The Corinthian Correspondence, Part 37, 2 Corinthians 3:1-18, "The Glorious New Covenant"

The Corinthian Correspondence Part 37; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18: The Glorious New Covenant 2020 has been a year that I'm sure most of us would rather pretend did not happen. We have rehashed so much of this since March when covid-19 became a thing that affected all of us. Lockdowns. Spiking infections. And on and on. Then came intense social unrest between members of the one race--the human one. People with differing shades of melanin have been literally at one anothers' throats for all kinds of reasons. Does it pain you to hear? And where we now? Election cycle 2020. Some say we have a president elect. Not yet. Not til the electoral votes have been cast and certified. Only then will the race have been called. So we wait. Like we do every 4 years, anticipating a peaceful transfer of power. Or a continuation of the current admin. But. In a couple of weeks we will enter what we call "the holiday season." Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Year. And hopefully we will be able to push pause on all the upheaval in our country and in our culture, if only for a few days. In our family, part of our tradition has been to break out the different movies that we are all familiar with. Lately we have added "The Nativity Story" to our list. Truly outstanding! But for fun, often on Thanksgiving night, after we stuff ourselves with stuffing and turkey, we watch "the Christmas Story." And one of the absolute, intense, dramatic scenes in the Christmas story is the Scott Farkas affair! Scott Farkas and his crummy little toady have been terrorizing our beloved Ralphie and his friends in what I'm sure seems like forever to them. And then one day, it happened. Mano-i-mano. Just Scott Farkas and Ralphie. And Ralphie had no choice. He had to defend himself. Like an animal just let out of his cage, Ralphie snapped. And shall we say, Ralphie successfully defended himself! This morning I'm not saying the apostle Paul resorted to violence--far from it--unless we say that violence was done against the enemy in the spiritual realm. But in our passage for today, 2 Corinthians 3:1-18, Paul begins to unpack his defense against the false teachers who infiltrated the church in Corinth. For all the problems they had and Paul called them out for in his first letter, the last thing they needed was the introduction of a false gospel among them. As we will see today, these false teachers did not introduce good news at all. Their teaching was worse than could be imagined. For what they did was to take something that God intended as a way of glorifying himself and the false teachers perverted it. They turned things completely around and effectively used these things as weapons against what really was good news. And what was the good news? The outworking of what the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ did on behalf of fallen sinners. We know the gospel. King Jesus, perfect, sinless ruler of the nations and owner of the earth, out of his love for us, paid the price for sin that we owe a holy God. His sacrificial death on the cross and resurrection from the dead makes it possible for sinners to be shielded from the wrath to come. One day King Jesus will return to rule and reign. And all people from Adam on down will stand before him and give an account. Tragically he will tell many to depart from him and cast them into the lake of fire. Graciously and mercifully he will tell many others-his sheep-"well done good and faithful servants! Enter into the joy of your Lord." That's the gospel--the glorious good news! But horrifically, in Paul's words, these false teachers proclaimed the not-so good news of "a zealousness for God, but not according to knowledge. They are ignorant of the righteousness of God, and they seek to establish their own, not submitting to God's righteousness" as Paul describes them in Romans 10. And how does one submit to God's righteousness? Repentance from sin and placing one's faith in Christ. Again, as Paul tells us in Romans 10:4--"For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." So, what is Paul's defense against the false teachers? What is the outworking of the glorious good news of Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection? We will find out these things in our passage for today. And truly it is glorious. Today I want to give what I call more of a comprehensive picture of what Paul is talking about than a verse by verse explanation of this passage. Certainly, the passage is the foundation upon which we will build the truth of the New Covenant. Paul does not explain the New Covenant here. But he does give the incredible outworking of the New Covenant and how it is far superior to the not so good news the false teachers were trying to seduce the Corinthian church to believe. What I want to do is simply have us read the passage with only a few comments to offer a little context. Then I want to springboard, as it were, into what Paul was talking about regarding the New Covenant. And then see how powerful and glorious the New Covenant is for those who know Christ as their Lord and Savior. Let's read the first 6 verses of our passage to begin with: Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. What's going on here? Primarily, Paul was answering the charge of the false teachers and their bogus claim that Paul somehow needed to produce a letter of recommendation to the Corinthians to show that his message was legit. Now we are familiar with this kind of thing. It's called credentials. In any line of work if we are unsure of who the person is, we ask them for verification. When our internet goes out, and I make a call to have people come to fix it, a person knocks on the door and he or she shows me their badge. It was much the same way in the first century. Letters to vouch for others to say, "he is legit." "You can trust this guy" were very common. And Paul is telling the Corinthians in so many words, "you're kidding, right? You actually believe these guys when they tell you that I need to give you a letter of recommendation?" What is Paul's answer? "you are our letter! We don't need some parchment with letters on it to let you know that our message is legit! We gave you the truth. How do we know? How does anybody know? The profound changes you have experienced in your lives. Changes that could only come about because Christ wrote his letter on your hearts! The Lord Jesus has taken your hearts of stone and remade them. He has given you hearts of flesh, literally "fleshly hearts" in v.3. Hearts that are alive and can respond to God's ways. Hearts that consistently say, "Yes, Lord", not hearts of stone that cannot respond. And what Paul is accusing the false teachers of is that they were trying to write their not so good news on "tablets of stone." Their false gospel does not really touch the inner person at all. It is in effect what we could call behavior modification and religious identity. Merely adhering to rules, doing right "just because it is the right thing to do" is why Paul is calling the false teachers. Mere behavior modification does not change a heart; God's life by His Spirit does. It reminds me of a battle between a little kid and his mom in the days before car seat restrictions and seat belt laws. Some of you young guys don't have a clue about this. But trust me. There was a time when seat belts were optional and car seats were nonexistent. Mom was driving and 3 year old junior was standing up. Mom told him to sit down over and over. Junior refused, over and over. Finally, mom gave junior a little smack on the legs--that was allowed then, too. Tearfully junior sat down. As he sat down he said this to his mom, "I'm sitting down on the outside but I'm standing up on the inside." The point is that we can have behavior modification for any number of reasons. What God is after is behavior modification out of gratitude and love for what Christ has done for us. Indeed as the Lord told his people, in John 14:21: "whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me." And, "We love him, because he first loved us," in 1 John 4:19. The false teachers then and now, seek to impose their message on people from the outside in. Paul rightly observes that the letter, as in the recommendation letter the false teachers are seeking from the Corinthian Christians to help them expand their influence, kills. It kills because the false teachers promote mere religion. The letter of recommendation validates the deadness of their religion as they seek to write mere religious observance on hearts of stone. But Paul's message is that Christ's "letter" is written on the hearts of Christians by the Spirit. And this brings change in the very deepest part of their being and works its way out for all to see. Everything about the center of the life of a Christian has changed. Christians have a changed perspective on how to live their lives. Instead of seeking to collect all the status symbols in life--the things that everybody else goes after to make them happy, the Christian does not do that. They realize that money, and fame, and social and even political power does not satisfy them. Only Jesus, and their close fellowship with God and his people bring satisfaction. Christians, having the letter of Christ written on the tablet of their hearts live for the life to come. They understand the truth of Christ's saying: "because I live you will live also." They understand and prepare themselves for the day when we will all stand before the Lord and give an account of our lives to him, where they long to hear, "well done, good and faithful servant!" And in this life, they seek to put others' needs ahead of their own. As Paul told the Philippians, "count others as more significant than yourselves. Let each of you not look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." People who have Christ's letter written on their hearts long to faithfully live that way! Do we do this perfectly? No! But is this the general direction of their lives, however imperfectly? Absolutely! Such is the life change that happens when Christ writes his letter on human hearts. And he does that through the New Covenant. Let me briefly point out before we leave this section, that Paul declares loud and clear that God has made him sufficient--qualified him to serve up the New Covenant to humanity in general, and the Corinthians in particular. And if God qualified Paul and his fellow workers to serve up the New Covenant, then by process of elimination, false teachers and their teaching are disqualified. They and their ways are insufficient to change people for eternity. As a Messianic Jew, Paul knew the Scripture. He was very familiar with Jeremiah's promise that God was going to make a New Covenant with his people. As we will see, the New Covenant is a thing of life, not mere religious observance. It begins with Christ, by his Spirit writing his letter on the hearts of his people. And we will see what amazing things those who are part of the New Covenant experience in a moment. But first, Paul is going to get to the heart of what happens to those who buy into what the false teachers are selling in vv.7-15 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, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in 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 with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 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. 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. Now, in these verses Paul refers to the history of his people at Mt. Sinai. It is recorded in Exodus 19-34. God told the people to get ready. He was going to speak to them. Three months and 3 days after the Lord delivered them with an overwhelming display of his power against Egypt and care for his people, the Lord met with them. On that day, there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. The Lord thundered from the mountain the 10 Commandments. And it scared the people half to death! This is how they responded: Exodus 20:18-20: Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die." Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin." God thundered to the people what he wanted of them. Ten Commandments. Then it took Moses about 40 days to understand and write down what God told him about how to apply the 10 Commandments. And God gave him what we call the Mosaic Covenant, otherwise known as the "old covenant." But how quickly they forgot their fear of the Lord! It took about 6 weeks for them to say to Aaron--the one in charge of them while Moses was on the mountain, communing with the Lord, receiving instructions of how his people ought to live: "Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." And we know the rest of the sordid story. It cost the people greatly--about 3,000 lost their lives. A high price to pay for sin. Way to be loyal to the covenant, fellas! Paul describes this whole story of the old covenant in various ways: "ministry death, carved in letters on stone"-v.7, "ministry of condemnation"-v.9, "what was being brought to an end"-v.11. But why would Paul describe the covenant God made with the people through Moses in this way? The simple answer is that merely keeping the Law of Moses does not give a person life. It does a great job of putting God's holy standards on display. Though the Law of Moses is a glorious thing, there is an end point. Though God's Law serves as amazing pointers toward what God wants of his people, they are still pointers nonetheless. There's something far greater that God has in mind than mere behavior modification from his people. Ever notice that tiny kids, when they get the concept of gift giving, how often they just play with the covering? The wrapping paper? The box the toy comes in that you paid a lot of money for? You know how to save a lot of money with a toddler? I KNOW no parent or grandparent would ever do this--Just wrap up a box with very colorful paper. The sweet little kid does not know there's nothing in there! But I would not recommend it for kids who are a little older! Well, consider the temporary nature of the fading glory of the covenant of Moses to be like little kids and the wrapping paper on the present. The Torah, the teaching of God's ways was not an end in itself but the means to an end. And the end was Christ. When he came on the scene, all things pointed to Christ. He did and said things only Messiahs say and do! And at the end of his ministry, his death and resurrection and even his ascension all served to show how glorious God's way are in Christ, for all things in the old covenant put the Messiah on display. But in the midst of the rebellion and death, there was a shining light--and Moses was in the center of this. After the people did what they did with the golden calf, and after about 3,000 lost their lives because God killed them in his judgment, Moses developed a holy glow by being in the presence of Almighty God! Imagine being in the presence of God to the degree where your face would literally shine! In Ex 34 we find this story. Due to lack of time we won't read the whole the passage all the way through, but let me simply point out a couple of things. In v.29, Moses had been in God's presence so intently--during the 2nd time he met with the Lord to get a 2nd set of the Ten Commandments--that his face shown and he was not even aware of it. And in v.30 we find that this was a scary thing for the people--they were scared to come near him. But Moses told the people--glowing face and all--to come near him so that he could tell them what God said. In v.33 it says that Moses put a veil on his face. But Moses' face glowed for awhile as he continued to meet with the Lord as we see in vv. 34-35. 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, 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. As incredible a thing as Moses' shining face was, that was only a temporary arrangement. Being in the presence of God will cause a face to glow. But living life in the New Covenant will cause a life to change! Let's look at how much greater Paul's New Covenant gospel message is compared to the false teachers so-called good news. Paul calls the New Covenant the ministry of the Spirit--far more glorious than the ministry which "was being brought to an end". The New Covenant is the ministry of righteousness with a far more exceeding glory than even Moses experienced, glowing face and all. Indeed, in vv.10-15 Paul says that there is really no comparison between what he describes as the old covenant and the New Covenant, for the old covenant was being brought to an end and the New Covenant is permanent. Moses is a great picture to show the Corinthian church the effects of the old covenant on the one who has bought into it. There is a veil over their heart. Their mind is hardened, like a stone. A blockage preventing them from getting to the Lord. One might say there is a disconnect between God and one who would have a relationship with him. Paul put it this way when he wrote Timothy in 2 Timothy 3.5: they have an appearance of godliness, but deny its power. The false teachers are very good at helping people to keep up appearances but there is no heart change. Behavior modification. Religious identification is what they are after. The false teachers want a greater influence. But the influence they are seeking is adding more people to their number, not the profound change of souls. But now, look at the glorious truth of those who are part of the New Covenant in vv. 16-18: But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. What is now true of those who are, as we would say, saved by grace? The veil between us and God is taken away. Like Moses who veiled his face but uncovered it when he beheld the Lord, so it is when we turn to Christ and he writes his letter on our heart. There is now true freedom in Christ. But not freedom to sin--remember the holiness of God destroyed 3,000 people during that golden calf thing. The freedom we have simply is that we are free from serving sin and now we are free to serve the Lord. Here is another glorious truth: our faces are unveiled. What happened to Moses when he had an unveiled face? It glowed--his face changed. It became glorious. Not because Moses was glorious. But because the glory of the Lord is contagious to the One whose face is unveiled. And as glorious as these things are, here is a still more glorious thing: as we continue to behold the glory of the Lord, we continue to be transformed into the image of Christ. Notice the process, though. It's not all at once. It happens gradually, over our lifetime. The false teachers know none of this. There is no transformation of soul, only behavior modification. There is no Christlikeness, only religious conformity. There is no freedom in spirit, only deceptive slavishness to what the false teachers dictate to their followers. In other words, "do this and you will live." But "doing this" does not give one life. "Repent and believe him" does. With that said, though, I want to briefly point the glorious points of God's New Covenant. There are many who claim to be Christians who believe that God's grace means no obedience to his ways. One well known preacher actually says, "Participants in the new covenant are not required to obey any of the commandments found in the first part of their Bibles." By saying this, he does not seem to understand the first thing about the New Covenant. Here's how God laid it out in Jeremiah 31:31-34: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Look at what God was going to do in this amazing covenant by looking at his glorious "I wills"! I will 1." I will make a new Covenant with my chosen people, Israel and Judah." God will make the first move. This is by his grace. His people do not in any way, shape or form deserve God making a new Covenant with them but he does anyway. Such marvelous grace! I wills 2-3. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. What does this mean other than God working in the human heart from the inside out? But what will God write on their hearts? Simple answer: His law, literally his Torah, meaning, his teaching, his ways. God's New Covenant will not be external to his people, His ways will be written on their hearts. Obviously this does not mean that God somehow takes a pen and writes his ways on our blood pumping muscle. This is figurative language meaning that God's ways become the most important thing in the world to his people. I will 4. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Notice the very important word at the beginning of this statement: And. Not Then. What is the significance of this statement? Simply this: God making the first move toward the person, God writing his Torah on his heart, AND God being their God all comes as one great beautiful package! God does not become the God of this person because the person earns it. All of this together is his promise of a glorious relationship with his people based on his grace! I wills 5-6: I will forgive their iniquity; I will remember their sin no more. Both of these "I will's" go hand in hand. To forgive means as we saw a couple of weeks ago that once forgiveness is granted, it now becomes a dead issue. God never brings it up again once he has forgiven. That's what "I will remember their sin no more" means. When God forgives, he removes it! And how did he do that? Remember two statements: John 1:29, where John the baptizer said of Jesus: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" When Jesus died as the Lamb of God, all sin of his people is removed! The writer to the Hebrews echoes this as well: Hebrews 10:12, 14: But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God . . . for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Such are the blessings of the New Covenant! So, those who are part of the New Covenant are by no means "exempt" from keeping the commandments of God. Indeed, the commandments of God and his ways--the Torah--are written on our hearts. It is at the very center of our being. We delight in the ways of God. We want to do them. And because the Holy Spirit dwells in us, he gives us the ability to do what we delight in doing! So, what do we make of the glorious truth of the New Covenant? Two points. First, it's all about evangelism and discipleship. Paul told the Corinthians: We are the newsboys, delivering the letter of Christ to you. God has qualified us to give to you the gospel of God. And the changes taking place in your lives are proof that our ministry has made an eternal difference in you. Let me ask: as Christians, who is that person who gave you the gospel? Who was it that delivered the letter of Christ to your heart? And who is it that you have given the gospel to? Who have you delivered the letter of Christ to their heart? It's been said before but definitely worth repeating: There are only 2 things that will last forever: the word of God and people. What kind of eternal investment are you making in the lives of others? Everything else will stay here. If you want to make an eternal investment, you have to send it on ahead. And you do that by engaging in evangelism -- proclaiming the good news of the King who died and rose again, and discipleship -- helping others become more like Jesus. After the service today, I invite you to attend if at all possible the Pastor's Brown Bag Lunch. 60 minutes as we share a meal and talk about making an eternal difference in the lives of others. The second point of application: how grateful are you that the veil that used to cover your heart and mind preventing you from beholding the glory of the Lord is gone now and forever? How often do you take the time and simply sit before the Lord, gazing on his beauty? If not very often, why not? He loves you. He wants you and me to gaze upon his beauty, as we were created and now re-created to do. Remember how the people could not look at Moses because of the glory on his face. We get the privilege of beholding the glory of the Lord at any time! Who are you? Who am I? Mere pieces of clay. But in Christ we are being transformed into Christlikness from one degree of glory to another. This is something no religion, no amount of mere lawkeeping can do. Based on who we are, children of God by repentance of sin and belief in the gospel, we are being transformed, because we are members of the glorious New Covenant, all because Christ wrote his letter on our heart. Now we have come full circle. We can find rest in Christ in our troubled times. Here is what our Lord tells us in Matt 11:28-30: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." I find it amazing how so little the Lord Jesus told us was original with Him. His message came from the Father, came from the Scripture, and his promise for people to find rest for their souls is no different. For he quoted from Jeremiah 6:16: Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls." As we conclude this message today, how is it that people find rest for their souls? Walk in God's ancient ways. Walk in His good ways--the way of Torah. The Torah that is written on our heart because we are members of the glorious New Covenant.