2 Corinthians 3:7

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as being of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who has made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory is to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?... But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

The law is glorious—but its glory fades, and it was always meant to point us to the surpassing glory of Christ.

Our Sufficiency Is of God

We just sang, "You are my strength, O God... for you will ever be my all in all." Paul knew that truth. When he wrote verses 5 and 6 he says, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think that anything is of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God." This is an important recognition that every one of us needs to reach—the place where we comprehend that apart from Him we can do nothing.

Jesus taught this truth. Among the last things He said to His disciples before His betrayal, recorded in John 15, ten times He says, "Abide in me, for apart from me you can do nothing." In reality, we don't like to admit that. We like to think we have things under control, that we can just do it. We have slogans that encourage that mindset. But as we walk with Christ, there is more and more of a recognition that apart from Him we can do nothing.

That doesn't leave us in despair. It causes us to look to Him in all things, and it should bring us to say with Paul in Philippians 4 that we can do all things through Him who gives us strength. In our own strength we are insufficient, unable to do anything; but with Him we can do all things. God has made us able ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. As I said last week, you can remove the word "ministers" and put in many other things. He is the one who makes us able parents, able husbands, able wives, able employees—for His glory. He enables us to do what we are unable to do apart from Him.

Two Covenants, the Old and the New

Paul now draws our attention to two covenants, two testaments. Our Bibles are broken into two testaments. The first 39 books comprise the Old Testament, dealing primarily with creation and God's call of a people—the children of Abraham, the children of Israel—and His establishing His law with them so they could be in a covenant relationship with Him, though a legal one. Then, after 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew, comes the establishing of the new covenant. We who follow Jesus Christ are under that new covenant.

Paul identifies these two covenants here. We Christians are ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter (the old covenant) but of the Spirit. The letter brings death; the Spirit brings life. The word "new" used here speaks of newness in time—it comes after the old—but also new in substance, in quality, in kind. The new covenant is unprecedented, completely different from the old.

The old covenant produced a legal relationship between God and man. If an individual desired any connection with God, it had to be through keeping His laws. He is the moral lawgiver; if you didn't keep the law, you were condemned. All humanity created by God is under God's moral law, and so we all have a major problem. We are insufficient. The law makes that very clear—and that is the purpose of the law: to make clear that we are not sufficient, that we can do nothing in and of ourselves.

The Death the Letter Brings

Under the old covenant, God sits as lawgiver and therefore as judge. Because we could never meet the righteous demands of His law, we have always stood under its condemnation. Man, apart from Christ, has only condemnation and wrath to look forward to. This is completely just. Romans 1 says the wrath of God will be revealed upon all unrighteousness and ungodliness. Perfect people would not be under God's wrath; the problem is there are no perfect people.

Under the letter, there is the death of hope, because we have no hope of ever maintaining the righteous demands of God's law. There is the death of strength, because we are told what to do but given no power by the law to do it. And there is ultimately the death of all life, because the righteous requirement of the law is the severest punishment imaginable—not just physical death. Jesus says, do not fear him who can kill only the body, but fear him who can condemn and kill also the soul. Ezekiel says twice, "The soul that sins shall surely die." The old covenant, though gloriously given by God, meant certain death for all.

The Flaw Is in Us, Not the Law

The old covenant brings to light our flaws. Note this: there is no flaw in God's law. The flaw is in us. God's law, which is holy, just, and good, reveals that we are neither holy, nor just, nor good. Without the law, there is no recognition of that, because we always default to thinking we are self-righteous.

We judge ourselves by other people. We compare ourselves with others and say, "Well, I'm better than Hitler." We don't pick Mother Teresa or Billy Graham when establishing our goodness. You may be better than six billion other people, but the standard is not other people—it is God's own holy character. And God's law reveals our complete inadequacy, that there is nothing we can do to be right before a holy, holy, holy God.

A Father-Child Relationship

The new covenant is not merely later; it is completely different. The old brought a legal relationship lived by the letter of the law, but the new is established under the love of God. It establishes a relationship of father and child. In Christ we become the children of God.

How many of you parents had absolutely perfect children, never transgressing? No real hands. We all recognize that our children fail and fall short of the standard set in the house. And how many of you, when your children fell short, took them out and killed them? No hands. The righteous requirement of the law might demand that—but in a father-child relationship there is something that supersedes law: a love that covers a multitude of sins.

God created marriage and the family to illustrate the covenant He desires to have with us. Wives, every one of you desires more than a legal relationship with your husband. If he said, "The only reason I'm getting you this anniversary gift is because I'm legally bound to do so," that won't fly. No one really wants just a legal relationship.

So the new covenant is greater. It doesn't merely give a new set of rules. It's not that God, after a couple thousand years, decided the old laws weren't working and lowered the bar. The new covenant establishes by the Spirit of God a new heart in man upon which the law of God is written. The law is not cast aside; it is holy, just, and good. But it can never make us perfect, because we are insufficient and in need of something new.

Foretold by the Prophets

The new covenant wasn't new in the sense that it appeared only when Jesus came. It was spoken of before, revealed hundreds of years earlier. In Jeremiah 31:31, in a dark day of adultery, idolatry, and vile sin, when God was about to take His people into Babylonian captivity, He says:

Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah... Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers... But this shall be the covenant... I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people... For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Notice the law is not done away with. The flaw is in the heart of man, so God writes His holy law on their inward parts. And He says, "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." That is more glorious than the law itself.

Ezekiel, prophesying to the same people in Babylonian captivity, declares in chapter 36:

A new heart also will I give to you, and a new spirit will I put within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you the heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.

Five hundred years before Jesus came, the new covenant was foretold. The old covenant was necessary to make way for the new, because it establishes our complete inability and our absolute need for the new. You have to give the bad news before the good news. The new covenant changes man from the inside out, gives him a new heart, and gives him strength by the Spirit to do what glorifies the Lord.

Why Paul Contrasts the Covenants

Why even contrast the two covenants? Paul came from Jewish heritage—a Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee. After his conversion, God said, "Saul, I am going to make you an apostle to Gentiles." That is miraculous. Pharisees were complete racists who hated Gentiles. A new set of external rules doesn't do that; it took a complete inward heart change to give him a love for the unlovely and send him to the Gentiles.

God used Paul to establish churches among Gentiles in Galatia, Macedonia, Greece, in cities like Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, Corinth, Philippi, Berea, and Thessalonica. But certain individuals opposed him. They called themselves Christians and came from a Jewish background, but their main contention was that Paul ministered to Gentiles and was, they said, diminishing Moses and the law. Their method was to come in after Paul had established a church and lure Gentile converts to a "deeper spirituality" through the law of Moses—telling them they needed to be circumcised, the sign of the old covenant, or to live according to the law to be right before God.

The early church discussed this. The leaders at Jerusalem recognized they should not place upon Gentile believers the burden of the law of Moses, because no one could even keep it. Something greater than the old covenant had come.

The Same Battle Today

Twenty centuries later this is still happening. It was certainly happening in Corinth. In 2 Corinthians 11:3 Paul says he fears that, just as the serpent beguiled Eve by his subtlety, their minds would be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ, led away to another gospel. This happened in Galatia, which is why Paul wrote Galatians. And it happens in our own church in the 21st century.

I realize that even going down this path solicits emails. Over the years I've communicated with people from our church about these very issues; some have even left. There are those who will tell you that if you really want to honor God and experience His blessing, you need to keep the Sabbath or eat kosher. If you adhere to the letter of the law, they say, you'll truly experience that gloriousness. They tell me, "You just don't understand Paul." Really? Have you read Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans? Do you just disregard them?

Yes, the law is glorious—God-given, holy, just, and good. But its purpose is to reveal our complete inadequacy, not to make us more righteous by its letter. Returning to the law is enticing because it seems holy and makes people feel superior; it caters to our flesh. But here is what people fail to recognize: it's almost always just those two things, kosher and the Sabbath. The Bible is clear—if you're going to keep the law, you cannot just pick out two. There are 611 others. Put tassels on your garments; ladies, cover your heads and be quiet; don't drive on the Sabbath.

My question is, do you want that legal relationship with God? Or would you like the father-child relationship? Every day of the week I want the father-child relationship, where I can come before Him at any time, anywhere, because of what He did for me—not because I kept the Sabbath. You can have the legal relationship, but you have to take it all and keep it all.

A Glory That Was Veiled

Was the law glorious? Verse 7: "But if the ministration of death written and engraven in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance... how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?" If the old covenant was glorious—and it is—then the new exceeds in glory.

There is awesome glory in the giving of the law. The children of Israel were slaves in Egypt—Egypt a type of the world, their bondage a type of sin. God redeemed them by sending Moses. Through powerful plagues—the Nile to blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, death—He displayed His power. They saw the Red Sea part and the Egyptian armies destroyed. They saw His mercy as He gave them food from heaven and water from rocks. All this before they ever reached Mount Sinai.

At the mountain, God's manifest, glorious presence descended. They heard the thunderings of His power. Three times the people said, "Everything that the Lord says we will do," the third time adding, "and be obedient." Moses received the Ten Commandments and the outline of the law. Then he went up for forty days to receive instructions for the tabernacle, so the holy God could dwell among His people.

Mercy That Triumphs Over the Law

While Moses was on the mountain, those same people came to Aaron: "As for this Moses, we don't know what's happened to him; make us a god." Aaron formed a golden calf, and they danced around it in sensual, immoral worship, calling it the god that brought them out of Egypt. God told Moses to go down, and Moses cast down the stone tablets, breaking them—a sign of their breaking of the covenant.

God said, "Moses, I will now destroy them." Completely just; they broke His law. But Moses interceded, and God revealed His mercy, because His love and mercy triumph over the law. Moses was so in awe of this mercy that in Exodus 33:18 he says, "I beg you, show me your glory." This reveals that the glory of God in His mercy is greater than the glory of the law Moses had just seen.

God placed Moses in the cleft of the rock and passed by, declaring His name: "The Lord, the Lord God merciful." I can never get past this without saying how thankful I am that God didn't say "the Lord, the Lord God holy"—though He is—or "the Lord, the Lord God just"—though He is. In the midst of Israel's sin, He exalted His mercy: "merciful and gracious and longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin." Yet He also says He will by no means clear the guilty. He will be just, but He exalts His mercy. Moses bowed his head and worshipped.

The Fading Glory on Moses' Face

Moses was on the mountain another forty days. Exodus 34:28 says he was there with the Lord, neither eating bread nor drinking water—impossible without God. When he came down with the two tablets:

Moses knew not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.

The reflection of God's glory was on Moses' face—a kind of divine sunburn from the afterglow of God's presence. The people were afraid of that glory. So Moses spoke to them what God commanded, and then he put a veil over his face. When he went before the Lord he removed the veil; when he came before the people he put it on again.

Moses veiled his face so the children of Israel could not see the fading reflection of God's glory. The old covenant is glorious—but it is a glory behind a veil, because the law reveals our sinfulness. We cannot come boldly before God under the old covenant. In the tabernacle, only priests could minister in the holy place, and only the high priest, one day a year on the Day of Atonement, could enter the holy of holies behind the veil. The old covenant is glorious—but veiled. So there is need of a new covenant.

What the Law Could Never Do

Hebrews 10:1 says the law, "having a shadow of good things to come," can never with its yearly sacrifices "make the comers thereunto perfect." If it could, the sacrifices would have ceased. Instead, in those sacrifices "there is a remembrance again made of sins every year." Every sacrifice reminded the worshipper: I am a sinner. That is the point of it. "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins."

Therefore, when Jesus comes into the world, He says to the Father, "Sacrifice and offering you wouldest not, but a body thou hast prepared for me... Lo, I come... to do thy will, O God." He takes away the first covenant that He may establish the second. By that will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Every priest under the old covenant stood daily, offering the same sacrifices that could never take away sins—constant work from sun-up to sundown. But this man Jesus, after He offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. He is resting because the work is finished. "By one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified." Going back to Jeremiah 31, the Spirit witnesses: "Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more." Where there is remission, there is no more offering for sin. It is finished.

Drawing Near with Faith, Hope, and Love

So what is our response? Hebrews 10:19: "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." He has opened the veil. Then comes a threefold response.

First, "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith." We can come near to God not by the works of the law but by faith, because our hearts have been sprinkled from an evil conscience. Second, "Let us hold fast the profession of our hope without wavering"—the Greek word here is elpis, hope. We have absolute expectation of being with Him forever, "for he is faithful that promised." It depends not on my faithfulness but on His. Third, "Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works." Faith, hope, love. We draw near by faith; we hold hope because of what He has done; and that causes us to love Him and one another, stirring each other up to love and good deeds. So we do not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but exhort one another, and so much the more as we see the day approaching. That is the new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit.

The Veil Removed in Christ

Paul continues, 2 Corinthians 3:14: "But their minds were blinded, for until this day remains the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ." Even today, when Moses is read every Sabbath in the synagogue, the veil is upon their heart. They are passionate about the law of Moses—and it is holy, just, and good—but they have become enamored with the law, which was meant to point them to Jesus and reveal their insufficiency. Galatians 3:24 says the law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

"Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." When the nation of Israel turns to Jesus—and that turn is repentance—the veil is removed. And something else: "Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." The law brings bondage; the Spirit brings liberty—not freedom from the law, but freedom to do the law from the heart, from love, as unto the Lord.

Changed from Glory to Glory

"But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Under the old covenant it is a fading glory. You might keep 605 laws but fail on the other 8, and that glory will not stand before God. But in Christ we behold Him—now "through a glass dimly," as 1 Corinthians 13 says, then face to face. And part of our hope is that when we see Him, we shall be like Him—not because of our keeping of the law, but, as the last words of verse 18 say, "by the Spirit of the Lord."

As William Barclay said, it is a law of life that we become like the people we look up to. People hero-worship others and begin to reflect their ways. If we contemplate Jesus Christ, in the end we come to reflect Him. So we consider Him, as Hebrews 12 says—who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself—fixing our eyes on Him, the author and finisher of our faith, and by faith He transforms us by His Spirit from glory to greater glory. He calls us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, but in the very next breath says it is God who works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure.

The Lawful Use of the Law

The law is not something we simply get rid of. It is good, holy, just, and good when used lawfully. The lawful use of the law is to reveal to sinful individuals like you and me that we are lost and need Jesus, because we all default to self-righteousness.

Picture meeting someone and asking, "If you died tonight, would you go to heaven?" They say, "Yes, I'm a pretty good person." So you test it: "Have you ever lied? What does that make you—a liar. Have you ever stolen anything, regardless of value? Then you're a thief. And an adulterer who has blasphemed God." If God judges you by His law on the day of Christ Jesus, will you be guilty or innocent? That is the proper use of the law—it brings a person to recognize his sinfulness before God so that he will cry out for a Savior. I'm not a good person, and neither are you. We're both on the Titanic; it's sinking; we need Jesus. He is the only way. The old covenant is glorious, but its glory is that it points us to the glory of Christ.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for sending Your Son on our behalf, because of Your great love for us, to deal with our insufficiencies, to make up in us that which is lacking, Lord, to save us. We thank You for salvation. There may be some here today who recognize that their eyes have been veiled—maybe a veil of disobedience, an intellectual bias, an unteachable spirit. God desires to remove that veil and to bring about His glory in your life, and He can only do that if you allow Him, by placing your faith in Jesus, turning to Him in repentance and faith.

You may say, "I think I'm a good person." That might be glorious, but on the day of Christ Jesus it will fade, because He is the perfect standard and the only way. If you have not put your faith in Christ, God is speaking to you right now. Step out from where you are and come up front; some of the pastors and elders will pray with and for you. Do not deny the word of the Lord being spoken to you. And there may be others who have put confidence in Christ but allowed it to be shaken, beginning to trust in your own good works—confess that and ask the Lord to work in you by His Spirit. Come forward.

Lord, we trust that You are doing a work in this place. We pray that You would bind the work of the enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy, who seeks to rob the work You are doing in people's hearts. Draw people to Yourself. We thank You that Your word is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Use Your word right now by Your Spirit, Lord; do a work in all of us, renewing us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.