2 Corinthians 3

Chap. III. Ver. 1—18. The ministry of the gospel commended in preference to the law.—The false teachers and sectarian leaders had probably introduced themselves at Corinth by letters of recommendation, artfully obtained from some of the churches in Judea; but Paul had better credentials. He appeals to their own hearts, in many of which he well knew his name was deeply inscribed: they had each an interest in the affections of the other. He appeals also to their experience: whatever evidence they possessed of their own conversion and sanctification, was to them a most forcible argument in his favour, since he had been the honoured instrument of their conversion. They were “the epistle of Christ,”

and “written by the Spirit of God,” to whom he gives all the glory. On this passage, Dr. Watts beautifully remarks, that every true believer has in himself such a witness to the truth of the Christian religion, as does not depend on “the exact truth of letters and syllables, nor on the critical knowledge of the copies of the Bible, nor on this old manuscript, or the other new translation….. The substance of Christianity is so scattered through all the New Testament, that every manuscript and every translation has enough of the gospel to save souls by it, and make a man a Christian. I think this point of great importance in our age, which has taken so many steps to heathenism and infidelity; for this argument or evidence will defend a Christian in the profession of the true religion, though he may not have skill enough to defend his Bible…..

Why do you believe in Jesus? [asks the unbeliever.] If you have this answer ready at hand, I have found the efficacy and power of the gospel in my heart, this will be sufficient to answer every cavil.” (Watts’ Sermons.) This work of grace in the hearts of the Corinthians, the apostle considers as a letter of recommendation to them, far preferable to any epistle written with ink or engraved on stone. He is careful, however, that nothing should be attributed to himself, but that all his success should be referred to God, by whose grace alone both himself and his colleagues had been made able and efficient ministers of the New Testament, (or covenant,) not of the Old, the letters of which were cut in tables of stone, but of the Spirit; that is, the spiritual dispensation of the gospel, the truths of which are written upon the hearts of all true Christians.

The letter of the divine law could, indeed, only give the knowledge of sin and its penalty—death; but the latter was, on the contrary, adapted to communicate life and spirit—It is “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” ((Romans 8:2).) That ministration was, indeed, attended with some glory, a glory with which the countenance of the legislator (Moses) was emblematically surrounded; still, however, it was the ministration of death, for it could not give life; but, notwithstanding that dispensation was not without glory, how much more glorious must that be which communicates eternal life! Moses found it necessary to wear a veil, and to this day his law is veiled by the unbelief of his nation; nor shall that veil be taken from their hearts till they shall turn to the Lord Jesus as the true Messiah, who is himself the soul and spirit of the new dispensation; by whom we are liberated from the bondage of the law and the obscurity of the types.

Indeed, as Moses, by looking to the glory of the Shechinah, was himself clothed with glory, so we, beholding in the gospel, as in a resplendent mirror, the glory of the Lord Jesus, are changed into the same image, from one degree of grace and glory to another, till, by his spirit, we are completely transformed into our Redeemer’s glorious image. Chap. III. Ver. 1—29. The folly of forsaking the gospel, and the blessedness of receiving it.—This chapter opens in the mingled language of pity and reproof, remonstrating with the Galatians upon their folly in forsaking the gospel, in which the infinite love and compassion of the Saviour had been so visibly and vividly exhibited before them as crucified for their sins, to return to a system of carnal ordinances, which, separate from the gospel it had prefigured, was merely a body without a soul.

To desert the vivifying spirit of Christianity for the mere “carcass of dead piety,” (which was all that was now left of the ritual law,) was, as Paul expresses it, to begin in a spirit, and seek to finish and perfect themselves by the flesh. In confirmation of his doctrine as opposed to that of their legal teachers, St. Paul now appeals, 1. To the miracles which he had wrought among them. “He therefore that ministereth unto you, and worketh miracles among you,” (meaning evidently himself,) doth he this “by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” is he a minister of the legal, or the gospel system? The answer he leaves to them; and then 2. To the case of Abraham, who received all his blessings, not through the ritual services of Moses, which, indeed, were not then instituted, but through the covenant of grace, (which was the foundation of the gospel;) as it is said, “Abraham believed God, and it (his faith) was accounted (or imputed) to him for righteousness.” But what did Abraham believe?

He believed the promise of a seed, (or son,) “in whom all the nations of the earth” should eventually “be blessed:” and it is to those only who have faith in the promised Messiah, that the privilege belongs of being his children, as the same inspired writer argues at large, in the 4th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. “So then they [and they only] which be [the children] of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” On the other hand, they who still adhere to the law, as a covenant of life and salvation, are subject to its curse; “For it is written, Cursed is he that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.” And as none of us have thus continued, we all, of course, are subject to its curse.

3. The same point may be argued as well from the prophets as from the law; for it is written in the prophet Habakkuk,