Sermon Tone Analysis

ME

What is glorious?

Nowaday, we often define glorious as something almost otherworldly.

SO breathtaking, so indescribable, and so majestic.

As you might remember from two weeks ago, I had to privilege of going to Alaska and I would say the Mendelen Glacier is somewhat glorious.

But do you know what’s more glorious?

Several years ago on a brother’s bachelor trip I went to Iceland and I saw the glaciers there, even closer, that’s more glorious.

We went one day to so many waterfall called fosses and one is more breathtaking, more glorious than the next, some coming down high above the mountains, and others we go behind them and although I chickened out, the brothers who actually stood next to it told me how powerful the raging water was as it tumbles down with roars.

And still something can be glorious like a beautiful sunset resting just at the right time across the shoreline of Bloodvein.

But the Bible describes God as glorious, more glorious in fact than all he created.

Than glaciers, and sunsets and fosses.

WE

The one question I want to pose this morning is if indeed our God is the superlative of glorious, why do his people, his church and often shine so dimly as a reflection of his glory?

GOD

We’ve been talking about two gifts two weeks ago about the very gospel we are saved from and proclaim to others, and the life letter of transformed lives.

And we alluded to the fact that Paul is a minister of the new covenant, which is from the life-giving Spirit.

We ended off declaring the problem with the old covenant can point to our sin but it can’t stop us from sinning.

Something, someone more needs to intervene.

All of this belongs to the larger context of Paul in trying to defend his apostleship to the church of Corinth needs to establish how he is different from his opponents, whom we will meet in the next message again.

We also talked about the difficulty of dividing a letter for the sake of time and length, and a preacher has to decide breadth over depth or the other way around.

So you can see as we look at verse 7 onwards very similar themes which was established in the last message appears before.

So do we learn anything new if this is but a continuation of the overall theme of Paul being the minister of a new covenant?

Well yes, because Paul uses an illusion to a relatively familiar Old Testament episode in Moses’ life to illustrate his point.

So let’s begin in verse 7:

7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?

9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.

10 Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it.

11 For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.

The first to note is verse 6 in relation to verse 7, since the letter kills, the ministry it produces is a ministry of death.

Paul seems to be rather dramatic calling it a ministry of death, right?

But it is a ministry of death because as we said last week, the old covenant says to the church of Corinth and by extension to us we are sinful but leaves us there, unchanged, helpless, not ignorant because we know we are in clear violation of God’s law.

But at the time the old covenant was established, it was God’s law whom he himself carved with his fingers on two stone tablets which Moses was asked to then proclaim to the Israelites at the time.

Only if we backtrack and remember, there were two times where Moses did that.

We are talking about the second time.

If you remember, the first time is less than flattering.

Moses went up to the mountain of God to retrieve the ten commandments, and the Israelites left with Aaron waited and waited.

And when their patience wear thin or presumed he may have died, they demanded Aaron do something and out of panic, fear for his life, and stupidity, Aaron fashioned a Golden Calf and claim this is their God who brought them out of Egypt into the wilderness.

God alerted Moses that you better get down there because the people have just committed idolatry of the vilest kind, and God is about to destroy them.

Moses interceded on the people’s behalf to not kill them, to appease God’s anger.

Moses went down the mountain, saw that indeed the Israelites had been worshipping a golden calf and is own brother Aaron the Priest went along with it, giving even the ridiculous, and rather irresponsible excuse they threw the materials into the fire and poof, a golden calf appeared.

In his anger, Moses threw the tablets of testimony on the ground.

It’s a pretty disturbing scene after where Moses forced all those who worshipped the idol to drink from the melted powdered remains of the calf, and slaughter a large contingent of rebellious Israelites.

God threatened to withdraw his presence and Moses was so disillusioned he said to the effect of “I quit” if God you aren’t going to take care of this.

So God promised to continue to be their God and continue the Exodus journey and rescue plan.

Hang on there, we are going somewhere with this loose recollection of .

Moses became bolder and ask the see God face to face, only to be warned any man who see God’s glory will not live, but you can see his back, under God’s protection.

Which brings us to chapter 34, when God asked Moses to cut two NEW tablets from the rock so he can write his laws again.

This is where we pick up and need to read the actual scripture:

29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30 Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.

31 But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them.

32 Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai.

33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

34 Whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out.

And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, 35 the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face was shining.

And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

I. GOD REVEALS HIS SURPASSING GLORY THROUGH HIS MINISTRY OF THE NEW COVENANT.

It is from this backdrop of Moses experiencing God’s glory which helps us understand where Paul is going.

Few things we have already established: a) God said to Moses you can’t see him face to face, or he won’t live.

b) From this new passage, we see in fact this is true because just being in God’s presence upon the mountain has already transferred God’s glory onto Moses’ skin, and it causes fear to those around.

c) v. 34 says Moses removes his veil when he spoke to God, and v. 35 puts the veil back on for the sake of the people of Israel.

Now we go from the detour back to verse 7 in 2 Corinthians and understand why the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory.

Just an aside, the word glory appears no less than 8 times in these first 4 verses, so we know it is an important.

Glory means the majestic, splendor, radiance, and transcending, perfect nature and character of God conveyed to humanity as superlative brightness.

This is what Paul is describing and illustrating.

Only it doesn’t end there, because the verse says “which was being brought to an end,” a very tricky Greek word which has various meanings like abolish, void, end, but in the case of glory the word might be better translated as fade away, which is more understandable then being brought to an end which sounds somewhat more generalized.

NIV uses the word transitory all of which all indicates power as it was the glory of Moses’ exposure to the presence of God, there is something far greater.

A number of scholars believe this is a Rabbinic comparison from the lesser to the greater, and the greater is verse 8, the ministry of the Spirit is even more glorious!

Before explaining how so, Paul uses another comparison, calling the ministry through the old covenant a ministry of condemnation, which is apt because the law tells people they are guilty has glory (because it was given by the God of glory, it is sacred), but something more is glorious, the ministry of righteousness.

So if we were to draw a diagram, and under column 1 we have some glory, and underneath we write ministry of death and ministry of condemnation, and they can both be summarized as the old covenant, our second column, column 2 we have more glory, and underneath we can write down ministry of the Spirit, and underneath it the ministry of righteousness, all of which can be summarized as the new covenant.

You can see then Paul is quite determined to say qualitatively the new covenant is far superior in glory then the old one.

Notice Paul would never say the old covenant is without ANY glory, because it was very must an instrument of God, and a covenant is a relationship between in this case, God and his people.

But something far better now has been made possible so God’s relationship with his people is that much more closer, that much more free.

Why would Paul know this?

Because he has seen firsthand the glorious One on Damascus road.

He belonged to the former covenant, where he judged others and condemn them by it and by which he himself was condemned.

But Paul now experiences a new covenant of which he preaches the good news of Jesus Christ who not only saves us from our sin but sends his Spirit to be among us, a permanent glory.

What does that mean to us?

It means all of us who are brought to relationship with God under the new covenant need not to worry whether we are sentenced and condemned still in our sin.

Yes we’ve been sentenced, but we’ve been pardoned.

We’ve been condemned but we don’t stay condemned, because we have been forgiven.

We have been forgiven because Christ was forsaken and sentenced to death on the cross, and condemned in our sin.

The instruments of the old covenant, which we were not a part of, thanks to the saving work of Jesus Christ.

We belong the the new covenant of the ministry of the Spirit, where God himself is alive in us and where Christ’s righteousness, his perfect relationship with the Father we can have through Jesus His son.

If God is present in Moses encounter on Mount Zion, God is even more evident, more greater in presence and revelation of His attributes in Paul, and by extension all who receive his gospel.

In the Old Covenant, God is the holy other, but in the New Covenant, through the Spirit, God is accessible.

How often though, and I include myself in that, with this proximity to God, do I still stay distant from Him?

Not acknowledging his presence in every aspect in my life, from the morning I wake up, to when I sleep at night.

How much of God and his presence do I recognize in my ministry at MCBC, and as I minister to my family, my wife, my friends, my neighbours, those who live in my same condo, even on the same floor.

Do they even know I am a blessed recipient of the glorious ministry of the Spirit?

Do they see it in the words I say, the way I behave?

Or do I live for second best, being distant from God, having been purchased under the new covenant, still behave as if I belong to the old one, seeing God as the great punisher, scary, distant, cold.

Which God do you experience?

II.

GOD GIVES US BOLDNESS AS OPPOSE TO BLINDNESS FOR THE VEILED.

12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13 not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end.

14 But their minds were hardened.

For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.

15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts.

16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.