2 Corinthians 3

September 4, 2022 · Ben Hoyer · 23:43

A study of 2 Corinthians 3:4-11, where Paul defends his ministry, calling the Corinthians his living "letter of recommendation" written by the Spirit, and contrasts the fading glory of the old covenant carved in stone with the surpassing glory of the new covenant of the Spirit.

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For us this morning, I want to look at the New Testament text which within 1 Corinthians or actually 2 Corinthians. I'm going to get the exact reference. Then Corinthians chapter 3 verse 4. You know, Corinthians, we have a lot of correspondence with Corinth. I don't know why we have more correspondence with Corinth than the churches in Belays or in Philippi.

Except that Corinth was a really big city and so maybe there was just a lot going on there. But we have these two letters, 1 Corinthians and most scholars agree that it's like at least three letters that we call 1 Corinthians 2. Maybe there's many 4 letters that are combined to make 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians. And remember that it's the Apostle Paul, the one that was called with persecuting the church, who Jesus came down on the Damascus Road.

He got converted, became a real missionary, first real pastoral church producer, missionary in the church, walked around Asia Minor three times just because it's all over the place. And then he'll write letters to ask them, so of course Paul has written most of our New Testament. And what's happened here in 2 Corinthians is after Paul leaves, you think about it, Paul is creating a market behind him actually, right?

He goes to the synagogues and to the marketplaces, announces that Jesus of Nazareth, though he was killed, was resurrected and ascended, though he died, will never die again, that he's the king above all kings. He's established a reign that will endure forever and we can live under that reign now. And though death may claim us, it won't lay hold to us, that like Christ, we all will be raised. And live under his authority and reign forever.

We can start living there now, let's gather together in scriptures wherever we can, in homes, in cataphones, wherever we can find a faith and we'll all live under the reign of Jesus and wait for him to return. This is what Paul is walking around Asia Minor saying, and he's pulling together communities, the people that are doing that and they're holding something in common. At the very beginning in Jerusalem, at Pentecost, they held all things in common, then that very quickly got problematic, right?

When the like summer camps feel of waiting for Jesus to come back, war off and they have to continue to live, they can't hold all this in common, but pretty quickly they'll start holding some things in common. And different from the synagogues system, they have like a leader, they call them a pastor or an elder and it stays with the church, right? And they want to take care of them, Paul says it's appropriate that you should pay. See what I'm saying? Now we have jobs that we've created that people can slide into.

And so what happens as Paul leads, pretty regularly we can see is people come behind us and try and slide into places of teaching that Paul has left behind. There's a group of people who want to be led, there's ambiguity about what it looks like to follow the way of Jesus, a charismatic person might come in and Paul at different points is how many to defend his interpretation of what it means to follow the way of Jesus. Much of the blood is clarifying how do we live now under the grain of Jesus in a world

where we're waiting for a different term that doesn't recognize his authority? How do we engage in promise? How do we treat one another? And in this section in 7th Corinthians, he's having to do that. If you look at 7th Corinthians, it's ! So, I'm going to say that in the first chapter 3, the verses that gave us a 4 to 11, but in order to understand what the heck is said in verse 4, you have to look at verses 1 to 3. So, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 1, are we getting to commend ourselves again?

When it says we, talking about ourselves and his crew, are we having to defend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or promise? Do we need some letters of proof that we are of the right authority, the one sent by Christ and his apostles? Verse 2, he said, Paul says, you yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hopes

to be known and read by all, and you show that you are a letter from Christ to deliver the following, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets or stone, or on tablets of human heart, or soul. Such is the confidence that we call through Christ, for God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us,

but our sufficiency is from God, who made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not the letter of the spirit, because of that it kills, but the spirit is lying. Now, if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone came the such story that the Israelites could not gain and those who saved because of its glory, which will be brought to an end. Will not the ministry of the spirit have even more glory?

Or if there is glory in the ministry of condemnation and ministry of righteousness, it's much far as to get in the glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came for much more will what is permanent at glory, says glory a lot there, than no offense. He's trying to build a defense about what's happening and the capacity to power an opportunity in front of the Corinthians

and in front of us today. So let's look briefly here at verse 7. Now, if the ministry of death carved in letter on stone, ministry of death, over the eagle bed, look at verse 6. He's saying they are competent in this new covenant, to the ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter of the spirit, for the letter of the spirit, but the spirit of the life. He talked about this in a couple of other places, the letter of the law, the spirit of the law,

and here he's talking about the law of the letter which Moses stabbed, right? Because he comes to that later, now the ministry of death carved in letters on stone, came with glory, such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses, his faith. Remember that story about the Israelites are in the desert? And God is committed to doing something different. When you follow the whole story of the scriptures and you are able to look at it in large swaths

and get instead of getting bogged down in the rituals of it, you see the God who made the world out of his own imagination and then created humanity as a capstone to be image-bearers in the world, to represent himself to the world, and that they would be the people who call attention to the person of God, and of course, then humanity steps out of place and tries to be God himself, and then just drives the whole story.

But when he gets to the Israelites in the desert, he finds something different. The unique thing about the God of creation in life is its extreme persistence. You never get lost on the creation. And at Israel, though he had generations of people who could truly try and be God to their own demands, they can't handle the responsibility. When humanity tries to assume the citizens and responsibilities reserved for God, their life begins to look like anxiety and fear that begins to laugh at in anger

and resentment and jealousy. When humanity tries to assume the responsibility of God, they can't handle it, and they're crushed under the pressure. And so miraculously, outside of it, God is designed to do something else because I need to come out and be among humanity again. And so he imagines the system. He gives to Moses just like nearer of the heavenly city. And says, cheers how things work. In the heaven of the city, God is at the center.

And God's existence and presence emanates out towards the humanity who needs it. And it's his presence, his manifest presence, that makes it possible for all things to live in order. For humanity to be deep like maintainers, sustainers, semi-creators, like sub-creators of the God and the world. So he creates the system and communicates it to Moses. And the mountain stakes, and he writes these words. And he says, now that I'll be in this presence with you,

your life will have this whole different look of all. It'll be modeled by these ten words. Whereas you've had to like control the God to get the thing that you want. Now you only have one God, you have to deal with. Whereas when you were in control, you found yourself coveting all the things of your neighbors and living, timing, and fighting to get one thing after another. Now you'll have a God who you can trust to give you all the things that you need.

So you won't covet your neighbor's things or property anymore. Whereas when you were in charge and trying to be God, it was your responsibility to need out justice and establish vengeance. If you'll have a God who needs to out justice, to whom you can give up to the responsibility of vengeance so you won't have to hate or kill anymore and you won't have to deal. Matter of fact, if you'll set up sex order, if you'll have a God who you can trust,

then you can just honor your parents and not try and extract from them and everything that you might need from a God who says you can let them just be a fountable people. You just honor and love them. At Sinai, God said everything is going to be right here. I'm in the midst. It was so, it was set up, manifest presence of God that when he came down to community, this is the moment, the mountains say.

It's the first general effect, but because the creator of God, it's the creator of earth approaches creation and it's silky. And when Moses would go into the place of God, there's some thing where the light was God's idea and so light is always associated with God in the first scripture. From the beginning when he creates it to the end when he says he won't hate it's done. And so when Moses goes to stand in the presence of God to get the new word about how life will be set up,

now that God is not abandoned now, but has come to rescue us again. He absorbs this light and comes out and talks to its people. And they can't look at it. They put a veil over his face so that they're not blinded by the reality of what it means to be in the presence of God. Paul is telling the printing. When God came to give that first covenant, there was such gold, meaning we saw things for what they were. There was a God, it was not us.

The God was four of us out in front, behind, and descend. So the law came to Moses, but he said that that law brings death, right? Because it's external, of course. What God meant as a description, you'll have no other God before me.

You'll honor your mother and father. You won't make any idols. You won't feel, you won't covet. What God meant as a description, now that you're letting me be God, this is what your life will look like, became this like list of things that we could never live up to. And so the description that God gives in glory, it says, look at who he will be forever with me, becomes this like accusing point or description that we could never live up to.

It becomes a burden. And it points out our failures. And rather than feel like a failure, we start compensating, misrepresenting, and this is where this position of servant, we're got an intended to call it Israel to modelize and put them as a city on the hill that all the road would be drawn back to God and do the life they're in this and drawn back to God's servant position. Israel turns into an exclusive position.

It says we have something you do now. And so this like cycle of guidelines, bullet points, list we can't live up to just builds this cycle and dance instead. We're always aware of what we are now on. But then Paul is saying that we're not left with that. I wonder if you've experienced Christianity like that.

You don't have to raise your hand. If you've experienced Christianity as a list of rules that you cannot live up to. I wonder if you've experienced the way of Jesus as a finger pointing that it evokes shame or guilt. Paul says that the old covenant, the ladder came and killed us. It crippled us.

Limits us so that we cannot do anything but the failure. But he said that the spirit that the Spirit said came to give life. Verse seven. Now if the ministry of death, carved and bettered on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gain that Moses is faced because of its glory. Which was being brought to an end. Will not the ministry of the spirit have you been more glory?

Or if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation. If the covenant that was pointing out our failure came with such manifest presence of God that it took mountains and turned skin glowing wide inside. How much more glory will the covenant come that brings us to life? If for if there was glory, the ministry of condemnation, the ministry is right. The ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the ministry of the

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