who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?
For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it. For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory. (3:6–11)
As it has since apostolic times, ritual, ceremonial, sacramental Christianity poses a serious threat to the authentic, biblical gospel. In such false systems, the religious institution becomes a surrogate Christ, displacing the true Christ. People connect only to the institution
through mechanical works rather than to the living Jesus Christ through faith. External ceremonies take the place of internal worship. The sacraments become means of grace instead of symbols of grace. Ministers become exalted intermediaries between the people and God, performing the rituals supposedly necessary for salvation, instead of humble servants who bring grace to save, sanctify, and equip the saints for the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:12). The Reformers’ protest of this dead legalism ignited the quest to recover the pure New Testament gospel after centuries of ceremonialism and the Protestant Reformation flamed. The church today must also be on its guard against the relentlessly deadly heresy of ceremonialism.
To Paul’s great sorrow, the church at Corinth had been infiltrated by the devastating plague of ceremonialism. Self- styled “apostles” (in reality, legalistic heretics) sought to bring the Corinthians under the crushing yoke of bondage to the Law (cf. Acts 15:10; Gal. 5:1). They taught that being circumcised, observing Sabbaths, new moons, festivals, and the Old Testament dietary regulations were necessary for salvation. In essence, they argued that Gentiles must first become Jewish proselytes before they could be saved and enter God’s kingdom.
In contrast to those false teachers, who were ministers of the old covenant (claiming the Mosaic covenant has saving efficacy), Paul was a minister of the new covenant. As noted in the previous chapter of this volume, an adequate, spiritually effective minister preaches the new covenant gospel. But because Paul preached that liberating message, the false apostles at Corinth, who opposed the new covenant gospel message, savagely attacked him. As he defended his integrity and his ministry, Paul gave a rich, if brief, overview of the new covenant.
That the apostle should have had to defend himself to the Corinthians grieved him deeply. He had poured his life into the Corinthian church during the year and a half to nearly
two years he had ministered there (Acts 18:11) teaching and shepherding them. Because of his intimate relationship with the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians is the most personal of Paul’s inspired letters, the one in which he is the most transparent. For example, he wrote plaintively, “Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide. You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections. Now in a like exchange—I speak as to children—open wide to us also” (2 Cor. 6:11–13).
The pain and anguish of his heart as he wrote this epistle flowed from Paul’s deep affection for the Corinthians. In 12:14 he described them as his children, then wrote “I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?” (v. 15). In 1 Corinthians 4:14–15 he explained his motive for rebuking the Corinthians: “I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.”
There were many other issues besides the situation at Corinth that brought pain and suffering into Paul’s life. In 2 Corinthians 4:8–10 he spoke of being “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” Later he wrote of enduring “afflictions, … hardships, … distresses, … beatings, … imprisonments, … tumults, … labors, … sleeplessness, [and] hunger” (6:4–5). When he visited Macedonia he was “afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within” (7:5). In 11:23–29 Paul summarized his sufferings for the cause of Christ—sufferings none of the false apostles could match:
Are they servants of Christ?—I speak as if insane
—I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak?
Who is led into sin without my intense concern?
But of all the churches under his care, Paul appears most anxious for the Corinthians. They had been blessed with much; “in everything [they] were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in [them], so that [they were] not lacking in any gift” (1 Cor. 1:5–7). As noted above, they had the unequaled privilege of having had the unique apostle as their pastor for nearly two years. Yet despite their rich blessings, the Corinthians were in turmoil. They had a hard time putting off their old life. Their congregation was split into quarreling factions (1 Cor. 1:11–12). They were so spiritually immature that Paul addressed them as if they were “infants in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1). They tolerated gross sexual perversion that would have made a pagan blush, and instead of mourning over that sin, they were arrogant (1 Cor. 5:1–2). The Corinthians aired their dirty laundry in public before pagan judges instead of settling their disputes
among themselves (1 Cor. 6:1–8). They perverted their freedom in Christ into a justification for practicing sexual immorality (1 Cor. 6:12–20)—even to the point of consorting with prostitutes (1 Cor. 6:16). At the opposite ex treme, some argued for total sexual abstinence—even in marriage (7:1–5). Flaunting their liberty to eat meat sacrificed to idols, the stronger believers rode roughshod over the consciences of the weaker ones (1 Cor. 8:1–13; cf. 10:23–
32). Women abandoned their God-designed role and joined the feminist movement of their day (1 Cor. 11:1–16; 14:34–
35). The Corinthians conducted themselves at the Lord’s Supper as if it were a pagan feast: Some gorged themselves while others went hungry and, shockingly, some even got drunk (1 Cor. 11:17–34). So perverted had their practice of spiritual gifts become that Paul had to spend three chapters straightening them out (1 Cor. 12–14). Amazingly, when someone in an ecstatic frenzy cursed Jesus, the Corinthians believed that he was speaking under the Holy Spirit’s control (12:3). As a result of their prideful misuse of spiritual gifts, their worship services were chaotic (1 Cor. 14:26–33).
Falling prey to the prevailing Greek philosophy of the day, the Corinthians even wavered on the key doctrine of the Resurrection (1 Cor. 15).
Now, on top of all that, many of the Corinthians had embraced the false apostles, falling for their slanderous lies about Paul’s character and ministry. The apostle was heartbroken over the devastating influx of ceremonialism into the Corinthian church and the consequent abandoning of the truth by some. Of all the pain in his life this was the most intense—to see the defection of his beloved Corinthian church into sacramentalism, ceremonialism, and ritualism.
A. T. Robertson writes,
If Paul is able to look on the bright side of the preacher’s life, he knows what the dark side is.
There is plenty of cloud in his life to set off the light.
Indeed, when Paul is driven to boast of his work in comparison with that of the Judaizers at Corinth it is the catalogue of his trials which he counts. He has his “prisons,” his “stripes,” his “shipwreck,” his
“perils” of various kinds, his “watchings often,” his
“hunger and thirst.” “If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness.” But just now Paul cannot glory even in his weakness. He cannot glory in anything. He is a broken man, broken in spirit and in body. (The Glory of the Ministry [New York: Revell, 1911], 31–32)
What must have been especially galling to Paul is that the Corinthians knew better. They had been saved under Paul’s new covenant ministry —a salvation they celebrated every time they partook of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:24–25).
They understood that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ permanently and fully atoned for sin, thus rendering the sacrifices of the old covenant obsolete (cf. Heb. 10:12). They knew that the old covenant saved no one; it merely showed people how sinful they were and made them desperate for grace and mercy from God. Then it pointed sinners to the Savior. That after all of Paul’s teaching to the contrary they could follow those who confused the truth of salvation is astonishing; and yet as history and the present proves, it is not unusual (cf. Gal. 3:1–7).
Second Corinthians 3:6–18 is a condensed summary of the new covenant distinctives, the most complete exposition of which is found in the book of Hebrews. As Paul does in this passage, the writer of Hebrews makes clear the superiority of the new covenant. The new covenant has always been a better covenant than the Mosaic Law because it has a better mediator, Jesus Christ (Heb. 8:6). A mediator acts as an intermediary between two parties in a dispute (cf. Gal.
3:20). The mediators of the old covenant, Israel’s prophets, priests, and Moses (cf. Ex. 20:19; Deut. 5:5; Gal. 3:19), could
not adequately represent both God and men, since they were mere men. But as the God-man, Jesus can perfectly represent men to God and God to men. Therefore Paul declares that there is “one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). New covenant believers have direct access to God through Jesus Christ alone, “for through Him we … have our access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). There is no need for priests, the saints, or Mary to intercede with God on believers’ behalf.
The new covenant is also superior to the old because it has better promises, the most significant of which is the promise of complete forgiveness and permanent cleansing from all sin. Jeremiah records God’s new covenant promise,
“I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jer. 31:34). The old covenant could not provide cleansing from sin, “for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4). Forgiveness of sin comes only through the blood of Christ. The writer of Hebrews declares, “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. … He [Christ], having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:10, 12; cf. 7:27;
9:12; Matt. 26:28).
Hebrews 8:8–12 describes seven characteristics of the new covenant.
First, the new covenant comes from God. In Hebrews 8:8 God declares, “I will effect a new covenant.” Its terms are based on His sovereign plan and purpose.
Second, the new covenant is different from the old covenant. It is not an upgrade but something entirely new.
The Greek word translated “new” in Hebrews 8:8 is kainos, which means new in the sense of different, not new in the sense of subsequence in time.
Third, the new covenant is made “with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Heb. 8:8), but that does not mean, of course, that Gentiles are excluded from it, because
“it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. … And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:7, 29).
Gentiles enter into the blessings of the new covenant through faith in Jesus Christ. The Law given to Moses has always been applied to Gentiles, even those who never heard Moses, and violation of it will bring eternal judgment.
So also new covenant forgiveness has always been offered to Gentiles who have sought grace and forgiveness from God.
Fourth, the new covenant is gracious, not legalistic. In Hebrews 8:9 God said the new covenant is “not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in My covenant, and I did not care for them.” Israel’s disobedience did not abrogate the old covenant but caused the nation to forfeit its promised blessings. Though under the new covenant God, as a loving Father, chastens His disobedient children (Heb.
12:5–11), they will never forfeit its blessing of forgiveness of sin (Jer. 31:34).
Fifth, the new covenant is internal, unlike the old covenant, which was written on tablets of stone (2 Cor. 3:7;
cf. Ex. 31:18). Hebrews 8:10 records God’s promise under the new covenant to “put [His] laws into [His people’s]
minds, and [to] write them on their hearts.”
Sixth, the new covenant is personal. It will finally be fulfilled to Israel (Rom. 9:26–27), but only when the Jews repent and believe the gospel. Salvation comes only to individuals. The Jews, one day in the future, on new covenant terms through faith in Jesus Christ (Zech. 12:10),
“all will know [the Lord], from the least to the greatest”
(Heb. 8:11).
Seventh, the new covenant brings complete forgiveness.
As noted above, that is something the old covenant could not provide (Heb. 10:4). It is the blood of Jesus Christ that
provides the forgiveness of sin promised under the new covenant (Matt. 26:28; cf. Heb. 9:14–15).
In addition to the list given by the author of Hebrews, Paul in this passage reveals eight distinctive qualities of the new covenant: It gives life, produces righteousness, is permanent, brings hope, is clear, is Christ centered, is energized by the Spirit, and is transforming.