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📚Do we begin to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you, or recommendation from you?3:1 The answers to both these questions is “no”. Paul is not saying letters of recommendation have no place. He himself sometimes recommended others (2 Cor 8:16-24; Rom 16:1-2; 1 Cor 16:3, 10, 11). But here he is saying he needs no such thing for himself.⚜
2 📚You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all men. 3 📚For you are clearly seen to be a letter of Christ, a result of our ministry, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, of the heart.
3:2-3 The believers at Corinth were themselves like a letter of recommendation for Paul. Comparing them to a letter the following things are said about them. They were written on the hearts of Paul and his co-workers (that is, Paul and others were conscious of the work of God done in them and they loved them dearly – 2 Cor 7:3). They were no secret letter hidden in Paul’s heart, but a letter anyone could read (anyone could see the change in them produced by Paul’s ministry). The letter was “of” Christ (it was His plan, His message that produced the change in them).
They were also the letter of Paul and his associates (Christ had used them in this work). They were produced by God’s Spirit (compare John 3:5-8). The “writing” was done in their hearts (the change in them was not merely outward but inward – 2 Cor 5:17). Paul puts all this in contrast to God’s writing the law on tablets of stone. See Ex 31:18; 32:15-16. Compare Jer 31:33-34; Heb 8:10-12.
Now too God’s servants are working with God to produce “letters” – people profoundly and eternally changed by Christ’s gospel. Is there any higher privilege on earth than this work?⚜
4 📚And we have such trust through Christ toward God.
3:4 He was quite sure that God was using him in the work described above. Christ Himself gave him this assurance.⚜
5 📚Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to think anything as coming from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
3:5 See 2 Cor 2:16. The above work is impossibly difficult for anyone who is not called and equipped by God. Paul’s confidence in the work was not self-confidence in his own abilities. He knew that God alone made him able to do what he did (1 Cor 15:10; Col 1:29. See John 15:5).⚜
6 📚who indeed has made us able ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
3:6 Everyone whom God sends on His work can and should have this confidence that God will make him able to do that work. On the new covenant see notes at Matt 26:28; Jer 31:31-34; Heb 8:6-13. The Greek word translated “letter” here is not the same as in vs 2,3, and its meaning is completely different. By “letter” here Paul is referring to the old covenant with its laws, rules, and regulations. It brought death because no one ever fully kept it, and so it justly condemned people to death (Rom 7:9-11; Gal 3:10. See also Rom 3:19-20; 4:15; 5:20; 8:3). But the new covenant brings life by God’s Spirit (Rom 7:6; 8:2-4, 11; John 3:5-8).⚜
The new covenant more glorious than the old covenant
7 📚But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses 📖, because of the glory on his countenance, which was passing away, 8 📚how will the ministry of the Spirit not be even more glorious? 9 📚For if the ministry of condemnation is glorious, much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness. 10 📚For even what was made glorious has no glory in this respect: the fact of the glory that excels it. 11 📚For if what was passing away was glorious, what lasts is much more glorious.
3:3-11 In these verses Paul contrasts the new covenant with the old.
The old was a ministry which brought death (vs 6,7), but the new brought life (v 6).
The old was written on stone (Ex 31:18), but the new is written on people’s hearts (v 3).
The old was a ministry which condemned men, but the new removes condemnation and makes men righteous (v 9; Rom 3:19-24).
The old was “fading away” (v 11; Heb 8:13), but the new is permanent (v 11).
In short, the old covenant was in laws and commandments which could never change people’s hearts (note at Ex 19:5-6), but the new brings the ministry of God’s Spirit which makes men new (vs 3,6,8).
So though the old had some glory, the new has far more glory (vs 8-11).
It seems likely that some people had been troubling the Christians in Corinth by telling them they needed to keep the law of Moses. Compare Acts 15:1-2. So Paul shows them how much greater was the gospel he preached than the law they preached.⚜
12 📚Therefore, since we have such a hope 📖, we use great boldness of speech, 13 📚unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face, so that the children of Israel could not steadily look on to the finish of what was passing away.
3:13 Ex 34:29-35. The sight of glory made the Israelites afraid. The new covenant does not bring fear but hope and boldness and joy.⚜
14 📚But their minds were blinded, for to this day the same veil remains in place when the old covenant is read, for this veil is taken away only in Christ. 15 But even to this day, when Moses is read, the veil is on their heart. 16 📚However when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
3:14-16 He now draws spiritual lessons from the veil Moses put on his face. In v 14 he is speaking of those who were still under the old covenant – Jews and converts to the Jewish religion. Their minds are dull, a veil is on their hearts (v 15). That is, they do not have a proper understanding of what they read in the Old Testament. See 2 Cor 4:3-4. Compare Jesus’ words to the Jews in John 5:39-40, 46, 47. Only Christ can take away the “veil” of darkness and misunderstanding and cause men to know the truth and to know God (v 14,16; Matt 11:27; John 8:12, 31, 32; 14:6).⚜
17 📚Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty 📖.
3:17 The Lord Jesus and God’s Spirit are one in the same sense that the Father and the Son are one (John 10:30; 14:9). God’s Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ in Rom 8:9. Notes on the Trinity at Matt 3:16-17.⚜
18 📚But we all, with unveiled faces, seeing 📖, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same likeness from glory to glory, altogether by the Spirit of the Lord.