Exegesis of 2 Cor. 3:6 - 18

[John317]

....BUT, The Glory of the Ten Cs refected as it were on the face of Moses was doomed to fade away, pass away into nothingness, be 'abolished in authority' and be replaced 'authoritatively', totally, by the Grace of Christ, the Lord.

Yes, the glory of the Old Covenant-- of which the Ten Commandments was the code-- was bound to be replaced by the grace of Christ.

But let's be sure to keep in mind what the New Testament says the grace of Christ is and what that grace accomplishes. See, for instance, Matthew 5: 17-48 and Romans 6-8. The grace of Christ does not release us from the authority of the law of God, but it places us in a different relationship to that law. When we live under the New Covevant-- that is, when we are born again, or from above, and have the Spirit abiding in us--the law of God becomes a part of us-- in our minds and in our hearts-- and is no longer merely a formal law standing outside of us and showing us that we deserve death for breaking it. Instead, under the New Covenant, God places us in a new relationship with Himself, in which we are given the perfect righteousness of Christ, and the Spirit puts within us a growing love for all of God's commandments. The Spirit changes our attitudes. The same law that we hated before, we now love.

Therefore, the grace of Christ accomplishes what the Old Covenant never can: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" sets those in Christ "free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8: 2-4).

It's important to remember that 1 and 2 Corinthians and Romans were all written within about a year of each other. That is, Paul repeats in Romans 6-8 what he had said a year or so earlier in 2 Corinthians 3: 1-18. Galatians also bears the same message. All of these shed light on each other.

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What then took the place of the Ten Cs in 'authority' over all Christians? It was, AGAIN!, the Gospel of Christ, to wit: His free Gift of forgiveness for all the sins of our lives by His Grace WHEN we believe in Him, that He was the Son of God Who was raised to life reconciling you and me, while we were and are yet sinners, to the Father. That Old Covenant Law, the Law of MOses and All the prophets have lost their authority over us and our behavior and it has been totally replaced by Christ, His Grace and His instructions in the NT about how to live...plus the elaborations (On the meanings and applications of His Life) He has chosen to be written in the NT part of the Bible...by His chosen writers...

Yes, the gospel of Christ, or the New Covenant, certainly does-- or should-- take the place of the Old Covenant. But these covenants are not primarily matters of time but of spiritual condition and experience. Let's not forget that just as it was possible for God's people to have New Covenant experiences before Christ, so it is possible for us today to continue having Old Covenant experiences long after Christ's death and resurrection. In fact, that is Paul's very point in 2 Cor. 3: 14-16 as well as in Romans chapters 6 to 11. (Notice, for instance, that in 2 Cor. 3: 14-16, Paul uses the present indicative to signify that the Old Covenant "is taken away" personally and individually, and not that the Old Covenant was abolished in the historical, objective sense. Cf. Hebrews 10:9.)

We must remember that the Christian Greek scriptures themselves uphold the authority of the Hebrew prophets. The Hebrew scriptures remain the word of God, and to that extent they continue to have authority over us. They are included among the "sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus," and which are "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3: 15-17).

And of course Jesus Himself said, "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished" (Matt. 5: 17, 18).

There is no contradiction between the law of God and the gospel if the law is viewed Biblically, that is to say, if it's used as God intended. God intended the law to bring about life, not death (Romans 7: 7-14). The problem, then, lies in a person's thinking that he earns salvation by obeying the law. However, an equal danger lies in a person's being under the illusion that he is in a saved condition even while continuing to deliberately disobey God's law. If the Holy Spirit is truly in our lives, Paul says in 2 Cor. 3: 17, 18, He will free us and empower us to become more and more like Christ, the Righteous One.

Paul himself recognized that he was still under the law of God in that he was responsible to God for obedience to His law and to the law of Christ (1 Cor. 9: 21.) In this, Paul was in complete agreement with James 2:8-13.

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

2) 2 Cor. 3: 7-16 is a parenthesis between 3:6 and 3: 17 and is an explanation of what Paul said in 3:6.

Very interesting, John317. Could you elaborate? In what way are those verses parenthetical?

Dave

I don't mean that 3: 7-17 are not important verses-- they certainly are-- but simply that they are really an explanation of verse 3:6, and that verse 17 again takes up where he left off at the end of the 6th verse, so that they might be read in this way: "...who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life...Now the Lord is that [same] Spirit and where the Lord's Spirit is, [there is] freedom!"

Another such "parenthesis" is found in 2 Cor. 6: 14 through 7:1. (Try skipping those verses and going directly from 6:13 to 7:2. The verses in between, having to do with separation, appear to be out of place. This has caused some to conjecture that verses 6:14 to 7:1 were inserted from a different letter, perhaps from the one referred to in 1 Cor. 5:9.)

A comparison of 2 Corinthians with 1 Corinthians makes it plain that the former is much more emotional and far less organized than the latter. In fact, it would be safe to say that 2 Cor. is the least well organized of any of Paul's letters. Therefore, it shouldn't surprise us at all to find in it many repetitions, digressions, and some "parenthesis'."

[John317]

Originally Posted By: Robert

Right! God gave it not because He thought the Jews could keep it' date=' but because they thought they could keep it....It was designed to humble them so they could accept grace and usher in the Messiah. [/quote']

by this logic then, all those who were faithful under the OC are lost because it could not save.

It was a proxy... Proxy's were and are binding.

The sacrificial and sanctuary systems were intended only to remind the people of the coming of Jesus as the lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. These were given because of the violation of the eternal law of God and they pointed forward to the various aspects of Christ's work of saving sinners, including His current ministry for us as High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary. But all people, both before and after the cross, have been saved by grace through their faith in the Messiah.

[John317]

... The BIG sin that loses the Christian His salvation is not believing and confesing with the mouth that Jesus is Lord, and, love Him for what He has done for your sinning state of affairs. He has promised us eternal life after this death--- with Him in heavenly circles and affairs throughout enternity.

That is true, of course, but what does it mean to believe and confess? I think you will agree that it means more than making a claim to believe; it means truly believing in our hearts that Jesus is our Master. But if we really believe this, that belief will have a controlling influence in our lives. The scriptures say over and over again, "If you love me, keep my commandments," and, "If you say, 'I know him,' but do not fulfil his commandments, you are a liar and the truth is not in you."

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Neither you nor I can eliminate all the little "sins" (that are not real sins!) from our lives....we don't even need to try. Its the Big sin of not loving and respecting the God of the Universe and that His son came, died and was resurrected overlooking all the sins we've ever done which He has forgiven and forgotten.....

"Let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus." "Our faith comes from Him and He is the One Who makes it perfect" (Hebrews 12: 1,2).

It's the Holy Spirit who eliminates the sins from our lives as we keep our attention on Christ and as the Spirit leads us to conform our lives to the will of God, just as Paul says in 2 Cor. 3: 17, 18. Indeed, the Spirit causes us to hate sin and to become slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:18). By the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13), and in this way the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God (Romans 8:16; 1 John 4:13). "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure"(1 John 3:2,3). (Compare 2 Thess. 1: 7-10 for a description of what happens at the Second Coming to those who are not like Christ.)

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Is HE, the Son, or the Father, going to resurrect all our sins and burn 'the Hell' out of us because we were just human and weak of character and will? He can't remember our sins because He has 'forgotten' them!! Those that will be in the 'lake of fire' are listed in Rev 21 and I don't know of a single SDA right now that would even come close to being so bad a person as to deserve the 'lake of fire'...do you?... Ben

Paul was accused by his enemies of teaching that God saves people in their sins rather than from their sins. They were saying that Paul's teaching results in people continuing to sin. However, Paul denied this in the strongest terms. (See Romans 6: 1,2, 15.) It is the Old Covenant that leaves men and women to die in their sins. A good illustration of this is the story of what happened to the children of Israel whom God freed from Egyptian slavery, only to have almost all of them die in the desert and never make it to the promised land. Under the New Covenant, believers die to sin, not in their sins. (See Romans 6: 6-23.)

Romans 4 to 8 and the entire book of Galatians should be studied along with 2 Cor. 3.

For instance, compare 2 Cor. 3: 17, 18 with Romans 8: 28-30: "We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him, whom he has called according to his plan. Those whom he knew beforehand, he has also predestined to be like his Son, similar to him, so that he may be the Firstborn among many brothers. And so, those whom God predestined he called, and those whom he called he justifies, and to those whom he justifies he will give his Glory."