christ, or rather like the material from which these pages were manufactured--filthy rags, foul, tattered, and discoloured. To become an epistle of Christ it must be prepared and written on. It must be purified, and characters traced on it.

2. Its contents. Christ is its grand and all-pervading theme. Observe--

(1) Paul did not say of all the disciples, Ye are epistles of Christ, but, Ye are the epistle of Christ. Collectively you constitute the one epistle, just as there are many copies of the Bible in many foreign languages, but only one Bible. Different as the Laplander and the Indian may be, yet, when taught by the Spirit, they testify the same things of Christ.

(2) Nor did Paul say of any individual, Thou art the epistle of Christ. As there are many imperfect or mutilated MSS. of the Bible, and as in all there are errors of the pen or the translator, so also there are imperfect and unfinished copies of the epistle of Christ. And as it is only by collating and comparing many versions that we can say, This is the Word of God, so also we must collate and compare many Christians ere we can say, This is the epistle, the image, of Christ.

3. Its purpose.

(1) The salvation of those in whose hearts it is written.

(2) To recommend Christ to men. As samples of His work, you will be either letters of commendation or of condemnation to Him.

II. How we may so use this epistle that it may serve the purpose for which it was written. We may commend Christ--

1. With our lips. Our conversation may be an epistle to make known His praises. The circulation of the epistle written with ink--the printed Bible--is our duty. Even so it is our duty to publish the living epistle. It was intended to be an open letter, known and read of all men. How many are there with whom we daily associate who never read the written Bible, the only hope of whose salvation is that they may read or hear the living epistle! By our silence we conceal that epistle from them, and leave them to perish.

2. By our lives. It is in vain that we speak of Christ with our lips if our lives belie our words. Our actions, like a pen full of ink, trace certain characters, leave certain impressions on the mind and memory of those who see them. In beholding our actions, have men been led to say of us, These men have been with Jesus?

3. By our character. A mans outward manner may be in direct opposition to his inward character. To be true epistles of Christ we must reflect His image, not in word only, or in action, but in our dispositions and desires. (W. Grant.)

Epistles of Christ

From the example of the Master Paul had acquired the habit of gliding softly and quickly from a common object of nature to the deep things of grace. The practice of asking and obtaining certificates seems to have been introduced at a very early period into the Christian Church, and already some abuses had crept in along with it. We gather from this epistle that some very well recommended missionaries had been spoiling Pauls work at Corinth. Virtually challenged to exhibit his own certificates, he boldly appeals to those who had been converted through his ministry, and now he glides into a greater thing--Christians are an epistle of Christ. Regarding these epistles, consider--

I. The material written on.

1. Many different substances have been employed in writing; but one feature is common to all--in their natural state they are not fit to be used as writing materials. They must undergo a process of preparation. Even the primitive material of stone must be polished ere the engraving begin. The reeds, and leaves, and skins, too, which were used by the ancients, all needed preparation. So with modern paper, of which rags are the raw material. These are torn into small pieces, washed, cast into a new form, and become a new creature. A similar process takes place in the preparation of the material for an epistle of Christ. You might as well try to write upon the rubbish from which paper is made as to impress legible evidence for the truth and divinity of the gospel on the life of one who is still of the earth, earthy.

2. The paper manufacturer is not nice in the choice of his materials. The clean cannot be serviceable without passing through the process, and the unclean can be made serviceable with it. Let no man think he can go into heaven because he is good; but neither let any one fear he will be kept out of it because he is evil.

II. The writing. It is not Christianity printed in the creed, but Christ written in the heart. A persons character may be gathered from his letters. How eagerly the public read those of a great man printed after his death! Our Lord left no letters, yet He has not left Himself without a witness. When He desires to let the world know what He is, He points to Christians. Nay, when He would have the Father to behold His glory, He refers Him to the saved: I am glorified in them. A Christian merchant goes to India or China. He sells manufactured goods; he buys silk and tea. But all the time he is a living epistle, sent by Christ to the heathen. A Christian boy becomes an apprentice, and is now, therefore, a letter from the Lord to all his shopmates.

III. The writer. The Spirit of the living God. Some writings are easily rubbed off by rough usage or with age. Only fast colours are truly valuable. The flowers and figures painted upon porcelain are burned in, and therefore cannot be blotted out. No writing on a human spirit is certainly durable except that which the Spirit of God lays on. In conversion there is a sort of furnace through which the new-born pass. In the widespread religious activity of the day some marks are made on the people--not made by the Spirit of God--shown by the event to have been only marks on the surface made by some passing fear or nervous sympathy.

IV. The pen. In photography it is the sun that makes the portrait; yet a human hand prepares the plate and adjusts the lens. A similar place is assigned to the ministry of men in the work of the Spirit. Printing nowadays is done by machines which work with a strength and regularity and silence that are enough to strike an onlooker with dismay. Yet even there a watchful human eye and alert human hand axe needed to introduce the paper into the proper place. Agents are needed even under the ministry of the Spirit--needed to watch for souls.

V. The readers.

1. The writing is not sealed or locked up in a desk, but exposed all the day to public view. Some who look on the letters are enemies, and some are friends. If an alien see Christ represented in a Christian, he may thereby be turned from darkness to light; but, if he see sin, self, and the world, he will probably be more hardened in his unbelief. Those who already know and love the truth are glad when they read it clearly written in a neighbours life, are grieved when they see a false image of the Lord held up before the eyes of men.

2. Many readers, however, fail to see the meaning of the plainest letters. None so blind as those who will not see. Considering how defective most readers are either in will or skill, or both, the living epistles should be written in characters both large and fair. Some MSS. are so defectively written that none but experts can decipher them. Skilled and practised men can piece them together, and gather the sense where, to ordinary eyes, only unconnected scrawls appear. Benevolent ingenuity has produced a kind of writing that even the blind can read. Such should be the writing of Christs mind on a Christians conversation. It should be raised in characters so large that even the blind, who cannot see, may be compelled, by contact with Christians, to feel that Christ is passing by. (W. Arnot, D. D.)

Epistles of Christ: imperfect and spurious

The Bible is Gods book for the world, only it shuts it. But the world will read you. Masters, your servants read you; servants, your masters read you; so will parents children, etc. Do they read in you what they ought to read? A Christian should be a Bible alive. Never mind though a man has not learned his letters; he will be able to read you fast enough. All men can read justice, mercy, and truth, or the opposite of them.

1. One day a thought flashed into my mind that I did not want to lose, and, having no paper at hand except a letter from a friend, I just wrote between the lines of it; and when I had done that the fancy struck me to read through the writing as it stood, one line of my friends and one of my own, and you cannot think what nonsense it was! Ah! there are some characters like that. I dare not say there was nothing about them that Christ had written, but they have sadly allowed the devil and the world to underline them; there is no coherency or consistency in them.

2. I remember, when I was a little boy at school, if I by any chance managed to make the smallest blot, as sure as I took the book up to my master, the first thing he looked at was the blot; and, as sure as I took it home, the first thing anybody looked at was the blot. My letters may have been made very gracefully, but nobody said a word about them; but everybody said something about the blot. Ah! I have known some people very good on the whole, but they have had sad blots--blots of temper, vanity, and worldliness. The sun himself is looked at more during the few minutes he has a black spot on his face than on all the days of the year besides. The world has an eagle glance for your spots, and if you have a spot on your character people will look more at it than at all the beautiful things that are there.

3. I got a letter one day which had been sent to a committee. For the life of them they could not read it, and they sent it to me to try to make it out. It was a difficult task, and when I had made out the words I could scarcely make out the sense. It was a letter, but a very unintelligible one. I have known some characters like that, and if I preached to such I should have to take the text, I stand in doubt of you. These are not like the epistles spoken of in the text, known and read of all men, Endeavour to keep clear of such a character that nobody can tell what list to put you in: avoid being so quaint and difficult that nobody can tell what to make of you. May it be said of you, as it was said as I passed the door of a godly man who had lately died, If ever there was a Christian, that man was one.

4. I remember, just before I left my last circuit, that I looked over a great number of old letters, some of which, at the time I received them, were so precious that I put them away to preserve them, and several of these had become so creased and dirty and illegible that I was obliged to throw them into the fire, though once they were so precious to me. I should not like that any of you who had been real letters of Christs own writing should become so careless and worldly that the writing became marred. I should not like that you should get into such a cold, backsliding state that all the beautiful letters that once were put upon you should become illegible, and that at the last Christ should say, Cast them into the fire.

5. I was once in an assize court where a man was being tried for forgery. The individual whose writing, it was suspected, had been imitated, was dead, and so a large letter-book, full of what was known to be the writing of the deceased, was produced in court, to test the alleged forgery by it. If you are letters of Christ you will resemble His writing. The very name Christian implies that you profess to have Christs name written upon you. But it is no use to profess to be Christs epistle if you are not like Him. Suppose I picked up a letter which professed on the face of it to be a letter from Jesus Christ, but recommended this congregation to be worldly-minded, to love gold, to be fretful and peevish, and to be guilty of evil-speaking and slander. Of course I should know that it was no letter from Jesus Christ. I wonder whether all present who profess to be Christs epistles ever do that which Christ would not put His name to? Are you genuine letters? A friend of mine went to the bank to pay in some money. Amongst it there was a ten-pound note. The clerk looked at it carefully, and then stamped Forged right across it. What a sad thing it would be if any of you who profess to be epistles of Christ now should at the last be disowned of Him, and He should say, You are none of Mine--forged! (S. Coley.)

Living epistles of Christ

I. An Epistle of Christ is the title of every believer. In the N.T. Epistles we have the promised further revelation of Christ. We call them for convenience the epistles of Paul, or of Peter, etc.; but they are the epistles of Christ, from and concerning Him. So believers are a revelation of the Redeemer to the world; and as these apostolic letters carried light wherever they went, so the world is to read on the Christian the mind and grace of Jesus.

1. Christs work will necessarily witness to Him. The world cannot look on any true servant of Christ without receiving an impression of the Master.

2. Christs purpose concerning the world requires that every Christian be an epistle of Christ. With multitudes the gospel will be powerless until its truth is proved by its effects.

3. Christs love to His people affords this usefulness to all of them. For to help others to Him is to enter into the joy of our Lord, and He would deprive none of His beloved of that. One of the Florentine princes commanded Michael Angelo to fashion a statue from the drifted snow before his palace, and the great artist, ignoring the scorn, wrought at the task as though he chiselled the enduring marble; and when it began to melt at the suns touch, and the contemptuous prince laughed at what he thought the vanity of the toil, the sculptor solaced himself with the reflection, The thought I threw into that snow shall stir this gazing people when their gaze is done. Our common tasks are fleeting, yet we may throw a piety into them whose memory will abide for good with those that saw it to distant years.

II. Think of Christ writing this epistle.

1. There must be the erasure of the old writing. In ancient monasteries the monks would take old parchments, and, removing the writing they bore, write sacred truth on them instead; so it happened that, where before men read annals of conquest, or heathen laws, or pagan blasphemies, then they read the Word of God. Till the old heathen writing on us be removed, there is no room for the new, nor would it stand much chance of being seen. So Christ removes it. We cannot; no human skill can cleanse the blotted page of an evil character.

2. There must be the impression of His will on the character by fellowship with Him. In fellowship with Christ a subtle influence is exerted on us which must leave its mark; we cannot be with Him without acquiring a hatred of sin, without His peace possessing us, without our love and courage being inflamed, which must show themselves when we pass out to men again.

3. When He has done that there may remain the bringing out of some of His deepest writings by fire. For as great secrets have been written on that prepared surface which conceals the writing till it is exposed to heat, and then line after line of unsuspected story appears, so some of Christs most sacred messages only steal out in the lives of His people in the hour of trial. The chamber of Christian sorrow has many a time been the place of Divine revelation.

III. Then, surely, having written his epistle, he sends it. To write a letter without sending it were vain. The Bible is Gods letter to the world; we may think of His people as supplementary letters to individuals.

1. Then He will see it comes to them. This is the meaning of many of His providential dealings with us.

2. We may expect Him to call their attention to us whom He means us to reach. He will not suffer that to be unread which He has written; His Spirit works with His providence, and turns mens eyes where He would have them look.

3. And that shows Gods special mercy to some. When they have failed to read the Bible He has given them, He is so earnest for their redemption that He sends a letter to themselves.

IV. He who writes and sends their waits the answer! (C. New.)

Living epistles

This is one of those felicitous turns of expression which show the true genius; the sudden availing ones self of an adversarys argument against himself. Ask for my letter of commendation? Well, who has such a letter as I can show? Ye are our epistle. Demosthenes uttered nothing finer than this, or so convincing.

I. In what respects may men resemble an epistle, known and read of all?

1. The prime characteristic of a letter is its containing the mind of the writer. Can Christians represent the mind of Christ, as a letter contains your mind?

(1) A perfect Church is not needed for this; for the Corinthian community, like a defaced epistle, was blotted with serious imperfections. Still their general conduct could exhibit such an approximation to the Spirit of Christ that the apostle could afford to spread it open before all men, asking them to read and know it. It is not, therefore, our infirmities and sins which disqualify us from being epistles of Christ. A good writer can, when pressed, write on very unpromising material. It is not the kind of paper, but the writing, which men are anxious to see.

(2) The great difficulty with us all is the obstinate restlessness which keeps us from being written upon. But where this is overcome, and we present ourselves to the Lord, He will write His will concerning us so legibly that all shall acknowledge the finger of God--like the Pharisees, who took knowledge of Peter and John, that they had been with Jesus.

2. When our Lord said, I call you not servants but friends, He implied that they would be an epistle, the contents of which would command their intelligent sympathy. Not like a letter-carrier, who knows nothing of what he carries, but like a friend charged with a message of reconciliation in which he is warmly interested.

3. The great requisite of the epistle which we are considering is that it be manifestly from a living Writer. There are good letters whose authors are dead. Valuable; you keep them as curiosities. The religious life may present a faultless epistle of this kind--an evident regard to the will of Christ, but not to a living will. A conscientious executorship, but it is fulfilling the wishes of the dead! The life shows what Christ was, not what He is; what He said, not what He says. But we want to show letters of Christ of to-day. How different your manner when you bring me a letter on pressing business, and when you open a cabinet and produce a letter of Miltons! Now the former letter on business is what we want. Can I be the manifest epistle to others of a living Saviour? I know whether a man speaks to me as an antiquarian or as a believer, whether he comes to me with good news or to amuse me with information. You all know the difference between a lecture on Christianity and faith in a personal Redeemer; between a lecture on fire-escapes and making use of one when the house is burning. Let us speak, then, less of Christianity and more of Christ. Let Him show in us what He is. All sacrifice, all self-denial for His sake, is a most legible epistle of Christ. You know whether any one is repeating a lesson or speaking from his heart; whether he talks about business, or art, or science as from books or from experience or affection. Thus we shall show the hardly dry letter of Christ to men, or we shall show an old dry parchment copy, as we live day by day under the eye of our Lord and dwell in fellowship with Him by prayer and duty.

II. The recommendation of things and persons contained in these living epistles. Ye are our epistle. Your conduct serves as a letter of commendation--yea, better than a thousand! Ye are my letter written in my heart. we can prove this man to have been sent of God; our lives show what God has wrought through him. Receive him. Every Christian, every Church, is intended to be a letter of commendation. Certainly a minister is highly honoured with a good letter of introduction of this kind. An ignorant or wicked man hears a minister preaching the gospel. He says, Why should I listen to that man? What recommends him to my confidence? Now it is a great thing for him to read of holiness, purity, and love in the people who are associated with that minister. On the other hand, every inconsistent hearer cripples the minister, and resembles one of those Bellerophons letters, where a person carries a letter of introduction containing a caution to beware of him. He is a public refutation of the preacher. He is a letter containing, Do not believe a word he says. Conclusion:

1. The apostle does not say that the individual Christian is an epistle of Christ, but they are collectively declared to be so. Each is a word or sentence; all make up the letter. Sentences which are unmeaning, often in their connection make a grand meaning. Christ often makes great use of one person, as tie often uses one word or verse to console or teach. But the force of that word depends very much on its being known to be part of an inspired book. Let us all try together to form the epistle of Christ.

2. Let people see and read the whole. Do not our passions, our selfishness, our indolence make us withhold it? Let us not incur the great sin of preventing poor sinners from seeing their Friends own handwriting! Who can tell the effect it might have upon them?

3. But for this end we must all be in our place, like the separate words of a letter; one word blotted or missing often makes a great difference to the meaning. Keep the end of Church life in view; not comfort, but the exhibition of the letter. (B. Kent, M. A.)

The living epistle

A letter implies--

I. An absent person who sends it; for in the actual presence of friend with friend letters become unnecessary. Now Christ is for a time absent, having gone into the heavens. In His absence He does not forget the world, but communicates with it by letters written on the hearts of His saints.

II. A person or persons to whom it is sent. There is no class to whom Christs message is not addressed. It may be a message of warning to the unconverted, of caution to the careless, of guidance to the perplexed, of comfort to the saddened, of hope to the desponding. Shall we not take care that it is a full letter that Christ sends by us, written all over, and rich in instruction and encouragement? Shall we not see that it is a well-written and legible letter? Let the life, the character, the conduct, all be so plain and consistent that none shall doubt whose we are, and to whose grace we bear witness.

III. Messages. What are those which should be read in the heart and life of a Christian?

1. The freedom of the Saviours love towards a sinner. The characters of converted men, and their histories before they were converted, may be infinitely various. But they are all alike in that they are sinners, and sinners saved, and all of grace, from the first moment of solemn conviction till the time that they found peace. Would we see Christs love to the sinner and His power to save?--Look at them. May it not be with many of them, as with St. Paul, that for this cause they obtained mercy, that in them first Christ Jesus might show forth a pattern of all long-suffering? Would we know that the love of Christ is free as the air we breathe, and broad as universal man? Would we know that there is no sin so deep as to be beyond the merits of the atonement, no spiritual ruin so absolute as to be beyond the power of grace? Learn it all here in these saved sinners; read the message of the Saviour in these loving epistles of Christ, written with the Spirit of the living God.

2. The sufficiency of Divine grace--the power of the Spirit of Christ to regenerate the heart, and to turn the proud and stubborn will to God. What the strength of sin is we know in our personal experience only too well; but we never really know till we know it by experience, just as a mall may gaze long on a swollen river as it rolls its fall waters towards the cataract below, and yet may never know its fatal strength till he is himself upon the current, vainly struggling with all his might to stem the fatal force which is hurrying him onwards to his death. I fancy that there are none, not excepting the most reckless of men, without some experience of the power of evil over them. Where, then, shall be your hope but in the Spirit of God? But how shalt thou know that the unseen Spirit is willing to help thee, or, if willing, competent to make thee a conqueror? Why, here is the epistle of Christ to assure thee of it. Look at this saved man. The whole course of his nature is changed, and flows towards God. He now loves what once he hated, hates what once he loved. He was once just like thyself.

3. The certainty of the promises and the deep inward peace and joy which are the inheritance of the children of God. Who has ever heard a Christian man say that he was disappointed in Christ, or did not find Him the precious and perfect Saviour he had believed Him to be? Ask the man of the world if he has found happiness in excitement, in wealth, iii honour and ambition, and he will frankly tell you, with a sigh, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. (Canon Garbett.)

The posted system in its beneficent and religious aspect

An epistle is a letter. Epistle is a word formed from the Greek; letter from the Latin. Epistle does not occur in the English Old Testament; there is always letter, or (quite as often and quite as correctly), in the plural form, letters. An epistle of Christ, then, is a letter of (from) Christ. We do not possess any letter of Jesus Christs. There was a spurious correspondence, known to the early Church, between Christ and a prince of Mesopotamia, who applied to Him for help in sickness, but it was a forgery. Indeed, by the nature of the case it must have been so, for there were no Christians in Mesopotamia till Christ Himself was gone back to heaven. The nearest approach to an actual epistle of Christ is found in the addresses to the seven Churches in the Book of Revelation. The text was suggested to me by the occasion. We are welcoming this afternoon to the mother church of the diocese a large company of men whose every-day life connects them with the postal service of the country. It seems natural to inquire whether there is anything about your work in the Bible. There is more about it there than you might suppose. A Concordance will present a somewhat full record under the heads of Epistle, Letter, and Letters. Many of the entries are sad and sorrowful ones. The first (I think) of all is that fatal letter of King David to his unworthy confidant, Joab, about Uriah. See there what a letter may have in it--a cruel and treacherous edict of murder. And the next in order is like it. It is the letter of the wicked queen Jezebel to the elders of Jezreel about Naboth. But let it just show us what you may be carrying in that sacred budget of the daily letters. Let it give an element of awe, of solemnity, to the daily ministration. There may be corruption in that bundle, and you may be innocent of it. Soon after we come to the threatening letter of Sennacherib. Momentous issues hang upon that daily stamping, sorting, delivering. Issues, not all of evil-some of eternal good, to give an expected, a blessed end. Three centuries ago there was no post-office in England. Why, indeed, should there be, when so few people could write? People dwelt apart, managed their own little dwellings, cared not for news of their countrys welfare or their countrys relations with foreign countries, bought and sold in their own little hamlets. London and Edinburgh were a week apart as to tidings of battles or revolutions. Thus the world vegetated, thus the world slept. I will bid you to think but of three of the departments of life to which you, in the exercise of a laborious and often depressing service, minister.

1. Think of it in its business aspect. What would happen if that daily sorting and stamping and carrying were but for one day intermitted? Why, the wheels of the world would be stopped by its stoppage.

2. Think of it in its family aspect. Communications passing week by week between the home and the schoolboy son, or the servant son, or the sailor or soldier son, or the colonist son, or the exile son for fault or no fault of his. You, you are ministering to these sweetest and most beautiful instincts of nature as you tread your weary round.

3. Its business aspect and its family aspect. Has not your work yet one more--its religious, its Christian, its Christlike aspect? Oh, the influence breathed by letters upon solitary, straying, tempted lives! I do not think it is always the religious letter--strictly so called and ostentatiously so labelled--which does this work of works. No; there are letters--from mother, from sister, from brother, from friend--which even name not the name of God, and yet do Him service in the hearts heart of the receiver. I need not here warn any one against corrupting by letters. A curious thought strikes me, Dr. Johnson said, a century and more ago, to his biographer--a curious thought strikes me--we shall receive no letters in the grave. Yes, this is one of the thoughts which make the state beyond death so bare and blank to our conception. No letters? Then no information (is it so?) as to the state of the survivors--their health and wealth, their prosperity or adversity, their marriages and deaths, their joys and sorrows, their falls and risings again. We shall receive no letters in the grave. Then let us so live as not to miss them. Let us have a life quite within and above, quite independent of, and extraneous to, the life of earth and time. Let us have so read and so written our letters, while we can, as to have no remorse for them in the world beyond death. (Dean Vaughan.)

An epistle of Christ

A missionary in India was so feeble mentally that he could not learn the language, After some years he asked to be recalled, frankly saying that he had not sufficient intellect for the work. A dozen missionaries, however, petitioned his Board not to grant his request, saying that his goodness gave him a wider influence among the heathen than any other missionary at the station. A convert, when asked, What is it to be a Christian? replied, It is to be like Mr.

, naming the good missionary. He was kept in India. He never preached a sermon, but when he died hundreds of heathen, as well as many Christians, mourned him, and testified to his holy life and character. (S. S. Chronicle.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 3:1-2. Do we begin again — While we thus speak and avow our integrity; to commend — Or recommend; ourselves — As some insinuate we do? Is it needful to do so? have we nothing but our own word to recommend us? St. Paul chiefly here intends himself, though not excluding Timothy, Titus, and Silvanus: or need we, as some others — Namely, the factious and false teachers, referred to 2Co 11:22-23; epistles of commendation — Recommendatory letters; to you — From other churches; or recommendatory letters from you — To others? As if he had said, Do I indeed want such recommendation? Nay, ye are our epistle — Our recommendatory letter, more convincing than any bare words could be, as being a testimonial from God himself. He means that the change which had been produced in their hearts and lives, in their dispositions, words, and actions, by his ministry, and that of his fellow-labourers, a change which could not have been effected except by the power of God, was a demonstration that God had sent them, and was present with them, giving efficacy to the word of his grace, a letter written in our hearts — Deeply engraven there, so that we never can forget it; known and read of all men — Who knew what immoral persons you once were, and observe what you are now. By speaking as the apostle does in this and the preceding verse, he intimates that his apostleship did not depend on the testimony of men, and that he could go to no church where he was not known to be an apostle of Christ, and to have been instrumental in converting many to the faith, and making them new creatures in Christ.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

II. THE APOSTOLIC OFFICE, 2Co_3:1 to 2Co_6:10.

1. It is above commendation, above Mosaicism, 2Co_3:1 to 2Co_4:6.

1. Again—The last verse contains a powerful self-assertion, and St. Paul is immediately reminded that among the imputations reported by Titus as made against him was his self-eulogy; especially, perhaps, in 1Co_9:15; 1Co_9:21.

Some—His Judaic opponents.

Epistles of commendation—Recommendatory letters. Such letters all affiliated associations are obliged to use to authenticate messengers, or members, from one locality to another. Such, for instance, are our “certificates of membership” at the present day. Commendatory letters were in use among the Jews also; and in the early Church, the bishops furnished certifications for clergy circulating in other dioceses. By such letters was Apollos commended from Ephesus to Corinth. Act_18:27. So Timothy is commended to the Corinthian Church in 1Co_16:10-11, and Titus and his comrades in this epistle, 2Co_8:18-19.

To you—The clear implication is, that his detractors came with such letters from somewhere. And the fountain head is indicated by the entire narration of Act_15:1-33, as being at Jerusalem. See our notes on that passage. A set of ultra-Judaists came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, proclaiming that the retention of circumcision by Christians was necessary to salvation. St. Paul says, (Gal_2:12,) that a similar set came to Antioch from James, the resident apostle at Jerusalem. And Renan, in his “St. Paul,” talks of “a counter-mission organized by James” against St. Paul, and assures us that James furnished the Judaists with credentials. All such fancies touching the conduct and position of that illustrious man are dispersed by Luke’s narration of his course towards the ultra-Judaic party at the Council of Jerusalem. Act_15:1-33. The Judaic emissaries were a small extreme section, whom James refused to countenance. Doubtless the emissaries that now had come from Jerusalem were of the same type. In about a year from the time of writing this epistle, Paul and James met in council at Jerusalem, as described in Act_21:18-20, where see notes; and James rejoiced in the labours and successes of our great apostle. Indeed, Luke’s narrative of the invasion of Antioch by the Judaists may be read as a fair type of their visitation at Corinth. The epistles of commendation they brought bore, doubtless, the signature, not of James, but of the ultra clique in Jerusalem.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

N.B. A continuous outpour of argument and appeal, all “alive,” and quivering, thrilling, with quick emotion, from 2Co_2:17 to 2Co_6:10.

2Co_3:1.—Q.d. “There, he is at it again! [2Co_2:17, or perhaps cf. 1Co_9:1-6; 1Co_9:15; 1Co_9:21; or something he had said at Corinth, known to his readers]. Praising himself!” [Familiarly, “Blowing his own trumpet, since no one else will do it for him.”] “Am I?” (q.d. in 2Co_2:17). Letters of commendation.—Such as Apollos brought to Corinth (Act_18:27); or such as this very letter became to Titus (2Co_8:17-19). Rom_16:1 is a good example; for Phœbe. These Christians travelling from Church to Church appear in 2Jn_1:10-11, 3Jn_1:5-9 [“I wrote unto the Church”]. Seen also in the Didache, xii., xiii. Perhaps such as came “from James” to Antioch (Gal_2:12) carried such “letters.” These became a very common institution in the early Church. N.B., Paul himself had once asked the “authority and commission” of such letters to the synagogue of Damascus (Act_26:12). Note the shorter reading.

2Co_3:2.—“Certainly, ‘to you’ we need none. We, who know what place yon occupy ‘in our hearts,’ know that we do not; you—‘all’ of you—can ‘read’ our love to you, and you ‘know’ that we do not.” In our hearts.—Others carry theirs in their hands.

2Co_3:3.—New turn given here to the figure. The Corinthians are a letter of commendation for him, not to themselves only, but to other Churches and the world. The Christians at Corinth are a credential for him so conspicuous that it is “known and read of all men.” Notice the adroit, courteous, ad homines argument. In 1 Corinthians 15 he urges that they cannot deny Christ’s resurrection without abandoning all hope of their own, and all reality in their salvation from sin. So here, they cannot deny his apostleship without also denying the work of the Spirit of God in their own heart. Ministered.—“Carried about” as his rivals did their letters. An epistle of Christ.—I.e. written by, and given to His servant Paul by, Christ Himself. The argument is that of 1Co_9:2-3. In the phraseology, rather than in the thought, are reminiscences of such Old Testament passages as Pro_3:3; Pro_7:3; Eze_11:19; Eze_36:26. So also the application of the metaphor, like the use of the original figure of “letters of commendation,” is modified almost from sentence to sentence. Thus a letter written with “ink” passes over into the “tables of stone” at Sinai (Jer_31:33). Flesh … stone.—Plainly not here in any moral sense: “fleshen” [analogous to “wooden”] would exactly represent the thought. By the Spirit.—Note the capital letter rightly in the; His work, the “new creation” of 2Co_5:17, the experiences of their new life,—these are the writing of the “Living God.” Note the name, “Living God,” in 2Co_6:16; was Paul in Ephesus, as once he had been in Athens, “stirred … when he saw the city full of idols”? [Another impressively used Old Testament name in 2Co_6:18, “the Lord God Almighty.”]

2Co_3:4.—See Appended Note from Stanley. Such confidence, etc.—A real answer to the cry of 2Co_2:16, “Who is sufficient?” etc. The word “sufficient” and its cognates is here resumed in 2Co_3:5-6. [Say, “adequate to, competent to, up to the level (measure) of.”] He looks “toward God,” the source of his commission, the giver of adequate grace to fulfil it, the giver of his success at Corinth or elsewhere; he expects all from God, the source, “through Christ,” the channel.

2Co_3:5. To think … of ourselves.—Misleading to our modern English ears; clearer in Q.d. “to give ourselves any such confident encouragement, drawing our confidence of sufficiency from any presumed resources within ourselves.”

2Co_3:6.—“Proof that this competency comes from God. God gave him a further and a greater competency, which involves the less. God made him competent (2Co_1:22) to be a minister of a dispensation, which from its very nature must produce, when it took effect, exactly such a result as he counts the Corinthian Church to be” (Waite, in Speaker). Ministers.—Reverts to the word of 2Co_3:3; but the personal purpose of that “ministration” is gone from his thought; he is “carrying about and dispensing”—“administering”—something far greater and of more importance than any personal credentials, even of the best. A New Covenant—N.B. this in, correctly. To be studied with Mat_26:28 [and this with Exo_24:8]; Jer_31:33-34. [This last in Hebrews 10 is the pivot around which turns an exposition of the “first” and the “second” (2Co_3:9), and in Hebrews 8 clenches the discussion as between the “new” and the “old”; both of which comparisons should themselves be compared with this of “letter” and “spirit,” which is also found in Rom_2:27-29; Rom_7:6.] The letter.—The Law of Moses, graven in so many letters and words on the tables of stone. [The Decalogue is, then, practically “the Law,” throwing light on Paul’s frequent discussions of “the law,” as affecting Christian thought and life.] The Spirit.—Capital S; the Holy Ghost, Who is the characteristic and crowning glory of the Gospel order. In the argument of Gal_3:2; Gal_5:5, “the Spirit” is the summary gift of that whole continuous “covenant” of which believers, pre- and post-Pentecostal both, are Abraham’s heirs. Killeth.—He explains how, in Rom_3:19; Rom_5:20, and, particularly, Rom_7:9-24. [See especially Rom_7:9; Rom_7:11; Rom_7:24, and Rom_8:2,] of which this verse—this word—is a summary. Giveth life.—Joh_6:63; 1Co_15:45 (very interesting), Gal_6:8, cast light on this; as does Rom_8:11, where the action of the life-giving Holy Ghost is carried further.

2Co_3:7. Of death.—Though this was not its purpose (Rom_7:10), but its incidental result. Keep “written” distinct from “graven on stones”; not “written on stones.” “Written” is opposed to “glorious”; lit. “in letters,” “in glory,” respectively. From this point the chapter is framed on the lines of the narrative of Exo_34:28-35; many words and terms of expression being borrowed from the LXX.

2Co_3:8. Glorious.—“With glory,” slightly changed from 2Co_3:7. Shall be.—Beet carries this forward into a future revelation of a glory for believers analogous to that which clothed Moses’ face. But is the “glory” in the second case anything but spiritual, and analogous to that in the first? “Shall be” occupies the (mental) point of time just before the advent of the “glorified” order which was just then becoming actual.

2Co_3:9.—Moses was a dispenser, administrator, of “condemnation,” in that he brought a Law to men which in issue, if not purpose, condemned them.

2Co_3:10.—The phraseology here is full of reminiscences of the LXX. In this respect.—Stanley: “In this instance of Moses”: “In this particular instance was fulfilled the general rule, that a greater glory throws a lesser glory into the shade.” Beet: “In this matter; in the comparison of the two Covenants.” Waite: “In this particular of comparative or relative glory.” Conybeare [and Howson]: “Literally, For that which has been glorified in this particular, has not been glorified, because of the glory which surpasses it.” “The moon is as bright after sunrise as before, but, practically, its brightness is set aside by that of the sun” (Beet).

2Co_3:11. Is done away.—“Is being done away,” now, historically, in that Pauline age. Prepositions changed; see how tries to show this. “The two prepositions … do not necessarily express the difference between transitoriness and duration [? permanence, as Farrar and others], but they may do so as matter of language, and the distinction is too much in accordance with the context to be set aside” (Waite, in Speaker). Beet says well: “In the history of the world, as in the experience of each individual, God speaks first in the form of Law, ‘Do this or die.’ When we hear the good news, ‘He that believes shall not die,’ the voice of condemnation loses its dread power, and comes to nought. But the good news of life will remain sounding in our ears for ever.”

2Co_3:12.—Returns to 2Co_3:4, but “confidence” is now “filled out into hope.” Also he was charged with insincerity; he repudiates the charge, “I speak openly, plainly, confidently; there is no concealment, nothing underneath.”

2Co_3:13.—Note that the A.V. of Exo_34:33 inserts “till”; reading the story as that Moses hid the refulgence of the glory whilst he was speaking. The LXX. and Vulgate translate Exo_34:33 otherwise. Paul follows for his purpose their account, that Moses put on the veil after he had finished speaking, to hide, not the unbearable refulgence of the glory, but its waning brightness. In 2Co_3:13 that which was passing away (R.V.) does not very definitely go beyond the literal glory mentioned in the narrative. But the further application to which the words so aptly lend themselves, is beginning to come into view.

2Co_3:14.—Like the “letters of commendation,” or the “triumph and the incense bearers” (2Co_2:14), the figure of the veil, even whilst he is using it, suggests to Paul another distinct, but related, use of it. Like the Tallith—the curious fringed scarf which to this day every born Israelite wears on head or shoulders at public worship—there is a veil on the heart of Israel as they read even the Law. Not merely is its waning glory concealed from them, but even its real Secret, “the Lord.”

2Co_3:15. Moses.—As in Act_15:21.

2Co_3:16. Shall turn.—“Turn in,” as Moses did (Exo_34:34). What is the nominative? Choose between

(1) “it” [=their heart];

(2) “a man,” margin;

(3) “Moses” [=The Old Covenant, or the people of Israel].

(1) most in favour;

(2) and

(3) are of course true, whether expressed here or not. Note: “But whensoever,” etc. (R.V.).

2Co_3:17.—“The Lord” in the passage and story from the Pentateuch “is,” practically, “the Spirit.” [Query, “corresponds to the Spirit in my allegory.” Thus, accepting

(3), As Moses turns in to the Lord (in the narrative), so the Old Covenant turns in to “the Spirit” (=the New Covenant, symbolised by its characteristic blessing, as in 2Co_3:6). So “is” (Gal_4:25).] To Christians the Lord [=Jehovah] of the Old Testament is Christ. He who turns to Christ, finds that he has met with, and received, the Spirit. Remember the deep unity of Son and Spirit in the undivided Trinity; so that, e.g. in Rom_8:9-10—in redemption language and in regard to redemption facts, the one may often be interchanged with the other. “An administrative, not a personal, identity” (Beet). Liberty.—Once more, in a word a paragraph of another letter is condensed: here Gal_4:1 to Gal_5:1 are thus “packed away” into a single phrase.

2Co_3:18.—Note again the changing phrases; “The Spirit of the Lord” Christ is also Himself “the Lord the Spirit.” The name “Lord” belongs to Him also, equally with Father and Son. Observe “unveiled,” keeping up the story of Exodus. Also notice the “face” not the “heart,” is in this instance without the veil. Difficult, on lexical or grammatical grounds only, to decide between “beholding” and “reflecting.” Each is supported. [Winer (Moulton), p. 318, thinks that the middle voice fixes the sense as “Beholding (for ourselves) the glory of the Lord (as in a mirror).”]. Both are needed for the facts of Christian experience; we must first, like Moses, go in and “behold,” before we can come forth and “reflect.” Paul is, however, insisting that he (=“we”) has nothing to conceal, as Moses had; that, in fact, he had used “great boldness of speech.” Without a veil he had let what glory of the New Covenant he had received, and had to communicate, shine forth; reflecting it as Moses did, but not veiling it, as did Moses. On the other hand, Farrar, carrying on the thought into 2Co_4:3; 2Co_4:6 : “For God had shone in the hearts of His ministers only in order that the bright knowledge which they had caught from gazing, with no intervening veil, on the glory of Christ, might glow for the illumination of the world.” In favour of “beholding” is the progressive transformation, by assimilation, into conformity to the glory of Christ. [Stanley makes “from glory” the terminus a quo of the process; “to glory” the terminus ad quem; the completeness rather than the progressive character of it being in view.] 2Co_4:6 fixes, and expounds, “the glory of the Lord.”

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS—Chap. 2Co_3:1 to 2Co_4:6

This section has as the unifying thought, “Openness.”—We find

I. Open letters.

II. A law now open [unveiled].

III. An open [unveiled] Gospel.

IV. Open character and conduct of the ministers of the Gospel.

I.

1. The Corinthians are “letters patent” for Paul.—Not credentials merely to themselves, assuring them of his true Apostolic standing. [Nor are they merely a letter for his own personal reassurance, in any moment of faintness or discouragement.] They are carried about by him unsealed, “open,” to be his credentials to all who will take pains to examine them. [When Sanballat sent “an open letter” to Nehemiah (Neh_6:5), the privacy of its contents unsecured by a seal, it was, and was meant to be, an insult. Paul is glad that, as part of the issues of his work, men should read “the epistle from Christ” with which his Divine Master has accredited him.] Happy that ministry whose “fruit” guarantees that there has been no mistake as to the “call.” Happy that people whose personal experience of blessing and life received through the human messenger, and whose joyful observation that newly quickened souls are by his words ever being added to the Church, agree to assure them that his letters of ordination, his commission of apostleship, still run in unabated validity. No need, as between them and him, that he should continually be vindicating his true ministerial status. “We know what he has done for us; we can no more doubt that he is a true minister, than that through him we have a place in Christ ourselves. Our Paul no true apostle? Nonsense! Look at us! Read us! You who depreciate him may bring your letters from Jerusalem and James, [from Rome or Lambeth, or Conference, or College]; his credentials are sufficient for us. We are his seals.”

2. A real reason, though not the strongest, for an open profession of Christ.—“Secret discipleship,” if such a thing were long possible, would be of no service as a “letter of commendation.” Something is due to the man, and to the Church, by whose instrumentality the life-giving Spirit has been “ministered” to a Christian man. [Very much is due, for the sake of those whom the preacher has still to quicken by his ministry. “Let your minister be manifestly, and to the gaze of all, a many-lettered man. They will hear him the more attentively, if your quickened life in the Spirit accredit him to their heart. For their salvation’s sake, be ye an unsealed ‘letter,’ which all may peruse, if they will.”] Something is due to Christ Who sends him. He also needs accrediting to the unsaved. [Though the words do not mean “a letter of commendation for Christ” (2Co_3:3).] A man’s changed life should be an open lettter.

3. It should be legibly and beautifully written.—[Drunken man, rolling up against a bishop: “You converted me.” “Yes, it looks like my work, not my Master’s.”] Too many Christians are at their best badly written letters; often the writing—though true enough—needs some discovering and deciphering. [Like the shabby, thumbed, torn “references” which the professional beggar brings out of his dirty pocket.] Some of these open letters accredit nobody, with any satisfactory evidence. [Poor credentials of the Gospel itself. When God’s Love first came to men, with what a perfect Open Letter it came “commended”! (Rom_5:8).] Because they are a letter not for Paul’s sake only, he might read fairly the most faulty Corinthian and understand him and do him justice, recognising in him a real work of the “quickening Spirit.” But others need to read these “letters,” and will not always do it with favourable eyes.

4. Moses came down from Sinai bearing two God-inscribed slabs of granite, as the tokens that he had been with God, Who made him His Mediator for Israel; he bore them in his hands. [As Paul’s rivals so bore their imposing credentials, perhaps from James.] “Look in my heart, Corinthians. See yourselves written there, deeply graven in my affection. ‘I have you in my heart’ (Php_1:7), ‘in my heart, to die and live with you’ (2Co_7:3). My love writes you there, on fleshen tables. Your witness, indeed, is not for me only, or chiefly. The tables of Sinai accredited Moses; but they were also Jehovah’s ‘testimonies’ to His own holy nature and will, and the standard of the holiness required of His people. Your ‘quickened’ life—‘quickened’ by no mere ‘letter’ of my message, but by ‘the Spirit’ who infused Himself into it—not only accredits me, but is a witness for Christ, of His mind and good pleasure towards His people. It is an exposition, it ought to be a standard of measurement, of the blessed purpose and contents of the ‘new Covenant.’ What is this purpose? To give life; to give the Spirit Who gives that life. The embodiment for the new Order is no mere formal, external Code of rules for conduct, but a Life, with a new Life principle in it. [A βίος which is the outgrowth of a ζωή, as Gal_5:25.] The “letter” of the code will have its office and its necessary place in such a life, at least in that life’s earlier, weaker, formative stages. But the “glory” of the new life, and of the new Order to which it belongs, will be realised, partly in the very independence of such helps because of the better, higher, all-comprehending Law of the life within,—the life of the Spirit Who quickens.

II. The very Law itself was now unveiled.—Paul and his readers were living in one of the transition times of the world’s history. Ceaseless change, death and birth, the New springing out of the Old,—such are the invariable characteristics of the life story of Man and his World. But these were times of specially rapid and significant change. [There are “times and seasons” (Act_1:7), periods of time, and points of time; the stretches of duration wherein the great clock is quietly, surely ticking on, and the marked moments when It strikes. Paul lived in a “season”; at one of the points when the striking of the clock proclaimed a new “time” begun.] One of those complete, but not violently, openly, cataclysmatic abolishings of the Old was taking place. [At the cession of Corfu by England to the Greeks, a large and costly and important fortification had first to be demolished. Gun-cotton, then a somewhat new thing in such use, was the agent employed; much curiosity to know what its action would be Fired by electricity. A dull, deep rumbling heard, but no great, earth-heaving convulsion seen or felt; no masonry flying into the air. But after a few moments it was seen that the immense fortification had quietly disappeared. The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, the historic cessation of the sacrifices and the Jewish polity, were more really an end visible and catastrophic; but these had not yet taken place. Paul knew that on Calvary and at Pentecost the spark had been fired. He saw the old System disappearing; his Jewish-Christian brethren would not see, and so could not. “Their eyes were blinded.” Such critical periods always have men with clearer vision than their fellows; before the rest they discern the times.] The Old System, with its Shekinah-glory, its Sacrificial routine, its laws of clean and unclean, its separate nation physically sealed by circumcision, was fading away, dissolving before men’s eyes, becoming plainly a shadowy thing. There was appearing [projected like a new Image, a new picture, on Time’s great screen] a New System, in which the one conspicuous thing was a Person, Christ: “the end of the Law.” The old system was coming to an end, because its various lines of suggestion and teaching had arrived at Christ. The streams of history, prophecy, type, had found their way to the Sea, the end of their journey. The very Decalogue itself had arrived at Christ, to stand henceforth by His side, with a John Baptist voice and office, pointing, sending the guilty souls whom it “condemned” and “killed,” to the “Lamb of God” with a “Behold!” Moreover, it had reached One in Whose “Day” the Spirit was to secure for it a new glory, a fulfilment such as it had never received while itself was the distinctive, central fact of the old order.

2. The old had been a glorious system. The new was to surpass it.—In no other had God been so clearly revealed to men; as much as Mahometanism is vaunted as an advance upon African fetishism and idolatry, so much was Judaism more gloriously in advance of every other system, past, present, to come, except Christianity. No nation was “so great, or had God so near to them,” as Israel (Deu_4:7), until in Christ God created a Church, a new Israel, and came nearer still. Sin and Holiness had hardly any meaning outside the Old Order of the Law; holiness had hardly any existence. God’s character, God’s will, God’s redeeming purpose, His remedy for the ruin which even the heathen saw, but did not understand,—the light in Israel, at its most dim, had on all these points been a “glory” for the old Covenant, with which there was nothing in the world to compare. It is not Christian thought, to depreciate the Old Testament. It had been a moon and stars ruling and illuminating the deep night of earth. Now the Sun was arisen, and moon and stars were to lose their lustre in competition with His. [It had been a glorious illuminant for earth’s night; now one still better had come. The gas-jet shows as a dull silhouette, when seen projected upon the white, electric-lighted globe.] The revelation of God, of Sin and its Remedy, of the significance and the true goal of man’s Life, given to the world in Christ, has no serious competitor amongst the religions of the world. All this was dramatically told upon the top of Hermon. For a few brief moments human eyes saw Law, Prophets, Christ, side by side, speaking together of His “decease.” Men saw and heard the transfer of testimony and office from the lesser to the Greater. The Shekinah-cloud enveloped all three in its glory; it belonged to them all. When it was past, Moses was gone, and Elijah. The day of the Law and the Prophets was past. “Jesus only with themselves.” Something of this had been dramatically told at Sinai. Moses had veiled his resplendent face; the glory had waned and waned away beneath the veil; if men might have been permitted to see, they would have seen an ending of the glory caught on the Mount of the Law; though even then it would not have been given to them to see the End of that which was revealed. His day was not yet. And the Old, though God-given and “made glorious,” became a bondage, became an idol. Men gazed upon it, and saw nothing in it but itself. Men studied it; they had to defend it, to die for it; they began to pique themselves upon being its faithful guardians. They hugged the dying or dead thing the closer to their hearts, when the life was departing or gone. Their affection became mechanically rigid in its grasp. Their eye grew accustomed to the moonlight night; they resented and refused the day. Their devotion became a slavery; it fettered thought; it blinded the eye; it wove a veil for the very heart. [All partial truth may. (To be remembered that God’s “partial truth” is absolutely true so far as it goes. Unlike our “partial truth,” nothing in it needs unlearning before the new, complementary truth can be added. Our “partial truth” is often false because only relative, and is out of proportion, needing much adjustment before it can be made to fit into a new discovery.) The eye must not lose its power to receive new light, must not fill its vision with the familiar and precious thing so fully that it can see no new object.] How had Paul and his Christian readers escaped? “With unveiled face” they beheld with equanimity the glory fading fast from an unveiled Law; nay, with a new sense of “liberty” and a larger life. Why? The Spirit had led them into the presence of “the Lord” Christ. [Shall He one day so lead Israel in, into the Holy Place where “the Lord” dwells? (2Co_3:16).] They have come forth again, transformed into the same image, each of them a Moses with resplendent face; [albeit many of them know not how resplendent. See Separate Homily on “Unconscious Goodness.”] Their heart has a strange new sense of freedom. The old is still interesting, precious, glorious, not lightly to be cast away; but they have grown into something larger. [The man remembers vividly the day when the youth found himself to have grown past running after his boyish hoop; the woman the day when, with a little shock, she found herself grown too big to play with her splendid doll.] Liberty has come with the manhood of the days of the Spirit.

3. They see the ending of the Old, because they see that it has reached its End and has lost itself in its Fulfilments.—Now they see and understand the Law, indeed the entire Old Testament, and see it full of Christ. Familiar experience to every Christian reader of Old Testament. In it he (say) reads some passage, and passes on into the New Testament. Returning to the Old Testament, with his mind and his vision filled with the Christ he has seen there, he comes across his passage again, and finds himself saying, “Why, this might be written of Christ. It is truer of Christ than of the man to whom it originally belongs. Truer of Christ than of any man besides.” Or, it is an incident of the narrative; he rubs his eyes and looks wonderingly, “Is this David’s history, or Jonah’s, that I am reading,—or Christ’s?” Or, it is a priest, a prophet, a man, a child; familiar enough; yet, again and again, when, with eyes and heart full of the Christ into Whose presence he has “turned,” he reads the Old Testament, he finds the familiar features somehow transfigured. The same, yet somehow different. As if the Old Testament face had become tenanted, possessed, by another personality; as if Another looked out of the eyes of the Old Testament man. And this happens so often, and with such consistency of system and harmony, that a principle establishes itself, “The Old Testament is full of Christ.” A tentative, working hypothesis at first, each added fact that falls in with it strengthens the probability of its truth, till it rises to a practical certainty. In the end, the man whose unveiled heart has been in and gazed upon the glory of Christ in the New Covenant revelation—a glory which does not wane and die away as we are gazing on it—finds the presence of Christ, so constantly and so clearly, in the unveiled Law; sees so often the glory of the Old fade away, and almost the very Old itself, until only Christ, “the Lord” in His glory, is left visible; that he wonders how any heart can miss Him in the Old Testament, in its reading and its search. [The man who has the key is almost ashamed of proposing the riddle to another man, it seems so obvious. The hidden face once discovered in the puzzle pictures which amuse childhood, it is then impossible not to see it.] Sometimes language so obviously adapted to contain a larger meaning than was contemplated by the first who used or wrote it,—a vessel so obviously adapted for something larger and fuller than its Old Testament contents; sometimes a “staringly like” anticipation of Christ’s person, or work, or Sacrifice, unexpectedly flashing out upon the New Testament reader of the Old Testament; sometimes a real, but fitful, flash of resemblance [like those seen in a “family likeness”], seen, and then disappearing when looked for with closer purpose to discover it; sometimes highways, sometimes byways, of history or suggestion, leading with surprising and unlooked-for directness to Christ;—these things so continually occur and recur, that one cannot “turn in unto” even the Old Testament without at every turn meeting Him Who is its End, and therefore its Ending. All this pre-eminently true of “The Law” in its narrower sense. Its ritual system, the very details of its Sanctuary, so persistently, so consistently, lend themselves to suggest Christ and the Gospel; and often with such minuteness of complete suggestion; that, as the instances accumulate, it becomes, even mathematically calculated, almost as 2Co_8:1, that they should merely be coincidences; that the correspondences should be accident, and not Divine design. But to see the Christ there, in the midst of the passing away of the glory of the unveiled “Law” needs the unveiled heart, which as yet Israel does not possess. Such a heart is a gift, part of the life given by the quickening Holy Spirit, Who is the characteristic of the New Covenant.

[III. and IV. belong to chap. 4.]

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_3:4-6

Responsibility and Sufficiency.

I. The responsibility of ministering the “New Testament.”—

1. The Responsibility of ministering the Old was great. It was a sacred deposit from God; with real, if incomplete, truth in it. It had a “glory” of origin, of history, of office, and above all it was the root from which sprung Christ and the Gospel (Rom_9:4-5). Judaism was the providential nidus of Christianity. When the Virgin Israel had brought forth a Son, “born under the Law,” then she had done her greatest work. The Old Covenant had not existed in vain when it yielded up its life in giving historic birth to the New. The “librarians of the world” had had a weighty charge upon them in that age after age they “ministered” the written Truth and Law of God. Mosaism had been an episodic fact; for a special purpose it had been grafted on to the main stem of God’s redeeming purpose and work (Gal_3:19). It had run its course by the side of that main purpose; an “after-thought,” a by-thought, providing for a special emergency which had arisen, so far as we may speak thus of any work and thought of God. Yet intrinsically it had been a great, a glorious system, and the responsibility of its “ministers,” from Moses onward, had been great. And because of the deeper issue which lay in the Law—its condemning effect—does every Christian preacher feel a new responsibility of being in any degree a minister of the “killing letter.” That it issued in death was a disparagement to the Law, only as this stood compared with the Gospel. Intrinsically it was an honour to the Law that it bore such clear, unflinching testimony to God’s holiness of nature and requirement, and also, indirectly, to the honourable possibilities of human nature. (“Man was made to live, then, up to that standard! Man can be commanded to live up to that, and the command have the reasonableness of possibility!”) It was no real disparagement to the Law that it could only guard and train and correct growth, and not give life. Law per se can do no more, under any conditions. It is itself a real forerunner, “preparing the way of the Lord” Christ, when it “condemns” and “kills.” The Gospel preacher of “the Spirit” needs to build upon the work of the Law. Just in proportion as he knows how, evangelically, to “minister the letter,” is his work thorough. And no part of his work presses more heavily upon the worthy minister than that of so preaching as to bring the sense of sin home to the conscience. Nothing needs more a sanctified judgment; some consciences are abnormally indurated, some morbidly tender; under the Gospel the demand of the Law must not be overpressed, any more than it must be understated. If his words may not only kill self-righteousness, but may even slay hope, “who is sufficient”? Whether to preach Law or Gospel, man’s sin or God’s grace, we feel keenly: “not sufficient of ourselves,” etc. Much greater, then,—

2. The responsibility of ministering the New is greater.—The treasure entrusted to him for distribution is more precious than the former. If the Old order had many “goodly pearls,” yet the New has the “one pearl, of great price.” Is it not easier to misrepresent the Gospel of life than the Law of death? Is there not more liability to make the Gospel too easy than to make the Law too stern? If a man needs wisdom and strength above his own, to preach the Law and to bring men to a sense of sin, how much more to awaken their death into life! To know that men are “dead”; that they must live again in the Spirit, or must abide in death eternally; that upon his skill and fidelity, in some one instance, or upon some one occasion, “life” (or death) may depend,—brings him back to Paul’s burdened sense of inadequateness for such a task. A responsibility so great becomes to some men a real temptation not to “use great plainness of speech,” to soften their tongue, to conciliate their hearers, to modify their message.

3. There is a “sufficiency,” however, even for this. “Through Christ,” “To Godward.”—Very graphic. He “stands in the presence of God.” All the minister’s work is done as though He were seen looking on. At every point the worker offers his work to God, with a perpetually renewed devotion of it to His glory and service. He has himself been “converted to God” (Act_15:19), turned about, and set Godward. He does his work, facing Godward always. “Sets the Lord always before him,” and so is not “moved” even by a sense of personal inadequateness to his task, or by the fear of man, or by the consideration of the fateful issues which hang upon his ministry. He turns all his work toward God; seeks to give it a Godward direction. There is a supply of strength, in this realisation of Him Who is invisible. The man whose life and thought are filled with, and lifted up to the level of, “the powers of the world to come,” feels little force, whether deterrent or alluring, in the opinion of man, be it favourable or unfavourable. His soul is liberated from the slavery to which regard for man’s favour subjects the heart. He speaks out fearlessly, clearly, without diminishing or admixture, with “great boldness of speech,” the message he has first heard from God. [He who “sanctifies Christ as Lord in his heart” will not fear “men’s fear” (1Pe_3:14-15).] That man has laid hold of the secret of steadfastness in opinion, of courage in utterance, of stability of character, of unwearying continuance in labour, who has come into, and abides in, the presence of God, and who directs himself and his every act Godward. He sees God; he is blind to man. “The Master praises; what are men?” And this is “through Christ.” Paul comes in nowhere! All communication between God and man has from the first been mediatorial, “through Christ.” All God’s advances toward man have been made along that path of approach; man has not—never has had—any way to “a Father” but this. Christ has all along been the great underlying Condition, the great Presupposition, in all intercourse between God and man. Paul’s strength, his endowment of adequacy for his responsible task,—he expects it, and receives it through this one, only Channel. He is

“Strong in the strength which God supplies

Through His Eternal Son.”

This alone ever makes a man “able” as a “minister of the new covenant.” This may co-exist with, and be the infused life and efficiency of, great natural fitness,—of gift, temperament, education, social position, sacred office; it can make all these its vehicles and organs, and in so doing puts on them their highest honour. But it is independent of these; and whether with or without them is the essential requisite. There is no “sufficiency,” where this is not found. The regard steadfastly directed Godward, the ceaselessly renewed supply of grace through the one Channel, Christ,—these alone will enable a man to bear the burden of the ministration, whether of Law or Gospel; certainly of the Gospel, and of an ambassadorship wherein his words force men upon sharp, decisive verdicts and issues; this alone will sustain a man who bears about a Gospel in whose words are certainly inherent a power to kill, or to quicken with the fulness of the life of the Spirit.

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_3:7-11

“Glorious and More Glorious.”

Introduction.—

1. The Infinite Father has made a special revelation of Himself to His human offspring.

2. This has mainly come through two great general channels—Moses and Christ.

3. The special revelation of Himself, as it came through Christ, far transcends in glory the form it assumed as it came through Moses.

I. Glorious as it came through Moses.—Evidenced by four things.

1. The wonderful display of Divinity attending the expression of it on Mount Sinai.

2. The magnificence of its religious scenes and celebrations.

3. The stupendous miracles that stand in connection with it.

4. The splendid intellects which were employed in connection with it.

II. More glorious as it appears in connection with Christ.—

1. The Christian form of revelation is more adapted to give life than is the Mosaic. “Millions, I will hope, were quickened by” the Mosaic. But men frequently died spiritually under it. Cf. the effect of an address from an ancient prophet, with the words of Christ, spoken through Peter on the Day of Pentecost.

2. The Christian form of revelation is more emphatically spirit than the Mosaic. In the Mosaic there was spirit; the elements of eternal truth, ethical and religious, were there, but nearly overlaid with ceremonial. In Christianity only Baptism and the Supper; and it throbs through every sentence with the eternal spirit of truth. [This is all very inadequate and inexact exegesis. It should be “Spirit.”]

3. Is more restorative.

4. Is more lasting. Moses is no longer our Master. Christianity is the permanent system; the final revelation of God to our world. There is nothing to succeed it.

Application.—

1. Do not go to Moses to expound Christ.

2. Nor to support opinions (e.g. war, slavery, etc.) which cannot be supported from Christ’s Gospel.

3. The immense responsibility of men who have the Gospel.

4. The glorious position of a true Gospel minister.—In abstract, from “Homilist,” New Series, ii. 421.

SEPARATE HOMILIES

2Co_3:6. The Deadly Letter; the Life-giving Spirit.

I. What this does mean.

II. What it does not mean.

I.

1. Like many another phrase in this chapter, this particular saying is a summary of an extended paragraph found elsewhere in the pages of St. Paul. Romans 7 is concentrated into it. Not that this is a germ afterwards deliberately expanded into a paragraph. The truth which underlies germ and expansion, is habitual, fundamental, to all Paul’s thinking about Christian experience. Here it crops up at the surface in a phrase; there it lies, of set purpose all laid bare and exposed to examination.

2. Paul’s own experience is concentrated into it. Acts 9, with its companion, complementary, accounts in 22 and 26, give the externals of Paul’s “conversion.” In Php_3:4-11 (particularly 2Co_3:7) he analyses the inner process, and in 2Co_3:7 precisely fixes the critical point around which his new relation to God and the outflowing new life turn. In Rom_7:7 to Rom_8:4, whilst no doubt sketching a universal programme of the moral revolution culminating in Regeneration, and stating a universal formula of the conversion process, he is nevertheless drawing upon his memories of the heart-searchings of the three days’ darkness in Damascus, and of the earlier days when he felt the prick of the Master’s goad and kicked against it. Every man’s conversion is “universal.”

3. He had “profited in the Jew’s religion above many his equals” (Gal_1:14). He had “lived a Pharisee,” and that, we may believe, of the best type. Christ’s charges of hypocrisy by no means lay against all Pharisees. These were not all “whited sepulchres.” Yet “blameless as he was in all the righteousness of the Law,”—and, let it be noted, it is with a Christian conscience reviewing these days, that he thus pronounces upon his Jewish life,—the Talmud and the New Testament, with fullest agreement in their evidence enable us to appreciate how almost entirely external was the righteousness he thus recalls; how very largely it amounted to a minutely faithful fulfilment of Rabbinical refinements upon the original legislation of Moses, which were childishly frivolous, when they were not an actual offence to the Divinity of that sacred code.

4. There arrived a day when the “commandment came,” particularly the “Tenth” of the “Words” of the Decalogue, which in effect sums up all the prohibitive enactments of the Divine Law; laying its forbiding hand upon every “coveting” of the natural heart for that which is against the mind and will of God, and the beneficent moral order of His world. For the first time, any adequate “knowledge of sin” awoke within the heart of Paul; it “came by the law.” He had hardly known that such a thing as sin was in him; he had done it so naturally that it excited no notice. Now the Law had been the revealer of sin. In the light of this new discovery the robe of his own righteousness showed seamy, “shabby,” utterly unfit for a garment in which a man might present himself before God. He discovered that whilst he had been busy in fulfilling a round of minutiæ of ordinances, even to learn which was an exercise and a study to fill a long and laborious lifetime, he had missed altogether the reality of obedience; that sin and righteousness lay quite apart from any mere mechanical fulfilment of such a code, or of any code, as such; that the very motives of the fulfilment, and the complacent satisfaction into which it was reviewed, were self-centered,—“gains to me”;—pride! Saul the Pharisee fell slain at the feet, and by the stroke, of the Law, as it stood before him for the first time “spiritual,” “holy, just, and good.” All self-complacency was gone from, and was from that moment impossible to, the man who now learned, “I am carnal, sold under sin.”

5. And a further stage was reached immediately. To attempt to set things right was the death of hope; the discovery of the wrong had been the death of peace. The man discovered himself helpless and a slave. Sin held him under its power. Resolve as he might, hate himself for his moral impotence as he might, bewail the moral division within him as he might, struggle as he might, he seemed to have no power but to sin. The discrepancy between the holy Law of God and his own unholy life and heart grew more and more glaring as the light came more clear and full. A new sinfulness was added to sinful acts, in that they were now done in the full light of a known command. And the deepest depth of self-slaying discovery was touched when he found the very commandment, whether precept or prohibition, arousing an innate opposition to its holy requirement; adding a new attractiveness to the forbidden fruit; and with a consuming intensity inflaming desire for it. And such sinfulness stood out clearly as “death,” in the new light of the unveiled Law. What had he ever done but sin! What could he hope to do but sin! What could he promise or purpose or perform,—he whose very heart found a new desireableness given to prohibited action! [No “bread so pleasant” as that “eaten in secret.” (“But you often want to change your baker!” said Jackson Wray.) No liquor so good as that which was smuggled. No garden so fair as that which is over the fence!]

6. This a universal experience. Even moralists, who are only half serious, like Gay in his fable of the young cock, or whose society verse lapses into occasional earnestness like his who cried, “Meliora video proboque, deteriora sequor.” But all noble souls feel it. “I certainly have two souls, for if there were only one, it surely could not be at the same time good and bad, nor could it at the same time love good and base actions, and also at the very same time wish the very same thing, and not desire to put the wish into action; but evidently there are two souls, and if the good soul gets the upper hand, then good will be done, and if the evil than shameful actions will be perpetrated” (Xenophon, Cyropedia, vi.). Action is always lower than knowledge, in the noblest heathen. “I should have lived better than I have done, if I had always followed the monitions of the gods” (Marcus Aurelius, Conf.). “The wages of sin is death.” And not that only, but, “To be carnally minded is death.”

7. Why could there not have been “a commandment given bringing life”? (a) Partly from the very nature and office of Law. It is directory, educational, not enabling. It is the model which trains the artistic sense; but the artistic sense and faculty cannot be given by the most perfect model. It is the standard which enables the student to measure his progress and to set before him the goal at which he is to aim. But the real conforming power, the real source of effort and endeavour, are within himself. Truth, beauty—at all events, moral truth, moral beauty—are external to the man, external to all men; and are altogether independent of personal, or racial, or interested estimate and approbation. They are of no school, of no age, of no one heart or intellect; they are universal, and of God. The Law is the fingerpost which points out, the wall of definition and of defence on either side of, the one Way of Life, as the Creator understands “Life” and designed “Life” for man. But the will and power to walk in the “Way” are within the man himself. The Law declares with authority what is Obedience, but only in a secondary sense does it offer any help to Obedience; just in that it makes the path definite, and would at once indicate divergence. The actual, concrete, Jewish “Law” said little about forgiveness, and offered no direct help to holiness. (b) But the more effectual reason why not, is found in the morally perverted heart and will of man. What was in design educational, for that reason became in fact condemnatory. The directorial rule reveals and convicts the discrepancies of the actually irregular line of life. The rebellion of the heart against restraint makes the Law irksome instead of helpful. The hedge which marks out the path for the willing traveller must pierce with its sharp thorns the man who is bent upon breaking through into the wide space—the “liberty”—on either hand beyond. The silly bird which will take its cage for a prison instead of a home; which will dash itself, perhaps even to its death, against bars which were intended for a protection, but in which it will only see a restriction upon its freedom; must hurt itself. If the letter “kills,” it is because the evil heart in man will not accept and use it as the guide of wise, safe, happy living, the guide to Life; because the heart resents its attempt to support inexperience and weakness, and to educate the moral sense, and its necessary exposure of moral immaturity, or failure, or revolt.

8. “To be spiritually minded—to mind the things of the Spirit—is Life.” “It is the Spirit that quickeneth.” He Who said so, and also that “the Flesh profiteth nothing,” is Himself the High Priest of a system, a new Law, “not of a carnal commandment, but of an endless life” (Heb_7:16). “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” [The cry of the shipwrecked man straining his eyes for the token of a sail, or for the breaking of the day. It is the eager longing of Wellington at Waterloo for the promised Prussian help.] The answer comes, “Through Jesus Christ our Lord!” which is expounded further on (2Co_8:2). “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” “In Christ Jesus;” the secret of Life and of the unity between Law and Life is there. (More of this under 2Co_3:17.) A new motive springs up in the heart where “the love of God is shed abroad by the Spirit which He hath given” (Rom_5:5). “We love Him because”—as on that Spirit’s authority we are made to know—“He first loved us.” And there is a new hope; for the same Spirit who brings peace, brings also power. The will is enabled with a new force. Sin no longer “has dominion”; the man is no longer “sold under sin.” A new direction to thought; a new attraction for the affections; a new bias and bent to the will. All the life, all the natural life, obeys a new directing principle, and becomes interfused with that yet truer life which is Life indeed. Peace, hope, liberty, victory,—all by the indwelling of the quickening Spirit. Deep problems of mental science underlie the method by which the fact of the adopting love of God towards the penitent, pardoned sinner is communicated to the heart; or by which the will is reinforced as with a power coming distinctly ab extra. But the fact is abundantly verified. Experience in every Church and age, and in thousands of cases of every variety of type and temperament, lights up the Scripture declaration. The Scripture declarations guard, in their turn, from the vagaries of unregulated, extravagant, or merely viciously personal, “experience.” And that a new idea should be a new motive, transforming a man, transfiguring his life, begetting a new life, is but a particular instance of a widely obtaining law. The new idea, the new power, are the gift and work of the Spirit Who is in the man who is in “Christ.” “The Spirit giveth life.”

II.

1. Kingsley wrote to one of his curates—“a very new curate”—what has an applicability far beyond its original occasion: “Let not Swedenborg, or any other man, argue you out of the scientific canon that to understand the spirit of Scripture or any other words, you must first understand the letter. If the spirit is to be found anywhere, it is to be found by putting yourself in the place of the listeners, and seeing what the words would have meant to them. Then take that meaning as an instance (possibly a lower one) of a universal spiritual law, true for all men, and may God give you wisdom for the process of induction by which the law is to be discovered” (Life, ii. 95). Allegorising has run mad, and has in some quarters given a bad name to everything but the barest, most meagre, historical, naturalistic reading of what are indeed ancient books, but are very much besides. The Philonian method dealt with the Old Testament, the Origenic dealt with New and Old, in a fashion which made the stories of the Book very little more than so much convenient framework, and the persons so many happily serviceable starting-points, for fine theorising or fanciful moralising, whose value in no way depended upon the historicity or otherwise of the story or the saying which gave form and colour to the teaching. Sound allegorising is nothing but the sober, Spirit-guided development of the general principles which are carried by particular instances. The Scripture teaches by the concrete—the story, the biography—rather than by the abstract. [E.g. we need, and might have had, a chapter in A Treatise of Christian Ethics headed, “The Relation between Ignorance and Responsibility, and between Conscientiousness and Guilt.” Instead, we have the conscientious “chief of sinners,” Saul of Tarsus, and the prayer of the Redeemer on His cross for those who “knew not” what they did.] There are widening circles of application, all starting from the one central fact or truth, with a widening radius. The mischievous, untrue allegorising forsakes the centre, or disdains and denies it. The “letter” is the merely accidental, and more or less convenient, literary vehicle; the “spirit,” so called, the truth to be taught, is the alone really valuable and important. The erroneous thing is, so to say, a literary Gnosticism which refines away, or denies, the historic Word, hoping to retain the Idea; as the theologic Gnosticism refined away, or denied, the real humanity of the Divine Christ, and tried to retain a Divinity whose manifestation to man was but a phantom. Yet, as the Divinity of the Incarnate One must not be denied, and the humanity overprized; so the Letter is not all.

2. Loyalty to the written Word.—There is a “spirit” which has become incarnate in the “letter.” Whatever be the philosophic decision of the question whether or not words are, to the man himself, indispensable to thought; as a fact God’s thoughts have come to us in words. They have come to us in a Book. The experiment of the race all goes to show that outside this Book there is no certain, no clear knowledge, of the mind and will of God. Nature speaks with a stammer, and is intelligible, to any practical effect, only to those who have heard from the Book what it is she has to say. As indistinct, as variable, as scanty, of as little practical service, are the utterances of the “natural” conscience. Its “truths,” “innate ideas,” need interpreting and checking by the external Word. The witness of no two consciences agrees long together. God, duty, right, the hereafter of man,—if on these topics men forsake the written Word, there is no verifiable truth, none authoritative except to the man who propounds it—if even to him. It is not slavery to the “letter,” to refuse to go beyond the distinct teaching of the Bible, either by direct statement or by fair and necessary inference. That Book certainly gives but a narrow standing ground of dry land amidst a far-stretching, surrounding ocean of mystery. It is but a question of a step or two more beyond his fellows, when, forsaking this, the tallest man amongst them wades out into the depths, and finds himself out of his depth, and progress impossible. Or, to change the figure, there is no sure, safe walking out into these depths, except so far as the inquirer keeps hold of the rope which is fast to the Bible. Practically all the facts upon which religion can base itself, have for all the Christian centuries been long complete; all lie within the area of the completed “letter.” No new facts can be looked for; all that can be done is to examine these with ever fresh scrutiny, to see whether there may be in them anything which has hitherto escaped discovery. No such supplement, no such corrective appendix, is from time to time issued, whether in the larger knowledge of the universe, or in the intuitions of man’s heart, as may yield us something, or all, of the original Work. Christianity can never dispense with its foundation documents. The Christian speculator, during his excursions into the regions of the mysterious or the unknown, must never lose touch with his base, as the soldiers say. To be loyal to the Word is not to “kill,” but to assist, to nourish, to protect, knowledge. Not, “What do I think? what do my intuitions, my moral sense, teach me.” Not, “What do I feel must be true?” But, “What does God—not merely a Book—say?”

3. The historical Christ and “the Christian idea.”—Schelling (quoted in Luthardt, Saving Truths, p. 252), on the analogous hope to preserve the “ideas” of Christianity, whether or not the historical Christ be believed in and retained, says: “How frequently has not the historical character of Christianity been declared to be heathenish (not its external, but its higher facts, e.g., the pre-existence, the pre-mundane being of Christ, His position as Son of God), and on that account, as that which is no longer compatible with modern thought? The very essence of Christianity is, however, its historical character, not the ordinary part of its history, as, e.g., that its Founder was born under Augustus, died under Tiberius, but that higher history on which it properly rests, and which is its peculiar matter. I call it a higher history, for the true subject-matter of Christianity is a history in which divinity is implicated—a Divine history. That would be but a poor explanation, and entirely destructive of the peculiarity of Christianity, which should distinguish between the doctrinal and the historical, and consider the former the essential and special matter, and the latter as mere form and clothing. The history is not merely incidental to the doctrine, it is the doctrine itself. The doctrinal matter, which might perhaps remain after the excision of the historical, as, e.g., the general doctrine of a personal God, such as even rational theology sometimes admits, or the morality of Christianity would be nothing peculiar, nothing distinctive; … the history is the distinctive feature of Christianity. It is altogether incongruous to speak only of the teaching of Christ. The chief matter of Christianity is Christ Himself; not what He says, but what He is, what He did. Christianity is not directly a body of doctrine, it is a thing, an object; doctrine is but the expression of the thing.” [Schelling in some degree thus meets by anticipation the position of Ritschl. Luthardt goes on to speak of a “so-called liberal theology, which really sees nothing more in Christianity than a certain general religious feeling, or the mere force of civilisation.”]

4. Dogma and religion.—There is an embodiment of truth in formal statements of doctrinal confessions and creeds which is sometimes regarded as not helpful to, but as the death of, religious life, and indeed of the interests of truth itself. And in this connection the text is often quoted. [The use of this verse sometimes made, with that application, is a flagrant instance of the employment of the mere words of Scripture, apart from the context and connection, and without regard to the rule which requires some real analogy between the primary meaning of the passage and the matter to which it is sought to apply it. It was not because the Law of Moses was written, and so was fixed in unchanging record upon the tables of Sinai, that it wrought death; the Spirit which works life uses as His instrument a written Word.] It is, in reply, pointed out that what is known of any truth, can be stated inexact form, and demands to be so stated, and that the mind inevitably seeks to systematise its knowledge—to unify it. It is pointed out that if truth be objective, if, e.g., it be a real disclosure of a fact of God’s government of mankind in Christ, then once made, once ascertained to man, it abides true, and that putting it into formal shape and statement, or embodying it in a creed, is no more than Science does with its accumulating corpus of ascertained truth. It endeavours unceasingly to put into exact expression, and to co-ordinate into systematic relationship and statement, the results at which, from its own data, and by its own proper methods, it from time to time definitely arrives. It is urged that if Theology too be a science, if it deals with a section of the whole universe of facts which is capable of exact study, with its own appropriate methods, then results once arrived at abide valid, and not less so that formal, or confessional, expression has been given to them. If “Justification by faith” be really the method of a sinner’s acceptance with God, then it is of no age or Church; and if that formulation of God’s method be Scriptural, it is not to be challenged or set aside as a passing, or only relatively true, form of statement. If between the death of Christ and the pardon of sin there once be revealed or ascertained a relation which is independent of any act or feeling or change in the sinner himself, then true once this is true always. In this instance well appears what gives occasion to, and such justification as there may be found for, the revolt against the letter. In endeavouring to state this relation between the death of Christ and sin, it has been forgotten that all the phraseology, even though borrowed from Scripture, is analogical, drawing from the relations between man and man, a mutually corrective, mutually expository, and complementary series of illustrations for the relation between the sinner and God. It has been forgotten how imperfectly the whole “scheme” of the Atonement is revealed or comprehensible. There has been an unwise insistence on some particular mode of statement; there has above all been a zeal for one’s own particular phraseology and confessional form which has made the form everything, or at least has made it overshadow altogether the truth which this was designed to express or guard. But to remember this is far removed from any demand that all creeds, and the very statements of Scripture themselves, should be thrown afresh into the melting-pot, and be continually in a state of flux, nothing ever cast into permanent mould; and this only lest instead of the living, “growing” thing, there should come out the dead cult, to be the object of a truth-dishonouring, God-dishonouring idolatry of the “letter.” The “letter” is the body of “the spirit.” Can the spirit exist without a body? Without its own body? Is the identity of the body part of the unchanging identity of the truth? [As in the case of the ceaseless change of the component particles of the human body, whose ceaseless flux does not affect the identity, so in this case the essential form remains; the changing “body” does clothe the same truth; and receives its shape from the same informing truth. A spirit freed from, and independent of, the letter—is it parallel to the grotesque idea of Carroll in Alice in Wonderland, who imagines a grin which remains when the cat has faded away?]

2Co_3:6. “Letter and spirit.”—“Able ministers” misleading, to our ears. Connect closely with “sufficient,” “sufficiency.” “Killeth” cannot have so inadequate a reference as to the frequency of the death penalty under the Law.

I. Divine commands alone cannot produce obedience.—Owing to an imperfection not in the Law, but in human nature, which does not yield to the obligation: Conscience is on the side of the Law, but is overborne by the baser nature. The habitual failure of conscience produces habitual disquiet and misery, a constant sense of discord, a consciousness of powerlessness against evil;—Death. The Law even became the occasion of sin. Prohibition pro vokes the natural heart and irritates it to impatience of restraint. The restive horse rears against the bridle; at last throws off its rider. Then follows the licence of self-will,—Death. Christianity has a quickening power. The Law was inaugurated by the code of the Ten Words; Christianity by the code of a Perfect Human Life exhibited in Christ [written out on the fleshen tables of His heart and blameless life]. Christ not only obeyed the Law with an absolutely perfect obedience, but showed its new and sublimer meaning. Thus the code of human duty is presented in a form most intimate and intelligible and affecting. Christianity quickens by a secret influence on the heart. The higher nature receives an increase of power. Conscience is afresh enthroned, and governs; the Law is obeyed not so much because it is obligatory, but because it is loved. As natural weakness requires aid it turns ever anew to the Divine Source of strength, till the lower nature becomes subjugated, and the higher triumphant.

II. The intellectual deficiency and mischievousness of mere writing as a means of instruction.—Correspondence is at best a poor comfort in separation; is often obscure, and open to misinterpretation; the writer cannot be appealed to. An ancient writing, a holy writing, and that in translation, leaves many openings for misunderstanding and consequent mistake. Technical theological terms sometimes hinder spiritual life and growth, or kill them.

1. They were perhaps originally only imperfectly correspondent to the truth, and may come to be regarded with a reverence which belongs only to the words of Scripture, a reverence often innocent of their real sense. Hearers do not recognise old truth in new phraseology, and crucify the preacher.

2. Knowledge of, and sympathy with, the writer is indispensable to the understanding of his writings. So the knowledge of the Divine Author and the inspiration of His Spirit, are necessary to the interpretation of the Bible. The Christian man, and he only, is in a position to understand, and live by, the Scriptures. In constant contact with the Spirit, he is a constant recipient of moral and intellectual life.

3. Paul is not only the trustee of a Book, but the dispenser of the Spirit. What a noble view of the Christian ministry!—From “Homilist,” Third Series, ii. 101 sqq.

2Co_3:6. “Ministers of the New Covenant.”

I. Not of Naturalism.—Christianity is the grand subject of all true modern ministries, the one primary text of religious discourses the world over, the ages through. Had man retained primitive innocence, Nature would have been that grand text; budding earth, sparkling skies, murmuring brook, booming billow, beasts of the forest, fowls of heaven. Men would have seen in Nature what they cannot see now, true ideas of God; they would have found there food for souls. All the parts of material nature would have been regarded as embodiments of Divine thought and symbols of eternal truth. But, as it is, they cannot reach the spiritual significance of nature; if they could, it would not meet their spiritual exigencies or improve their spiritual condition. [How many sermons have nothing distinctively Christian,—in the topics they discuss; in their method of discussing even topics derived from Scripture; in their standards of judgment of men and conduct; in their lessons inculcated! Sermons to the Natural Man is a good and worthy book; but it is by a “spiritual” man. There are “Sermons by the Natural Man to the Natural Man.” The “natural” man does not mind “natural” preaching. They who preach thus are sure of a clientèle. Such preachers at least rouse no antagonism in the natural heart. Anybody is “sufficient for” these things! (Cf. 2Co_2:16).]

II. Not of Judaism.—It flamed, a grand torch for Truth, breaking the moral darkness of successive generations, and lighted great multitudes of souls into the calm heaven of eternity. But it is “done away.” [No man formally preaches Judaism. But there is a style of experience and a scale of enjoyment in the Divine life which is Jewish—Old Testament—not Christian. The man who is righteous only by shaping his course and character according to external commands, who can do nothing, and decide nothing, without a “text,” a positive plain rule, is a Jew, not a Christian, in the principle of his holiness. He who is hoping to sin and repent and find pardon, only then to sin and repent again, is living in the Jewish order, whilst the Christian covenant has now brought a larger, victorious grace. He who is only a penitent, and has not found or expected a peace which is a matter of consciousness, has not passed the John Baptist stage of the order of the dispensations. Much current, conventional, respectable morality is Jewish, the morality rebuked and superseded in the Sermon on the Mount by, “I say, unto you.” The thinker who only sees a Jesus of Nazareth, is a Jew (perhaps only a Pilate), not a Christian. He who calls the Spirit “it,” not “He” (John 15, 16), who speaks of, and prays for, the Spirit to be “poured out,” and the like, should at least remember that this is Old Testament thought and language, still employed although Christ, the Introducer of the personal Holy Ghost to the Church, has spoken and done His work. Preachers in their doctrine, their people in their experience, need still to beware of making up their bread, or feeding upon a spiritual staff of life, with “the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” It is still on active sale in the world’s religious bread-shops.]—Founded upon a paragraph in “Homilist,” Third Series, ix. 122.

2Co_3:17. The Liberty of the Spirit. “Where the Spirit,” etc.—“The Spirit” is the Holy Spirit; the characteristic, crowning privilege of the Christian dispensation. “The Lord” is the Lord Christ. The verse is another of the incidental, compressed embodiments of the habitual thought of Paul. We see it expounded by him in two leading passages.

I. The Law of Moses is a system of bondage; the Gospel is a system of liberty (Gal_3:1 to Gal_5:6).—

1. Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration would have kept Moses and Elijah and Christ! Law and Prophets and Gospel! Daybreak, Dawn, Day, all together. Moon and stars in all their number and glory, after the Sun was risen. He “knew not what he said,” indeed. And the Conservative, old-school, Jewish Christians who followed Paul into Galatia, would have tried the same impossible combination also. They were representatives of a large class who, in all times of revolutionary change, are not indeed insensible to the value and truth of the new order, but who are also, from long habit and honest appreciation, reluctant to part with the old, and are slow to take in the fact that the old is hopelessly past as to its form, whilst all that was really valuable in it is taken up by and into the new. The first time we hear of them, their line was definitely stated: “Except ye [Gentiles] be circumcised … ye cannot be saved” (Act_15:1; Act_15:5). After a long conference, Peter turned the vote upon the question by a speech in which he declared—and appealed to the confirmatory knowledge of all his hearers—the old system “a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.” Paul will have none of it for his Galatians. It is “a different gospel”; a true heterodoxy.

2. The case has its analogies to-day, wherever the externals of religion are so emphasised as to become for their own sake matters whose observance is righteousness, and their neglect sin. There are still consciences greatly distressed if one tittle of a cumbersome round of external ordinances has by any chance been forgotten, or has for any reason gone (blamelessly) unfulfilled. It is, moreover, easier to perform a round of duties, catalogued and prescribed and “ticked off” in the day’s list as each is accomplished, than to cultivate the holy life within, to wage the unceasing warfare there and to keep up the incessant guard over one’s own spirit. A piece of external asceticism is easier than an act of merely inward self-denial. To keep the Galatian converts at such a round of externalism was to keep them at a low level, and to make their life one of only an elementary type. For Galatians to assume the burden of the Mosaic ritual, was for men to put themselves into the position of children learning their A B C; it was for the heir who has come of age to put himself again under the tutors and governors and school-slave. These things had had their meaning, but the Gospel had evacuated them of meaning; even the sacred sign and seal, circumcision, was now nothing but a mutilation or a piece of surgery. For the man to tie himself to the “go-cart” which had supported the child’s tottering steps into steady walking, is not only folly; the man feels it a bondage.

3. And these Jewish teachers made the bondage a more serious one still. “Except … ye cannot be saved.” That the tedious, burdensome, often frivolously minute, Rabbinical glosses upon the original Law, as well as that Original itself, should be matters on which salvation hinged, was as serious as that it should be supposed (say) that sin can with us be atoned for by any round of external or ascetic actions. Serious, because it seemed to imply that the work of Christ was Dot by itself the sufficient ground of the sinner’s safety; that He needed a co-ordinate ground of acceptance with God to complement His work. And serious because the impossibility, too often most sadly verified by the most earnest souls, of keeping the Law, made salvation on this basis and condition impossible. “Away with it all! Stand fast in your liberty.… Be not entangled again” (Gal_5:1). “The dispensation of the Spirit knows nothing of such parallel requirements in addition to, in competition with, the simple ones of Repentance and Faith, which He will also help you to fulfil.” Under the dispensation of the Spirit there must be no entangling of the soul with a system of externalisms or ceremonial, presumed in any sense to have merit attached to their fulfilment. “Ye are called unto Liberty!”

4. Under another aspect the Galatian controversy raised a wider, a universal, question. There are always two conceivable ways—two only—of finding for oneself a standing before a holy God. The one is by doing, by our own acts and their merit; the other by believing, by resting alone on the act and merit of Another. The “Jewish” and the “Gospel” plan respectively. “Faith and Works” is no stock theological topic of discussion. It is no academic issue which is raised. It is the vitally and perennially interesting one, always raised so soon as a man understands Sin, and himself, as a Sinner. The natural heart always propounds “Salvation by Works,” even when it has never heard of the term. For the acceptance of a guilty sinner—his justification before God—the way is now shorter. The Spirit teaches every man who will learn, that he need not encumber himself—as it is quite useless to do—with any fancied store of things he has done—or has not done—of things he has been—or has not been. As regards the past and its guilt before God, he is now free to find mercy and acceptance forthwith in the merit of Christ.

II. A larger, more generalised, thoroughly universal treatment of “bondage” and “liberty” appears in Rom_8:14-16. The antithesis between “servant” and “son” appears in the Galatian passage. But in the Roman letter the local colouring, the temporary shape, of the question is gone. Nothing is left but the sinner, whether Jew or Gentile, passing from the status and experiences of a servant, a bond-servant, of God into that of a son of God. There is a new name for the man, “child”; a new name for God, “Abba.” It is the summation in the life-history of the individual of the moral education of the race. Paul and his readers stood historically at the meeting-place of two stages in God’s leading of the world. Until the Day of the Spirit all God’s most holy and devoted people had been His servants. No most favoured one ever ventured, under that earlier order, to apply the name “Father” to God. The name “Father” rarely occurs at all, and never as the appellation of God habitually on the lips of an individual. “Like as a father, etc.,” “Doubtless Thou art our Father,” are rare expressions in the Old Testament, and are far beneath the privileged common use of the name “Abba,” which is for those who are no longer “servants,” but “sons.” David never said, as every Christian does, “Father.” And the converted man has his Old Testament stage too. Too many earnest people of God stop there, in these days of New Testament grace. They have received the Spirit, indeed. In their heart is many “a good thing towards the Lord their God.” They serve with a dutiful devotion, that after all is only “duty.” They ought to serve; they must serve. “These many years do I serve thee.” The son who talks and feels thus, is a servant still. The Spirit is in them a “Spirit of bondage.” And preeminently such is He to the awakened man, whose unavailing struggle with himself and the sin of his “flesh” is so graphically portrayed in chap. 7. The first impulse of the man to whom for the first time comes the knowledge of sin to any practical purpose, is to reform—to set himself to do right for the future. And his first and speedy discovery is that he cannot. He is not his own master. He must “serve sin.” He once neither knew nor fought against sin. Now he knows and fights and falls. Habits are iron bonds which he cannot break. Temptations are assaults to which he is dragged into yielding, as if by a power of evil within him. It is no “law of Moses” only, or chiefly. It is a “law of sin” in his members. Sin is known by every awakened man as not only a guilt and a defilement, but as a power, a bondage. The new life of the Spirit, the new life in Christ, brings a new power and a new liberty. The bondage is broken, “that henceforth he should not serve sin.” The Spirit Who “witnesses” that he is “a child of God,” and not a servant in his relation to God any longer, Who puts into his lips the new—the child’s—name for God, “Father,” and makes his heart and love those of a child towards God, releases him and energises him for the child’s life and service. The service is not less faithful and devoted than before, now that he is “a child” of God; but the “bondage” is gone out of it. In a perfect family life, in perfect filial love, the dutiful “bondage” and respectful “fear” of the servants are not found in the children. They have a larger, freer life, one which, sure of itself in the happy instinct of a loving heart, has not even an overshadowing, haunting, fettering fear of displeasing the father. The Spirit of the Lord is a “Spirit of adoption”—of sonship. Not only are the limbs free from the fetters of habit and from sin’s power. The heart is free, with the natural, unconscious, perfect liberty of the child in the home. This leads up to

III. Liberty from Law in the Christian life.—

1. James gives us, “The perfect Law of Liberty.” There is an ideal of Christian life in which the soul is “filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” [Col_1:9, followed up by the happy consequences in life and practice enumerated in 2Co_3:10]; in which “an unction from the Holy One” so “teaches all things” that the man of God “needeth not that any man should teach him”; in which the very instincts of the heart “renewed in knowledge, after the image” of God would be a sufficient directory for all Christian living, passing continually the enactments of a perfect legislation within the parliament house of the inner man; when the heart knows and loves, always, and to the last degree of detail, what God wills; when the law of God without, and the heart and will within, coincide in their promptings; when the law and the love lie perfectly, closely, side by side; when the heart “runs in the way of God’s commandments.” It is clear that such a life in ideal needs no external direction, and feels no restraint. [The law-abiding citizen goes through life ignorant of very much of the legislation of his country, and finding nothing irksome or ungrateful about obedience to it; so perfectly obeying that obedience or law not are adverted to.]

2. But that is ideal, though approached more and more nearly as the life of the “son”—not the “servant”—is cultivated, and educated and developed. The positive, ab extra, legislation still has its value and office, and its necessity. The early days of the new life are days of childhood, with its ignorance and its weakness. The “law” trains and refines the newly awakened perception of what is sin and what is holiness. It may serve, or be needed, like the stake which supports the sapling, until this rises in established, self-supporting, self-guarding strength. Its “witness” is a defence against the peril of heedlessness or of declining watchfulness; its warning voice may arrest the very beginnings of divergence from the “perfect way.” It is needed as an absolute standard, to which the subjective pronouncements may be continually referred for confirmation, for revision, for the illumination of unsuspected error. There is an ever recurrent need that it should be made clear that Obedience and Right are objective, and are obligatory because of the Legislator’s will. No most intense love, no most utter trust in Christ, can dispense with the need of holiness in heart and life. If the “Law of Moses” do not now bind, there is a “Law of Christ” (Gal_6:2) which does. Indeed, in regard to all the abiding principles which in the old Code appear in local, national, temporary dress, the Christian man is “under the law to Christ” (1Co_9:21).

3. Against the lawless freedom which is licence and even licentiousness, the Apostle’s instinctive recoiling, “God forbid,” is argument good enough. For it, “Whose damnation is just,” is the unerringly, instinctively, just verdict of the healthy life, rejoicing in the most abundant freedom of the Spirit.

2Co_3:17. The Freedom of the Spirit.

I. General statement of this truth.—The glory of the Old Covenant, symbolised by the glowing face of Moses, was of an inferior order to that of the New. As a rule of life, without the Atoning Blood to pardon sin and without the grace of the Spirit to make obedience possible, the Law had been but a ministration of condemnation. As a typical system, it had been destined to pass away on the appearance of the Antitype which fulfilled it. The Gospel was, in marked contrast, endowed with perpetuity and was a ministration of spiritual righteousness. Symbolically, and really, the early dispensation was protected from a too searching scrutiny, which might have revealed at the very moment of its introduction a Higher Object beyond itself which was yet to come. Those who are converted to Jesus Christ have escaped from the veil which darkened the spiritual intelligence of Israel. The converting Spirit is the source of positive illumination; but before He thus enlightens, He must give freedom from the veil of prejudice which denies to Jewish thought any real insight into the deeper sense of Scripture. The Christian student of the ancient Law seizes that sense, because he possesses the Spirit, and He gives liberty, and faculty, for inquiry. The specific liberty here is not merely liberty from the yoke of the Law; but liberty from the tyranny of obstacles which cloud the spiritual sight of truth; liberty from spiritual rather than from intellectual dulness; from a state of soul which cannot apprehend truth. The Spirit still gives this liberty. This is the enunciation of a master-feature of the Gospel. This liberty is the invariable accompaniment of His true action, the very atmosphere of His presence. Nor is the freedom which He sheds abroad a poor reproduction of the restless, volatile, self-asserting, sceptical temper of Pagan Greek life, adapted to the forms and thoughts of modern civilisation, and awkwardly expressing itself in Christian phraseology. He gives liberty in the broad, deep sense of that word. He gives freedom from error for the reason; freedom from constraint for the affections; freedom-for the will from the tyranny of sinful and human wills. Human nature has imagined such a freedom, but has sighed in vain for the reality. It is, in fact, a creation; the sons of God alone enjoy it. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

II. In more of detail.—

1. Mental liberty.—God has from the first consecrated liberty of thought. He has so ordered the framework of human social order that society cannot force the sanctuary of our thought. Without our consent society cannot enter within us (1Co_2:11). So, in the martyrdoms of the first three centuries, the strength of those who to the death bore their witness for not merely moral, but mental liberty, was strength given by the Spirit. Their testimony was His under whose illumination Christians became conscious of a new power, almost a new sense for the supernatural. To-day it is supposed that the Churches and their creeds, their “dogmas,” are enemies of religious freedom. To value dogma is invidiously contrasted with setting a value on Christian character and life; as though he who cares for the one must by some necessity neglect the other. The Church of the Future “will dispense with dogma.” In such talk, dogma is assumed, rather than stated in words, to be untrue. The leaven of Hegelian philosophy is in the current talking and thinking. There is no recognised rule for reason; in human opinion all is true, and yet nothing is true. All truth is partial, limited; all statements of truth are true and false at once. And the like. Further, the prevalence of experimental methods of inquiry leads many minds tacitly to assume that nothing is real, the truth of which cannot be established and tested by [physical] observation. Yet “Dogma” is a neutral, innocent word, suggesting lexically or by its history nothing untrustworthy or discreditable. The philosophers who denounce Christian “dogma” have their own “dogmas,” in the true sense, [and are sometimes “dogmatic” enough, in the accidental, evil sense]. “Dogma is essential Christian truth thrown by authority [N.B. this] into a form which admits of its permanently passing into the understanding and being treasured by the heart of the people.” Accordingly it is found abundantly in the New Testament; 1 Corinthians 15 is largely pure dogma. “The Divine Spirit, speaking through the clear utterances of Scripture, and [N.B.] the illuminated and consenting thought of Christendom, is the real Author of essential dogma.” Dogma is a restraint upon thought, only where liberty is mischievous or impossible. He who believes that revealed truths are true should not dislike their being stated dogmatically. To admit the truth of a position of course takes away the liberty to deny it. Every new discovery of ascertained truth takes something from freedom to think otherwise. The freest and most exact science known to the human mind has at its base axioms which cannot be demonstrated, yet cannot be rejected. Euclid begins by demanding a sacrifice of mental liberty. Refuse to submit to, accept, use, these dogmas; a man can go no further, and arrive at nothing. True or false, the dogmas of Christian truth are not discredited by being stated in dogmatic form. Submission to revealed truth [whether at the end of a personal investigation of its claim, or at the bidding of a Church, or in acquiescent following of the custom of a man’s circle] does involve some limitation of intellectual licence. The lamps in the streets do trench upon space where the passenger might walk. In English public and private life the supremacy of law curtails, whilst it gives and protects, personal freedom. “The free intelligence of the Church bows before the language of the Creeds, because that language guards a truth which the faith of the Church recognises as of heavenly origin.” Dogma stimulates thought, provokes it, sustains it at an elevation otherwise impossible. Dogma stimulates in its earlier, but petrifies into uselessness in its later, stage. No Christian who seriously believes that Jesus is God, that His Death is a World-redeeming Sacrifice, that the Eternal Spirit sanctifies the redeemed, that Scripture is the inspired Word of God, “that the Sacraments are the appointed channels whereby we partake of the Life of Jesus, can say that in himself these truths have petrified, arrested, stifled thought.”

2. Moral liberty.—In the kingdom of the Spirit alone is the will free. Naturally we are bound with fetters of habit, passion, prejudice; we hug our chains; even dare to promise men liberty, etc. (2Pe_2:19). There is no such thing as a resurrection from moral slavery, except for the soul which has laid hold on a fixed objective truth. When at the breath of the Divine Spirit upon the soul heaven is opened to the eye of faith, and man looks up from his misery and his weakness to the Everlasting Christ upon His throne; then freedom is possible, for the Son has taken flesh, and died, and risen again, and interceded with the Father, and given us His Spirit “and His Sacraments,” expressly that we might enjoy it. “On the condition of submission?” Yes; but in obeying God, a man acquires not only freedom, but royalty, in its highest exercise of empire,—command over himself, a thing he best learns by voluntary submission. Bend the knee to that Christ of Bethlehem and Calvary, listen to the New Commandment as the Charter of freedom,—rise a king and priest to God and the Father! You have free access to the courts of heaven: you serve One Whose service alone is perfect freedom! Liberty of conscience and will is the greatest blessing of all “freedoms.” “It is freedom from a sense of sin, when all is known to have been pardoned through the atoning blood; freedom from a slavish fear of our Father in Heaven, when conscience is offered to His unerring Eye morning and evening by that penitent love which fixes its eye upon the Crucified; freedom from current prejudice and false human opinion, when the soul gazes by intuitive faith upon the actual truth; freedom from the depressing yoke of feeble health or narrow circumstances, since the soul cannot be crushed which rests consciously upon the Everlasting Arms; freedom from that haunting fear of death, which holds all who really think upon death ‘all their lifetime subject to bondage,’ unless they are His true friends and clients, Who by the sharpness of His own death has led the way and ‘opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.’ It is freedom in time also, and beyond, freedom in eternity. In that blessed world, in the unclouded Presence of the Emancipator, the brand of slavery is inconceivable. In that world there is a perpetual service; yet, since it is the source of love made perfect, it is only and by necessity the service of the free. For ‘where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.’ ”—Adapted from Lid-don, “University Sermons,” iv. This last paragraph may itself suggest a Homily.

2Co_3:17. Christian Liberty and the Law.

I. The bondage.—“The condition of believers under the past dispensation … is spoken of as a certain species of restraint or bondage,—not the bondage, indeed, of slaves [?], and mercenaries, which belonged only to the carnal as opposed to the believing portion of the Church; but the bondage of those who, though free-born children, are still in nonage, and must be kept under the restraint and discipline of an external law. This, however, could in no case be the whole of the agency with which the believer was plied, for then his yoke must have been literally the galling bondage of the slave. He must have had more or less the Spirit of life within, begetting and prompting him to do the things which the law outwardly enjoined, making the pulse of life in the heart beat in harmony with the rule of life prescribed in the law; so that, while he still felt ‘as under tutors and governors,’ it was not as one needing to be ‘held in with bit and bridle,’ but rather as one disposed readily and cheerfully to keep to the appointed course.… So it unquestionably was with the Psalmist; … the law was not a mere outward yoke, nor in any proper sense a burden: it was ‘within their heart,’ they delighted in its precepts, and meditated therein day and night: to listen to its instructions was sweeter to them than honey, and to obey its dictates was better than thousands of gold and silver” [Fairbairn, Typology, ii. 193, 194. Does this do justice as to Act_15:10? He says admirably as to]—

II. The liberty.—“When the believer receives Christ as the Lord his righteousness, he is not only justified by grace, but he comes into a state of grace, or gets grace into his heart as a living, reigning, governing principle of life. What, however, is this grace but the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? And this Spirit is emphatically the Holy Spirit; holiness is the very element of His being, and the essential law of His working; every desire He breathes, every feeling He awakens, every action He disposes and enables us to perform, is according to godliness. And if only we are sufficiently possessed of this Spirit, and yield ourselves to His direction and control, we no longer need the restraint and discipline of the law; we are free from it, because we are superior to it. Quickened and led by the Spirit, we of ourselves love and do the things which the law requires.…” [As in an adult son] “the mind has become his from which the parental law proceeded, and he has consequently become independent of its outward prescriptions. [Strictly this last is only true in proportion as he has become possessed of the ‘mind.’] And what is it to be under the grace of God’s Spirit but to have the mind of God?—the mind of Him who gave the law simply as a revelation of what was in His heart respecting the holiness of His people. So that the more they have of the one, the less, obviously, they need of the other; and if only they were complete in the grace of the Spirit, they would be wholly independent of the bonds and restrictions of the law.” (Ib., p. 190.) The law was not made for a good man who stands in a right relation to the law of his country. So “to one who has become a partaker of ‘the Spirit of God’ the law, considered as an outward discipline placing him under a yoke of manifold commands and prohibitions, has for him ceased to exist. But it has ceased in that respect only by taking possession of him in another” (Ib., p. 191).

[Fairbairn adds (ib., p. 201):—

III. “From the law in its strict and proper sense—the law of the ten commandments—the freedom enjoyed by the Christian is not absolute, but relative only, just as the Israelites’ want of the Spirit was relative only. But in regard to what is called the ceremonial law the freedom is absolute; and to keep up the observance of its symbolical institutions and services after the new despensation entered was not only to retain a yoke that might be dispensed with, but also an incongruity to be avoided, and even a danger to be shunned. For, viewed simply as teaching ordinances … they were superseded … by the appointment of other means more suitable as instruments in the hand of the Spirit for ministering instruction to … men. The change then brought into the Divine administration was characterised throughout by a more immediate and direct handling of the things of God. They were now things no longer hid under a veil, but openly disclosed to the eye of the mind. Ordinances which were adapted to the state of the Church when neither was the Spirit fully given, nor were the things of God [by Him] clearly revealed, could not possibly be … adapted to the Church of the New Testament. The grand ordinance here must be the free and open manifestation of the truth—written first in the word of inspiration, and thenceforth continually proclaimed anew by the preaching of the Gospel; and such symbolical institutions as might yet be needed must be founded upon the clear revelations of the word—not like those of the former dispensation, spreading a veil over the truth, or affording only a dim shadow of better things to come.’ (Ib., p. 201.)]

2Co_3:17. Liberty from Law under the Dispensation of the Spirit.—The Christian religion as the Perfect Law of Liberty finds its perfection in the bestowment through the Holy Spirit of an internal freedom from the restraint of law which is quite consistent with subjection to external law as a directory of the life.

I. There is nothing more characteristic of the Christian economy of ethics than that it sets up an internal rule (Rom_8:2).—This interior rule responds to the exterior, and in a certain sense supersedes it. The external law ceases as a law of death; it has vanished with the conscience of sin removed in pardon. And in contrast to the Law which was against and over the soul in its impossibility of fulfilment, the Spirit of life within gives strength for all obedience; and the law to be obeyed is set up within us (Heb_8:10). This is more than the restoration of the almost effaced traces of the law engraven on the heart of universal man.… This internal law is supernatural; it is nature still, but nature restored and more than restored; a supernatural nature. This is the interior polity of holy government of which St. James speaks (Jas_1:25); perfect law becomes perfect liberty from external obligation. The nearer obedience is to the uniformity of the ordinances of nature—being conscious and willing obedience, though in its perfection not conscious of its willing—the nearer it approaches the Creator’s end.… In all the economy of the physical universe His law works from within outwardly, and there is no need of any outward statute to be registered for the guidance of His unintelligent creatures. The Divine Spirit in the heart of the regenerate man seeks to work out in a similar way a perfect obedience to the law of love.

II. In a loose and general way this may be called the rule of conscience (Act_24:13; but this is pre-Christian).… We may speak of the internal law as that of Self-government restored. The rule of God’s Spirit in the spirit of the regenerate, is the administration of conscience or the renewed self, according to the normal idea of the Creator. Men thus trusted—under authority to that Holy Ghost, yet having their own souls under them—are in the highest and purest sense a law unto themselves (Rom_2:4). Yet this is only as under the law to Christ (1Co_9:21), Who is the common Lord of all.

III. For there is still an external law … which is continued by reason of the weakness of the new nature.—

1. The external standard still maintains the dignity of law.… We are delivered from the law of sin and death, not from the law that directs to holiness and life. Written on the fleshly tables of the heart, the commandments are deposited also in an ark on tables of stone for common appeal amongst probationary mortals. The eternal morals of the old economy have not passed away. They are re-enacted under other forms, and re-written in the pages of the New Testament as [a] the Standard of requirement, [b] the Condition of the Charter of privileges, and [c] a Testimony against those who offend. [A good Homily in germ.]

2. The outward enactments are still the directory of individual duty.… The best Christians need a remembrancer; they obey the law within, but are not always independent of the teaching of the law without.

3. The external is the safeguard of the internal law: against its only or chief enemy, Antinomianism, which regards the law as abolished in Christ, or treats it as if it were so. Theoretical or theological Antinomianism … makes a Christian’s salvation eternally independent of any other obedience than that of the Gospel offer of grace.… There is a teaching which holds that the Substitute of man has not only paid the penalty of human offence, but has fulfilled the law also for the sinner; thus making the salvation of the elect secure. The believer has in this doctrine [call it “Vicarious Holiness”?] no more to do with a legal rule save as a subordinate teacher of morality. He will never to all eternity stand before any bar to be judged by the law.… This is the very truth of the Gospel so far as concerns the demand of the law for eternal and unbroken conformity with its precepts, … but there is only a step between precious truth and perilous error here.… There is also a prevalent practical Antinomianism (Gal_5:13), sometimes connected with the theoretical renunciation of law. [It is] found in all communities, the disgrace of all creeds and confessions.… The written commandments are a safeguard.… If Christian people recite their Creed to keep in memory the things they surely believe, not less necessary is it that they should also recite the Commandments to keep in memory what they must do to enter into life.—Adapted. See also under 1Co_9:21.

HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS

2Co_3:2. “Living epistles.”

I. What they contain.—The record of ministerial faithfulness—and success.

II. Where they are written.—In the heart, as a testimony of Divine approval, as a certain proof of a Divine call.

III. By whom they are read.—By all men—easily with intelligent conviction.—[J. L.]

2Co_3:4-11. The Glory of the Christian Ministry.

I. Its foundation.—Trust in God through Christ. Divine sufficiency. Suitable qualifications.

II. Its function.—The ministration not of the letter, but of the Spirit.

III. Its means.—Not external, that dazzle and then vanish away. But the co-operation of the Holy Ghost.

IV. Its object.—Not condemnation and death, but righteousness and life.

V. Its reward.—Even now a more excellent glory. Hereafter a glory everlasting.—[J. L.]

Or thus:—

The New Testament Ministry—

I. Has the vastest resources.

II. Effects the greatest wonders.

III. Secures the most enduring results.—[J. L.]

2Co_3:8. “The ministration of the Spirit.”

I. Deals with “the spirit” in man.

II. Is effectual only when in the power of the Holy Spirit.

III. Has for its great purpose the communication of the Holy Spirit, the characteristic, distinctive glory, and privilege of the Christian dispensation.

2Co_3:9. The Ministration of—

I. Condemnation.—Reveals and enforces law. Convinces of sin. Brings condemnation.

II. Righteousness.—Satisfies the law. Teaches faith. Brings pardon and holiness.

III. II. therefore exceeds

I. in glory in that it perfects the work of the latter. Saves the sinner. Secures greater glory to God.—[J. L.]

2Co_3:18. Conformity by gazing.—Foundation and building not identical, yet related. So Judaism and Christianity. “Judaism contained not the completeness of Christianity; Christianity halted not at the beginnings of Judaism.”

1. They agree, in source, God; in purpose, to preserve the knowledge of the true God; in matter, a revelation of God’s will; Judaism, “coarse,” rude; Christianity, a life-inspired system.

2. They differ, in their method of revelation, by the Mediator and the Master; in their expositors; in the perpetuity of Christianity. “After Adamism, Noachism; after Noachism, Abrahamism; after Abrahamism, Judaism; after Judaism, Christianity; after Christianity,—Eternity!” Judaism limited; Christianity universal. Judaism veiled the light; in Christ the veil is gone. Text shows:—

I. Religion in its sanctity of nature.—Its one object is to change man into the image—of whom? Of God? Of Christ? No matter. God inconceivable and unconceived. The study of His works and even of His words alone only introduces man to “a Voice in the dark.” All we can know, or need to know, is embodied in Christ. Christ removes the two barriers—man’s incapacity, God’s invisibility. And Christ did not come to teach Dogma or merely create a religious “guild,” but to conform man to Himself. Look at Him in His many-sided, symmetrical, pure spirituality. See Him “crystalline-translucent” in conscience. See His deliberate, undeflected devotedness. His mind, Divine.

II. Manner of attaining conformity.—

1. “Beholding.” Not merely “staring at.” There must be the unveiled glass, and the unclosed eye.

2. Once more, neither is the study of His works and words enough. May read the New Testament once a year; may study critically, “with audacious freedom.” Men, acute enough, saw His works: their verdict was “Beelzebub,” “Blasphemer, enthusiast, traitor.”

3. Must bring Christ to study of Christ. May not repudiate His teaching and yet hope to understand Him.

4. This only “by the Spirit of the Lord,” “taking of the things of Christ,” etc. Unveiling the mirror; opening the eye.

III. Progressive conformity.—No hurry in God’s working. “If a young Christian begin young, the conformity shall fill a life of many years.” “Even God cannot create growth.”—Notes of sermon by John Burton, penes H. J. F.

[On the Old Testament passage underlying 2Co_3:7 to 2Co_4:6, particularly. “Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone,” the suggestion may be useful:—]

“A Picture of True Glory.” [“Unconscious Goodness.”]

I. Involves fellowship with the Eternal.—Character is formed on the principle of imitation. This process perfected needs: a perfect model; the love of a perfect model; the knowledge of a perfect model.

II. Has an external manifestation.—Was it not a reflection of the moral glory of his soul, glorified by communion with God? The heart does—notwithstanding the possibility and the fact of successful hypocrisy—stamp itself upon the face. Stephen’s face. And upon the language yet more certainly. Upon our lives: “as the man thinketh in his heart so is he.” [A pregnant saying, capable of many readings: What he means, though he expresses himself badly in word or act, that is the man to be recognised; what his heart’s bent and love are, that surely the man becomes; a man will let slip a word, or do instinctively some action, which reveals the evil man of the heart under the plausible mask of the face.]

III. Is never self-conscious.—But greatness drowns egotism. The standard of judgment is outside the man’s self. He lives amongst a circle of persons and things which forms a true standard of measurement. Christian love, above all, casts out egotism; too eager about others to serve, or even think about, itself.

IV. Commands the reverence of society.—Conscience will instinctively respect true, unconscious greatness. Guilt will bow the wrong-doer in homage before it.—More fully in “Homilist,” Third Series, vi. 343.

APPENDED NOTES

Chap. 3. Openness of Apostolical Service.—The whole argument of this passage is so interwoven with personal allusions, and with illustrations from a particular interpretation of a single passage in the Old Testament, that there is a difficulty in deducing any general truth from it directly.… It may be worth while to go through the various images which the Apostle has called up. First, there is the commendatory Epistle of the Corinthian Church, written on his heart. Next, the same Epistle written on their hearts and lives, read and re-read by the wayfarers to and fro, through the thoroughfare of Greece. Thirdly, the contrast between this Epistle, written on the tender human feelings, on the vibrations of the wind, by the breath of the Spirit; carrying its tidings backwards and forwards, whithersoever it will, with no limits of time or space, like the sweep of the wind on the Æolian harp, like an electric spark of light,—and the Ten Commandments graven in the granite blocks of Sinai, hard, speechless, lifeless. Fourthly, there rises into view the figure of Moses, as he is known to us in the statue of Michael Angelo, the light streaming from his face, yet growing dim and dark as a greater glory of another revelation rises behind it. Fifthly, the same figure veiled, as the light beneath the veil dies away and shade rests upon the scene, and there rises around him a multiplication of the figure, the Jews in their synagogues veiled, as the Book of the Law is read before them. Sixthly, the same figure of Moses once more, but now unveiled as he turns again to Mount Sinai and uncovers his face to rekindle its glory in the Divine presence; and now again, this same figure multiplied in the Apostle and the Corinthian congregation following him, all with faces unveiled, and upturned toward the light of Christ’s presence, the glory streaming into their faces with greater and greater brightness, as if borne in upon them by the Spirit or breath of light from that Divine countenance, till they are transfigured into a blaze of splendour like unto it.—Stanley, pp. 418, 420.

2Co_3:11. “That which remaineth.”—Christianity is connected with all those religions which have preceded it, and that not merely as one of them, but as their truth, their aim, as simply religion. Christianity is the absolute religion—the only true and intrinsically valid religion. Such is the pretension with which it entered the world, and which it constantly maintains. This may be called exclusiveness and intolerance, but it is the intolerance of truth. As soon as truth concedes the possibility of her opposite being also true, she denies herself. As soon as Christianity ceases to declare herself to be the only true religion, she annihilates her power, and denies her right to exist, for she denies her necessity. The old world concluded with the question, What is Truth? The new world began with the saying of Christ, I am the Truth. And this saying is the confession of Christian faith. The form which the Christian faith may assume may alter; the human notions by which it seeks to express itself may change; but Christian faith must declare itself to be the unchangeable truth. It must affirm that this truth is the answer to the old questions of human nature, and that all the religions which have been its predecessors were mostly preliminary and preparatory, and have found in it their aim and goal. Heathenism was the seeking religion, Judaism the hoping religion; Christianity is the reality of what heathenism sought, and Judaism hoped for.—Luthardt, “Saving Truths,” p.

20. He adds in notes:—

“Christianity is the religion which, in the person of its Founder, actually realises that union of man with God which every other religion has striven after, but none attained; and from this creative centre, by doctrine and moral influence, by redemption and reconciliation, restores the individual and the human race to their true destiny, to that true communion, to that mind with God in which all that is human is sanctified and glorified.” (Ullmann.)

“If we consider the different religions with respect to this fundamental problem [of the bringing together Creator and creature, Holy God and sinful man], we may say that heathenism knows not the problem; that Israel is living in the problem, and awaiting its solution; but that Christianity alone furnishes the solution, through its Gospel of the Incarnation of God [and the Atonement of the Cross]. (Martensen, Dogmatik.)

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

VI. HE MEETS CHARGE OF SELF-RECOMMENDATION BY POINTING TO WHAT HE HAD DONE AT CORINTH. THE DIVINE SOURCE OF HIS CONFIDENCE; EXCELLENCE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT MINISTRY AND ITS SUPERIORITY TO THAT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

2Co_3:1-11

1Do we begin again to commend ourselves?1 or2 need we, as some others [om. others], 2epistles of commendation to you, or [om. letters of commendation3] from you? Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: 3forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be [being manifested that ye are] the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables [or tablets] of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart [on hearts which are tablets of 4flesh].4 And [But] such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: 5not that we are sufficient [om. of ourselves] to think anything [from, αφ̓ ourselves]5 as of [out of, εξ] ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God: 6who also hath made us able [sufficient as]6 ministers of the New Testament [Covenant]; not of the [a] letter, but of the [a]7 spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. 7But if the ministration of death, written and engraven [engraven in letters] in stones was glorious [in glory ἐν δόξῃ], so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away [is passing away, τὴν καταργουμένην];8 8How shall not [rather] the ministration of the spirit be [om. rather] glorious [in glory]? 9For if the ministration9 of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed [abound, περισσεύει ] in10 glory. 10For even that which was [has been] made glorious had [has been having, δεδόξασται] no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. 11For if that which was done 11[passing, τὸ καταργουμένον] away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious [abideth is in glory, τὸ μένον ἐν δόξῃ].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

2Co_3:1-3. What the Apostle had said in 2Co_3:15-17 was liable to misinterpretation by ill disposed persons, on the ground that it was a boasting or a commendation of himself. He guards against this by reminding the Corinthians that he felt no necessity of recommending himself to them or to others, inasmuch as the work which Christ had accomplished by him in their city was a sufficient recommendation for him in every part of the world.—Do we begin to commend ourselves.—Ἀρχόμεθα is capable of an invidious meaning, such as might be insinuated by an opponent; do we presume etc. (comp. Luk_3:8). Πάλιν qualifies the infinitive, and refers to something which might be regarded as self-commendation either in his first Epistle (1 Corinthians 2-4, 1Co_7:25; 1Co_7:40; 1Co_9:14; 1Co_9:18;1Co_15:10), or in his earlier discourses or letters.—Or need we like some, epistles of recommendation to you, or from you?—The verb συνιστάνειν (τινί) signifies: to bring together, to introduce, to commend (Rom_16:1, and frequently in our Epistle). Self-commendation in the sense of praising one’s self, is mentioned with disapprobation also in 2Co_10:18. In the following sentence, if we accept of εὶ μὴ as the true reading, we must suppose that a decidedly negative and ironical answer was presupposed in it, or that the previous question goes on the presumption of an absurdity, [Jelf. Gram. § 860, 5. Obs. Webster Synt. and Synn. of N. T., chap. 8. p. 126.] q. d.: “unless it be that we need,” i.e. only under such a presumption could such an idea be entertained. This reading is not really more difficult than the strongly authenticated ἥ μή, although the latter is grammatically incorrect, inasmuch as nowhere else in the New Testament does μή occur in such a question after a ἤ, which must necessarily exclude all which precedes it. It makes very prominent the absurdity of the question: or do we not yet need? and it may be regarded as combining together the two constructions ἢ χρήζομεν and μή χρήζομεν [Without the ἐὶ μή, the previous question (which we might expect the Apostle to repel by a decided οὑδαμῶς), remains almost entirely without notice, and a new one is started which only inferentially negatives it. If ἐὶ μὴ is taken (as all usage requires it to be,) in the sense of nisi, (unless) the interrogative character of the sentence it introduces (according to our English version) ceases, and it notices the previous question in the only way it deserved notice, viz: ironically or even derisively. The sense would be: “I can need no commendation either from myself, for that would be introducing myself, or boasting where I am already well known; or from others to you, for none know me better than you; or from you to others, for your conversion and present state are better known as our work than anything you can say. Surely then the mere mention of such a thing is enough to show its absurdity.”] We often read of συστατικαὶ ἐπιστολαί in the church after the death of the Apostles. When members of the church travelled from place to place they were usually recommended from one bishop to another, and the letters thus given became a means of maintaining fraternal intercourse between the bishops and their congregations. [Paul himself appears to have recognized the commencement of such a custom. In Gal_2:12, he speaks of some “who came from James,” as if even then some authority was expected from the Apostolic College at Jerusalem. Two years before, Apollos passing into this very city of Corinth, did bring “letters from the brethren” of Ephesus (Act_18:27); and as many of the Corinthians professed to be followers of Apollos, it is no impossible thing that such were here aimed at. The 13th canon of the Council of Chalcedon (A. D. 451) ordained that “clergymen coming to a city where they were unknown, should not be allowed to officiate without letters commendatory (Epistolæ Commendariæ,) from their own bishop.” Comp. Neander, Chr. Rel. vol. I, pp. 205, 360 ff. In the Clementine Homilies Peter warns his hearers against “any apostle, prophet, or teacher, who does not first compare his preaching with James, and come with witnesses;” where Paul seems especially aimed at, and we have perhaps a specimen of what Paul was contending against in our epistle.] W. F. Besser: “ Were the Corinthians inclined to reckon their own Apostle among those strangers who needed such letters?” The absurdity implied in the question lay in the supposition that the Apostle [ἐαυτοὺς] who was well known not only at Corinth but everywhere, should need any commendation from others or from himself, as if he were a stranger. By the words ὤς τινες he evidently alludes to those antipauline teachers, who, as his readers well knew, had brought letters of recommendation to Corinth, and had taken such letters from Corinth when they departed. He thus not only shows that he needed no such letters, but he shows this in a way which throws confusion upon his opponents, while it honors and encourages the Corinthians themselves—our Epistle, i.e., the Epistle of commendation (gen. possess.; not: which we have written, for he speaks not of his own part in composing it until 2Co_3:3, but which we have) is yourselves.—By placing the predicate first he makes it more emphatic and connects it more immediately with the preceding verse. The close collocation of the emphatic ὑμεῖς with ἡμῶν is also very significant. A similar arrangement of words may be seen in 1Co_9:2. The large Church which had been founded by him, and which had become so rich in spiritual gifts, was a glorious work of the Holy Ghost, and so a Divine Epistle which would commend him to all the world without any letters from men. Besser: “it was an Epistle of a peculiar kind, for Paul was at the same time its writer and its receiver.”—This metaphor he carries out in the subsequent verses in accordance with the nature of his subject, noticing first the complete certainty which he and Timothy possessed (this is the reason that καρδίαις is in the plural as in 2Co_4:6; 2Co_7:3) for the commendation of their work, and then the general notoriety of this work in all the churches:—written in our hearts.—In these words his own feelings are alluded to, inasmuch as he speaks of the writing in his own (ἡμῶν) and not their (ἱμῶν) hearts (although ὑμῶν may be found in some authorities of no great importance, comp. Meyer).12 “Paul meant that he carried this Epistle, not in his hand to show at any time, but continually with him, inasmuch as he bore the Church upon his heart.” It is not of his love that the Apostle is here speaking (as in 2Co_7:3, and Php_1:7), and it would seem altogether inappropriate to make him allude here to the official breast-plate of the high priest (olshausen). On such an interpretation we could trace no connection between it and the following sentence, [in which the Epistle is said to be known and read, not by God, but by men]. The phrase: in our hearts, is equivalent to: in us, and the meaning of the whole expression is: So inscribed upon us and so carried about with us everywhere, that it becomes known to all. This idea is yet further defined and explained in the words:—known and read by all men:—it is a work which will be universally recognized, a letter which every one will know to be his, and which all will read as his [Grotius: the handwriting is first “known” and then the Epistle is “read”] (Ewald: read within and without, thoroughly). Events which had taken place in one of the principal cities of the world would necessarily have a world-wide notoriety (comp. Rom_1:8).—In this prominent relation to all the world we must not suppose that the Corinthians were themselves included, as if the πρὸς ὑμᾶς of 2Co_3:1 were here again referred to, for as the Epistle was made up of the Corinthians, they would not be likely to be included also among its readers.—Forasmuch as ye are manifested to be an Epistle of Christ, ministered by us, (2Co_3:3).—Grammatically the participle: manifested (φανερούμενοι), the object of which is to give a reason for their being known and read of all men, is to be connected with the nominative of the previous sentence (ὑμεῖς ἐστέ). χριστοῦ in ἐπιστολὴ χριστοῦ is the gen. of the author, and it is implied that the Epistle came from Christ, for it is of the origin and not of the contents nor of the proprietorship of the Epistle, that the Apostle is speaking. He now speaks of himself in the words: ministered by us, as Christ’s instrument in the composition of the Epistle; and he no longer thinks of it as a letter of commendation, but simply as an exhibition of the way in which their faith had been drawn forth and their Church had been founded. It had been prepared and sent by the Apostle and his companions, acting as the ministers and servants of Christ (comp. 1Co_3:5 ff.). Λιακονεῖν τι is here used as it is in 2Co_8:19. The difference between this and any ordinary Epistle was evident from the materials with which and on which it was written.—written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone, but in fleshy tablets of the heart.—The Epistle itself, the new spiritual life they had experienced, had been produced by the Holy Spirit, whose continual agency is here pointed out. This agency wrought with great power, so as to renew their hearts, but through the instrumentality of the Apostles and their testimony respecting Christ. It seems inappropriate and altogether too dogmatic to find in the ink here spoken of the figure of those lifeless and impotent means which were sometimes made use of, such as the law and those doctrines which have no quickening power, or the shadows and ceremonies of the Jewish ritual. Some representation of the Jewish law and the Sinaitic legislation must, however, have been floating before the Apostle’s mind, when he brought out the additional figure of the tablets of stone. This representation is not strictly consistent with the metaphor of an Epistle and of ink, and we can explain it only by the recollection that the Apostle was contrasting the work of the Spirit under the New Testament with the work of the law under the Old Testament, i.e., the effecting of a Divine life in the heart by the Spirit of the living God, with the outward engraving of the Divine precepts upon tables of stone. There may also have been in his mind some recollection of such passages as Jer_31:31-33 (comp. Heb_9:4). The phrase πλάκες καρδίας occurs in the Sept. of Pro_7:3. Fleshy (σάρκίναι.) in contrast with stony (λίθιναι), designates a living susceptibility (comp. Eze_36:26). [The ending—ινος refers to the substance or material of which a thing is made, in distinction from—ικος which refers to that which belongs to that thing. Our Lord was σαρκινός (fleshy, of human flesh subsisting) but not σαρκικός (fleshly, subject to fleshly lusts and passions). The word is used only in this place according to the Receptus, but it is given for σαρκικός by many MSS. in Rom_7:14, and Heb_7:16. Trench, Synn., Series II., p. 114; Webster, Synn., p. 232, and Web. and Wilk. Com.]. The word hearts (καρδίας) expresses also more definitely the nature of the substance made use of. In speaking of their spiritual life, he could very significantly say: ye are an Epistle (a writing) inscribed upon heart-tablets. He does not exactly say: your hearts (καρδίας ὑμῶν) but generally καρδίας, and he thus describes the peculiar nature of the Epistles of Christ, i.e., they are Christ dwelling in the heart by faith (Eph_3:17).

2Co_3:4-6. In 2Co_3:2 f. Paul had expressed great confidence with respect to what had been accomplished at Corinth through his instrumentality, and he had claimed it as an evidence of his Apostolic power. In what he now says he recurs to his assertions there:—Such confidence, however, we have, through Christ towards God.—The same word, πεποίθησις, occurs in 2Co_1:5; 2Co_8:22; 2Co_10:2. Τοιαύτη is stronger than αὕτη would have been. The reference here may be to 2Co_2:17, or 2Co_2:15 ff.; at least so far as 2Co_3:1 ff. may be giving the reasons for what is there said of the Corinthian Church, but not so as to make 2Co_3:1-3 either a parenthesis or a digression.—He intended to say that he owed this strong and joyful confidence of which he was speaking (Neander: a confidence that we are able to work such results) entirely to Christ; for it was Christ whom he served and under whose influence he accomplished every thing he did; and it was therefore through Christ that he had such confidence in what he could do.—But he had this confidence, he says, towards God (πρὸς τὸν δεόν), i. e., not before God, as a matter which was right in God’s sight, but in the direction of, or in respect to God (Rom_4:2) the Author of the work and the One to whom all the results were due (Osiander, Meyer).—Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing of ourselves, as if from ourselves, (2Co_3:5). Here οὐχ ὅτι is used as in 2Co_1:24. If this sentence had been intended to be the object of πεποίθησιν, or to be simply a development, of the thought contained in πρὸς τὸν θεόν, the phrase ought to have been ὅτι οὐχ. Even if he gave God the honor of governing and guiding all the circumstances and accomplishing all the results of which he had spoken, he might still without impropriety have referred to his personal qualifications and have commended, and had confidence in, what he had done. On the other hand, he is on his guard here and he gives to God all the praise. He more particularly defines what this sufficiency orability is (ἱκανός occurs also in 2Co_2:16) by λογίσασθαί, (Lachmann: λογίζεσθαι) τι. ἀφ’. ἐαυτῶν, etc. Λογίζεσθαι signifies to consider, to reflect upon [with the notion of a result, to make out by reasoning], and refers here to that which proceeded from him and properly belonged to himself as an Apostle, in distinction from the results which depended upon the Divine blessing (1Co_3:6). It was the discernment of the best means and the best manner for the performance of his official duties, and a fixed purpose in the accomplishment of them (Meyer); or more comprehensively, the intellectual and moral qualification for his duties—the thoughts which were indispensable to the proper performance of his Apostolic work (Osiander). On no construction can we regard him as here ascribing this πεποίθησίς and his ἰκανότης for maintaining it to God, as if his object was to say that God was the source of this trust and of his confidence in his own qualifications [Rückert]. Nor should the assertion be limited to his work of instruction, for this is required as little by the context as is the doctrine which our older dogmatists were accustomed to derive from this passage, respecting the inability of the natural man generally to think any thing right or good.13 The άφ̓ ἐαυτῶν which makes their ability λογίσασθαί τι dependent upon themselves, is more clearly defined by ὡς ἐξ ἑαυτῶν, which designates the original source or efficient cause; as if our sufficiency had its origin in ourselves (Meyer). [Hodge: “There is a difference in the prepositions: ἅφ’ ἐαυτῶν ὡς ἑξ ἑαυτῶν: not from ourselves, as if out of ourselves. We should express much the same idea by saying, our sufficiency is not in or of ourselves”]. The ἀφ’ ἑαυτῶν belongs not exclusively to ἱκανοί ἐσμεν, nor to λογίσασθαι τι, but to both of them in conjunction. If we accept of the reading ἐξ αὐτων (with B. F. G. et. al.), we should translate: as those who are sufficient of themselves (ὡς ἱκανοὶ ὅντες etc.). The positive assertion contrasted with this is:—But our sufficiency is of God.—The word sufficiency here (ἱκανότης) refers to the same object with respect to which they were sufficient as ἱκανοί does. With this sentence must be connected the relative sentence—who also hath enabled (ἱκάνωσεν) us as ministers of a new covenant (2Co_3:6).—The object of καὶ is not to introduce a new, higher, or more general thought in contrast with λογίσασθαί τι, for then the expression would have been: ὅς καὶ διακόνονς—ἱκαν. ἡμᾶς, but to introduce a sentence to confirm and explain what had gone before: “who has even (or truly) made us sufficient,” etc. [Conybeare: comp. ἱκανός (2Co_2:16) ἱκανοί (2Co_3:15) and ἱκάνωσεν (2Co_3:6). Ad. Clarke: a formal answer to the question: Who is sufficient for these things? God (replies the Apostle) hath made us sufficient as ministers]. Διακόνους (ministers) is a concise expression for εἰς τὸ ἕιναι διακόνους, etc., (to be ministers), or εἰς διακονιαν (for the ministry, comp. ἱκανοῦν εἰς in Col_1:12).—The object of the ministry [i. e., κ. διαθηκης, the new covenant] is put in the genitive, as in 2Co_11:15; Eph_3:7; and Col_1:23, and is without the article because it is the genit. of quality. [The article is wanting also before γράμματος and πνεύματος] i. e., “of a new covenant.” It was new because it was altogether different from the old covenant which Moses founded. The basis of the former covenant was the law (νόμος), whereas the later, covenant was founded wholly on grace and reconciliation in Christ; the condition of salvation in the former was obedience to the law, whereas in the latter it was faith in Christ (Rom_10:5 ff.). [Neander: Διαθήκης is not to be explained here according to its pure Greek signification (arrangement, will), but in accordance with the Heb. בְרִית, which denotes a mutual transaction, an agreement (covenant) in which God promises something on condition that men fulfil what He requires of them]. This ministry of a new covenant is explained immediately by an antithetical sentence:—not of the letter, but of the Spirit.—As this expression is in explanation of and in apposition with the phrase, a new covenant, it must depend not upon διαθήκης (covenant) but upon διακόνονς (ministers). Comp. 2Co_3:7-8. We have here the same contrast as in Rom_2:29; Rom_7:6. The ministers of the Old Testament were busied principally with a letter, an inflexible, lifeless and written law; and they were bound to present and to inculcate with much zeal the duties of that covenant; whereas the ministers of the New Testament were concerned mainly with the Spirit. They had to do generally with a Divine power which wrought in the mind, renewed the heart and brought men into fellowship with God; and their work was to induce as many as possible to enter into this covenant and participate in its blessings. These two ministries gave a peculiar character respectively to the two covenants.—In the sentence—for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life—we have the reason for what had just been said, viz: God has made us sufficient for a ministry which is not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, etc. (Flatt: what was written killed, but the Spiritual quickens into life). The connection must be sought by referring to the great aim of the Apostolic work, which was, as Paul’s readers well knew, to bring men into a holy fellowship by a Divine life (comp. Rom_1:16 f. et. al.). There is no need therefore of suggesting in addition that the ministry of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, must be higher and far preferable, for, etc. The reason which the Apostle assigns is not that the ministry of a higher economy requires higher qualifications; nor, that under this higher economy the ministers must have a capacity for higher endowments (Osiander). Neander: “These words have been commonly applied to the contrasted literal or spiritual understanding of Christian truth. But Paul says nothing here directly on this subject. His words strictly refer merely to the law as a letter which gives commands, and the spirit of faith which makes alive. But probably this relation of the letter to the spirit may be applied to every precept of a merely ethical nature, with which Christianity, as the religion of the Spirit, is contrasted.” Light is thrown upon the whole passage by recollecting that the Apostle had in his eye those Judaizing teachers whose motives were derived from the law, and who vaunted themselves over Paul because he proclaimed nothing but grace. Such teachers were in danger of leading souls astray by pretending that their influence was salutary, while his was dangerous and corrupting. In opposition to such he gives the reason why God had qualified him and his fellow-laborers to be ministers of a new covenant which was not of the letter but of the Spirit. Exactly the opposite of what they pretended was found, in fact, to be true. The letter to which they devoted their energies killed, while the Spirit to whose service he was addicted made alive. This killing refers, not merely to a negative powerlessness or inability to awaken that life in the soul through which men freely perform works pleasing to God; nor merely to the introduction of a moral death, i. e., an opposition to the Divine will, produced by the sense of guilt which the commandment excites; nor even to a killing in a spiritual sense, because sin is the death of the soul; but to the sentence of condemnation and the exclusion from all hope of life and salvation which the law pronounces. Such is the idea of death (θάνατος) in Rom_6:21; Rom_6:23; Rom_7:5 et. al. This death is indeed occasioned by those moral influences (Rom_7:7 ff.), and is in other passages pointed out under the phrases: the curse of the law (Gal_3:10), and, the law worketh wrath (Rom_4:15). This introduces also a death of the heart which paralyzes all moral power (Bengel, Osiander). The question, however, is, whether the Apostle has reference to this in our passage. He certainly had no thought of bodily (physical) death, as the wages of sin (Rom_5:12), and produced and demanded by the law (1Co_15:56; Rom_7:9), for such a death takes place also independently of the law (Rom_5:13); nor as a penalty of the law, for such a killing (ἀποκτέινειν) would not be a proper antithesis to the giving of life (ζωοποιεῖν). But the giving life or quickening is the effect of the eternal life (ζωὴ αἰώνιος) which is quickened in the soul (Rom_8:2; Rom_6:10-11), or of the introduction of the soul into that fellowship with God which is completed in the resurrection.14

2Co_3:7-11. The Apostle now proceeds (δὲ) to show that the ministry of the New Testament was far preferable to that of the Old, both in the effects which it produces and in the spirit which it reveals. For the sake of comparing them he brings them face to face with each other, and then from the glory of the Old Testament service which appeared with such splendor in Moses face, that the children of Israel could not look upon him (2Co_3:7), he draws a conclusion, a minori ad majus.—But if the ministration of death, engraven in letters upon stones, was in glory (2Co_3:7).—Instead of the simple designation the ministry of the letter, which he had used in 2Co_3:6, he now uses the phrase, the ministry of death—which works in favor of, or as it were, under the direction or authority of, death. He thus attributes the consequences of the letter directly to the ministry under it, and so anticipates the reason for the inferiority which is set forth in 2Co_3:9. The definition: engraven in letters upon stones, shows that we must not here think of the Levitical priestly service (Rückert); and the express mention of Moses leads us to understand the ministry of Moses himself. We are to regard him, not as a mediator in contrast with Christ, but as a minister (διάκονος) representing all teachers under the law in contrast with the Apostles and ministers of the New Testament. By a bold turn of expression he combines the ministry itself with its object, and designates the whole as one which was engraven in letters upon stones (the only point on which we can here agree with Meyer, who regards the Decalogue as Moses’ commission or matricula officii).15 The ministration of Moses and of all his successors consisted in the presentation and enforcement of the law whose letters had been engraven upon stone (tablets). In this way he brings out in strong language the stiffness and externality of the ancient service. Neander: “The article before γράμμασιν was designedly left out by the Apostle, because he intended to imply that a ministration which was conveyed only by letters must have been of a very general nature.” If ἐν γράμμασιν (or γράμματι) were connected directly with τοῦ θανάτου, as Luther and some others contend the words should be [the ministration of death in letters, or the ministration which produces death by means of letters], the article would have been required (τοῦ ἐν γράμ). The predicate ἐγενήθη ἐν δόξῃ, is essentially the same as if it had been ἐγεν. ἔνδόξος. But we are here evidently directed to the divine glory (בָּבוֹד) within whose radiance the ministration was performed. Of an essential dignity or eminence the Apostle was not in general speaking, for in the next sentence:—so that the children of Israel could not keep their eyes fixed on Moses’ face (2Co_3:7), there is no representation of the consequences or of the visible tokens of the glory, but of the remarkable degree in which this ministration participated in the divine radiance. In 2Co_3:8 also (ἕσται ἐν δόξῃ) it is the heavenly glory which is spoken of. [Webster and Wilkinson think that the ἐσται refers to the future, not from the time of writing merely, but to a future from past time, or rather a future of inference, as, if that were so, what will this be:] Then, amid the glories of the great day of revelation, when the kingdom of God shall be perfected, and when all external form shall correspond with essential excellence, the dignity of the New Testament ministration will be especially manifested. The narrative in Exo_34:29 ff. is rather freely quoted, inasmuch as we are there merely informed that when Aaron and the children of Israel saw that the skin of Moses’ face shone they were afraid to come near him. But everything essential to Paul’s, and even to Philo’s account, is there. For even the ἀτενίσαι, the fixed gaze upon his face, was too much for them. The reason for this is further given when it is added—for the glory of his countenance—but with the important addition—which was to be done away.—This addition gives us a new point in the comparison, and places the inferiority of the legal ministration in a strong light (comp. 2Co_3:11; 2Co_3:13). Neander: “In this Paul discovers a symbol of the fading glory of Judaism.” But he has not yet commenced speaking of the discontinuance of the ministration and its glory, but only of that fact in which he saw a hint of this. He there makes use of no purely present participle (Luther: that which nevertheless is ceasing), but, in accordance with the history, an imperfect participle signifying—that which was passing away. The Apostle presumes that this radiance was transitory; and with great justice, since it always became visible when Moses came from the Divine presence [Estius: passing away when the occasion was over]. The inference from this is briefly and simply expressed in 2Co_3:8—how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be yet more glorious?—In τοῦ πνεύματος the Apostle resumes the subject of the ministration of the Spirit in 2Co_3:6, which had been interrupted by the enlargement in 2Co_3:7 with respect to the letter: engraved in letters upon stones. But the idea is not that the Spirit rests upon this ministration (though this is silently presumed), but that the ministration was the medium through which the Spirit, and the life he bestowed were communicated and enjoyed (in opposition to τοῦ θανάτου, comp. 2Co_7:6). [The verbs γίνομαι and εἰμί are here brought into striking contrast; ἐγενήθη ἐν δόξῃ–ἕσται ἐν δόξῃ. Bengel: γίνομαι, fio, et εἰμί sum, are quite different. Stanley: ἐγενήθη, came into existence. Ellicott (on 1Ti_2:14): “the construction γίνεσθαι ἐν occurs occasionally, but not frequently in the New Testament, to denote the entrance into, and existence in, any given state.” Webster: “ἐγενήθη ἐν δόξῃ=was made to be in glory for a time; ἕσται ἐν δοξῃ=shall be in glory permanently” (Synn. sub. γίν.)]. As ἕσται leads the mind to the future (comp. “this hope” in v. 22), we-must not refer the glory (δόξα) to the miraculous endowments and works of the Apostles. ̓́Εσται, however, need not be regarded as the fut. consequentiæ, or as equivalent to esse invenietur (si rem recte perpenderis), and we are hardly safe in understanding it of a progressive development. In the Apostle’s mind the second advent of Christ (Parousia) was so constantly present, that it would seem to him needless to give a more particular explanation of his language. The kind of ministration of the spirit, which he had in view, and the argument from the less to the greater, which he applies to it, will be accounted for or confirmed when he comes to explain more particularly the two ministrations, the first, as a ministration of condemnation, and the other as a ministration of righteousness.—For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness abound in glory (2Co_3:9).—[If Lachmann’s reading (τῇ διακονίᾳ) be adopted, the translation would be, ‘if to the ministration of condemnation be glory,’ etc., but the sense would not be essentially altered]. Here the former corresponds to the killing and the death, and the latter to the making alive, of 2Co_3:6-7. The condemnation refers to the curse of the law. The ministration which was employed in the enforcement of the letter, i. e. the Old Testament law, was compelled to denounce condemnation against transgressors (comp. Deu_27:26), and by its enforcement of a law which brought the sinful passions into active opposition to its requirements, it brought men under the curse. The righteousness, which is here contrasted with the condemnation, is the same as the being just (or righteous) before God, and is the great object of the proclamation of Divine grace under the New Testament ministration. Under that ministration, faith is awakened, and man’s relations to God are rectified, so that he can be justified, and attain everlasting life in the Divine kingdom (comp. Rom_1:17; Rom_3:22 ff, Rom_3:22; Rom_3:30 et al.) The Apostle, however, partially modifies what he had thus said of these two ministrations, by withdrawing all reference to time in the use of ἐγενήθη and ἕσται. Instead of ἐν δόξῃ we have the nominative δόξν, with έστίν understood. The meaning is the same, and the expression is more forcible than the adjective ἕνδοξος would have been (comp. Rom_8:10; τὸ πνεῦμα ζωή). On the other hand the expression is strengthened by the use of περισσεύει, signifying: overflows or abounds in glory.—For even that which, has been glorious, is not glorious in this respect, on account of the glory which excels (2Co_3:10).—Here the previous idea is further strengthened by saying that the glory of the contrasted ministration was abolished, although that ministration had previously been declared to have been made in glory (γενηθῆναι ἐν δόξῃ), or to have been glory (δόξα, 2Co_3:7; 2Co_3:9), on account of the superabundant glory of the other. The καί (even) indicates a climax and qualifies the verb: is not glorious, or has no glory (ού δεδόξασται), which expresses a single idea (that which is deprived of glory), and goes beyond the minus of the comparison. A more particular explanation of the idea is given in ἐν τούτῳ τῷ μέρει, which signifies: in this particular, i. e. with respect to the relation which the Old Testament ministration bore to that of the New Testament.—The phrase, that which has been glorious (τὸ δεδοξασμένον), [“shows a strange use of the perfect (as does δεδόξασται), and is taken from Exo_34:29; Exo_34:35 of the Sept.” Stanley]. It does not stand here for the whole Old Testament economy, but simply the Mosaic ministration, or that which was surrounded by, or shared in a Divine radiance.—Having said that this was not glorious in this respect, the Apostle adds the reason for that deprivation, by saying that this was on account of the surpassing glory. He here refers to what he had said of the ministration of righteousness abounding in glory (περισσεύει ἐν δόξῃ). Before the superabundant glory of the ministration of the New Testament, the glory of the Old Testament ministration entirely disappears as the moon’s splendor vanishes in the sun’s radiance. There is, therefore, no necessity of taking the phrase, that which has been glorious, in a general and abstract sense (Meyer), without an allusion to the Mosaic service in the concrete sense, until it comes up in the predicate, where ἐν τούτῳͅ τῷ μέρει has the sense of: “in this respect (i. e. when we compare the glory of the Mosaic ministration with the Christian, 2Co_3:9) the glorified becomes unglorified.” In 2Co_3:11 the expression, the surpassing glory (τῆς ὑπερβαλλούσης δόξης) is still further justified by the introduction of a new element into the comparison, although it had been symbolically suggested in 2Co_3:7.—For if that which is transitory was with (passing through) glory, much more that which abides is in glory.—This new element is the permanent in distinction from the temporary, that which is vanishing: “on account of the super-abounding glory.” For each ministration there is presupposed an economy or dispensation, one of which is passing away, and the other is abiding. The Old Testament ministration with the law itself, is supposed to pass away with the entrance of the New Testament ministration (comp. Rom_10:4). The latter must remain until the second coming of our Lord, when it will be eternally, glorified in His heavenly kingdom. [Neander: The Apostle probably had a special design when he used the different prepositions διὰ (δὸξης) and ἐν (δόξῃ). Διὰ. designates a point of transition and hence implies that the thing spoken of, was passing and transitory, while ἐν implies that which is permanent.] Διὰ δόξης signifies strictly that the glory merely accompanied the object [Winer § 51, i. p. 306. Webster (Synn. p. 166) says that it indicates particularly an object in a state of transition, while passing through a state] whereas ἐν δόξῃ implies that the object continued in glory. Sometimes, however, even διὰ is used to designate the fixed condition or state of a thing (2Co_2:4; 2Co_5:7), and hence it is possible that Paul used both expressions as nearly equivalent, for we know that he not unfrequently changed his prepositions even when he referred to the same relation. In either case διὰseems appropriate to the καταργούμενον, and ἐν to the μένον. In the translation, the distinction can with difficulty be made perceptible (comp. Osiander).

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

When nothing but Christ, and Christ in his completeness, is preached, and when the preachers know by experience the reality of what they preach, all who have learned the deadly condemnation and inefficiency of the law to save the soul will feel the power of truth, will be rescued, forgiven and renewed by Divine grace, and will become animated by a spiritual life which will know no limit but the perfection of God. Such results will need no proof that they are from God, for all who have eyes to see will not only commend the human laborer but give honor to the God who bestowed both the success and the power to labor. Those legal task-masters who exalt themselves so much above the preachers of free grace, will never disturb the common security nor bring anything to real order; and in due time, even in this world, it will not be hard to distinguish between the preaching which saves and that which destroys the soul. But a day is coming when all things shall be made especially manifest, when those who have turned many to righteousness shall present before the Lord a great company of enlightened, justified and sanctified ones, who shall shine as the stars forever and ever; while those who preached nothing but the law shall (Dan_12:3) be filled with unspeakable horror and confusion, as the lamentable and fatal consequences of their course shall be fully brought to light.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Starke:

2Co_3:1. No one needs a better letter of credence than that testimony of men’s own consciences and works which are sufficient to praise him.

2Co_3:2-3. Every believer is an epistle in which the Holy Ghost reveals the knowledge of God in Christ; he is an open epistle in which all can learn something of what God can produce in the heart; and he is an epistle of Christ, for the hands and tongues of all true teachers are the instruments which the Holy Spirit uses to form him into the Divine image. If God’s writing is in the heart, the willing heart, the faithful obedience and the ready tongue will not fail to discourse of God. In such cases there will be real life, and not mere letters upon stone. Preachers should never doubt, that when they perform their parts, the appropriate fruits of their labor will infallibly follow.

2Co_3:5. No one can speak of God as he should, until he has been taught of God (Joh_6:45). Whatever gifts we have, and whatever praise we gain, should therefore be ascribed entirely to God (Jam_1:17). Oh how many make idols of themselves.

2Co_3:6. Luther:—The letter is to teach us, that while the mere law of God and our own works give us knowledge, they cannot show us that God can be gracious; but it shows us that everything we are and do is condemned and worthy of death, since without Divine grace we can do nothing. The Spirit, on the other hand, is to teach us that grace without law or personal righteousness gives us knowledge, but in such a way as to give us life and salvation. Hedinger:—The Gospel is accompanied by a penetrating life, which enlightens and gladdens those who are awakened and condemned to death; it is therefore from the Spirit and is the source of spirit and life. Every word of God, as it comes from the Divine heart and hand, has some special design and a power of its own. In some cases it is to command and in others to produce obedience; in some it is to threaten and in others it is to comfort; in some it is to chastise and wound, and in others it is to heal and revive. To every work which His wisdom has ordained He has also adjusted just that measure of power which is precisely adapted to the end he has in view. The word which created the world is not the word which creates a new heart. For this is needed a word of far greater power (Eph_1:19).

2Co_3:7. Hedinger:—The law also has power and light. It has a terrible thunderbolt for those who have awakened consciences, and where Christ does not comfort them and anoint them with His Spirit, they are struck down to the mouth of hell. Those who would partake of the Divine nature must mount up in spirit often to God, become familiar with Divine things, converse much with God in prayer, and listen in their most secret souls to God’s voice in His word, and it will not be long before their souls will be full of Divine light.

2Co_3:8. The Gospel is indeed a quickening and a saving power, by means of which Christ is glorified, and rises like a clear morning star (2Pe_1:19) to shed upon His people’s hearts the full beams of His eternal glory (Rev_21:23 ff.).

2Co_3:9. Hedinger:—When the word of the kingdom casts its clear light upon thee, look steadily upon it. Many love darkness and shun the light (Joh_3:19). Walk in the light lest darkness come upon thee (Joh_12:35).

2Co_3:10. The Gospel is the source of an indescribable glory when it is truly applied to the hearts of God’s people, for the glory of the Lord is even now shed forth upon them; but when Jesus, who is their life, shall be fully revealed, their glory will be complete (Col_3:4).

2Co_3:11. The spirit of life is better than death, righteousness than condemnation, and that which is permanent than that which vanishes away; how much better then is the ministration of the New Covenant than that of the letter?

Berlenb. Bible, 2Co_3:2 :—Real candor and frankness of manner can spring only from a consciousness of innocence. A preacher’s success must be estimated not from the multitudes who attend upon his ministry, but from the sound conversions which take place under it. Many may, and certainly will condemn him; but this is no evidence that he is wrong. Let us only be concerned that we are begotten by the Word of truth to the glory of God, and that men may say of us: The Lord hath created and formed them for himself.

2Co_3:3. The minister who fails to point men from himself to Christ, is trying to make himself a pope. We should never stop at what is external, but press forward to the inward spirit of everything. Let men see that those hearts of ours which were once of stone, are now fleshly tablets, and that this is the Lord’s work. The heart which takes no impression from the Gospel, has no part in the New Covenant.

2Co_3:4. True confidence in God, is not of ourselves, but comes through Christ.

2Co_3:5. The spiritual man finds that a union with Christ gives him an invincible power, in proportion as he sees that he is not sufficient of himself to do anything, as of himself, i. e., to know and overcome the subtle assaults of spiritual pride and self-will. Few persons possess this power, because they never thoroughly know themselves, or understand how utterly insufficient they are even to think anything which will convince them of God’s grace and truth. This is wholly a spiritual and divine work, and can be accomplished only by divine instruments. When this fact is fully recognized, we can no longer endure in ourselves those contrivances and counterfeits which the ingenuity of man has devised; for every degree of credit we take to ourselves, only hinders the growth of grace in our hearts. Whatever benefits the renewed man attains, is in consequence of his new creation, and never will he hesitate to cast the crown at the feet of God and of the Lamb. And yet this subjugation of the vile spirit of self-love, self-sufficiency, self-flattery, etc., requires the severest struggle to which our natures are ever called. If Christians in general need to be divested of all confidence in themselves, surely those who lead them should seek to be especially free from it.

2Co_3:6. The letter which supplies nothing but intellectual knowledge, can impart no life—but inasmuch as it reveals only condemnation and death, it must actually kill the soul. The law can never be anything but a dead work to those who regard it in a Pharisaic spirit, and set it in opposition to the Gospel. Hence the great object of the Gospel (and the law itself, when properly used, shuts us up to the same result Gal_3:24), is to reveal to men a Redeemer, in whom they may find life. The spirit of the Gospel of grace, of faith and of the Lord, gives us life, opens to us a way of righteousness and reconciliation in Christ, and makes us able to receive and use the benefits of Christ’s kingdom. This living voice of the Lord stirs the sinner’s heart, so that he must hear and obey. Those who have been slain by the law, will penitently recognize Christ, and the Holy Spirit will glorify the Father and the Son in their hearts, and make intercession there with groanings which cannot be uttered. The law alone produced disobedience, opposition, and consequently wrath; but, the Spirit works nothing but a cheerful obedience, life and love, blessings and blessedness. The more Christ requires of us, the more he does for us. Under his influence we become conscious of new movements and new motives; our whole nature is renewed, and we take delight in those divine, pure and innocent enjoyments, which we never had, and could not have before. Then we shall gradually attain an incomparable treasure of divine life in a refined and good heart, from which we can derive light and power, victory over all sin, motives to diligence in every duty, and comfort and strength for every extremity. In a word, we have the whole power of the Holy Ghost, to make us partakers of the divine nature (2Pe_1:3-4).

2Co_3:7. Not unfrequently, rather than stand on the ground of the Gospel, men prefer going out of their way to Moses—the glory of whose face at a distance attracts them; but they soon find that that glory is too strong for them, and shows those who love darkness rather than light, as in a glass, how great is their corruption. Thus God sometimes finds a way to accomplish his own work. The old dispensation of the letter must always be forsaken, that we may attain a true evangelical state in the new dispensation of the Spirit. This requires an honest recognition and confession of the truth, and a sincere repentance.

2Co_3:8. Such is the glory of the spiritual word, that even the angels love to study it. Where once it enters the heart, it remains forever. The glory of the Lord so brightly illuminates it, that everything which speaks and acts without the Spirit will seem like utter darkness. Under such a dispensation everything begun or promised before, comes to its fulfilment; there is no abolition of the law and its various ordinances, but only an exaltation of them all into something spiritual and everlasting. And yet it often costs us much before our consciences apprehend the true distinction between the law and the Gospel, and the main power of the new covenant in the heart depends upon the clearness with which the promises are understood.

2Co_3:9. So sublime and excellent is the glory of Christ in the new covenant, that no sooner does any man apprehend it, than he will feel humbled in utter amazement, as he beholds the majesty, the holiness, the wisdom, and the goodness of God; and thus God receives back from restored and redeemed man the honor of which sin robbed Him.

2Co_3:10. From the nature and origin of the Mosaic law, it would not be hard to infer that it would necessarily come to an end. Equally evident is it, that the Gospel contains what must endure forever; and all the assaults of its enemieshaveonly served to evince its perpetuity. It is therefore called an everlasting Gospel, and the redemption it proclaims is an eternal redemption. As what is good may not be permanent, we should not be satisfied until we have found what can never be moved. As everything else is passing away, the soul can never find complete rest until it receives that word which lives and abides forever.

Rieger, 2Co_3:1-2 :—Gladly would we so speak and act that no one should take offence, but no one can always be so circumspect as to be beyond suspicion. It is well, therefore, sometimes to meet those misunderstandings which we know have arisen respecting us. “The first in his cause is righteous, but his neighbor cometh and searcheth him” (Pro_18:17).

2Co_3:3. What God has joined together, should never be put asunder. Among these are: preaching and the word of Christ; the Spirit which glorified that word, and the ministry through which that Spirit is shed forth. Stone tablets are comparatively easy to be written upon, for only the surface needs to be changed. But only the finger of God can write His law upon the heart, since the soul itself must be softened and subdued, not only at first, but continually. We need not therefore be surprised that the dispensation under which God has promised to do this is the highest, and that every thing which preceded it was only preparatory for it (Jer_31:33; Eze_36:25-27).

2Co_3:4-5. When a man really holds communion with God, he will be so emptied of all confidence in himself and so united to the source of all light and power, that even when he is triumphing in a Divine sufficiency, no words can express his consciousness of utter insufficiency in himself.

2Co_3:6. Even in connection with the law and other clearer declarations of God’s will and of His claims, many promises of the Spirit were given through the prophets, so that the New Covenant was already partially developed in the Old. All who made a conscientious use of the letter of the Old Covenant found in it abundant directions to the Spirit, and through the Spirit breathed forth many sighs for the New Covenant. And yet the Spirit was not in it, for before our Lord’s return to the Father that Spirit was not fully given, and the ministration of the Old Covenant was necessarily a ministration of the letter. Such a fact, however, is no reason for despising that dispensation, but rather a ground for praising that grace which reaches its perfection by successive periods of progress.—To slay the sinner who is living without the law in a worldly course of life, is really to prepare him for life and health. Unless the process stops there, he will be brought to a state in which he is willing to renounce the law and his own righteousness, and he will seek for that Gospel through which the Spirit is imparted.

2Co_3:7-8. The more any institution or worship gives evidence that it came from God and leads to God, and the more the Lord uses it to reveal and communicate Himself to men, the more it can be called glorious. Hence that ministry which was set up at Pentecost, proclaiming peace through the blood of the cross, and imparting the Spirit, which is the only source of spiritual freedom and power, is possessed of a transcendant glory; for it has most plainly evinced its Divine origin, and its power to control the heart and bring the soul to God.

2Co_3:9. It was a terrible thing to preach nothing but condemnation; and yet under the law such preaching was glorious. May we learn to make a right use of the law; not to show us the way of salvation, but to drive us through the door of mercy which the Gospel opens for us to the righteousness in which there can be no condemnation, but peace with God, the law established, and the Spirit of life dwelling continually in the heart!

2Co_3:10-11. The law was originally designed to be only a provisional dispensation to prepare a way for the Gospel. Its fragmentary revelations of truth must unquestionably find their completion and their termination in the Gospel; and yet the law itself can never lose its place in every subsequent dispensation, and it will find its absolute perfection when God shall reveal Himself to His creatures without a veil.

Heubner, 2Co_3:1; 2Co_3:3 :—However disagreeable it may be to a Christian to commend himself, if his personal interests are connected with God’s cause, he may without vanity vindicate his character before his fellow-men. When his merits are manifest, he may dispense with letters of commendation, and certainly he will never truckle or beg for them by low arts. To be really useful, especially in the work of saving souls, will be our best commendation and will generally be the best known; for what work can be more honorable than that of transforming and impressing a new character upon the very spirit of a fellow-man?

2Co_3:4. God will be the friend of all who are endeavoring to honor Christ. All such therefore have the best of reasons for confidence in God.

2Co_3:5. Our sufficiency for every spiritual act is from God; for when He withdraws His Spirit from our hearts, they are lifeless, barren, and incapable of any good thought.

2Co_3:6. Even among Christians (papists, coldly orthodox), the letter is served with slavish fear, where God’s will is known only from the written word without the Spirit’s testimony. In such cases nothing but precepts and threatenings are dispensed, and the written word is believed and obeyed from a regard only to authority and from terror without inward conviction and persuasion. In contrast with this stands the ministration of the Spirit; under which the will of God and His grace is cordially accepted; an inward witness accompanies the word, and under the leadings of the Divine Spirit, faith and obedience are delightful, sincere and earnest.

2Co_3:7. That which is external and legal has frequently more influence upon rude dispositions than that which has more intrinsic grandeur.

2Co_3:8-9. A judicial and admonitory severity has a dignity which is by no means to be despised, but unspeakably greater is that of a love which has compassion on the miserable and seeks to save them and give them spiritual life. No honor, therefore, is like that of the minister of the Gospel, under whose labors God’s Spirit is communicated, and righteousness, pardon and grace are afforded to all men. Contrast between Deu_27:15 ff; Deu_28:15 if.; and Mat_5:3 ff. (Cursed, etc. Blessed, etc.).

2Co_3:11. If, then, God’s glory is reflected from all who proclaim His love, how glorious must be that ministration which proclaims nothing but love.

W. F. Besser, 2Co_3:3 :—As the savor of Christ diffuses Christ Himself, so a congregation of real Christians are an Epistle in which Christ is Himself inscribed and communicated to men. The letters which He writes are deeds and men (Psa_45:1, “My tongue is the pen of a ready writer”).

2Co_3:6. The whole ministration (διακονία) to which the public servants of the Church are regularly called, is simply for the purpose of presenting and applying the New Covenant or the treasures of grace which are promised through Jesus Christ to men.—Our sufficiency is not conferred by the office, but must be brought to the office itself. Those whom God calls to it are able to teach others, or are endowed with a sufficiency when they are called (2Ti_2:2).—The letter kills, and even ought to kill, that the Spirit may quicken those who are dead.

2Co_3:9. The glory of the ministry of the letter was terrible, because every letter of the law was emblazoned with tokens of Divine wrath (Rom_4:15). As the executioner of God’s curse against transgressors (Gal_3:10), it can proclaim nothing but condemnation. But now, when grace abounds and is much stronger than wrath, the ministration of the Spirit is proportionably more glorious; for now even righteousness proclaims that God must absolve the guilty when they are reconciled to God through the blood of Christ (2Co_5:18-20).

2Co_3:10. The glory of the legal ministry was by itself intolerable for its brightness; but when the ministration of condemnation and the ministration of righteousness are combined together, that which was so glorious becomes unglorified, and Sinai’s radiance vanishes before that of Golgotha.

2Co_3:11. The ministry which vanished away passed “through glory,” and its glory was extinguished when the law had accomplished its end in Christ and His people; but the ministry which remains until the coming of the Lord abides in glory, that the whole world may behold its inherent excellence.

2Co_3:4-11. Lesson for the 12th Sunday after Trinity. Heubner:—I. The glory of the evangelical ministry: 1. In its origin: a. It rests upon Christ’s own institution (2Co_3:4); b. Christ alone can qualify us for it; 2. In its object: it is not of the letter, but of the Spirit; 3. In its means: it relies upon, not an external glory, which for a while blinds the eye and then vanishes away (2Co_3:7), but the coöperation of the Holy Ghost (2Co_3:8-9); 4. In its reward: a. even in this world it has more glorious rewards than any other employment (2Co_3:10); b. but finally it conducts to eternal blessedness. II. The superior glory of the Church under the New Testament above that of the Church under the Old Testament: 1. It was founded by the Son, and not merely by the servant of God; 2. It is the ascendancy of the Spirit, and not of the letter; 3. Its worship and dignities are of a spiritual nature, and are sustained not merely by worldly influences; 4. It will continue forever.—Oettinger:—The glory of spiritual instruction and the weakness of that teaching which has reference merely to morality, the law and the outward letter (Serm. on the Epist. for the 12th Sunday after Trinity).—A. F. Schmidt:—We should never separate by arbitrary and nice distinctions what God has wisely and graciously arranged together; especially: a. letter and Spirit (2Co_3:6); b. the preaching of the law and of the gospel (2Co_3:3); c. confidence in God and despair of ourselves (2Co_3:4-5); d. fidelity to our calling and an assurance of success.

Footnotes:

[1][2Co_3:1.—Two important MSS. (B. and D.) et al. have συνιστάν which is accepted by Lachman: but συνιστάνειν is better authenticated, and is now almost universally received.]

[2]2Co_3:2.—Rec. has εἰ υή according to A. B. et al. and it is preferred by Reiche, Meyer, Osiander, [Bloomfield and Wordsworth. Our author is wrong in inferring (e silentio) that the Vat. favors the Rec. Its authority (as revised,) is with C. D. E. F. G. and Sin. et al., the Ital. Syr. Vulg. (aut numquid) and Arab. Verss. Theodt. and the Lat. fathers, decidedly in favor of ἥ μη, which is adopted by Alford, Stanley and Tischendorf (7th ed.) The interrogative ἤ would seem to a transcriber more natural after a question and easier of explanation than the conditional εἰ. It is remarkable that all our Eng. verss. (Bagster’s Hexapla,) though following the Rec., translate the passage as if the text were ἢ μἡ. Wycliffe has: “or whether we need;” Tyndale, Cranmer, Geneva and Amer. Bib. Union, have; “or need we as some,” and the Rheims has: “or do we need” etc.]

[3]2Co_3:1.—The second συστατικῶν is probably an explanatory gloss, to which some MSS. [F. and G.] add still further ἐπιστολῶν. [Tisch. retains συςτατικῶν, but most critics reject both words.]

[4]2Co_3:3.—Καρδίαις has strong manuscript authority in its favor, but it was probably a mistake of some transcriber. [The MSS. evidence may well be called strong, for A. B. Sin. C. D. E. G. L. have καρδίαις. Meyer calls it an error of the pen, and Bloomfield a critical correction, but Alford thinks the internal as well as the external evidence is too strong in its favor to be rejected, as it is the harsher word and the more difficult of construction.]

[5]2Co_3:5.—The position of ἀφ ̓ ἑαυτῶν after λογίσασθαί τι is sustained by the best authorities. Rec. puts the words after ἔσμέν, but B. C. [and Sin.] place them before ἱκανοί. [Tisch. agrees with our author, but he has changed ἑαυτῶν after ὡς ἑξ into αὐτῶν on the authority of only B. F. G. et. al.]

[6][6 2Co_3:6.—Rec. has ἀποκτεἰνει with B. et. al. and Orig. Tisch. and Alford have ἁποκτέννει with F. G. K., and Sin. Lachmann from conjecture gives us ἀποκταίνει, and he is followed by Stanley; but A. C. D. E. L. have ἀποκτένει. Meyer, Bloomf. and Words, follow the Rec.]

[7]2Co_3:7.—Lachm. on the authority of B. D. (first cor.) F. G. has γράμματι, but the reading was probably occasioned by the sing, γράμμα of 2Co_3:6. [Alford and Stanley adopt it, but Tisch. on the decisive authority of Α. C. D. (2d and 3d Corr. ) E. K. L. and Sin., with nearly all the Ital. Vul. Syr. verss. and Greek and Latin fathers, agrees with the Rec. and most continental critics in giving us γράμμασιν.]

[8]2Co_3:7.—Ἓν before λίθοις is not genuine; the best authorities are against it.

[9]2Co_3:9.—Lachmann on important authorities [A. C. D. (1st Cor.) F. G. Sin. with some Greek fathers and verss.] has τῆ διακονίᾳ, but this reading was probably an attempt to remove a difficulty, and to explain the text. For a similar reason others have ἐν δόξῃ ε͂στιν or ἦν instead of δόξα.

[10]2Co_3:9.—The best authorities leave out ἐν before δόξα. It may have been brought from 2Co_3:11. [It is not found in A. B. C. Sin., (though 3d Cor. inserts it and 1st Cor. has δόξῃ), and it nowhere else follows περισ; and yet Tisch. after wavering in his different editions restores it in his 7th. and regards the evidence as decisive in its favor here. Lachmann, Alford and Stanley cancelled it as brought from ἐν δόξῃ in 2Co_3:8 and 2Co_3:11.]

[11]2Co_3:10.—Rec. has οὐδὲ δεδόξασταί. The weight of evidence is decidedly in favor of οὐ δεδόξασται; the δὲ in οὐδε was probably taken from the first syllable of δεδόξασται.

[12][Since our author wrote, the Sinaiticus has added its authority to that of two cursives of the 12th cent., one copy of the Vulgate, the Aeth. of the Horn. Polyglot, and one Mss. of the Slavonic, in favor of ὑμῶν. But as the Corinthians were themselves the Epistle, they could hardly be confounded by the Apostle with the material on which it was written.]

[13][Though the context does not oblige us to interpret this assertion of any thing but Apostolical sufficiency, yet it is quite consistent with Paul’s usual freedom, to break from a special to a general subject. The language is quite general (λογίσασθαι τι), and the word refers to the lowest form of human mental activity: it is not merely to judge or determine, but to think (Hodge: “much easier than to will or do.”)]

[14][The Apostle intends no disparagement of a written law, or of the letter of either Testament. God was the author of both, and both are perfect for their proper objects. The letter of the N. T. was not written when Paul wrote this, and the contrast was therefore more striking. Chrysostom (Hom. VI., 2Co_3:5; and VII., 2Co_3:8) notices that the law itself was spiritual (Rom_7:14), but the Apostle here means that it does not bestow a spirit, but only letters, whereas the Apostles were intrusted with the giving of a spirit. The law only punishes the sinner, the Gospel saves him and gives him life. Paul does not say that the law itself, but only the ministration under it, produces death; it is sin alone which produces death, and the law only shows what sin is and then punishes it. As instrumentalities of grace, forms and ministers and letters are indispensable. For the historical facts and the objects of its faith, Christianity is as dependent upon the letter as Judaism. But these and all educational influences are as dead and unquickening as syllables engraven on stones, without the spirit; and yet the spiritualism which would do without them will be as dead and destitute of the Spirit as the deadliest letter of Rabbinical Judaism. A religion with only a letter is powerless, but without that letter it will have no spirit or life. It was the very written word which has since been “a stereotyped revelation,” which the Apostles made a judge of conscience (Act_18:11; 1Pe_4:11.)]

[15][Our Engl. verss. have here “written and engraven in stones,” which is hardly a literal translation even of the Rec.(ἐν γράμμασιν ἐντετυπ. λίθοις). A literal rendering would be: “In letters engraven on stones.” But on Lachmann’s reading (ἐν γράμματι,) the reference would be to the general writing of the whole ministration, whose essential germ however, was in the Decalogue. The plural λίθοις seems to imply that there were two tablets used.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. The Ministry of the New Covenant in Contrast with the Old.

CHAPTER 3

1. The Epistle of Christ. (2Co 3:1-3)

2. The True Sufficiency. (2Co 3:4-6)

3. The Old and New Ministry Contrasted. (2Co 3:7-11)

4. The Glory in the Face of Moses and the Glory in the Face of Christ. (2Co 3:12-18.)

It was customary in the church to give letters of commendation (Act 18:27; Rom 16:1). Did the Apostle need, as some others, epistles of commendation to the Corinthians, or such letters from them? Probably his enemies, the Judaizing teachers, who upheld the law and its ordinances, demanded such letters. They may have said, he did not come from Jerusalem ; who then is Paul? Why has he not letters of commendation? His answer is, “Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men; being made manifest that ye are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but on fleshly tables of the heart.” It is a most beautiful and tender Statement.

The Corinthians were his letter of commendation, the proof of his blessed ministry, because under his preaching they had been saved and were walking well. After their obedience, he could rightly say so. it would have been impossible for him to make such a statement in the first epistle. Let all men read you as an epistle, and they will know what kind of a man I am. What confidence and love this expresses! It would also lead them to an earnest inquiry if they were really such a letter of commendation. When he speaks of “ye are the epistle of Christ” he describes the general character of the church and her responsibility. The church is the representative of Christ, or Christ’s letter of commendation to the world. What a solemn responsibility to recommend in life and walk Christ to the world! Just as God had written once the law on tables of stone exclusively for Israel, so now the Spirit of the living God writes Christ on the hearts of believers, that the world may read Christ in the Church composed of all believers. (“Exo 34:1; Joh 13:35; Joh 17:21. The analogy is obvious. Jehovah was ‘the God of Israel ,’ Christ is ‘the Savior of the world.’ The tables were Jehovah’s witness to His people, the Church is Christ’s living Epistle to the world. Israel heard but turned away; the world saw and read but refused, and yet refuses Him who thus speaks from heaven.

Lastly, in the former case, the law was made void by the commandments of men; in the latter, the Church, the power of whose testimony consists in her separation from the world, has by mingling with it become the betrayer, rather than the witness of the name by which she is called.”) And this is true ministry, witnessing to Christ not alone in the proclamation of the Gospel, but in life and walk. “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the children of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (Php 2:15). And such was Paul’s confidence through Christ to Godward. He trusted the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish this. In himself, he acknowledges, there is no sufficiency for anything, “all our sufficiency is of God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” The latter statement is often wrongly interpreted. The word “letter” does not mean the entire written Word of God. Many have taken this view and declare that the Bible must not be taken literally, just as it says. (This is mostly said in connection with Prophecy, the Second Coming of Christ, etc. More than once the word “the letter killeth” has been used to explain away the literal meaning of things to come.) It is not the question at all between the literal words and meaning of the Scriptures and the spiritual meaning, but it is a contrast between the old covenant and the new covenant, between the law and the gospel. The word “letter” stands for the law, which in its ministration kills and cannot give life. What the purpose of the law is and what it can do and cannot do is learned from the following passages: Rom 3:20; Rom 5:20; Rom 7:5-11; Rom 8:3; Gal 3:10; Gal 3:19.

By the law no flesh can be justified; by the law the offence abounded; the law means death to man (Rom 7:10-11). It is weak and has no power to help man, and it curses man. In this sense the letter, the law, killeth. But the spirit giveth life. It means that the spirit of the Gospel is different from the law, for the Holy Spirit operates through the Gospel and quickens the sinner who is dead and under the curse. Here then we have the absolute incompatibility of law and gospel. The epistle to the Galatians makes this fact fully known. The contrast between law and gospel, the old and the new covenant, is introduced in this epistle because the teachers who magnified the law and preached the keeping of the law for righteousness, were also at work in Corinth (chapter 11:22). And the glory of the gospel and its ministry cannot be fully demonstrated except in its relation to the law. The contrast made is fivefold:

Law

Gospel

Letter

Spirit

Ministration of death

Ministration of the Spirit (Life)

Ministration of condemnation

Ministration of righteousness.

Vanishing glory

Abiding glory

Veiled glory

Unveiled glory

The law ministers death. It was written and engraved and came with glory. This refers us to the second giving of the law. Glory was connected with that, for Moses’ face shone. Because grace and mercy were mingled with the second giving of the law (Exo 34:1-7), glory was seen upon the face of Moses. They could not look upon that glory, and Moses, the Mediator, had to cover his face with a veil. It was a brightness which dazzled and repelled, but had no power to attract or to bring light, warmth and joy to the hearts of the people. But if glory was connected with the ministration which is death, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?

The Gospel is all-glorious and abiding; it is the ministration of righteousness which abounds in glory. The glory on the face of Moses has given way to the glory in another face, even in the face of the Lord, Jesus Christ. The glory on Moses’ face was but the reflection of His glory who came and dwelt among men. It is now a remaining glory as well as a surpassing glory, “the glory that excelleth.” And the sinner can behold that glory. “Righteousness is now ministered unto us, not worked out by us; and thus, indeed, the glory of God is revealed as nothing else could reveal it. His inmost heart is told out in righteousness, but love is righteousness, and love, how marvelous, as shown in the gift of Christ for men! So that which was made glorious in the time past had, in itself, no glory compared with this surpassing glory” (Numerical Bible).

“Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness (literally: boldness and confidence) of speech.” With such blessed assurance and knowledge of the ministration of righteousness and the Spirit, the true minister can use great plainness of speech in the proclamation of the Gospel. “To make the marvelous truth of God’s gospel as clear as daylight to the human conscience is the first duty of those whom the Lord now sends forth as heralds of His grace. Whatever is recondite or enigmatic is not now of God. Babes receive that which, when digested, makes them men. It could not be thus with Moses, who was indeed the open minister of the law, but the veiled prophet of grace,. The action of Moses in covering his face is here described as something intentional, and in keeping with his office as the minister of that which he knew to be imperfect in character, and therefore not of permanent effect. The lawgiver was a witness also of a better thing than law. To deliver his present message to the people he lifted the veil, which was again replaced when the commandment was uttered. Before God he was unveiled, and looked with open vision on the mystery of Jehovah’s ways, but to Israel his covered face was an emblem of the incomplete and unsatisfying nature of the ministry committed to his charge.” (A. Pridham)

But Israel has been blinded. The people who boast in the ministration of the law did not believe, and as a result their minds were blinded (Isa 6:9-10; Mat 13:14; Joh 12:40; Act 28:26; Rom 11:8). They read the Old Testament, but the veil is unremoved; yet the day of grace is coming when the veil shall be taken away, and that will be when they turn to the Lord during the coming time of great tribulation, ending with the glorious coming of Him whom they once rejected (Hos 5:15; Hos 6:1-3).

And those who believe look upon the unveiled, the unhidden glories of the Lord, and are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. It is through faith. And all is through the blessed life-giving Spirit of Christ, who works in believers as the Epistle of Christ. “The power to enjoy Him is the power to reflect Him. The reflection is no effort, but the necessary effect of enjoyment.” May we enjoy Christ by being more and more occupied with Him through His Word and then make Him known by walking even as He walked. This is a part of true ministry so much needed.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 3:1-5

I. There is a peculiar writing on the tablet of the Christian’s soul. The old covenant, with its precepts and penalties, was engraven upon slabs of stone; but the new covenant, with its gospel and its commandments, is written upon the sensitive and everlasting tablet of the heart.

II. The writing on the tablets of the true Christian’s soul is effected for Christ by the Holy Spirit.

III. In writing upon the tablet of hearts, the Spirit of the living God employs men—pastors and teachers.

IV. Those upon whose hearts Christ has written are the epistles of Christ: they are Christ’s chief means of communicating with the outlying world.

S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass, p. 125.

2Co 3:2

The Two Ministrations—the Law and the Gospel.

I. There is perhaps something that, on the first mention, jars with our feelings in the fact that it was with a perfect knowledge that man could not obey the law, that the Almighty placed him under the law as a covenant. Yet in truth, there is no difficulty but what arises from the forgetfulness of union between the law and the gospel. If the two systems had been altogether detached, the law having no connection with the gospel, there would have existed great cause for wonder at God’s having appointed a ministration of condemnation. But when it is remembered that the law was most strikingly introductory to the gospel, so that the covenant of works literally made way for the covenant of grace, all surprise ought to vanish, and all doubt to be removed, as to the institution being consistent with love. From the earliest moment of human apostasy, God’s dealing with the fallen had always a reference to the works of atonement; He looked upon the world as a redeemed world, at the very instant of its becoming rebellious.

II. The gospel is a ministration of righteousness. It is, therefore., far surpassing the law in its glory. It is a ministration of righteousness (1) because it is a system which, assuming that man can have no meritorious righteousness of his own, puts man in a position wherein he appropriates the meritorious righteousness of another. (2) Because it proposes to us the righteousness of the High Priest of our profession, as the procuring cause of our acceptance with God. And (3) this gospel, while displaying a perfect righteousness which hath been wrought out for us, insists peremptorily on a righteousness which must be wrought in us by God’s Spirit, making our holiness, though it can obtain nothing by way of merit, indispensably necessary by way of preparation. If then the law, though a ministration of condemnation, be glory, does not the gospel, the ministration of righteousness, much more exceed in glory?

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1929.

References: 2Co 3:2.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 122; C. Morris, Preacher’s Lantern, vol. ii., p. 298. 2Co 3:2, 2Co 3:3.—T. J. Crawford, The Preaching of the Cross, p. 215; Outline Sermons to Children, p. 229. 2Co 3:3.—E. Garbett, Experiences of the Inner Life, p. 84; A. J. Griffith, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 198. 2Co 3:4, 2Co 3:5.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 31. 2Co 3:4-18.—F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians, p. 294. 2Co 3:5.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. x., p. 277; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vii., p. 88; W. M. Punshon, Sermons, p. 25.

2Co 3:4-5

The Divine Sufficiency.

I. Here we have a conception of the Christian ministry—what it is in its range, in its demands, in its difficulties, and in its trust upon God. The first work is unquestionably that of a preacher of the gospel. It is one message from heaven, a message of love; it is the message of an offended Father, still full of love to the children who have strayed from Him, and whom He would fain recover to Himself. The minister of the new covenant is God’s messenger to teach men this. He is an ambassador—bound to speak to the utmost of his ability the message which has been entrusted to him, having nothing to do with any other message but this.

II. If this be a correct view of the function of a minister of the gospel, what a very solemn work this work of preaching is! Men are to be led to believe. So that the idea is this, that the one power by which men are to be saved is preaching. We are so accustomed to the thought, we are so familiar with the remarkable power which in all ages has attended preaching, that it does not seem to us perhaps at first sight to be the marvel that it really is that men should be saved by the "foolishness of preaching." By that God means to save men. It is God’s method. And what a responsibility must rest upon the preacher! Is it possible to think that preparation can be too careful, that the consecration of heart and mind can be too complete, that the culture of every faculty which God has given can be too perfect, in order that these faculties may be used to bring the force of the gospel to bear upon men’s hearts?

III. It is not only, however, in relation to the work itself that the difficulties of the Christian teacher and pastor occur, but in regard to its results; for those results, however men may forget them and slight them, are of the most serious and momentous character. "To the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life." How could we hear these solemn responsibilities if it were not that "our sufficiency is of God."

J. Guinness Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 321.

2Co 3:6

Practical Use of the New Testament.

I. The New Testament is the revelation of eternal life by Christ; of life which must begin in man’s spirit by the conviction of sin, must be entered on by justifying faith, and carried on by the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost. It comes to us, not as a code of laws, but as good news: this has ever been its name since its first announcement. And the good news have been of the most attractive kind. We find in the Gospels the independent testimonies of four holy and truthful men to a set of facts substantially the same. No concert had been previously entered into, to make them tally with one another; no collusion has taken place since their writing, by which seeming discrepancies might be removed. In some minor details, it cannot be denied that their accounts are considerably divergent; in their consecutive order and arrangement of events, the same divergence is observed. How precious to us is all this, as matter of teaching, that we must not be children of the bondwoman, but of the free; that the same great Spirit, who worketh in every man severally as He will, worked according to this analogy in those holy men also.

II. The Gospels are usually taken up as a miscellaneous collection of histories, without any reference to their distinctive character. We should read them to obtain not only a correct historical idea of the important events which they record, but which is far more important, to be able to form in our own minds, and for our own spiritual lives, that living and consistent image of the glorious person of our Lord, which their separate testimonies, when combined, build up and complete.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. v., p. 277.

2Co 3:6

I. An able minister of the new testament, as many think, is a powerful, talented, and acceptable preacher of God’s word, especially of the New Testament—one who is well acquainted with every part of the gospel, and well able to set it forth from the pulpit. There is nothing of the kind in the text. For "new testament" has no reference to that which we now call by that name: we know it cannot have, for the simple reason that the New Testament was not then written; some of the books of the New Testament were in existence, but more were not, nor had any one, in all probability, the slightest notion that there ever would be a volume such as we possess in the New Testament. In point of fact, the phrase "new testament" in our text means "new covenant"—that covenant, namely, which God made to men in Christ Jesus, in place of the older and now abolished covenant which He made to Israel by the hand of Moses. The contrast between the two is drawn out in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in other places.

II. And in the second place, "ministers" has nothing at all to do with preachers: it simply means servants, or as we say "ministering servants"—such as are actively employed in carrying on the practical work of any dispensation or scheme; by a natural transition it comes to be specially applied to those who lend their active powers to the service of God and His Church.

III. Lastly, able ministers was never meant to convey a notion of cleverness or talent, or acceptableness in themselves. What St. Paul meant was, that God had made them able to be ministers and made it possible for them to act as ministers; but sufficiency, he says, is of God, who also enabled even us, utterly unworthy as we are, and, humanly speaking, quite inadequate, to be ministering servants of the new covenant made to man in Christ and ratified by His death.

R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions, p. 317.

2Co 3:6

Religious Thought and Life of the Age.

I. There is in our age a tendency to greater simplicity of creed. The divines of today would hesitate to lay down, even on cardinal points, strict and narrow lines of orthodoxy; and still more would they shrink from including in any confession of faith a number of other dogmas, which, whether received or not, are not to be regarded as an essential part of the gospel. The feeling is strong, and it is continually growing, that the foundations of Christian fellowship are to be laid in spiritual sympathy rather than in theological agreement, and that all doctrinal formularies should be made as brief and as general as is consistent with the assertion of the grand principles of the Evangelical system.

II. The second tendency to be noted is that towards a truer and broader humanity in our system. I use what may seem the somewhat ambiguous term "humanity" to signify in general the disposition to recognise that a theological system must consider the aspect in which it presents God to man, as well as the coherence of its theory with the Divine government.

The theology of the day does not pretend that the creature can have any claim on the Creator, but it sees what has too often been forgotten, that God must be true to Himself. Confessing the necessary limits to all human investigations, it yet feels that intellectual power has been given in vain, and that there can be no meaning in the gracious invitation of God Himself, "Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord," if the gospel is not to be examined, and its teachings compared with those which God has given us through the conscience. The new tendency leads the preachers to deal with the false religions of the world as Paul dealt with the Athenians, when even their own errors and superstitions were used as stepping-stones up which they might be guided to the knowledge of the true God, and of Jesus Christ whom He had sent. In short, it deals with man as the object of the Divine love after whom God is seeking, and it endeavours, by appeals to the intellect, conscience, and affection, to win him for Christ. What is this but carrying into practice the great principle of the Apostle, who recognises the power of adaptation and tells us that he himself employed it. "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."

J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 129.

References: 2Co 3:6.—Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. iv., p. 161; J. Leckie, Sermons at Ibrox, p. 317; T. Lloyd, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 69; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., p. 395; vol. xxvi., p. 24; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 307; J. H. Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 360; H. Riley, Ibid., vol. xxxiii., p. 185; R. Bartlett, Ibid., vol. xxxvi., p. 187. 2Co 3:6-11.—A. J. Parry, Phases of Truth, p. 30. 2Co 3:7, 2Co 3:8.—Sermons on the Catechism, p. 173. 2Co 3:7-11.—Homilist, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 421; 3rd series, vol. ii. p. 107; Ibid., vol. ix., p. 121.

2Co 3:8

The Ministry of the Spirit.

I. First among the proofs of Christianity comes the indisputable product of the "ministration of the Spirit," the new society of believers in Christ Jesus, the new world of redeemed and regenerate sons, created and held in its true spiritual orbit by the power of Christ, the Eternal Sun. The ministry of the Holy Ghost issues in a new social organism, which buries the hates of centuries out of sight, lifts purity to absolute supremacy, and makes the love of God and men the ruling passion of life and action.

II. The next most signal evidence of this ministry, in the first and nineteenth centuries alike, is the fulness and overflow of spiritual life consequent upon the descent and gracious indwelling of the Holy Ghost. The Christian society of the New Testament lives in habitual dependence upon an hourly communion with God. The same spirit is alive today.

III. We ought to expect the work of the Holy Spirit to be one of cleansing: an uplifting of the standard of sanctity, and an outflow of conquering holiness. So it was, and so it is.

IV. The first century was the era of universal missionary enterprise. This too is the missionary day the God of all souls has made, and in it we will rejoice and be glad.

V. But one of the most assured evidences of the teaching ministry of the Spirit is the simplification of the problem of religion and the opening up of the treasures of revelation to all men.

VI. Whence comes the rousing of our solicitudes for the social welfare of our fellows, and of the quickening of interest in all measures of social reform? Whence but from that Spirit whose gracious ministration lifted the slave to a seat by the side of his Master at the supper of love?

VII. Add to and penetrate all this work with the life-giving presence of an immortal hope, and you have carried the service of the Spirit to the maximum of effectiveness. Christianity is the rebirth of hope. "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."

J. Clifford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 296.

References: 2Co 3:9.—Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 203. 2Co 3:12.—J. B. Heard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 46. 2Co 3:12, 2Co 3:13.—L. Campbell, Some Aspects of the Christian Ideal, p. 1.

2Co 3:12-18

Mirrors of Christ.

I. Note first what St. Paul means when he speaks of why Moses put the veil upon his face. You think it was because it was too bright that he did so. Not at all. When his face is shining with most radiance, then it is that he bares it before the assembled multitude. They dread to come near him, but they are persuaded to draw nigh, and with his face shining with the glory that it got from God, he talks to the people; when he has done speaking, he hides his face until he goes in again to speak to the Holy One of Israel; then he takes the veil off, and then it gathers fresh glory, and with this fresh glory he comes out and speaks again to the people. Moses, in his wisdom, judged it well to hide his face in between. The light began to grow shadowy and fade, until he went in again to speak to God. Where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is slavery at all times, dulness and darkness and stupidity; people must often be left in that condition, just like the old Jews, because they would not make use of it if more was given.

II. As the picture of the sun dwells in the mirror, so the form of Jesus Christ, the idea of Him as we behold Him with unveiled face, dwells in us, as a power, as an indwelling force. The idea that you have drawn from seeing Christ, that is the mirror-form of Christ in your soul, and that is the Spirit dwelling in you and working in you in proportion as you have Him right and hold Him true. Give your souls to the Living One, and He will make them glorious. Let the love of God shine into your hearts and obey it, and then there is no limit to the eternal height to which you should rise, to the eternal breadth to which your souls should go up; nay, there is no limit to the depth into which your souls will be able to pierce the very Divine will of God, which is the universe, which is the life, which is the treasure of all existence.

G. Macdonald, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 33.

References: 2Co 3:12-18.—A. J. Parry, Phases of Christian Truth, p. 46. 2Co 3:14, 2Co 3:15.—A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart, p. 157. 2Co 3:15.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 281; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 253. 2Co 3:15, 2Co 3:16.—E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion, p. 284.

2Co 3:17

Spiritual Liberty.

These words form the climax of the argument contained in the whole of the chapter. Through the chapter Paul puts law and gospel side by side. He shows us that there was a glory attached to the legal dispensation, but that the glory of the gospel far exceeds it in many respects. He notes first that it transcends the law in glory, in that the literal knowledge of the law, as engraven on stone, had no power whatever to affect the heart of the man who read it. The tables of stone had no quickening power in them, but when the law gives place to the gospel, no one can receive it without having wrought, at once, an inward transformation. (2) The Apostle goes further in the seventh verse, for he shows the superiority of the gospel over the law in that, whilst the law was simply a ministry of condemnation, the gospel is a ministry of life. (3) He proceeds a step further, and shows that the gospel has an exceeding glory over the law, in that, while the latter was only temporary, the gospel is for ever. (4) And yet once more the gospel exceeds the law in the matter of its perspicuity. The law was obscure, and the revelation made to man through Moses was dim and indistinct. "Now," says the Apostle, "there is an efficiency in the gospel which the law does not possess. The law found man in bondage, and left him so, only sealing the cords of his captivity; but when the gospel comes it snaps all fetters and leads the man at once into perfect liberty, for where the Spirit of the Lord is—that is, where the gospel of Christ is—where the law of the Spirit of life is—there is liberty. Freedom follows the footsteps of the gospel.

I. This is true among the nations of the earth. Although the liberty mentioned here does not primarily refer to political, or religious, or national liberty, yet, at the same time, national liberty is the inseparable companion of the gospel. Wherever the gospel of the grace of God has free way—is preached and accepted—there you always find political liberty following in its wake. Liberty is the attendant angel of the gospel. Let God’s truth lay hold of any land, and despotism dies. The gospel creates an atmosphere that suffocates a despot; and where it is free it exercises an influence under which slavery of every description is certain to wither.

II. Our text is true in regard to ecclesiasticism. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Once have the gospel in the heart, and there is a grand rebellion against all the despotism of ecclesiasticism.

III. Our text is specially true in the experience of the individual believer. There is liberty (1) from the bondage of sin, (2) from the entanglements of ceremonialism, (3) liberty of character, (4) liberty in service, (5) liberty in all that the Bible contains.

A. G. Brown, Penny Pulpit, No. 974.

I. I do not find, anywhere in the Bible, that we are warned against too much liberty. In fact, it is almost always those who have felt themselves too shut up and confined, who break out into carelessness of conduct; just as the stopped river, bursting its barrier, runs into the more violent stream. And yet some people seem to me to be afraid of a free gospel. The freeman of the Lord walks in the day. His former sins do not trouble him. They were cancelled the first time he brought them to Christ, and God never rewrites one cancelled line. He has to do with nothing but the sins of the day.

II. The Christian has the commandment of God in his mind, and it is his delight to study and to keep it. But far more than the command, he has the whole will of God. He has studied the commands till he has reached to the spirit of the commands. He has gathered the mind of God. He knows, by a kind of blessed, spiritual intuition, what the will of God would be on any given subject, and he follows it. It is a very grand feeling to be doing God’s will. This is what Christ was doing all the time He was on earth. It is the Spirit of the Lord, and "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

III. Is not the Christian free of the New Jerusalem? And how should things on the surface of this little world bind him? He is on the wing for eternity. These things cannot hold him. He can go down into deep, secret places. His mind is dealing with the mind of eternity. He is free to all the promises of the Lord, for he has the mind of Christ.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 61.

References: 2Co 3:17.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 9; Good Words, vol. iii., pp. 633, 634; Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 467; Church of England Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 149; J. E. C. Welldon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxv., p. 392; A. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit, p. 124.

2Co 3:18

The Intuition of Faith.

St. Paul says that we, as members of Christ, behold the manifold glory of God as in a glass, as if it were a direct object of sight, and that by beholding it we are changed. It has an assimilating power, and that which makes us capable of its transforming influence is our beholding it "with open face." What, then, is this power of vision, this spiritual sight by which the unseen is visible; in one word, what is faith? It is the power which the Son of God gives us to behold the glory of the Lord. But we are asked, What is this power, this faith which is given us?

I. The controversies of these later ages have committed two evils; they have dethroned the object of faith, and they have degraded faith itself. Faith is something more Divine than disputants believe. Some will have it to be a speculative assent to truths revealed, and some, to correct them, will have it to be a principle of moral action, and others, to set both sides right, join together these two definitions in one, and tell us that faith is a principle of moral action springing out of a speculative assent to truths revealed. As if faith were something partial and fragmentary, the action of half our being; an effect without a cause, or with a cause simply human, and within the natural endowments of the human intelligence. Surely all these alike, if not equally, come short of truth. We might as well say that sight is a belief of things seen, or that sight is action arising out of a belief in what we see. What are these but the effects of sight demanding and pointing to a cause? They are the consequences of sight, not sight itself. As our waking sense checks our irregular thoughts and subjects us to the conditions of the world we see, so faith brings the whole spiritual nature of man under the dominion and laws of the unseen kingdom of God. This supernatural gift was infused into us as a habit by the Spirit of God, but in its acting it depends upon our will.

II. A clear intuition is the very life of the consciousness of God and of His kingdom. And this clear intuition of the heart is to be attained only by habitual self-examination and penitent confession made under the eyes in which the heavens are unclean. The next condition essential to beholding the glory of the Lord is a habitual use of spiritual exercises, such as meditation and prayer, whether mental or in words, and the like. By spiritual exercise is meant specially, an exercise of the will awakening the consciousness of our spiritual life. The whole catholic faith, the worship of the Church, the discipline of spiritual life through devotions and sacraments, has no existence for us, until we have united our spiritual consciousness with them by acts of faith and of the will. And the last and highest means of perfecting the gift of faith is to exercise it habitually upon the real presence of our blessed Lord in the Sacrament of His body and of His blood. For this very end it was ordained, that when He should withdraw His visible presence, He might still abide with us unseen; that when He ceased to be an object of sight, He might become an object of faith; and that the spiritual consciousness of our hearts should there for ever meet with the reality of His presence.

H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 369.

Transformation by Beholding.

I. The Christian life is a life of contemplating and reflecting Christ. Note (1) Paul’s emphasis on the universality of the vision—"We all." (2) This contemplation involves reflection, or giving forth the light which we behold.

II. This life of contemplation is a life of gradual transformation. The brightness on the face of Moses was only skin-deep. It faded away and left no trace. It effaced none of the marks of sorrow and care, and changed none of the lines of the strong, stern face. But, says Paul, the glory which we behold sinks inward, and changes us, as we look, into its own image. Thus the superficial lustre, that had neither permanence nor transforming power, becomes an illustration of the powerlessness of law to change the moral character into the likeness of the fair ideal which it sets forth. And in opposition to its weakness, the Apostle proclaims the great principle of Christian progress, that the beholding of Christ leads to the assimilation to Him.

III. The life of contemplation finally becomes a life of complete assimilation. Christ’s true image is that we should feel as He does, should think as He does, should will as He does; that we should have the same sympathies, the same loves, the same attitude towards God and the same attitude towards men. The whole nature must be transformed and made like Christ’s, and the process will not stop till that be accomplished in all who love Him. But the beginning here is the main thing, which draws all the rest after it as of course.

A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester, 3rd series, p. 77.

The Gift of the Spirit.

I. Some insight is given into the force of the word "glory" as our present privilege, by considering the meaning of the title "kingdom of heaven," which has also belonged to the Church since Christ came. The Church is called by this name as being the court and domain of Almighty God, who retreated from the earth, as far as His kingly presence was concerned, when man fell. Not that He left Himself without witness in any age; but even in His most gracious manifestations, still He conducted Himself as if in an enemy’s country, "as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night." But when Christ had reconciled Himself to His fallen creatures, He returned according to the prophecy "I will dwell in them and walk in them; I will set My sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore." From that time there has really been a heaven upon earth, in fulfilment of Jacob’s vision. Since the Christian Church is a heaven upon earth, it is not surprising that in some sense or other its distinguishing privilege or gift should be glory, for this is the one attribute which we ever attach to our notion of heaven itself, according to the Scripture intimations concerning it. The glory here may be conceived of by considering what we believe of the glory hereafter.

II. Next, if we consider the variety and dignity of the gifts ministered by the Spirit, we shall perhaps discern in a measure why our state under the gospel is called a state of glory. The Holy Ghost has taken up His abode in the Church in a variety of gifts, as a sevenfold Spirit. The gift is denoted in Scripture by the vague and mysterious term "glory," and all the descriptions we can give of it can only, and should only, run out into a mystery.

III. It were well if these views were more understood and received among us. They would, under God’s blessing, put a stop to much of the enthusiasm which prevails on all sides, while they might tend to dispel the cold and ordinary notions of religion which are the opposite extreme. For ourselves, in proportion as we realise the higher view of the subject, which we may humbly trust is the true one, let us be careful to act up to it. Let us adore the sacred presence within us with all fear, and rejoice with trembling. Prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, good works and alms deeds, a bold and true confession and a self-denying walk, are the ritual of worship by which we serve Him in these His temples. As we persevere in them the inward light grows brighter and brighter, and God manifests Himself to us in a way that the world knows not of. In this, then, consists our whole duty, first in contemplating Almighty God, as in heaven, so in our hearts and souls; and next, while we contemplate Him, in acting towards and for Him in the works of every day; in viewing by faith His glory without and within us, and in acknowledging it by our obedience. Thus we shall unite conceptions the most lofty concerning His majesty and bounty towards us, with the most lowly, minute, and unostentatious service to men.

J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iii., p. 254.

I. The Picture. "We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord." The glory of God in Christ, or the excellence and beauty of the Divine nature and purpose as they are revealed in the gospel—that is the picture on which we are invited to gaze. Jesus Christ is the brightness of God’s glory. He honours law and expresses love. His death is the centre of universal harmony. His resurrection is victory over hell and death. His ascension opens immortality and heaven. His Second Coming is the hope, as it will be the joy and triumph, of every loving heart.

II. The Beholders. We are all beholding. "We," Christians, that is. The whole context requires this interpretation. There is a sense, no doubt, in which it may be said, that all who have heard of the Lord Jesus Christ, so as to have anything like correct views of His person and character, are beholders of God’s glory in Him. All Christendom, in this sense, stands beholding. Even heathen lands are turning to gaze. Light from the great picture streams over Christendom, penetrates the darkness of heathendom, and men cannot but look towards a vision so bright and beautiful. But it is the doctrine of this, and many other passages in the New Testament, that a new sense is needed, what may be called a new soul-sense, by which to apprehend and appreciate spiritual things.

III. The Transformation. We are changed into the same image, changed as we gaze. We gaze and become like that which we behold, like Him whom we love. The spiritual apprehension we have, the vivid appreciative faculty within us, transfers to us and fixes upon our souls the beauty we behold. This is a truth acknowledged by philosophy and everywhere recognised in the word of God. By perceiving we become. By knowledge, spiritual, apprehensive knowledge, we grow in grace.

IV. The author and finisher of this transformation is the blessed Spirit of God—"Even as by the Spirit of the Lord." He reveals the picture, He clarifies the eye, He vitalises the spiritual law, and He dwells in the soul. He changes and watches the great work from birth to perfection. He takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto us. He leads us out of all our darkness into the realm of gospel light and glory, where we are transfigured as we stand.

A. Raleigh, Quiet Resting Places, p. 123.

References: 2Co 3:18.—Good Words, vol. iii., pp. 636, 639; Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 217; J. Clifford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxv., p. 121; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons, p. 392; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 94; E. Paxton Hood, Sermons, p. 356. 2Co 4:1.—T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 242; Ray, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 17. 2Co 4:1-15.—F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians, p. 301.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Division 2. (2Co 3:1-18.)

The ministry of the new covenant in contrast with the old.

The second division now dwells upon the characters of this ministry of Christ, which was, therefore, the ministry of the new covenant, in contrast with all that could be called ministry in connection with the old. Ministry of such sort, as we see it in the apostle, there was not in Israel, -a ministry, that is, which went out to the world with the offer of God’s grace to it. In Israel itself God was shut up. The way into the holiest was not yet made manifest; the light had not yet shone out through a rent veil. As a consequence, there was in one sense no God to proclaim. Law was in this sense enmity, as the apostle has said to the Ephesians. It was something which stood between God and man, a hindrance, as one may say, on both sides. Man could not go in to God. God could not come out, as it was in His heart to come out, to man. One may ask why then this should be, if it was in God’s heart to show Himself? The apostle has answered already, in the Epistle to the Romans, that there had to be a "due time" in which, when man was found still "without strength," Christ should die "for the ungodly." The discovery of the need had to precede the ministry to it; and alas, man resists the discovery of this need. It is not sufficient for God even to declare it. Man must make the experiment for himself. He will be satisfied with nothing short of personal experience; and thus God, after the testimony of His grace, -which, in fact, had begun in Abraham, -had to allow the law to come in, in order to exhibit sin in its true character, and the hopelessness of man’s condition apart from grace.

Thus it was the special priesthood which characterized Israel, a priesthood which was not national, as God had conditionally offered it should be in the wilderness. They were not a "kingdom of priests"; but the nation, put into the distance by their own departure from God and from the terms of their covenant with Him, had need of those who could approach God for them in a way they could not for themselves. Even so, the priests who approached were, after all, of the same nature and character as the people for whom they stood. They were thus an officially typical priesthood, but not the reality of it according to God. They were the shadow, and not the substance. Thus, they themselves could not go into the innermost holy place. They were shut out, as others, by the veil. The one exception of the high-priest’s entrance on one day of the year only, with the blood to put upon the mercy seat, was a mere glimpse, -full of encouragement, doubtless, of that which was to come, -a finger pointing on, as always throughout the law, to that which was beyond the law itself. But thus there was a priesthood, but no ministry; that is, no ministry which now we should call such, a ministry in which the heart of God could come out as He desired. Thus the testimony was shut up in Israel, although indeed, as has often been said, it was placed upon the public highway of the world, so as to be accessible to man if he desired it; but it did not yet show God seeking as He really sought, because as yet it was not plain that they whom He sought were lost ones. For the ungodly and yet without strength, -when that was proved, -Christ in due time died. Now there is a ministry, a way of access to God opened by His own hand, a way out for God in His love to manifest Himself to all His creatures, -a world-wide testimony, therefore. The character of Christian ministry is thus in many respects in complete contrast with anything before it. It is plain also, by what we find here, that this ministry is not merely one of word, -a gospel, however sweet and wonderful, -but it is a testimony in life as well as in speech, as we are to see directly, an "epistle of Christ to be read and known of all men," written no more like the old, upon the tables of stone, but upon fleshy tables of human hearts. Here then, as is plain, we pass beyond the bounds of any mere official ministry and find one which belongs to the whole Church of God, and which the Church of God as a whole is alone competent. for. Individuals are not the epistles of Christ, but the whole Church of God is that which forms the epistle. We may each have our part in this testimony; but the testimony of the whole is the only sufficient one; so far, at least, as man’s failure allows us to speak of sufficiency anywhere.

1. The doctrine is introduced incidentally, as so commonly in the epistles, with the most important truths. He appeals to them amid all this questioning which has been going on amongst them, -Did they really need epistles of commendation to them, or did he need epistles of commendation from them to others? As to this latter, they were his letter of commendation, (a beautiful and tender appeal to them, this,) "an epistle written," he says, "in our hearts, known and read of all men." It would touch them indeed to ask themselves, with all the love in which he had come amongst them, how far they were truly a letter commendatory of him. But he goes on to speak of what was not local, but the general character of the Church of Christ, and that they were the epistle of Christ in contrast with the legal message to men, written on tables of stone; a letter of commendation of Christ Himself, written by the Spirit of the living God. We see, I doubt not, in the end of the chapter, how this letter has been written; but it is plainly the responsibility which the whole Church has as representing Christ in the world. By their confession of Him they were identified with Him, and would give Him character in the eyes of men around them. How solemn a position is this! We cannot, as Christians, escape from the place of testimony. The only question will be, is the testimony for or against? Could it be possible that they would permit the confession of One to whom they owed their all to be to His discredit instead of to His praise? But he is not looking at this side of things now. He speaks of that which was essentially true with them as those in whom the Spirit of God had wrought. He is speaking encouragingly, not to blame; and, as a fact, this testimony could not be a local one merely. As we have said, he does not speak of individuals being epistles of Christ. No individuals could be sufficient for this. The brightest saint would have very much lacking in him. The records that we have of the saints of old have all, we may say, exhibited some conspicuous defect, while yet the general character of a saint might be evident. Here the testimony of one supplements the testimony of another; and thus, through that of the whole, Christ is borne witness to in a way in measure competent.

It is plain that this witness must be a true ministry. The formal preaching of the Word, while it has its necessary place, and even the prominent place, -yet, after all, unless in connection with its effects in the life, would come sadly short. This thought of ministry we shall find accompanies us through some chapters following. Those who hold forth the Word of life, as the apostle has told us in Philippians, must be "the sons of God, blameless and harmless, without rebuke, and in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation shining as lights in the world" (Php 2:15-16). Such lights he is indeed thinking of here, those who reflect the light from a heavenly source, from One who shines there brighter than the sun.

But thus, God was no more addressing men with a message carved upon inanimate tables, but by living messengers, His own wonderful workmanship. Such confidence with regard to them the apostle had through Christ. He knew that, alas, the flesh was in believers, and even prominent in them, and that his confidence as to them must be confidence through the Lord. But this is, therefore, an unfailing ground of confidence, and of this, -satisfied that they were after all truly the divine workmanship, -he could speak as he does here. It was not to make much of himself, of his competency in the ministry which God had given him. All competency was derived from God Himself, who in fact works in all this for the glory of Christ, and will not suffer Christ to be without His testimony amongst men. Thus had he with others been made the competent ministers of a new covenant, a covenant not of letter, as the old covenant of the law, but a covenant which was of spirit. In fact, the new covenant is, as we know, entirely the declaration of God’s "I will"s: not a demand upon man, but an assurance of that which He works for and in men. It is of grace, therefore, necessarily. The covenant of law, the letter, killed; but the power of the Spirit which effected that of which the new covenant speaks, gives life.

We are carefully to observe that he is speaking here not of the letter of Scripture, as some would have it, but of the letter of the old covenant, which was the law. It is not true that the letter of Scripture kills. Even the letter of law, apart from its covenant character, is not against us, clearly, but the safe lesson of an old schoolmaster under whom indeed we may not be, but whose lessons still do us good. But the covenant of law kills, and only that. If law is to be the condition under which we live, we shall soon find that it is a ministration of death and not of life.

2. Now then comes the contrast, briefly yet fully told out, -the law with the ministration of death indeed. We have seen in Romans how really it had that character. When the commandment came to the apostle, when he realized the power of it, sin revived, he says, and he died. Death also was the public sentence written upon man at large, of which the law availed itself in order to work conviction in the souls of those to whom it was addressed. The death of which it spoke was just what we ordinarily call such. Upon every child of man it stamped the character of a convicted criminal, one sentenced as such to be removed from the sphere into which creation had brought him, and no one, however comparatively well he might appear in contrast with those around him, could escape this sentence. "Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Grace indeed has brought in a greater blessing, but it leaves this testimony unaffected. It is a blessing of grace, not a reward of works. We are debtors simply to the compassion of God, and in order to realize the blessing we have to accept in that sense the sentence of death in ourselves. Then indeed the glory of the new covenant appears to us, and God’s wonderful and sweet "I will"s are the joy and satisfaction of the soul.

Yet this ministration of death, which was therefore a true ministration, a thing meant of God in its results to be mercy to man, whatever the gravity of the sentence which it carried, yet this ministration of death written and engraven on stones came in with glory. It is plain that he is not speaking of the first giving of the law at all, but of the second, for he immediately refers this glory to that which was upon the face of Moses when he came down from the Mount after he had been there the second time, a glory which they could not look upon, though it were merely the reflection of the divine. Thus he had to cover himself with a veil when he stood amongst the people; and that characterized all the glory of the law, which was essentially a veiled glory. The second giving of the law had, in fact, unveiled in a certain sense the glory of God as the first had not. It was not the divine Face indeed revealed, but, as He says to Moses, the glory of the "back parts." His face could not be seen. A solemn word, this therefore, for those who are the disciples of Moses, the assurance that according to law God could, even when He was showing real mercy, have His face turned away, and in mere pity His hack turned upon men! They were not competent to see Him face to face. No man could see Him and live. No one could stand before Him upon those terms, try it as often as they might.

This opportunity of protracted trial was what the second giving of the law provided for. It was that which made the law, as it were, a pool of Bethesda, a pool into which man might get, just as if he were not "impotent." For an impotent man, it had no help. God, therefore, says to the wicked, that if he turn from his wickedness which he hath committed and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive; but nevertheless, He is One who can by no means clear the guilty, when the final account is to be made. Thus He can give another opportunity, He can forgive iniquity, transgression and sin in the meantime; but at last one must be able to show a righteousness such as He requires, and this we cannot. Thus the opportunity so given only shows the more convincingly the desperate condition of man. It is just this gracious revelation of God manifesting all the grace of which law was capable, before which the people cannot stand, and which is a ministration of death, a writing of hopeless condemnation upon all.

This glory must, therefore, pass away. The glory on the face of Moses must give way to the glory in another Face, and the ministration of death to the ministration of the Spirit, who reveals Christ. Here the glory remains, for it is glory which the sinner, hopeless in himself; may see with gladness and satisfaction. There is gospel in it, as we shall learn directly, the gospel of the glory of Christ. So then the ministration of condemnation yet had glory, but how then does the ministration of righteousness abound in glory! Claim of righteousness the law made, but the ministration of righteousness was impossible by it. Righteousness is now ministered to us, not worked out by us, and thus indeed the glory of God is revealed as nothing else could reveal it. His inmost heart is told out in righteousness, but love in righteousness, and love how marvelous as shown in the gift of Christ for men! So that which was made glorious in the time past had in itself no glory compared with this surpassing glory. It would be sufficient to show this to realize that the one i the glory of that which is passed away, while the other glory remains and shall remain.

3. The ministers, then, of this new covenant can use great boldness; boldness indeed to pronounce the justification of the ungodly and to make sinners in Christ the righteousness of God! This is the boldness which grace has given us, and now there is to be nothing hidden, but the plainest speech and the fullest display of that which, while it glorifies God, is the complete blessing of man. In the dispensation of law, the children of Israel could not fix their eyes on the end of that which is now annulled. They could not see, alas, as disciples of law and going no further, the end of the law itself. The sweet grace of God, which indeed underlies everywhere its types and parables, was to them incapable of being realized. Their thoughts were darkened, and so, says the apostle, at this very day they are darkened. That veil remains unremoved from Moses, face, while yet in Christ it is done away. God has on His part done with it. They on their part have chosen it. It lies upon their heart, a heart which, taken up with its own self-righteousness, is turned away from the Lord. They must turn to the Lord to have the veil removed. This too shall be, in a time to which yet we look forward. The apostle now goes on to say that this Spirit, who in the new covenant works out God’s blessed will in men, is in fact the Lord. It is the energy of the Second Man, who, as the apostle says, "is a quickening Spirit." The Lord and the Spirit of the Lord are in this sense identified as the apostle identifies them here. "The Lord," he says, "is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." Freedom has come in place of bondage, the joy of sonship instead of the old slavery. There is liberty of access to God so manifested, and it is in the revelation of His unveiled face that now we find the power which works in us, which makes us, in fact, that epistle of Christ of which the apostle has been so lately speaking. Here are the fingers of light that write God’s new testimony upon souls. Looking now upon the glory of the Lord, a glory now unveiled, not hidden, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. How clear is the power of faith in this, how blessed the simplicity of it! We have only, as it were, to sit in the sun, to be bathed in its brightness. The power to enjoy Him is the power to reflect Him. The reflection is no effort, but the necessary effect of the enjoyment. While this goes on from one degree of glory to another, the least measure of it is glory, and, as more and more we know of Christ, glory super-added to glory. This is what is "by the Lord the Spirit." It is the life-giving Spirit of Christ, working in His energy in the souls of men, not only for individual blessing, but for that display also in the world of sinners which is true gospel witness.

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 8

LIVING EPISTLES.- 2Co_3:1-3 (R.V)

"ARE we beginning again to commend ourselves?" Paul does not mean by these words to admit that he had been commending himself before: he means that he has been accused already of doing so, and that there are those at Corinth who, when they hear such passages of this letter as that which has just preceded, will be ready to repeat the accusation. In the First Epistle he had found it necessary to vindicate his apostolic authority, and especially his interest in the Corinthian Church as its spiritual father, {1Co_9:1-27; 1Co_4:6-21} and obviously his enemies at Corinth had tried to turn these personal passages against him. They did so on the principle Qui sexcuse saccuse. "He is commending himself," they said, "and self-commendation is an argument which discredits, instead of supporting, a cause." The Apostle had heard of these malicious speeches, and in this Epistle makes repeated reference to them. {see 2Co_5:12; 2Co_10:18; 2Co_13:6} He entirely agreed with his opponents that self-praise was no honor. "Not he who commendeth himself is approved, but he whom the Lord commendeth." But he denied point-blank that he was commending himself. In distinguishing as he had done in 2Co_2:14-17 between himself and his colleagues, who spoke the Word "as of sincerity, as of God, in the sight of God," and "the many" who corrupted it, nothing was further from his mind than to plead his cause, as a suspected person, with the Corinthians. Only malignity could suppose any such thing, and the indignant question with which the chapter opens tacitly accuses his adversaries of this hateful vice. It is pitiful to see a great and generous spirit like Paul compelled thus to stand upon guard, and watch against the possible misconstruction of every lightest word. What needless pain it inflicts upon him, what needless humiliation! How it checks all effusion of feeling, and robs what should be brotherly intercourse of everything that can make it free and glad! Further on in the Epistle there will be abundant opportunity of speaking on this subject at greater length; but it is proper to remark here that a ministers character is the whole capital he has for carrying on his business, and that nothing can be more cruel and wicked than to cast suspicion on it without cause. In most other callings a man may go on, no matter what his character, provided his balance at the bank is on the right side; but an evangelist or a pastor who has lost his character has lost everything. It is humiliating to be subject to suspicion, painful to be silent under it, degrading to speak. At a later stage Paul was compelled to go further than he goes here; but let the indignant emotion of this abrupt question remind us that candor is to be met with candor, and that the suspicious temper which would fain malign the good eats like a canker the very heart of those who cherish it.

From the serious tone the Apostle passes suddenly to the ironical. "Or need we, as do some, epistles of commendation to you or from you?" The "some" of this verse are probably the same as "the many" of 2Co_2:17. Persons had come to Corinth in the character of Christian teachers, bringing with them recommendatory letters which secured their standing when they arrived. An example of what is meant can be seen in Act_18:27. There we are told that when Apollos, who had been working in Ephesus, was minded to pass over into Achaia, the Ephesian brethren encouraged him, and wrote to the disciples to receive him-that is, they gave him an epistle of commendation, which secured him recognition and welcome in Corinth. A similar case is found in Rom_16:1, where the Apostle uses the very word which we have here: "I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the Church that is at Cenchreae: that ye receive her in the Lord, worthily of the saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever matter she may have need of you: for she herself also hath been a succorer of many, and of mine own self." This was Phoebes introduction, or epistle of commendation, to the Church of Rome. The Corinthians were evidently in the habit both of receiving such letters from other Churches, and of granting them on their own account; and Paul asks them ironically if they think he ought to bring one, or when he leaves them to apply for one. Is that the relation which ought to obtain between him and them? The "some," to whom he refers, had no doubt come from Jerusalem: it is they who are referred to in 2Co_11:22 ff. But it does not follow that their recommendatory letters had been signed by Peter, James, and John; and just as little that those letters justified them in their hostility to Paul. No doubt there were many-many myriads, the Book of Acts says-at Jerusalem, whose conception of the Gospel was very different from his and who were glad to counteract him whenever they could; but there were many also, including the three who seemed to be pillars, who had a thoroughly good understanding with him, and who had no responsibility for the "some" and their doings. The epistles which the "some" brought were plainly such as the Corinthians themselves could grant, and it is a complete misinterpretation to suppose that they were a commission granted by the Twelve for the persecution of Paul.

The giving of recommendatory letters is a subject of considerable practical interest. When they are merely formal, as in our certificates of Church membership, they come to mean very little. It is an unhappy state of affairs perhaps, but no one would take a certificate of Church membership by itself as a satisfactory recommendation. And when we go past the merely formal, difficult questions arise. Many people have an estimate of their own character and competence, in which it is impossible for others to share, and yet they apply without misgiving to their friends, and especially to their minister or their employer, to grant them "epistles of commendation." We are bound to be generous in these things, but we are bound also to be honest. The rule which ought to guide us, especially in all that belongs to the Church and its work, is the interest of the cause, and not of the worker. To flatter is to do a wrong, not only to the person flattered, but to the cause in which you are trying to employ him. There is no more ludicrous reading in the world than a bundle of certificates, or testimonials, as they are called. As a rule, they certify nothing but the total absence of judgment and conscience in the people who have granted them. If you do not know whether a person is qualified for any given situation or not, you do not need to say anything about it. If you know he is not, and he asks you to say that he is, no personal consideration must keep you from kindly but firmly declining. I am not preaching suspicion, or reserve, or anything ungenerous, but justice and truth. It is wicked to betray a great interest by bespeaking it for incompetent hands; it is cruel to put any one into a place for which he is unfit. Where you are confident that the man and the work will be well matched, be as generous as you please; but never forget that the work is to be considered in the first place, and the man only in the second.

Paul has been serious, and ironical, in the first verse; in 2Co_3:2 he becomes serious again, and remains so. "You," he says, answering his ironical question, "you are our epistle." Epistle, of course, is to be taken in the sense of the preceding verse. "You are the commendatory letter which I show, when I am asked for my credentials." But to whom does he show it? In the first instance, to the captious Corinthians themselves. The tone of 2Co_9:1-15. in the First Epistle is struck here again: "Wherever I may need recommendations, it is certainly not at Corinth." "If I be not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you: the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord." Had they been a Christian community when he first visited them, they might have asked who he was; but they owed their Christianity to him; he was their father in Christ; to put him to the question in this superior, suspicious style was unnatural, unfilial ingratitude. They themselves were the living evidence of the very thing which they threw doubt upon-the apostleship of Paul.

This bold utterance may well excite misgivings in those who preach constantly, yet see no result of their work. It is common to disparage success, the success of visible acknowledged conversions, of bad men openly renouncing badness, bearing witness against themselves, and embracing a new life. It is common to glorify the ministry which works on, patient and uncomplaining, in one monotonous round, ever sowing, but never reaping, ever casting the net, but never drawing in the fish, ever marking time, but never advancing. Paul frankly and repeatedly appeals to his success in evangelistic work as the final and sufficient proof that God had called him, and had given him authority as an apostle; and search as we will, we shall not find any test so good and unequivocal at this success. Paul had seen the Lord; he was qualified to be a witness of the Resurrection; but these, at the very most, were his own affair, till the witness he bore had proved its power in the hearts and consciences of others. How to provide, to train, and to test the men who are to be the ministers of the Christian Church is a matter of the very utmost consequence, to which sufficient attention has not yet been given. Congregations which choose their own pastor are often compelled to take a man quite untried, and to judge him more or less on superficial grounds. They can easily find out whether he is a competent scholar; they can see for themselves what are his gifts of speech, his virtues or defects of manner; they can get such an impression as sensible people always get, by seeing and hearing a man, of the general earnestness or lack of earnestness in his character. But often they feel that more is wanted. It is not exactly more in the way of character; the members of a Church have no right to expect that their minister will be a truer Christian than they themselves are. A special inquisition into his conversion, or his religious experience, is mere hypocrisy; if the Church is not sufficiently in earnest to guard herself against insincere members, she must take the risk of insincere ministers. What is wanted is what the Apostle indicates here-that intimation of Gods concurrence which is given through success in evangelistic work. No other intimation of Gods concurrence is infallible-no call by a congregation, no ordination by a presbytery or by a bishop. Theological education is easily provided, and easily tested; but it will not be so easy to introduce the reforms which are needed in this direction. Great masses of Christian people, however, are becoming alive to the necessity for them; and when the pressure is more strongly felt, the way for action will be discovered. Only those who can appeal to what they have done in the Gospel can be known to have the qualifications of Gospel ministers; and in due time the fact will be frankly recognized.

The conversion and new life of the Corinthians were Pauls certificate as an apostle. They were a certificate known, he says, and read by all men. Often there is a certain awkwardness in the presenting of credentials. It embarrasses a man when he has to put his hand into his breast pocket, and take out his character, and submit it for inspection. Paul was saved this embarrassment. There was a fine unsought publicity about his testimonials. Everybody knew what the Corinthians had been, everybody knew what they were; and the man to whom the change was due needed no other recommendation to a Christian society. Whoever looked at them saw plainly that they were an epistle of Christ; the mind of Christ could be read upon them, and it had been written by the intervention of Pauls hand. This is an interesting though a well-worn conception of the Christian character. Every life has a meaning, we say, every face is a record; but the text goes further. The life of the Christian is an epistle; it has not only a meaning, but an address; it is a message from Christ to the world. Is Christs message to men legible on our lives? When those who are without look at us, do they see the hand of Christ quite unmistakably? Does it ever occur to anybody that there is something in our life which is not of the world, but which is a message to the world from Christ? Did you ever, startled by the unusual brightness of a true Christians life, ask as it were involuntarily, "Whose image and superscription is this?" and feel as you asked it that these features, these characters, could only have been traced by one hand, and that they proclaimed to all the grace and power of Jesus Christ? Christ wishes so to write upon us that men may see what He does for man. He wishes to engrave His image on our nature, that all spectators may feel that it has a message for them, and may crave the same favor. A congregation which is not in its very existence and in all its works and ways a legible epistle, an unmistakable message from Christ to man, does not answer to this New Testament ideal.

Paul claims no part here but that of Christs instrument. The Lord, so to speak, dictated the letter, and he wrote it. The contents of it were prescribed by Christ, and through the Apostles ministry became visible and legible in the Corinthians. More important is it to notice with what the writing was done: "not with ink," says St. Paul, "but with the Spirit of the living God." At first sight this contrast seems formal and fantastic; nobody, we think, could ever dream of making either of these things do the work of the other, so that it seems perfectly gratuitous in Paul to say, "not with ink, but with the Spirit." Yet ink is sometimes made to bear a great deal of responsibility. The characters of the τινες ("some") in 2Co_3:1. were only written in ink; they had nothing, Paul implies, to recommend them but these documents in black and white. That was hardly sufficient to guarantee their authority, or their competence as ministers in the Christian dispensation. But do not Churches yet accept their ministers with the same inadequate testimonials? A distinguished career at the University, or in the Divinity Schools, proves that a man can write with ink, under favorable circumstances; it does not prove more than that; it does not prove that he will be spiritually effective, and everything else is irrelevant. I do not say this to disparage the professional training of ministers; on the contrary, the standard of training ought to be higher than it is in all the Churches: I only wish to insist that nothing which can be represented in ink, no learning, no literary gifts, no critical acquaintance with the Scriptures even, can write upon human nature the Epistle of Christ. To do that needs "the Spirit of the living God." We feel, the moment we come upon those words, that the Apostle is anticipating; he has in view already the contrast he is going to develop between the old dispensation and the new, and the irresistible inward power by which the new is characterized. Others might boast of qualifications to preach which could be certified in due documentary form, but he carried in him wherever he went a power which was its own witness, and which overruled and dispensed with every other. Let all of us who teach or preach concentrate our interest here. It is in "the Spirit of the living God," not in any requirements of our own, still less in any recommendations of others, that our serviceableness as ministers of Christ lies. We cannot write His epistle without it. We cannot see, let us be as diligent and indefatigable in our work as we please, the image of Christ gradually come out in those to whom we minister. Parents, teachers, preachers, this is the one thing needful for us all. "Tarry," said Jesus to the first evangelists, "tarry in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high" it is of no use to begin without that.

This idea of the "epistle" has taken such a hold of the Apostles mind, and he finds it so suggestive whichever way he turns it, that he really tries to say too much about it in one sentence. The crowding of his ideas is confusing. One learned critic enumerates three points in which the figure becomes inconsistent with itself, and another can only defend the Apostle by saying that this figurative letter might well have qualities which would be self-contradictory in a real one. This kind of criticism smells a little of ink, and the only real difficulty in the sentence has never misled any one who read it with sympathy. It is this-that St. Paul speaks of the letter as written in two different places. "Ye are an epistle," he says at the beginning, "written in our hearts"; but at the end he says, "written not on tables of stone, but on tables that are hearts of flesh"-meaning evidently on the hearts of the Corinthians. Of course this last is the sense which coheres with the figure. Pauls ministry wrote the Epistle of Christ upon the Corinthians, or, if we prefer it, wrought such a change in their hearts that they became an epistle of Christ, an epistle to which he appealed in proof of his apostolic calling. In expressing himself as he does about this, he is again anticipating the coming contrast of Law and Gospel. Nobody would think of writing a letter on tables of stone, and he only says "not on stone tables" because he has in his mind the difference between the Mosaic and the Christian dispensation. It is quite out of place to refer to Eze_11:19; Eze_36:26, and to drag in the contrast between hard and tender hearts. What Paul means is that the Epistle of Christ is not written on dead matter, but on human nature, and that too at its finest and deepest. When we remember the sense of depth and inwardness which attaches to the heart in Scripture, it is not forcing the words to find in them the suggestion that the Gospel works no merely outward change. It is not written on the surface, but in the soul. The Spirit of the living God finds access for itself to the secret places of the human spirit; the most hidden recesses of our nature are open to it, and the very heart is made new. To be able to write there for Christ, to point not to anything dead, but to living men and women, not to anything superficial, but to a change that has reached the very core of mans being, and works its way out from thence, is the testimonial which guarantees the evangelist; it is the divine attestation that he is in the true apostolical succession.

What, then, does Paul mean by the other clause "ye are our epistle, written on our hearts?" I do not think we can get much more than an emotional certainty about this expression. When a man has been an intensely interested spectator, still more an intensely interested actor, in any great affair, he might say afterwards that the whole thing and all its circumstances were engraved upon his heart. I imagine that is what St. Paul means here. The conversion of the Corinthians made them an epistle of Christ: in making them believers through St. Pauls ministry, Christ wrote on their hearts what was really an epistle to the world; and the whole transaction, in which Pauls feelings had been deeply engaged, stood written on his heart for ever. Interpretations that go beyond this do not seem to me to be justified by the words. Thus Heinrici and Meyer say, "We have in our own consciousness the certainty of being recommended to you by yourselves and to others by you"; and they elucidate this by saying, "The Apostles own good consciousness was, as it were, the tablet on which this living epistle of the Corinthians stood, and that had to be left unassailed even by the most malevolent." A sense so pragmatical and pedantic, even if one can grasp it at all, is surely out of place, and many readers will fail to discover it in the text. What the words do convey is the warm love of the Apostle, who had exercised his ministry among the Corinthians with all the passion of his nature, and who still bore on his ardent heart the fresh impression of his work and its results.

Amid all these details let us take care not to lose the one great lesson of the passage. Christian people owe a testimony to Christ. His name has been pronounced over them, and all who look at them ought to see His nature. We should discern in the heart and in the behavior of Christians the handwriting, let us say the characters, not of avarice, of suspicion, of envy, of lust, of falsehood, of pride, but of Christ. It is to us He has committed Himself; we are the certification to men of what He does for man; His character is in our care. The true epistles of Christ to the world are not those which are expounded in pulpits; they are not even the gospels in which Christ Himself lives and moves before us; they are living men and women, on the tables of whose hearts the Spirit of the living God, ministered by a true evangelist, has engraved the likeness of Christ Himself. It is not the written Word on which Christianity ultimately depends; it is not the sacraments, nor so-called necessary institutions: it is this inward, spiritual, Divine writing which is the guarantee of all else.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

3:1-3 Paul’s ministry was validated by the lives of those who were changed by the Good News rather than by a letter of recommendation (cp. Acts 18:27). Christ, the author of this transformation, used Paul to lead believers to him. The marks of genuineness are not in letters written . . . with pen and ink on parchment, but in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) in human lives and carved . . . on human hearts.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2Co 3:1. Ἀρχόμεθα, do we begin?) A just reproof to some of those who had so begun.—πάλιν, again) as was formerly done in the first epistle; so, again, ch. 2Co 5:12.—συνιστάνειν, to commend) after the manner of men; 2Co 12:19, by mentioning transactions that took place elsewhere.—εἰ μὴ) unless. A particle expressive of conciliation [morata]. Is it thus and thus only that we are equal to the task of commending ourselves [i.e., by mentioning transactions that took place elsewhere], if we do not need [without needing] also letters? Some read ἤ.[15]—τινές, some) of many, 2Co 2:17. In this respect also, he shows that he utterly differs from the false apostles. They did need letters of recommendation.—ἐξ ὑμῶν, from you) to others. This then was the practice at Corinth.

[15] So CD(Λ)Gfg Vulg. (“aut numquid”). But AB (judging from silence acc. to Tisch: But Lachm. quotes B for ἤ) read εἰ μὴ as Rec. Text.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co_3:1. Ἀρχόμεθα] namely, through what was said in 2Co_2:17, regarding which Paul foresaw that his opponents would describe it as the beginning of another recommendation of himself. It is interrogative, not to be taken, with Hofmann, who then reads ἢ μή, as an affirmation, in which case a logical relation to the question that follows could only be brought out by importing something.[155]

πάλιν] belongs to ἙΑΥΤ. ΣΥΝΙΣΤ., and refers to experiences, through which Paul must have passed already before, certainly also in respect to his last Epistle (1 Corinthians 1-4; 5; 1 Corinthians 9; 1Co_14:17, al.), when the charge was made: ἑαυτὸν ΣΥΝΙΣΤΆΝΕΙ! As to the reason why he regards the ἑαυτὸν συνιστάνειν to be such a reproach, see 2Co_10:18.

In the plural he in this chapter includes also Timothy, as is clear from expressions such as immediately occur in 2Co_3:2, ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμ., and 2Co_3:6, ἩΜᾶς ΔΙΑΚΌΝΟΥς.

ΣΥΝΙΣΤΆΝΕΙΝ] as at Rom_16:1. Hence ἘΠΙΣΤΟΛΑῚ ΣΥΣΤΑΤΙΚΑΊ or ΓΡΆΜΜΑΤΑ ΣΥΣΤΑΤΙΚΆ (Arrian. Epict. ii. 3. 1; Diog. L. v. 18, viii. 87), letters of recommendation. Regarding their use in the ancient Christian church, see Suicer, Thes. II. p. 1194; Dought. Anal. II. p. 120.

εἰ μὴ κ.τ.λ.] nisi, i.e. unless it possibly be, that, etc. Only if this exigency takes place with us, can that ἄρχονται πάλιν ἑαυτοὺς συνιστάνειν be asserted of us. Such epistolary recommendations, indeed, we should not have, and hence we should have to resort to self-praise! The expression is ironical in character, and contains an answer to that question, which reveals its absurdity. Comp. Xen. Mem. i. 2. 8. Hence εἰ is not to be taken, with Reiche, as siquidem or quia, and μή as negativing the ΧΡῄΖΟΜΕΝ (as if it were ΕἸ Οὐ ΧΡῇΖ.).

Ὥς ΤΙΝΕς] as some people (comp. 1Co_4:18; 1Co_15:12; Gal_1:7), certainly a side-glance at anti-Pauline teachers, who had brought to the Corinthians letters of recommendation, either from teachers of repute, or from churches,[156] and had obtained similar letters from Corinth at their departure thenc.

πρὸς ὑμᾶς, ἢ ἐξ ὑμῶν] In the former case, it might be thought that we wished to supply this need by recommendation of ourselves; in the latter case (ἢ ἐξ ὑμῶν), that we, by our self-recommendation, wished to corrupt your judgment, and to induce you to recommend us to others. Both would be absurd, but this is just in keeping with the irony.

[155] The question that follows with ἢ μή would mean: or do we not withal need? etc., which does not fit in with ἀρχόμεθα when taken as an affirmation. Hofmann, however, imports the thoughts: whoever is offended al this, that Paul has no scruple in recommending himself, to him he offers to answer on his part the question, whether he and his official associates have any need of letters of recommendation.

[156] According to Gal_2:7-9, but hardly from the original apostles or from the church of Jerusalem under their guidance as such. This, however, does not exclude the possibility that individual members of the mother-church may have given such letters. We do not know anything more precise on the point: even from τινὲς ἀπὸ Ἰακώβου, Gal_2:12 ff., nothing is to be inferred.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 3:1-3 . THE CORINTHIANS ARE ST. PAUL’S “EPISTLE OF COMMENDATION”.

2Co 3:1 . ἀρχόμεθα πάλιν ἑαυτοὺς συνιστ .: are we beginning again ( sc. , as, for instance, in 1Co 9:15 ; 1Co 14:18 ; 1Co 15:10 , or possibly he alludes to 2Co 1:12 above; cf. chap. 2Co 5:12 , 2Co 10:18 below) to commend ourselves? His opponents seem to have made this charge, which he is careful to repudiate again (2Co 10:12 ; cf. 2Co 12:11 ). The phrase ἑαυτον συνιστάνειν (or συνιστάναι , for both forms occur) is found four times in this Epistle (see reff.), and always in a bad sense, the prominent place of ἑαυτὸν signifying that there has been undue egotism; on the other hand, συνιστάνειν ἑαυτὸν , which occurs three times (see reff.), is always used in a good sense, of that legitimate commendation of himself and his message which every faithful minister will adopt. Neither form occurs elsewhere in the N.T. (unless Gal 2:18 , παραβάτην ἐμαυτὸν συνιστάνω , be regarded as an exception). ἢ μὴ χρῄζομεν κ . τ . λ .: or do we need, as some do ( i.e. , the οἱ πολλοί of 2Co 2:17 ; τινες is his usual vague description of opponents; see 1Co 4:18 ; 1Co 15:12 , chap. 2Co 10:2 , Gal 1:7 , 1Ti 1:3 ; 1Ti 1:19 ), epistles of commendation to you or from you? Greek teachers used to give ἐπιστολαὶ συστατικαί (Diogenes Laert., vii. 87); for such commendatory mention cf. Act 15:25 (of Judas and Silas to the Church at Antioch), Act 18:27 (of Apollos to the Church at Corinth), Rom 16:1 (of Phœbe to the Church at Rome), chap. 2Co 8:16-24 (of Titus and his companions to the Church at Corinth); cf. also 1Co 16:3 . St. Paul scouts the idea that he, who first brought the Gospel to Corinth, should need to present formal credentials to the Corinthian Church; and it would be equally anomalous that he should seek recommendations from them ( ἐξ ὑμῶν ). He has testimonies to his character and office far superior to any that could be written on papyrus. These can be pointed to if any object that his Apostolic office was self-assumed, and that he delivers the Gospel message in his own way and on his own authority (Gal 1:12 ).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ch.

3:1-6:10.] Beginning with a disowning of self-recommendation, the Apostle proceeds to speak concerning his apostolic office and himself as the holder of it, his feelings, sufferings, and hopes, partly with regard to his connexion with the Corinthians, but for the most part in general terms.

1-3.] He disclaims a spirit of self-recommendation.

1.] ἀρχ., are we beginning? πάλιν, alluding to a charge probably made against him of having done this in his former epistle: perhaps in its opening section, and in some passages of 1Co 5:91Co_5:91Co 5:9 and 14:18; 15:10 al.: see our ch. 10:18.

ἢ μὴ χρ.] Or do we want (the μή gives an ironical turn to the question, which is more strongly expressed in the rec. reading εἰ μή,—‘unless it be thought, that’ …) as some (so τινες, 1Co 4:18; 1Co 15:12; Gal 1:7, of the teachers who opposed him. Probably these persons had come recommended to them, by whom does not appear, whether by churches or Apostles, but most likely by the former (ἐξ ὑμῶν), and on their departure requested similar recommendations from the Corinthian church to others), letters of recommendation to you (ἐπιστ. συστατικαί are fully illustrated by Suicer, Thes. in voc. Among other passages he cites the 13th canon of the council of Chalcedon: ξένους κληρικοὺς καὶ ἀγνώστους ἐν ἑτέρᾳ πόλει δίχα συστατικῶν γραμμάτων τοῦ ἰδίου ἐπισκόπου μηδὲ ὅλως μηδαμοῦ λειτουργεῖν; and Epist. cclxxi. (al. xi.) of Basil, vol. iv. p. 417, which has this inscription: Εὐσεβίῳ ἑταίρῳ συστατικὴ ἐπὶ Κυριακῷ πρεσβυτέρῳ, “Eusebio sodali commendatitia Cyriaci presbyteri”) or from you? The rec. συστατικῶν at the end, as well as συστ. ἐπιστολῶν, have probably been glosses, inserted (the ancient mss. having no stops) to prevent ἐξ ὑμ. being taken with ἡ ἐπιστ. following.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:1-6:10. THE GLORY OF THE APOSTOLIC OFFICE

The first three verses, like 1:12-14, are transitional. They are closely connected with the preceding expression of thankfulness and confidence, for ἑαντοὺς συνιστάνειν clearly looks back to ἐξ εἰλικρινίας … λαλοῦμεν. But μὴ χνήσομεν κ.τ.λ equally clearly anticipates πεποίθνσιν τοιαύτην, and there is more pause between the chapters than between vv. 3 and 4. These three verses, therefore, are best regarded as introductory to the Apostle’s vindication, not only of himself, but of the high office which he holds, and of the message which he is commissioned to deliver.

The first verse gives us further insight into the opposition which confronted St Paul at Corinth. Evidently one of the charges brought against him was that he was always asserting himself and singing his own praises,—of course because nobody else praised him. A man who has often to speak with authority is open to this kind of criticism, and there are passages in 1 Cor. which would lend themselves to such a charge; 2:6-16, 3:10, 4:3, 14-21, 9:1-6, 11:1, 14:18. But more probably it was the severe letter, of which 10-13. may be a part, which provoked this criticism. There is plenty of material for such criticism in those four chapters. Titus, no doubt, had reported the existence of these cavillings, and perhaps he knew that they had not been completely silenced. The Apostle does not assert that they still exist, but he meets the possibility of their existence with a tactful question. Then he still more tactfully asks a question which can be turned against his opponents. Finally, he makes a statement which is likely to go home to the hearts of the Corinthians and win those who are still wavering back to their devotion to him. The readiness with which the passionate outburst of 2:14-17 is turned to account for the vindication of the Apostolic office is very remarkable.

3:1-3. I have no desire to commend myself. The only testimonial which I need I have in you, and all the world can read it.

1 In claiming to be competent to deliver a message which involves the momentous alternative of ultimate life and death, do I seem to be commending myself once more? I was obliged to assert myself in my last letter, but I have no need to do so now. There are people who bring letters of recommendation to you, and ask you to give them such; and no doubt they require them. 2 But what need have I of such things, when you yourselves are my letter of recommendation written on my very heart, a letter which the whole world can get to know and construe, wherever I go and tell of you? 3 It is made plain to all that you are a letter composed by Christ and published by me; written not with the blackness of perishable ink, but with the illuminating Spirit of the living God ; written not, like the Law, on dead tables of stone, but on the living tables of sensitive human hearts.

1. Ἀρχόμεθα πάλιν ἑαυτοὺς συνιστάνειν; ‘Are we beginning again to commend ourselves?’ It makes no difference whether we take πάλιν with ἀρχόμεθα or with συνιστάνειν. The sentence is certainly a question. Taking it as a statement involves a clumsy insertion in order to get a connexion with ἢ μὴ κ.τ.λ., such as, ‘Or if you object to our commending ourselves, I reply with this question, Do we need, etc.’ Ἀρχόμεθα is a sort of echo of the supposed criticism; ‘He is beginning to belaud himself again.’ The πάλιν plainly shows that St Paul is aware that this charge of self-praise had been made. He alludes to it again 4:5, 5:12, 6:4. It may have been an insult offered to him by ὁ ἀδικήσας, the great offender; but, whoever started it, it was accepted as true by some of the Corinthians. There are passages 1 Cor. which would give a handle to such a charge; 9:15, 14:18, 15:10 ; cf. 4:16, 7:40, 11:1; 2Co 1:12.

The question may be a direct reference to τῶν ἑαυτοὺς συνιστανόντων (10:12) and to ὑφʼ ὑμῶν συνίστασθαι (12:11). If they are, we have further evidence that 10-13. is part of the severe letter written between 1 Cor. and 2 Cor. 1-9. These three verses are strangely out of harmony with the last four chapters, if those chapters are part of the same letter: they are natural enough, if those chapters had been previously sent to Corinth and had occasioned, or intensified, the charge that St Paul was too fond of praising himself. See Rendall, p. 65.

We find συνιστάνειν or συνιστάναι, ‘to bring together,’ used in two senses in N.T. (1) ‘To bring persons together,’ to introduce or commend them to one another; 4:2, 5:12, 6:4, 10:12, 18; Rom 16:1. (2) ‘To put two and two together,’ to prove by argument and evidence; 7:11; Gal 2:18; Rom 5:8. This difference of meaning is not clearly marked in LXX, but in Susann. 61, Theod. has συνέστησεν of Daniel’s proving that the elders have borne false witness. See on Rom 3:5. In these two senses the verb is peculiar to Paul in N.T. and is found chiefly in this Epistle. It occurs elsewhere only Luk 9:32 and 2Pe 3:5, in quite other senses. The position of the reflexive pronoun is to be noted. In this Epistle we have ἑαυτού̀ς συν, in a bad sense, 3:1, 5:12, 10:12, 18 ; and συν. ἑαυτούς, in a good sense, 4:2, 6:4, 7:11.

ἢ μὴ χρῄζομεν ὥς τινες; ‘Or is it the fact that we need, as some people do?’ This side-stroke at the false teachers is very effective ; he alludes to the οἱ πολλοί of 2:17 and others like them. St Paul often speaks of his opponents as ‘certain persons,’ τινες (10:2; 1Co 4:18, 1Co 4:15:12; Gal 1:7; 1Ti 1:3, 1Ti 1:19). The μή, implying a negative answer, throws back its force on the previous question, and shows that the suggested criticism is unjust. Harnack thinks that the Apostles required a fresh commission for each missionary expedition. That was clearly not the case with St Paul.

συστατικῶν ἐπιστολῶν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἢ ἐξ ὑμῶν. These words tell us three things : that the Judaizers had brought letters of recommendation from some one; that they had already left Corinth ; and that before leaving they had obtained, or had tried to obtain, letters of recommendation from the Corinthian Church. We know nothing, however, as to who gave recommendations to the Judaizers ; perhaps leading persons in Palestine did so. It is not likely that they had obtained credentials from any of the Twelve or from the Church at Jerusalem.* Letters of this kind were commonly brought by travelling brethren as evidence that they were Christians and honest persons. The Epistle to Philemon is a συστατικὴ ἐπιστολή for Onesimus; and ἐλάβετε ἐντολάς, Ἐὰν ἔλθῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς, δέξασθε αὐτόν (Col 4:10) probably refers to a previous letter of recommendation. St Paul sometimes commends individuals to the Church whom he addresses; e.g. Titus and his companion (8:22 f.), Timothy (1Co 16:10 f.), Phoebe (Rom 16:1). Cf. Act 15:25 f., Act 15:18:27; 2Jn 1:12. Papyri yield examples; Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, p. 226) says that the letters in Episiolographi Graeci, Hercher, pp. 259, 699, begin, like Rom. 16., with συνίστημι. Suicer (ii. 1194) gives instances of such letters in the early Church. The Latins called them epistolae commendaticiae or literae formatae. How necessary they were is shown by Lucian, who says that an adroit unscrupulous fellow, who has seen the world, has only to get among these simplehearted Christians, and he can soon make a fortune out of them (Perigr. Prot. 13). Diogenes condemned γράμματα συστατικά as useless ; nothing but personal experience of men, he said, was of any real value (Arrian, Epict. 11, iii. 1). This, however, was what existed between St Paul and the Corinthians; and it was πασῆς συοτατικώτερον ἐπιστολῆς Cf. Act 28:21, and see Harnack, Mission and Expansion, i. p. 328.

If we are right in inferring from this verse that the Judaizers had left Corinth, we have a strong argument for the view that 10-13. was written before 1-9, for in 10-13. the Judaizers are denounced as a present plague in Corinth.

If the reading εἰ μή be adopted, we must translate, ‘unless it possibly be the case that we are needing, etc.’; and we must interpret this as a sarcasm ; ‘unless it be the case that we are so unable to get recommendations that we are compelled to praise ourselves.’ This sarcasm shows that the charge of St Paul’s praising himself is ridiculous. So clumsy an interpretation need not be accepted, for the balance of evidence is decisive against εἰ μή א B C D E F G, Latt. and other versions have ἢ μή, A K L P, Arm. have εἰ μή B D 17 have συνιστᾶν, F G συνιστάναι, all other witnesses συνιστάνειν A D have ὥσπερ τινες, other authorities ὥς τινες D E F K L P, d e Syrr. add συστατικῶν after ἐξ ὑμῶν, and F G add συστ. ἐπιστολῶν. Omit both words with א A B C 17, 67* *, Vulg. Copt. Arm. Aeth., Chrys. Ambrst.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER III.

The apostle shows, in opposition to his detractors, that the

faith and salvation of the Corinthians were sufficient

testimony of his Divine mission; that he needed no letters of

recommendation, the Christian converts at Corinth being a

manifest proof that he was an apostle of Christ, 1-3.

He extols the Christian ministry, as being infinitely more

excellent than that of Moses, 4-12.

Compares the different modes of announcing the truth under the

law and under the Gospel: in the former it was obscurely

delivered; and the veil of darkness, typified by the veil which

Moses wore, is still on the hearts of the Jews; but when they

turn to Christ this veil shall be taken away, 13-16.

On the contrary, the Gospel dispensation is spiritual; leads to

the nearest views of heavenly things; and those who receive it

are changed into the glorious likeness of God by the agency of

his Spirit, 17, 18.

NOTES ON CHAP. III.

Verse 1. Do we begin again to commend ourselves] By speaking thus of our sincerity, Divine mission, c., is it with a design to conciliate your esteem, or ingratiate ourselves in your affections? By no means.

Or need we - epistles of commendation] Are we so destitute of ministerial abilities and Divine influence that we need, in order to be received in different Churches, to have letters of recommendation? Certainly not. God causes us to triumph through Christ in every place and your conversion is such an evident seal to our ministry as leaves no doubt that God is with us.

Letters of commendation] Were frequent in the primitive Church; and were also in use in the apostolic Church, as we learn from this place. But these were, in all probability, not used by the apostles; their helpers, successors, and those who had not the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, needed such letters and they were necessary to prevent the Churches from being imposed on by false teachers. But when apostles came, they brought their own testimonials, the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1. Do we begin It appears that this objection also was brought forward against him — that he was excessively fond of publishing his own exploits, and brought against him, too, by those who were grieved to find that the fame, which they were eagerly desirous to obtain, was effectually obstructed in consequence of his superior excellence. They had already, in my opinion, found fault with the former Epistle, on this ground, that he indulged immoderately in commendations of himself. To commend here means to boast foolishly and beyond measure, or at least to recount one’s own praises in a spirit of ambition. Paul’s calumniators had a plausible pretext — that it is a disgusting and odious thing in itself for one to be the trumpeter of his own praises. Paul, however, had an excuse on the ground of necessity, inasmuch as he gloried, only because he was shut up to it. His design also raised him above all calumny, as he had nothing in view but that the honor of his apostleship might remain unimpaired for the edification of the Church; for had not Christ’s honor been infringed upon, he would readily have allowed to pass unnoticed what tended to detract from his own reputation. Besides, he saw that it was very much against the Corinthians, that his authority was lessened among them. In the first place, therefore, he brings forward their calumny, letting them know that he is not altogether ignorant as to the kind of talk, that was current among them.

Have we need? The answer is suited (to use a common expression) to the person rather than to the thing, though we shall find him afterwards saying as much as was required in reference to the thing itself. At present, however, he reproves their malignity, inasmuch as they were displeased, if he at any time reluctantly, nay even when they themselves constrained him, made mention of the grace that God had bestowed upon him, while they were themselves begging in all quarters for epistles, that were stuffed entirely with flattering commendations. He says that he has no need of commendation in words, while he is abundantly commended by his deeds. On the other hand, he convicts them of a greedy desire for glory, inasmuch as they endeavored to acquire favor through the suffrages of men. In this manner, he gracefully and appropriately repels their calumny. We must not, however, infer from this, that it is absolutely and in itself wrong to receive recommendations, provided you make use of them for a good purpose. For Paul himself recommends many; and this he would not have done had it been unlawful. Two things, however, are required here — first, that it be not a recommendation that is elicited by flattery, but an altogether unbiassed testimony; and secondly, that it be not given for the purpose of procuring advancement for the individual, but simply that it may be the means of promoting the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. For this reason, I have observed, that Paul has an eye to those who had assailed him with calumnies.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

III.

(1) Do we begin again to commend ourselves?—The MSS. present various readings: “Do we begin again to commend ourselves [Nay, not so], unless we desire [which we do not] letters of commendation;” but the Received text is sufficiently supported, and gives a clearer and simpler meaning. Here, again, we have to read between the lines. Titus has told St. Paul what has been said of him at Corinth. Referring, probably, to what he had said in his First Epistle as to the “wisdom” which he preached (1Co_2:6), his having “laid the foundation” (1Co_3:10), his dwelling on his sufferings (1Co_4:11), his preaching without payment (1Co_9:15) as a thing he gloried in, they had sneered at him as always “commending himself.” They had added that it was no wonder that he did so when he had no authoritative letters of commendation from other churches, such as were brought by other teachers. As soon as the words “We are not as the many” had passed his lips, the thought occurs that the same will be said again. He hears it said, as it were, and makes his answer.

Need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you?—We are left to conjecture who are thus referred to. Possibly some of the Apollos party had contrasted the letters which he had brought from Ephesus (Act_18:27) with St. Paul’s want of them. Possibly the Judaising teachers who meet us in 2Co_11:13 had come with credentials of this nature from the Church of Jerusalem. The indignant tone in which St. Paul speaks indicates the latter view as the more probable. The “letters of commendation” deserve notice as an important element in the organisation of the early Church. A Christian travelling with such a letter from any Church was certain to find a welcome in any other. They guaranteed at once his soundness in the faith and his personal character, and served to give a reality to the belief in the “communion” of saints, as the necessary sequel to the recognition of a Catholic or universal Church. It is significant of the part they had played in the social victory of the Christian Church that Julian tried to introduce them into the decaying system which he sought to galvanise into an imitative life (Sozomen. Hist. v. 16).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Do we begin again to commend ourselves?.... The apostle having asserted that he and his fellow ministers always triumphed in Christ, and made manifest the savour of his knowledge in every place; were a sweet savour of Christ to God, did not corrupt the word of God, as some did, but sincerely and faithfully preached Christ; some might insinuate from hence, that he was guilty of arrogance and vain glory; wherefore to remove such a charge, or prevent its being brought, he asks, "do we begin again to commend ourselves?" we do not; what we say, we say honestly, sincerely, in the simplicity of our hearts, without any view to our own glory and applause among men, or for any worldly profit and advantage, or to ingratiate ourselves into your affections; we have no such views: some read these words without an interrogation, "we do begin again to commend ourselves"; as we have done already, in this and the former epistles; and as it is but just and right that we should vindicate our characters, support our good name and reputation, and secure and maintain our credit, which some would maliciously deprive us of:

though we have no need, as some others, of epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you; our persons, characters, and usefulness are too well known, to require commendatory letters front others to you, or from you to others. The false apostles are here struck at, whose practice it was to get letters of commendation from place to place; which they carried about and made use of for their temporal advantage, having nothing truly good and excellent in them to recommend them to others. The apostle does not hereby condemn letters of recommendation, which in proper cases may be very lawfully given, and a good use be made of them; only that he and other Gospel ministers were so well known, as to stand in no need of them.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?

Ver. 1. Do we begin again, &c.] As we had done before, 2Co 1:12.

To commend ourselves] Quod magnificum referente alio fuisset, ipso qui gesserat recensente vanescit. (Plin.) "Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth," Pro 27:2. Laus proprio sordescit in ore. But the apostle was necessitated to it.

As some others, letters of commendation] As the false apostles, who carried it by testimonial; in giving whereof, many good people are much to blame. Beauty needs no letters of commendation, saith Aristotle; much less doth virtue, where it is known. If moral virtue could be seen with mortal eyes, saith Plato, it would soon draw all hearts to itself.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Do we begin again - This is designed evidently to meet an objection. He had been speaking of his triumph in the ministry 2Co 2:14, and of his sincerity and honesty, as contrasted with the conduct of many who corrupted the Word of God, 2Co 2:17. It might be objected that he was magnifying himself in these statements, and designed to commend himself in this manner to the Corinthians. To this he replies in the following verses.

To commend ourselves? - To recommend ourselves; do we speak this in our own praise, in order to obtain your favor.

Or need we, as some others - Probably some who had brought letters of recommendation to them from Judea. The false teachers at Corinth had been originally introduced there by commendatory letters from abroad. These were letters of introduction, and were common among the Greeks, the Romans, and the Jews, as they are now. They were usually given to persons who were about to travel, as there were no inns. and as travelers were dependent on the hospitality of those among whom they traveled.

Of commendation from you - To other congregations. It is implied here by Paul, that he sought no such letter; that he traveled without them; and that he depended on his zeal, and self-denial, and success to make him known, and to give him the affections of those to whom he ministered - a much better recommendation than mere introductory letters. Such letters were, however, sometimes given by Christians, and are by no means improper, Act 18:27. Yet, they do not appear to have been sought or used by the apostles generally. They depended on their miraculous endowments, and on the attending grace of God to make them known.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The apostle had been obliged, in different parts of his first epistle, to say some things to his own advantage, in order to maintain the dignity of his ministry against false teachers, who had endeavoured to lessen his authority. He is again obliged to shew the excellency of his ministry, and the superiority of the gospel over the law of Moses. (Theodoret) --- We have not need, he says, of commendatory letters, like those false teachers: we have only to say that we founded the Church of Corinth, and we shall be sufficiently known. Your religion, your piety, and your virtues are renowned in the whole world. (ver. 2.) This is our letter: we have no need to speak: the effects speak for themselves. But still this is not our doing; for we are not sufficient to think any thing of ourselves. (ver. 5.) This letter is not of our writing; we could only do the same as Moses in the old law, prepare the tables, (ministered by us) it was God himself that wrote the ten commandments, and it is God himself that has written this our letter, by implanting his faith in your hearts. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The apostle, in the former Epistle, had spoken much in the vindication of himself and of his office; he seeth reason to return again to something of the like discourse, being provoked by the many imputations which the false apostles and teachers, in this church, had laid upon him: therefore he saith:

Do we begin again? Or else these words may have a special reference to the last verse of the former chapter; where he had commended himself, as being none of those who corrupted the word of God, but had preached as of God, and in the sight of God. No, (saith the apostle), though some others stand in need of commendatory letters, and are very careful to procure them, (by which others he very probably means the false apostles and teachers, which were Paul’s great enemies), yet I trust I need not any letters commendatory to recommend me to you, any more than letters of recommendation from you to commend me unto any other churches of Christ.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This chapter is closely connected with what goes before, and carries on the vindication of the Apostle's conduct.

1-6. Paraphrase. 'In speaking thus highly of my motives I am not writing a letter to commend myself, nor do I need (like these opponents of mine) letters of recommendation either to you or from you. (2) You, my converts, are my best recommendation, for I think of you with gratitude as do all who know your faith and works. (3) You are, indeed, a very letter of Christ who has used me as His amanuensis, and bear the writing of the Spirit on your hearts. (4) It is such a result of my work as I see in you that assures me that God is using me as an instrument of Christ, (5) not that I trust in my personal ability, but that I look to God for help; (6) for it is He who has given me any ability I possess to proclaim the gospel of Christ.'

1. Again] probably refers to the passages in the severe letter (2 Corinthians 10-13) in which he defended himself and stated his claims to recognition: see especially 2Co_11:22-33; 2Co_12:1-5; 2Co_12:16-19.

As some] The Judaising leaders had probably brought letters from Palestine and charged St. Paul with having no such recommendations. Epistles of commendation] Such Epistles were commonly used in the early Church to introduce strangers; for examples see Romans 16 and Philemon, and cp. Act_15:23-27; Act_18:27.

2. Our epistle] i.e. of commendation.

Known and read] better, known and acknowledged: the Church was an unmistakable witness to the Apostle's labours.

3. Forasmuch as ye are] omitted in RV. Ministered by us] The Apostle regards himself as the scribe of Christ who wrote Christ's words on their hearts. Not with ink, etc.] In this v. the figure is slightly changed; the writing is now that of the Spirit of God on their own hearts. It is no mere matter of paper and ink, but the work of the finger of God; it is written not like the old Law upon tables of stone, but upon living, human hearts.

4. Such trust] i.e. such confidence in you as our letters of commendation. Through Christ to God-ward] my confidence is not in myself, but through Christ in God: i.e. I look to Him for strength and grace through Christ.

5. To think any thing as of ourselves] RV 'To account any thing as from ourselves.'

6. Paraphrase. 'All my power in saving men comes from God, who has given me grace to proclaim a new covenant between Himself and His people—a covenant which is not a formal legal system, but an indwelling, spiritual power, for while the old covenant could only condemn the sinner to death owing to his inability to perform its demands, the new covenant inspires to faith and life.'

Sufficiency] i.e. ability. The new testament] not the book, but, as RV, 'a new covenant'—a new arrangement made by God for man's welfare to which he must submit himself. The letter killeth, etc.] The Law sets up an external standard, which, because we are unable to attain to it, puts us out of heart and makes us despair of success; the Gospel of Christ proclaiming pardon, and bringing us under Christ's influence, calls forth our faith and love, and inspires us ever upward and onward: cp. Romans 7, 8. The spirit is contrasted with the letter. It means the inward inspiring power of the Gospel.

(c) ii. 3:7-4:6. The Glory of the Gospel

The mention of the new covenant suggests a contrast between it and the old. The Gospel is more glorious than the Law, for it is not a lifeless Law but a life-giving Spirit. Therefore its apostles are eager to proclaim it to all. Those who cling to the Law are blind to the truth. But those who receive the Gospel are changed into the likeness of Christ.

7-11. Paraphrase. 'Now if the system which could only declare the sentence of death upon sin was glorious (and glorious it was, for at its giving the very face of Moses was transfigured), (8) the system which brings life and inspiration is more glorious still. (9) I repeat, if the Law was glorious, the Gospel is far more so. (10) For the glory of the Gospel puts the glory of the Law into shadow. (11) For if the transient be glorious, how much more glorious is the permanent!'

7. The ministration of death] i.e. the Law of Moses. Engraven] Exo_32:16; Exo_34:28. The face of Moses] The transfiguration of Moses' face (Exo_34:29) is given as an example of the glory attending the giving of the Law. To be done away] The fading of the glory typified the transitoriness of the Law, which was to give place to the Gospel.

8. Rather glorious] The Gospel was more glorious than the Law because it was a message of forgiveness and not of condemnation, and because it was not a mere legal system, but an inspiring summons.

9. Ministration of righteousness] better, 'of acquittal,' in contrast to 'of condemnation.' The gospel message is one of pardon and reconciliation.

10. That excelleth] The glory of the Law is completely eclipsed by that of the Gospel, which offers forgiveness instead of condemnation.

11. That which is done away, etc.] another aspect of the truth stated in 2Co_3:10.

12-18. Paraphrase. 'Since our hopes of the future of the gospel are so great, we speak frankly and boldly. (13) We do not seek to conceal anything as Moses concealed his face with a veil lest the people should see the glory fading from it. (14) Those who looked upon the giving of the Law did not understand that it was a temporary measure to convince them of sin; and even now their successors do not realise that it has been superseded by Christ, (15) but think that it still remains in force. (16) When, however, they receive Christ into their hearts, they will know the truth. (17) For Christ is the life-giving Spirit who leads men to the truth and sets them free from bondage. (18) And all we who have received Him, gazing as into a mirror on the glorious Personality of the Lord, are transfigured into His likeness in spirit and character in ever-increasing degrees of perfection, through the influence of the Lord who is the Spirit.'

12f. The whole of this contrast between the glory of the new and the glory of the old dispensation seems aimed at the retrograde teaching of the Judaisers in Corinth. They sought to retain the rites and restrictions of the Law, and to conceal the full truth of the Gospel Which does away with the old legal system.

13. In this and the next two vv. we have a good example of St. Paul's habit of blending the allegorical with the historical interpretation of the OT.: see also Gal_4:22-31. The reference here is to Exo_34:33. Could not] RV 'should not.' The end of that which is abolished] i.e. the glory fading from his face.

14. Blinded] RV 'hardened.' The same vail] Note the quick transition from history to allegory. The veil with which Moses covered his face to keep the Israelites from seeing the glory fading is typical of the spiritual veil which keeps Jews and Judaising Christians from seeing that the Law is transitory. Done away in Christ] i.e. when they will truly come under Christ's influence and power they will see that He has made the Law unnecessary, because they will experience the new spirit He bestows.

15. When Moses is read] i.e. when the Law is read: cp. Act_15:21.

16. It] i.e. their heart. The Law is incomprehensible without Christ.

17. The Lord is that Spirit] RV 'The Lord is the Spirit.' Christ is the life-giving Spirit. There is perhaps a reference to 'the ministration of the Spirit' in 2Co_3:8. The Spirit is Christ's Spirit: cp. Act_16:7; (RV) Rom_8:9; 1Pe_1:11. What is meant is that he who turns to Christ shall receive the illuminating and quickening Spirit. Liberty] freedom from the bondage of the Law is the primary meaning; but perhaps freedom from sin is included: cp. Joh_8:31, Joh_8:32.

18. He who keeps the memory and the example of Christ ever before his mind's eye, and tries to follow Him in his life, will gradually come to show in his own character and life an increasing likeness to his Lord.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Defence against the charge of self-recommendation, which St. Paul does not need (vers. 1-3). His sufficiency comes from God (vers. 4-6), who has made him minister of a covenant far more glorious than that given to Hosea (vers. 7-11). This ministry needs no veil upon the face (vers. 12, 13), such as to this day darkens the hearts of the Jews (vers. 14, 15), though it shall one day be removed (vers. 16-18).

Vers. 1-11. St. Paul"s ministry is his sufficient letter of commendation.

Do we begin again to commend ourselves? The last verse of the last chapter might be seized upon by St. Paul"s opponents to renew their charge that he was always praising himself. He anticipates the malignant and meaning smiles with which they would hear such words. The word "again" implies that this charge had already been brought against him, perhaps in consequence of such passages as 1Co_2:16 1Co_3:10 1Co_4:11-14 1Co_9:15-23 1Co_14:18, etc. Such passages might be called self-laudatory and egotistical, were it not that (as St. Paul here explains) they arose only from a sense of the grandeur of his office, of which he was the almost involuntary agent, used by God as it seemed best to him. Hence he says later on (2Co_7:1-8) that self-praise is no commendation, and that the true test of a man is God"s commendation. The verb "I commend," technically used in the same sense as our "commendatory letters," occurs also in Rom_16:1. Or need we, etc.? The reading, h) mh, thus translated, is better supported than eij mh, unless, which would have a somewhat ironical force. The mh in the reading h) mh implies, "Can you possibly think that we need," etc.? Generally, when a stranger came to some Church to which he was not personally known, he carried with him some credentials in the form of letters from accredited authorities. St. Paul treats it as absurd to suppose that he or Timothy should need such letters, either from the Corinthians or to them. As some. He will not name them, but he refers to the Judaists, who vaunted of their credentials in order to disparage St. Paul, who was too great to need and too independent to use them. We can hardly, perhaps, realize the depth and bitterness of antagonism concealed under that word "some" in 1Co_4:18; Gal_1:7 Gal_2:12. It is not meant that there was anything discreditable in using such letters (for Apollos had used them, (Act_18:27) but the disgraceful thing was that St. Paul should be disparaged for not bringing them. Epistles of commendation. The phrase, ejpistolai letters was familiar in later Greek. In days when there were few public hostels, and when it was both a duty and a necessity for small and persecuted communities like those of the Jews and Christians to practise hospitality, (Rom_12:13; Heb_13:2 etc.) it was customary both for synagogues and Churches to providetheir friends and emissaries with authentic testimonials. Otherwise they might have been deceived by wandering impostors, as, in fact, the Christians were deceived by the vagabond quack Peregrinus. We can easily see how the custom of using such letters might be abused by idle, restless, and intriguing persons, who have never found it very difficult to procure them. We find traces of their honest use by Phoebe, by Silas and Jude, by Apollos, by Mark, and by Zenas, in Rom_16:1; Act_18:27; Col_4:10; Tit_3:13; and of their unfair use by certain Judaists, in Gal_1:7; Gal_2:12. Nothing can more forcibly illustrate the necessity for St. Paul"s protest against the idle vaunt of possessing such letters, than the fact that, more than a century afterwards, we find malignant innuendoes aimed at St. Paul in the pseudo-Clementines, under the name of" the enemy" and "Simon Magus" and "a deceiver." He is there spoken of as using letters from the high priest (which, indeed, St. Paul had done as Saul of Tarsus,; (Act_9:1, Act_9:2) and the Churches are warned never to receive any one who cannot bring credentials from James; so deep-rooted among the Judaists was the antagonism to the independent apostolate and daring originality of the apostle of the Gentiles! Dr. Plumptre quotes Sozomen ("H.E.", 5:16) for the curious fact that the Emperor Julian tried to introduce the system of "commendatory letters" into his revived paganism. Or letters of commendation from you. The substitution of "letters" for "epistles" is an instance of the almost childish fondness for unnecessary synonyms, which is one of the defects of the Authorized Version. The true reading probably is "to you or from you" (a, A, B, C). The word "commendatory" (sustatikon) is omitted in A, B, C. Or from you. It was worse than absurd to suppose that St. Paul should need those literae formatae to a Church of which he was the thunder; and nothing but the boundless "inflation" which characterized the Corinthians could have led them to imagine that he needed letters from them to other Churches, as though, forsooth, they were the primary Church or the only church. (1Co_14:36)

Vers. 1-5.

Soul-literature.

we begin again to commend ourselves?" etc. In the early Church it was customary for the member who was travelling into another locality to take with him a letter of commendation from the Church to which he or she belonged. The apostle says he did not require such a document from the Corinthian Church, as some others did, for they themselves were letters written on his own heart; and his ministry was a letter written on their hearts also. They were the living "epistles of Christ,... written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." Our subject is soul-literature, or Christianity written on the heart; and I offer five remarks.

I Christianity written on the soul is CHRISTIANITY IN THE MOST LEGIBLE FORM. There are some whose caligraphy is difficult to decipher and whose thoughts are difficult to understand; their ideas are misty and their style involved; but what is written on the soul is written so clearly that a child can make it out.

II Christianity written on the soul is CHRISTIANITY IN THE MOST CONVINCING FORM. Books have been written on the evidences of Christianity; not a few by the ablest men of their times, such as Paley, Lardner, Butler. But one life permeated and fashioned by the Christian spirit is a far more convincing power than any or all of their most magnificent productions. He who has been transformed by Christianity from the selfish, the sensual, and corrupt, into the spiritual, the benevolent, and the holy, furnishes an argument that baffles all controversy and penetrates the heart.

III Christianity written on the soul is CHRISTIANITY IN THE MOST PERSUASIVE FORM. There are many books "persuasive to piety," and many of them very powerful; but the most powerful of them are weak indeed compared to the mighty force of a Christly life. There is a magnetism in gospel truth embodied, which you seek for in vain in any written work. When the "Word is made flesh" it becomes "mighty through God.

IV Christianity written on the soul is CHRISTIANITY IN THE MOST ENDURING FORM. The tablet is imperishable. You may put truth on paper, but the paper will moulder; put it into institutions, but the institutions will dissolve as a cloud; put it on marble or brass, but these are corruptible.

V Christianity written on the soul is CHRISTIANITY IN THE DIVINEST FORM. The human hand can inscribe it on parchment or engrave it on stone, but God only can write it on the heart. "The Spirit of the living God." Paul was but the amanuensis, God is the Author.

HOMILIES BY C. LIPSCOMB Vers. 1-6.

No letters of commendation needed; his converts were epistles.

In the close of the last chapter St. Paul had spoken of men who corrupted the Word of God (retailed it as a commodity for their own profit), and he had put himself and his ministry in contrast to them. Likely enough, this would provoke criticism. The quick interrogation comes Was he commending himself, or did he need letters of commendation to them and from them? "Ye are our epistle written on his heart, known and read of all men an epistle coming from Christ, and produced instrumentally by him as Christ"s agent; not written with ink, but by the Spirit; "not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." With regard to the figure, it is probable that there was not another occasion in his life when it would have occurred to his imagination. Circumstances conspired with his state of mind. to produce it, and one can almost trace the sequence of associations out of which it came. What solicitude the former Epistle had given him! What would be the effect? Amid his thanksgiving to God (2Co_11:14) it was a matter of joy that he had written this letter, and he could now see God"s hand very clearly in its production. Was not that Epistle a new and additional proof that he was Christ"s apostle? Yet what was that Epistle, written with ink, to this epistle of Christ," recorded on the soul, a part of itself, a part of its immortality? It was manifestly declared" that they were Christ"s epistle, and it was equally clear that this epistle was due to his ministration. "Ministered by us." Had. they not given a new and striking evidence of the two facts, viz. Christ the Author of the epistle written on their hearts, and he the apostle, the ministerial agent of the work? It was a fresh motive to confidence: "Such trust have we through Christ to God-ward." Are we boasting of the late success of our Epistle of our former successes? Nay; how can we be "sufficient of ourselves," or rely on our own wisdom and strength, when we have just confessed that we wrote to you "out of much affliction and anguish of heart, with many tears," and while the period of suspense lasted we were unfitted for our work, and at last, to rest in our spirit, we left Troas for Macedonia so as to see Titus the sooner? Nay; "our sufficiency is of God." It is he who also "hath made us able ministers of the New Testament." And wherein differs this new covenant from the old? Already he had spoken of "tables of stone" as contrasted with "fleshy tables of the heart," and the antithesis is resumed and further elaborated. The covenant is new, it is of the spirit, it is of the spirit that giveth life. Opposite in these particulars was the old covenant, the Mosaic Law, its ministers being cheifly engaged in executing a system of rules and ceremonials, adhering in all things to the exact language, and concerning themselves in no wise beyond the outward form. The external man with his interests and fortunes occupied attention. A nation was to exemplify the system, and therefore, by necessity, it largely addressed the senses, borrowing its motives and enforcing its penalties from a consideration of objects near and palpable. If we read Romans 7. we see what St. Paul meant by "the letter killeth." On the other hand, the dispensation of the spirit "giveth life." The antithesis is stated in the strongest possible form death and life. This, accordingly, was the apostle"s "sufficiency," a spiritual wisdom for enlightenment, a spiritual power for carrying out his apostolic plans, and an attained spiritual result seen in the recovery of Gentiles from the degradation of idolatry, and in the freedom of Jews from the bondage of the Mosaic Law. L.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Vers. 1-3.

The best commendation.

It was an early custom in the Christian Church for teachers to carry with them "letters of commendation" when they passed from town to town. Of this custom we have an indication in, Act_18:27, "When Apollos was disposed to pass into Achaia Corinth) the brethren of Ephesus wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him." And the thirteenth canon of the Council of Chalcedon ordained that "clergymen coming to a city where they were unknown, should not be allowed to officiate without letters commendatory from their own bishop." It seems to have been made a charge against the apostle that he never presented any credentials, but assumed an authority for which he had no warrant. The apostle is here replying to such a charge, and his plea is that, having so manifestly received the greater commendation of God"s witness with his work, he in no sense can need man"s good word. His converts were the best possible commendation. His letters were those written by God as truth on human hearts. From the Christian standpoint the only satisfactory proof of call to ministry is the Divine seal set on the work of the ministry. It was the plea of St. Peter, when accounting for his admitting the Gentiles into the privileges of the Christian Church, that the "Holy Ghost had fallen upon them, even as upon us at the beginning." And that was felt to be an all-sufficient attestation of the work which St. Peter had done. In the same way St. Paul pleads that spiritual results had followed his ministry among the Corinthians. God had set his seal upon it, and that was his wholly satisfactory commendation, and the basis of any authority he claimed. Speaking in a figure he says, "The Corinthians are an epistle." He regards Christ as the Author, and himself as the amanuensis. The characters of this epistle were preserved by no visible or perishable medium, but by the invisible operation of the Spirit. We consider

I THE USEFULNESS OF HUMAN COMMENDATIONS. Such are found to be necessary in the intercourse of nations. The ambassador is duly furnished with his credentials; and the representative of the business firm carries with him his authority to act in the name of the firm. So it is found of practical value that clergymen and ministers going to other districts or countries should have such attestation as will win for them the confidence of those to whom they may happen to minister. Several questions of interest arise in connection with this subject.

1. From what central bodies, or from what individuals, should such lettersof commendation come?

2. What should they properly concern? And can they ever wisely gobeyond the attestation of personal character and ministerial efficiency? Men must be judged by their works rather than by the opinion which others may have formed concerning them. Still, in every age, Churches have needed to be guarded against plausible but unworthy men, who force themselves into positions of influence unawares. And this has been the special trouble of all smaller Churches, and those existing apart from Christian organizations. Every ordinary man should depend for his acceptance upon his letters of recommendation.

II THE LIMITATION OF THE DEMAND FOR SUCH LETTERS. Sometimes they are merely vexations. The demand for them is a mere piece of officialism. Some men so stand before the world that no letters about them can be necessary. And the letters may only. concern

(1) character,

(2) efficiency.

They should not deal with disputable opinions. A full and fair estimate of character is sufficient to give confidence that a man"s work will be honest and faithful. Commendations of so called "orthodoxy" or "heterodoxy" can never be anything but mischievous. We may commend the man; we had better take care not to commend his opinions. Of these let those to whom he ministers be the judges.

III GOD"S WAYS OF MAKING SUCH LETTERS WHOLLY UNNECESSARY. From the case of St. Paul we learn that God may so manifestly show his acceptance of a man and a man"s work that no other credential can possibly be necessary. A man"s labours and successes may sufficiently declare that he is a man of God, a messenger of God. Illustrate by such cases as Luther, Whitefield, Brainerd, etc. We must well apprehend that, because a thing is unusual, it is not therefore untrue. And in every age men have been raised up whose strongly marked individuality leads them to take fresh lines of thought and of work. Men may hesitate to give such men their credentials; it is enough if God manifestly accepts them. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Do we begin again to recommend ourselves - Is it needful? Have I nothing but my own word to recommend me? St. Paul chiefly here intends himself; though not excluding Timotheus, Titus, and Silvanus. Unless we need - As if he had said, Do I indeed want such recommendation?

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The Glory of the New Testament Ministry.

The apostle’s letter of commendation:

v. 1. Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you?

v. 2. Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men,

v. 3. forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the he art.

The apostle was often driven to self-defense, and therefore he also made statements concerning his work which his opponents, ever on the lookout for faults and flaws, maliciously explained as self-glorification, See 1Co 9:15; 1Co 14:18; 1Co 15:10. Since, then, Paul had just written that his preaching of the Gospel was done in all sincerity and the opponents might take occasion to repeat their charge, he guards against their insinuation: Do we begin once more to commend ourselves? -of which he had been falsely accused. His question plainly states that there is not a grain of sinful presumption in the declarations which he has made. And he repeats, with emphasis: Or do we stand in need of commending letters to you or from you, like certain other people? This is a fine bit of irony directed against the false apostles and Judaizing teachers it seems that some of these, upon their arrival at Corinth, produced such letters written by prominent members of the older congregations, especially by men with Judaizing tendencies. But Paul scouts and scorns the idea that he "who first brought the Gospel to Corinth should need to present formal credentials to the Corinthian church; and it would lie equally anomalous that he should seek recommendations from them. " The idea was preposterous, absurd. The witness of his character and office is far superior to any that could be given him by any congregation.

With winning tact the apostle now turns to the Corinthians with the statement. You are our letter, written in our hearts, known, acknowledged, and read by all men The believers at Corinth were a testimonial, a letter of recommendation, superior to any that the intruders were able to produce. Their whole being in Christ they owed to his work of planting and building, of teaching and educating. What need had Paul of further letters? They were his credentials, written in his heart, he himself being writer, bearer, and receiver of this letter. The weal and woe, the welfare of the congregation at Corinth, that was the apostle’s continued concern; that he bore in his heart with loving prayer. And the letter which he thus bore as a continual testimony was open to the knowledge of the world as such, and it could be read without difficulty: both handwriting and contents could be recognized and appropriated by all beholders that cared to investigate. "Facts speak louder than words."

The apostle explains this more fully: Manifested that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by our service: Christ was the Author, Paul acted as His secretary. And the letter itself was not written with ink on long strips or pieces of papyrus after the manner of the time, but by the Spirit of the living God. Through the instrumentality of the Spirit the truth of the Gospel has been imprinted upon their hearts, as the apostle says: Not on stone tablets, but on tablets that are hearts of flesh. Christ the Author, the Holy Ghost the Transmitter of divine power, Paul the secretary and minister: in that way this wonderful letter was composed. The reference used by Paul reminds of an event in the history of Israel, when the Decalogue was written by the finger of God upon stone tablets. But here the Gospel, the gracious news of the atonement through the redemption of Christ, is implanted into the heart as a lasting blessing: Christ dwelling in the heart by faith.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our apostle here expostulates the case with the Corinthians, why they should at any time hearken to the false apostles, who, by relecting upon his person and ministry, made it needful for him to vindicate both from contempt and scorn.

As if he had said, "What! do I need to begin again in this second epistle, as I did in the first, to commend myself, and the effects of my ministry, among you? Or need I commendatory letters either to you or from you, as the false teachers amongst you have?

No, verily, you yourselves, by your conversion to Christianity, and embracing the faith of the gospel, are a better attestation and testimonial to the world, of the success of my ministry, than any written epistle is or can be: for you are an epsitle written in my heart; that is, your conversion by my ministry is the joy and rejoicing of my heart; there it is that I continually carry a thankful and honourable remembrance of you, and bear you upon my heart, whenever I go in and out before the Lord.

And as my epistle, you are known and read of all men; that is, all Christians, far and near, take notice of you as a church which God has eminently blessed my ministry to the conversion and edification of."

But lest the apostle should seem too assuming in calling the Corinthians his epistle, in the next words he calls them the epistle of Christ, 2Co 3:3, Ye are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, that is, your faith and conversion was the work of Christ’s Spirit, though wrought by my ministry; he having wrote his law in your hearts after a more excellent manner than any thing that can be written with ink and paper; not as the ten commandments of old were written, in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart; that is, in your hearts made soft and pliable and ready to obey the word and will of God, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, using my ministry as the pen or instrument in his hand in order thereunto.

Learn hence, 1. That it is a very great favour from God when his ministers can see the success of their labours in the hearts and lives of any of their people; when they can say, Ye are our epistle.

Learn, 2. That nothing doth so highly commend our ministry as our people’s proficiency: their improvement in knowledge, their stedfastness in the faith, their growth in grace and holiness, is beyond all verbal commendations and acknowledgments whatsoever. Sermons fetch not applause from men’s renown; the people’s practice is the preacher’s crown.

Learn, 3. That whatever success the faithful ministers of Christ meet with either in the work of conversion or edification, among a people, they attribute the whole efficiency of it unto God, ascribing nothing more than a bare instrumentality to themselves: Ye are the epistle of Christ, says the apostle, ministered by us; Christ has written his law in your hearts by my ministry: as if he had said, "Christ is the writer, the pen is the minister, the ink the Spirit, the paper, or table that receives the impression, is the heart, and the law of God, the writing writ therein and thereupon."

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ALL CHRISTIANS ARE GOD’S LETTERS

1-3. This wicked world will never read the Bible. When they read it, they never can understand it, unless they become penitent and pray till the Holy Spirit opens their understanding and reveals it to them. Hence none of the books constituting the Bible are addressed to sinners. Jesus says: “Ye are the light of the world.” Here Paul tells us that we are “letters written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.” Hence the silly folly of those heretics who deny the contact of the Holy Spirit with the human spirit. Pursuant to this illustration they would have to write a letter with ink and never permit it to come in contact with the paper, as the contact of Spirit with spirit is as real as that of the paper and ink when you write the letter. Paul recognizes the fact that they also had a copy of their converts in their hearts. These letters are the hope of the world, as the wicked will read us, though they will not read the Bible. What a grand conception! Every saint is the letter of Christ for all the world to read. O, how Satan has strewn the world with counterfeit letters, which the people read and believe and go down to Hell by millions.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

[The closing verse of chapter two are capable of being construed as an outburst of self-laudation, and as the apostle well knew that his enemies at Corinth accused him of this very vice, and hence would make the most of words susceptible of misconstruction, he anticipates their move by discussing not only his words, but the whole subject of this (apparent) self-glorying.] Are we beginning again [for places where he might be construed as having done so before, see 1Co_2:6 ; 1Co_4:3 ; 1Co_4:4 ; 1Co_4:14-16 ; 1Co_7:7 ; 1Co_9:1-6 ; 1Co_9:15 ; 1Co_9:19 ; 1Co_9:26-27 ; 1Co_14:18 ; 1Co_16:10 ] to commend ourselves? or need we, as do some, epistles of commendation to you or from you? [These questions are cuttingly ironical. Evidently his opponents at Corinth had come thither with letters of commendation, either from brethren of repute, or from churches, and had drawn disparaging contrasts between their own formal, official, letter-proved standing in the church, and what they were pleased to describe as Paul's self-asserted, self-manufactured, boast-sustained standing. The apostle therefore turns the edge of their own weapon against them, and shows how ridiculous their claims to reverence and respect were in comparison with his own. Such powerless creatures needed letters of commendation--it was all they had to commend them! Without letters they would be utter nobodies. But the letter which was the top of their honor did not rise to the level of the bottom of the apostle's honor. For himself how ridiculous such letters would be! Could he bring a letter to them? it would be like a father seeking introduction and commendation to his own children. Could he ask a letter from them? why, all the knowledge, grace, etc., which made them capable of commending had come from him, their founder, so that their commendation would, after all, be only another form of self-commendation. Could they think that he overpraised himself to them, hoping thus to cozen them into giving him exaggerated, undeserved commendation to others ? Very early the churches learned to grant letters of commendation. See Rom_16:1 ; Act_18:27 ; Act_15:25 ; Col_4:10 ; Tit_3:13 ; but such commendation was always fallible, and liable therefore to abuse-- Gal_1:7 ; Gal_2:12 ]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2 Corinthians Chapter 3

These words give rise to an exposition of the gospel in contrast with the law, which the false teachers mixed up with the gospel. He gives this exposition with the most touching appeal to the heart of the Corinthians, who had been converted through his means. Did he begin speaking of his ministry to commend himself anew, or did he need, as others, letters of commendation to them or from them? They were his letters of commendation, the striking proof of the power of his ministry, a proof which he carried always in his heart, ready to bring it forward on every occasion. He can say this now, being happy in their obedience. And why did they serve as a letter in his favour? Because in their faith they were the living expression of his doctrine. They were Christ’s letter of commendation, which, by means of his ministry, had been written on the fleshy tables of the heart by the power of the Holy Ghost, as the law had been graven on tables of stone by God Himself.

This was Paul’s confidence with regard to his ministry; his competency came from God for the ministry of the new covenant, not of the letter (not even the letter of this covenant, any more than the letter of anything else) but of the Spirit, the true force of the purpose of God, as the Spirit gave it. For the letter kills, as a rule imposed on man; the Spirit quickens, as the power of God in grace-the purpose of God communicated to the heart of man by the power of God, who imparted it to him that he might enjoy it. Now the subject of this ministry brought out the difference between it and the ministry of the law yet more strongly. The law, graven on stones, had been introduced with glory, although it was a thing that was to pass away as a means of relation between God and men. It was a ministry of death, for they were only to live by keeping it. Nor could it be otherwise ordered than on this principle. A law was to be kept; but man being already a sinner by nature and by will, having desires which the law forbade, that law could only be death to him-it was a ministry of death. It was a ministry of condemnation because the authority of God came in to give to the law the sanction of condemnation against every soul that should break it. It was a ministry of death and of condemnation because man was a sinner.

And observe, here, that to mingle grace with the law changes nothing in its effect, except to aggravate the penalty that results from it by aggravating the guilt of him who violated the law, inasmuch as he violated it in spite of the goodness and the grace. For it was still the law, and man was called to satisfy the responsibility under which the law placed him. “The soul that sinneth,” said Jehovah to Moses, “will I blot out of my book.” The figure used by the apostle shews that he is speaking of the second descent of Moses from Mount Sinai, when he had heard the name of Jehovah proclaimed, merciful and gracious. The face of Moses did not shine the first time that he came down: he broke the tables before he went into the camp. The second time God made all His goodness pass before him, and the face of Moses reflected the glory which he had seen, partial as it may have been. But Israel could not bear this reflection; for how can it be borne, when it must judge the secrets of the heart after all? For, though grace had been shewn in sparing on Moses’ intercession, the exigency of the law was still maintained, and every one was to suffer the consequences of his own disobedience. Thus the character of the law prevented Israel from understanding even the glory which was in the ordinances, as a figure of that which was better and permanent; and the whole system ordained by the hand of Moses was veiled to their eyes, and the people fell under the letter, even in that part of the law which was a testimony of things to be spoken afterwards. It was according to the wisdom of God that it should be so; for in this way all the effect of the law, as brought to bear on the heart and conscience of man, has been fully developed.

There are many Christians who make a law of Christ Himself, and in thinking of His love as a fresh motive to oblige them to love Him, think of it only as an obligation, a very great increase to the measure of the obligation which lies upon them, an obligation which they feel bound to satisfy. That is to say, they are still under the law, and consequently under condemnation.

But the ministry which the apostle fulfilled was not this; it was the ministry of righteousness and of the Spirit, not as requiring righteousness in order to stand before God, but as revealing it. Christ was this righteousness, made such on God’s part for us; and we are made the righteousness of God in Him. The gospel proclaimed righteousness on God’s part, instead of requiring it from man according to the law. Now the Holy Ghost could be the seal of that righteousness. He could come down upon the man Christ, because He was perfectly approved of God; He was righteous-the righteous One. He came down upon us, because we are made the righteousness of God in Christ. Thus it was the ministry of the Spirit; His power wrought in it. He was bestowed when that which it announced was received by faith; and with the Spirit they also received understanding of the mind and purposes of God, as they were revealed in the Person of a glorified Christ, in whom the righteousness of God was revealed and subsisted eternally before Him.

Thus the apostle unites, in the self-same thought, the mind of God in the word according to the Spirit, the glory of Christ who had been hidden in it under the letter, and the Holy Ghost Himself, who gave its force, revealed that glory, and, by dwelling and working in the believer, enables him to enjoy it. Thus, where the Spirit was, there was liberty; they were no longer under the yoke of the law, of the fear of death, and of condemnation. They were in Christ before God, in peace before Him, according to perfect love and that favour which is better than life, even as it shone upon Christ, without a veil, according to the grace which reigns by righteousness. When it is said, “Now the Lord is that spirit,” allusion is made to2 Corinthians 3:6; 2Co 3:7-16 is a parenthesis. Christ glorified is the true thought of the Spirit which God had previously hidden under figures. And here is the practical result: they beheld the Lord with open (that is, with unveiled) face; they were able to do it. The glory of the face of Moses judged the thoughts and intents of the hearts, causing terror by threatening the disobedient and the sinner with death and condemnation. Who could stand in the presence of God? But the glory of the face of Jesus, a man on high, is the proof that all the sins of those who behold it are blotted out; for He who is there bore them all before He ascended, and He needed to put them all away in order to enter into that glory. We contemplate that glory by the Spirit, who has been given us in virtue of Christ’s having ascended into it. He did not say, “I will go up; peradventure I shall make atonement.” He made the atonement and went up. Therefore we gaze upon it with joy, we love to behold it: each ray that we see is the proof that in the eyes of God our sins are no more. Christ has been made sin for us; He is in the glory. Now, in thus beholding the glory with affection, with intelligence, taking delight in it, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the power of the Holy Ghost, who enables us to realise and to enjoy these things; and in this is Christian progress. Thus the assembly too becomes the epistle of Christ.

The allusion made at the same time to the Jews at the end of the parenthesis, where the apostle makes a comparison between the two systems, is most touching. The veil, he says, is taken away in Christ. Nothing is now veiled. The glorious substance is accomplished. The veil is on the heart of the Jews, when they read the Old Testament. Now every time that Moses entered into the tabernacle to speak to God, or to hear Him, he took off his veil. Thus, says the apostle, when Israel shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.

There is but one more remark to be made. “The things that remain” [2] are the subject the gospel treats of, not the ministry which announces it-the glory of the Person of Jesus Christ, the substance of that which the Jewish ordinances represented only in figure.

The apostle returns to the subject of his ministry in connection with his sufferings, shewing that this doctrine of a Christ victorious over death, truly received into the heart, makes us victorious over all fear of death, and over all the sufferings that are linked with the earthen vessel in which this treasure is carried.

Footnotes for 2 Corinthians Chapter 3

2: See 2Co 3:11.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1–6. Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Paul had just spoken of his triumphs. Opposers, such as were in Corinth, might insist that he was boasting. Need we … epistles of commendation? No doubt there is a reference made to letters which the Judaizing teachers, who had come to Corinth, carried. They might need them, but he did not.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Paul reminds them that he is not boasting as he tells them about what he has done through Christ.

Are we beginning to praise ourselves again?

Paul uses this question to emphasize that they are not bragging about themselves. AT: "We are not beginning to praise ourselves again" (See: Rhetorical Question)

We do not need letters of recommendation to you or from you, like some people, do we?

Paul says this to express that the Corinthians already know about Paul and Timothy's good reputation. The question prompts a negative answer. AT: "We certainly do not need letters of recommendation to you or from you, like some people do" (See: Rhetorical Question)

letters of recommendation

This is a letter that a person writes to introduce and give their approval of someone else.

You yourselves are our letter of recommendation

Paul speaks of the Corinthians as if they are a letter of recommendation. That they have become believers serves to validate Paul's ministry to others. AT: "You yourselves are like our letter of recommendation" (See: Metaphor)

written on our hearts

Here the word "hearts" refers to their thoughts and emotions. Possible meanings are 1) Paul and his coworkers are sure about the Corinthians being their letter of recommendation or 2) Paul and his coworkers care very deeply for the Corinthians. (See: Metonymy)

written on our hearts

This can be stated in active form with "Christ" as the implied subject. AT: "which Christ has written on our hearts" (See: Active or Passive)

known and read by all people

This can be stated in active form. AT: "that all people can know and read" (See: Active or Passive)

you are a letter from Christ

Paul clarifies that Christ is the one who has written the letter. AT: "you are a letter that Christ has written" (See: Metaphor and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

delivered by us

"brought by us"

It was written not with ink ... on tablets of human hearts

Paul clarifies that the Corinthians are like a spiritual letter, not like a letter that humans write with physical objects.

It was written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God

This can be stated in active form. AT: "It is not a letter that people wrote with ink but a letter that the Spirit of the living God wrote" (See: Active or Passive and Ellipsis)

It was not written on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts

This can be stated in active form. AT: "It is not a letter that people engraved on stone tablets but a letter that the Spirit of the living God wrote on tablets of human hearts" (See: Active or Passive and Ellipsis)

tablets of human hearts

Paul speaks of their hearts as if they are flat pieces of stone or clay upon which people engraved letters. (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

praise

epistle

heart

Christ

Holy Spirit

life

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

1–6. These opening verses deal with a difficulty which had been growing at Corinth. He was so often obliged to speak of himself and his authority, that he laid himself open to the sneering reminder that “self-praise is no recommendation.” The outburst of praise in 2Co 2:14-17 is likely to provoke this sneer once more. So, before going on with his Apologia, he turns aside to deal with this. ‘Do not think that I am writing a testimonial for myself. I have no need of anything of the kind. You are my testimonial. Any ability which Apostles may have is not their own, but comes from God.’

1. ἢ μή (אBCDFG, Vulg. Syrr.) rather than εἰ μή (AKLP, Arm., Chrys.); and ὥς τινες (אBCD3FGKLP) rather than ὥσπερ τινές (AD1 and some cursives); and ἰξ ὑμῶν without addition (אABC, Copt. Arm. Aeth.) rather than with συστατικῶν (DFGKLP, Syrr. Goth.).

1. Ἀρχόμεθα πάλιν ἑαυτοὺς συνιστάνειν; Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? This looks like a reference to a charge which had been brought against him. Such passages as 1Co 2:16; 1Co 3:10; 1Co 9:1-5; 1Co 9:20-27; 1Co 14:18; 1Co 15:10 might easily lead to such accusations. And if 10–13 is part of the second lost letter, the πάλιν here is still more intelligible, for there is plenty of self-commendation in those four chapters. See on 2Co 1:23, 2Co 2:4; 2Co 2:9. For συνιστάνειν in the sense of ‘commend,’ which is specially common in this letter (2Co 4:2, 2Co 5:12, 2Co 6:4; 2Co 6:11-12; 2Co 6:18), comp. Rom 16:1. Its other N.T. meaning is ‘establish by argument, prove by evidence’ (2Co 7:11; Rom 5:8; Gal 2:18). The notion of ‘bringing together,’ in the one case persons, in the other things, connects the two uses, which Hesychius marks as ἐπαινεῖν and βεβαιοῦν.

ἢ μὴ χρῄζομεν ὥς τινες. See critical note. The ‘others’ of the A.V. has no authority. The μή of course implies a negative reply. Elsewhere S. Paul speaks of his opponents as τινές (1Co 4:18; 1Co 15:12; Gal 1:7). Here they are the οἱ πολλοί of 2Co 2:17, who had brought commendatory letters from some congregation or other, and had tried to discredit the Apostle, because he had nothing of the kind. Comp. the commendation of Titus and his companion (2Co 8:22-24), of Timothy (1Co 16:10-11), of Judas and Silas (Act 15:25-27), of Apollos (Act 18:27), and of Demetrius (2Jn 1:12). The Epistle to Philemon is a συστατικὴ ἑπιστολή. For examples of such letters in the early Church see Suicer. They were very necessary as a guarantee that the visitor (1) might safely be entertained as a guest, (2) might rightly be admitted to communion. See Paley, Horae Paulinae iv. 10. The ἐξ ὑμῶν implies that the Judaizers got the Corinthians to give them commendatory letters.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Do we begin again. Rev., are we beginning. As if anticipating, the taunt so often repeated, that he had no commendatory letters, and therefore was forced to commend himself by self - laudation and by dishonest means. See ch. 2Co 4:2; 2Co 10:12. You will say, "You are beginning again the old strain of self - commendation as in the first epistle." See 1Co 9:15 - 21.

To commend [συνισταναι] . See on Rom 3:5.

Some others. Others is superfluous. The reference is to certain false teachers accredited by churches or by other well - known teachers.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.