Transcript

The Ministry of Internal Transformation

2 Corinthians 3:4-6
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Pastor Randy Smith

As I have been reading through the Bible this year, I find myself in the book of Deuteronomy. Like 2 Corinthians to Paul, Deuteronomy comes from the heart of Moses. Not permitted himself to enter the Promised Land, he stood on the precipice of the Jordan and gave his final farewell speech to the Israelites as they prepared to enter Canaan. His goal in Deuteronomy was to not only transfer his leadership to Joshua, but also to emphasize the laws that must be obeyed if the people were to have any success. The expectations from the Lord delivered through Moses were clear. Obey the Lord and there will be blessings. Disobey the Lord and there will be consequences.

Yet as I went through Deuteronomy I noticed that while Moses is trying to encourage the people toward spiritual prosperity, he frequently chastised them for their hard and rebellious hearts. Not what you'd expect in a pep talk! In 9:6 he said, "Know, then, it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people." 10:16, "So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer." And then he concluded his speech with these words, "For I know your rebellion and your stubbornness; behold, while I am still alive with you today, you have been rebellious against the LORD; how much more, then, after my death?" (Dt. 31:27).

I asked myself, how can that be? These were the very people whom God rescued from slavery in Egypt. They witnessed miracle after miracle in the desert. They were specifically chosen by God and given His law. And they were clearly warned that disobedience would result in significant consequences. So why were they so disobedient? Why was Moses convinced before they stepped foot into the Promised Land that there would be continued rebelliousness against the Lord? And as we know from the rest of the Bible, why did the Israelites nosedive and get taken off into captivity just as the Lord promised? Why? God on their side, warnings and promises in their minds, miracles before their eyes, His law in their hands and they fail miserably. Why did that happen? Is that the same destiny for the church? As God's people, what makes us any different? The answer to this is that there is something we have that they didn't. And today we'll find out what it is that provides for us an incredible message of hope for successful living in the Christian life.

As we have discussed repeatedly, the apostle Paul wrote 2 Corinthians to address the critiques leveled by the false teachers against his character. It's not that Paul enjoyed defending himself or needed to win the argument for his own superficial ego. Paul knew that if the false teachers discredited his ministry, they would have in effect fully sabotaged the Corinthian church. Removing the apostle Paul from the picture was the same as removing the spokesman for God from the picture. Therefore to reestablish his reputation and credibility was essential for the survival of this church.

So among many other criticisms, they claimed that Paul was not adequate. We saw that starting in 2:16. So in verses 4-6 Paul defends his adequacy by appealing to what God has done in his life. You have read Paul's letters in the Bible. The man was no slouch. He was an educated man with a brilliant mind able to work extremely hard and persevere though all sorts of disappointments. If anybody could serve God on his own strength it was him. Yet he would have been the first guy to say that apart from God working in his life, he would fall on his face and his ministry would have counted for nothing. On the other hand, Paul also knew that he had weaknesses. Like all humans, he had sin. How could he serve the living God?

So like all of us, on his own he was inadequate. Yet with God, verse 4, that he had "confidence" that he was adequate "through Christ toward God." Or as he says in verse 5, "Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God."

I mentioned Moses earlier; I'll draw another connection that I believe Paul draws to the man as this was a common practice in antiquity. So did Moses think he was adequate? Remember Moses as he stood before the Lord at the burning bush? "'Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.' The LORD said to him, 'Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.' But he said, 'Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever You will.' Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and He said, 'Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently. And moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you; when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do. Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him. You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs'" (Ex. 4:10-17).

We have been talking a lot about the need to serve the Lord. What's holding you back? Potentially your answer is that you feel insufficient and inadequate. That is a humble response which is good, but to leave it there and keep yourself on the shelf is disobedience. I would make the argument that your inadequacy is not an obstacle, but the essential requirement needed so that you might trust the Lord to work His power through you. As one author said, your weakness and God's strength perform an unbeatable combination. So you feel inadequate? So did Gideon in his military weakness, and Isaiah in his sin, and Jeremiah in his youth, and Ezekiel in his fear. Join the crowd of God's most outstanding leaders whose weaknesses were made strong when they humbly depended on God to work through them. As Paul himself said in the next chapter (4:7), "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves."

Listen to Oswald Chambers, "God can achieve His purpose either through the absence of human power and resources, or abandonment of reliance on them. All through history God has chosen and used nobodies, because their unusual dependence on Him made possible the unique display of His power and grace. He chose and used somebodies only when they renounced dependence on their natural abilities and resources."

That should be us and that was Paul! He understood the delicate balance of permitting God to work through his phenomenal gifts and talents, while recognizing his weakness, not as something that debilitated ministry but rather something that energized it, as it was an opportunity for humility and therefore the strength and power of God to shine through. So to his critics he was adequate and therefore adequate to be, verse 6, a "servant of the New Covenant."

Now it gets fun. What does that mean (a servant of the "New Covenant"), and how will that truth be a great blessing to our lives?

God has made a series of covenants with His people. Some were conditional and some were unconditional. Some were limited to God's people and some were made to all humankind. For the most part, the covenant that stands out in the Old Testament is the limited and conditional covenant God made to the Israelites and delivered through Moses. We call that the Old Covenant. The book of Hebrews tells us that this covenant is now "obsolete" (Heb. 8:13). The reason being is that it has been replaced by a superior covenant that was, as we have learned, predicted in the Old Testament to arrive.

With the arrival of Jesus Christ came the New Covenant. He told His disciples during the Last Supper, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood" (Lk. 22:20). And the Lord made the arrival of the New Covenant dramatically clear when the veil in the Temple was torn from top to bottom after Jesus died on the cross (Mt. 27:51). This event signified the fact that the whole old system had ended and a new covenant had dawned. The Holy Place was now exposed, and redeemed sinners by the blood of Christ (not the blood of animals) were given open and direct access to the throne of God (Heb. 4:16). And to make it unmistakably clear, God permitted the Temple to be destroyed in AD 70 to put an end to all animal sacrifices now that the shadows of animal sacrifices have given way to the substance; the one-and-for-all blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Heb. 9:12).

Now those famous words that Paul attributes to the New Covenant in verse 6, in the context of being a servant of the New Covenant, " Not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." What is he getting at here? There have been so many attempted explanations throughout church history. Before I share what I think is correct, here are some suggestions that I think are incorrect.

First, in ancient times a common interpretation of this verse was used to justify allegorical interpretations. A little liberty from this verse and a creative mind and you can make the Bible say anything you want. This is not as common today.

Today the common simple interpretation is one that can justify a life of disobedience by claiming that Paul is telling us to not accept a wooden/literal interpretation of the Bible. They say, it is not the letter of the law that matters. What we as believers need to do is just keep in line with the "spirit" of the law. So for example, leaving your spouse is fine because God wants us to be at peace. Calling out others on sin is wrong because we ought not to judge one another. Lying is fine at times because telling the truth may appear unloving. Therefore quit being so literal and let's all just follow the "spirit" of God's laws. This is nowhere near the context of Paul's argument here, and nowhere near what God wants us to think and do.

A second (and better) option asserts that the word "letter" (as in God's commands) represents the law and the word "Spirit" (as in Holy Spirit) represents the gospel. The belief therefore says the law kills because it demands perfect obedience, but does drive the sinner to the gospel for the grace and mercy to be freely and fully forgiven through the work of Christ. Not totally true, and I don't believe that's Paul's point either.

A third (and even better) option asserts that the Old Covenant law was never given to earn salvation. God saved people back then just as He does today under the New Covenant - by faith! Even before the law we read that " Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Rom. 4:3). Therefore the Old Covenant law was given for God's people to identify themselves as God's people. The law was for those already saved so it may go well with them and they may know how to rightly honor God with their actions. In other words, the law didn't save, but obedience to the law gave evidence of salvation. And when the law was violated, the whole sacrificial system was in place to make temporary atonement through blood for one's transgression.

So what Paul is getting at here (option 3 says) is that Paul's reference to the "letter" is not a reference to the law because the law was good (Rom. 7:12), but rather to the misuse of the law (as we saw when we studied Galatians) when people took the law and used it as a means to earn their salvation - trying to earn their way to God through obedience. So the law itself doesn't kill, but the legalistic view of the law in trying to merit one's salvation does kill. Very true, but again, I do not believe this best fits in Paul's argument.

So let's move to the fourth and final option. What is the context? When Paul started chapter 3 he had been making a contrast between God's work in the past, remember verse 3, writing His law on "tablets of stone" (a reference to the Old Covenant) and His work now in the present, again in verse 3, writing His law on "tablets of human hearts" (a reference to the New Covenant). Therefore the contrast is not between two messages as there has always been one salvation message received by faith alone, but a contrast between two different materials -stony tablets and soft hearts.

When the law was written on tablets of stone, there was a significant weakness. The weakness of the Old Covenant was not in the law. The weakness of the Old Covenant was the people's hearts. They couldn't keep the law because they lacked two basic ingredients.

And what were those ingredients? Both of them interestingly were mentioned in the Old Testament when God used His prophets to speak while under the Old Covenant of the coming New Covenant. First, as God said through Jeremiah, My law within them and on their heart I will write it" (Jer. 31:34). The writing of the law went from tablets of stone to tablets of human hearts. And second, as God said through Ezekiel, "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances" (Eze. 36:27). We by far have greater power to obey the law with the fullness of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us as God says, "causing" us to obey.

So there was ancient Israel. Exodus 24:3, "Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the LORD and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice and said, 'All the words which the LORD has spoken we will do!'" Did they? Exodus 24:7, "Then [Moses] took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, 'All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!'" Did they?

Yet within these verses we read of Moses making sacrifices. We read of him sprinkling blood on the altar. And we read of him sprinkling blood on the people. Despite what the people professed, there needed to be radical forgiveness. In the New Covenant we have been sprinkled with the blood of Christ. We need radical forgiveness too. But according to this passage, there should be a radical difference between us and Israel. It's not in the God we serve. It's not in the desire to obey Him. It's not in the faith of a Messiah to take away our sins. It's not in a law that is given from God to be obeyed. It's not even in a delight in that law. The difference is simply this. The Old Covenant is characterized by people who were stiff-necked and rebellious, whereas the New Covenant is characterized by people who have soft hearts and the ability to obey .

So what makes us unique in the New Covenant is that our relationship to God through Christ is not ethnic or national, but rather spiritual. As Paul said in Romans, only part of Israel was really Israel as only the remnant received the Spirit (Rom. 9:6). Yet in the New Covenant, all within the Covenant will "know the Lord" (Jer. 31:34) because all within the New Covenant will have the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And evidence of the Spirit's fullness would be the ability to not only desire the law (as the Old Covenant saints did that, see Psalm 119!), but to unlike the Israelites, obey it!

Sure, none of us do it perfectly (1 Jn. 1:8), but all of us truly in Christ from the newest believer to the most seasoned saint have no excuses for our sin. It is so encouraging and liberating to know that in all God commands, we have the power from within, God's resurrection power, mediated through the Holy Spirit to be victorious to obey.

Sure, people can counsel us on some strategies to overcome sin such as Bible memorization, prayer, accountability partners and providing no opportunity for the flesh, but our primary hope to be victorious is not faith in a technique but rather, verse 3, faith in a promise that we have power through "the Spirit of the living God." That is why Jesus could say to that repentant, adulteress woman, "From now on sin no more" (Jn. 8:11). God has given His children all the power they need to live like the King.

Never shall a sin again, if we are truly saved, be able to dominate, enslave or defeat us. If that were the case, God has just lied to us. By God's grace, we can rise out of the gutter of sin and stand joyously with the freedom we now have in Christ. We are as Paul said in 5:17 completely new creatures!

So they said Paul was inadequate to be a minister. Paul responds that God in His grace made him adequate despite his inadequacies. And God's grace through him was on stage for all to see as God used Paul to bring heart transformation among those who received the gospel message. Therefore the very Corinthian church was evidence that the New Covenant had arrived and that Paul was a faithful minister of it.

Are we faithful ministers of the New Covenant as well? And are we faithful recipients of the New Covenant with gospel-centered, grace-driven, Spirit-empowered, Christ-exalting obedient living that shows evidence of God's transformation of our hearts?