Transcript

The Glory of the New Covenant

2 Corinthians 3:7-11
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Pastor Randy Smith

Last week we learned two wonderful biblical truths that should bring each one of us in Christ tremendous encouragement - a brief review.

First, we have a special ability, an ability to obey God's commandments. Unlike believers in the Old Covenant, we are under the New Covenant inaugurated by Christ and thus have God's law written on our hearts and God's Spirit dwelling within us.

As Paul said in verse 6, "The letter kills." God's law though good in and of itself kills when it is met with a hard heart. But also in verse 6, "the Spirit gives life." Soft hearts filled with the Holy Spirit are empowered to obey God's law and experience the life-giving freedom that it brings.

So remember that obedience to God's commands does not gain our salvation - salvation cover-to-cover in the Bible has always been on the basis of faith, but obedience to God's commands give evidence of our salvation, honor our Savior and provide for us a life filled with the utmost joy and peace. Therefore following God's word is important and with the Holy Spirit and the soft hearts God supplies in the New Covenant, it is now possible.

And second, another truth of encouragement from last week's sermon was the wonderful reality that God uses all of His children to accomplish His purposes. What a tremendous privilege! But what a humbling privilege when we really think about it! The almighty, holy Creator wants to use me? If you are honest with yourself, you have to be thrilled, but at the same time conclude that you too are unworthy and inadequate for the calling.

That is all true, but the good news is that God delights in and only chooses to use people who come to this understanding of themselves. His power is always perfected in weakness. Therefore I'd make the argument that acknowledging our inadequacies does not disqualify us from service, but is perhaps the first prerequisite for successful service! Proud people don't serve God because they are too busy serving themselves and seeking glory for themselves. Humble people allow God to work through them whereby they get out of the way and the Lord receives all the glory.

Both of these points are wonderful truths of the New Covenant that we learned last week which led me to ask myself some questions and share them so that you can ask yourself:

1. Am I serving God with His strength allowing Him to empower my gifts and shine brightly through my weaknesses, or am I all about my feeble attempts, lazy inactivity or wanting to make a name for myself?
2. Am I living by faith in God's promise to love me, or am I trying to earn His love though obedience?
3. Am I keeping the link between obedience and faith, knowing that obeying God's commands still matters even though I am saved by faith alone because faith without obedience is dead?
4. Do I really want the Holy Spirit to make me more and more like Jesus Christ, or am I content with what He has already achieved in my life?
5. Am I really battling sin, or is it all about cheap grace and excuses for my disobedience?
6. Is there evidence the Holy Spirit is changing and transforming my life toward holiness to show that I am indeed a member of the New Covenant we have been learning about?

This morning we'll continue our study of the New Covenant as Paul in the inspired word presents to us three points of comparison between the Old and New Covenant to conclude why the New Covenant comes to us with greater glory.

Now our passage this morning is basically an interpretation of Exodus 32-34. So to rightly understand what is before us, let's examine what was given to us from Moses in the Old Testament in those chapters.

Exodus 31 ends with Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the law, the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God (Ex. 31:18). Everything is great between God and the Israelites, right? Wrong! Moses' delay on the mountain (now in Exodus 32:1) prompted the people to go their own direction and create a god for themselves . The infamous golden calf was the result. Exodus 32:4, they said, "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt." God's response? Verses 9-10, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them." Moses' response? Verse 19, "It came about, as soon as Moses came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses' anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain."

Rescued from slavery, miracle after miracle, a chosen people to have a special relationship with God, and they were still stiff-necked and rebellious. Their disobedience to the law resulted in God's judgment. Key thought, the Old Covenant did not result in God's blessings, but rather consequences and death. We need to ask, is it therefore good or bad to have a relationship with this holy God? How can God's people dwell among Him without being destroyed? In chapter 33 verse 5 God Himself even said, "You are an obstinate people; should I go up in your midst for one moment, I would destroy you." Verses 7-11 tell us only Moses could meet with the Lord outside the camp as God needed to dwell away from the people. God's holiness and sinful people brings a necessary collision course, and God's holiness will always win. We want God, but we don't want God because God's glory means death. God made that unmistakable in 33:20 when He said to even Moses, "You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!" Do you see the dilemma?

So the Lord gives the Israelites another chance. Chapter 34, verse 1, "Cut out for yourself two stone tablets like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered." The command to Moses if the nation was to have success was clear, verse 11, " Be sure to observe what I am commanding you this day." Moses was with the Lord forty days. He received, verse 28, "the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments." This was the second giving of the law.

As Moses descended from Mount Sinai (catch this because it will deal directly with our passage), verse 29 tells us that his face was shining because of his conversation with God. Verse 30, this sight frightened the Israelites, including Aaron, not because of their fear of Moses, but because Moses' face reflected the glory and holiness of God. After Moses was done speaking to the people he would place a veil over his face. Then when Moses would speak to the Lord he would remove the veil (verse 34). Yet when he spoke to the people because of their fear of God's glory, he would replace the veil (verse 35).

So why did Moses wear the veil? Most interpreters would say it was to cover the glory that was fading which is nowhere in the text. A better interpretation is that Moses and the people wanted to protect Israel from God's presence, His glory lest they be destroyed. You see, they knew the command from verse 32 which said, "To do everything that the LORD had spoken to [Moses] on Mount Sinai." And they also knew their hard hearts and inability to do it. Their sin in connection with God's glory meant judgment. Therefore the veil was in a sense an act of mercy.

And we see this throughout the Old Covenant. Israel could never get close to God without being destroyed. Mt. Sinai - Exodus 34:3, "No man is to come up with you, nor let any man be seen anywhere on the mountain; even the flocks and the herds may not graze in front of that mountain." The "tent the meeting" - Exodus 33:8, "Whenever Moses went out to the tent, that all the people would arise and stand, each at the entrance of his tent, and gaze after Moses until he entered the tent." He was behind the veil which we just discussed. Then eventually in the tabernacle and temple where only the high priest could enter one time a year. Overall there was a distance between the people and God. And with their hard hearts and inability, they couldn't keep the terms of the covenant which eventually led them off to captivity. What did all of this reveal? There was a need for a New Covenant.

And what did the prophet Jeremiah say about this New Covenant in the Old Testament (Jer. 31:31-34)? That God's law would not be written on tablets of stone, but within our hearts. That there would be unbroken fellowship with God as He would always be our God and we would always be His people. That all in the covenant would know the Lord from the least to the greatest. And that forgiveness from sins would be unconditional. As God said through Jeremiah, "I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more" (Jer. 31:34).

So this expanded explanation of Exodus, helps us understand what the Old Testament said about the Old Covenant, and it helps us rightly make sense of what Paul is getting at when he compares the two covenants in our passage from 2 Corinthians 3:7-11.

1. The First Comparison

The first comparison is found in verses 7-8.

As we have been learning the problem with the Old Covenant was not God's law itself. Paul tells us in Romans 7:12 that the law was "holy and righteous and good." The problem in the Old Covenant was the people's hard hearts. As we read in verse 7, the law was "letters engraved on stones," that is stone tablets that were received by stony hearts. And because of that, the Old Covenant law produced "death." It was a "ministry of death," verse 7 says.

What kind of death? It would promise a relationship with God holding out the possibilities for hope and joy and peace, but even in that relationship it would produce frustration, hopelessness and guilt. Additionally, the law revealed God's truth, but it was only a law, there was nothing within it that would empower the people to obey God's truth. Additionally, the law proved the people could not keep their end of the conditional covenant which resulted in God's judgment and their death. And additionally, for those who misused the law and sought to earn their salvation from it were only kept further outside of a relationship with God. The law revealed who the Lord was and the people's sin. The law brought death. As Paul said in verse 6, "the letter kills."

Paul illustrates that point at the end of verse 7 with what we already covered from Exodus. "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." The consequences of the people's violation of the law in the presence of God was so threatening that Moses would even need to cover his face lest the people be exposed even to small glimpse of the Lord's glory as mediated through another human. Even the second-degree proximity of the Lord's glory to the people would mean their destruction!

It's like being told by your mother that staring at the sun can damage your eyes. It's quite another thing if she said that staring at someone with a bad sunburn can damage your eyes. This is the way it was with Moses!

So Paul's point in comparing the two covenants is not to say the Old Covenant is bad. As he says in verse 7, "[It] came with glory" and the radiance on Moses' face was evidence of that glory. So the Old Covenant was glorious as it was from God, but as it was received by the people it didn't turn for their good, but because what Paul called in verse 7, "a ministry of death."

Because the Old Covenant brought death, Paul can ask of the New Covenant in verse 8, "How will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?" So the difference between the covenants is not the means by which they saved people - salvation has always been on the basis of faith. Nor is the difference in the God who gave the covenants. For that reason both covenants were intrinsically glorious. God's glory is not given out in degrees. The difference is not even their hearts and our hearts today. Without God we are probably more wicked. The difference lies in the fact that the New Covenant came, as Paul says in verse 8, with the "Spirit." And with the Holy Spirit now abiding within us we have the ability not only to delight in God's laws (as the Israelites did), but also to obey God's laws. Through the New Covenant we can experience not death, but life as God always intended it. That is why the New Covenant has more glory.

2. The Second Comparison

The second comparison is found in verses 9-10. "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 ."

You see, in the Old Covenant there was no empowering ability to obey God's expectations. Furthermore, all that were part of the Old Covenant were not necessarily God's people. In Romans, Paul himself said, "For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel" (Rom. 9:6). Yet in the New Covenant God says through Jeremiah, "They will know Me , from the least of them to the greatest of them" (Jer. 31:34). That is because in the New Covenant God's Spirit will be dwelling within all of them, and Jesus Christ will have applied to all of them His perfect righteousness. The New Covenant in verse 8 is a "ministry of righteousness."

So let's do some comparisons.

Someone sinned in the Old Covenant. What would happen? If they were part of God's family through faith they would make atonement for their sin through the shedding of blood. Forgiveness was extended. Someone sins in the New Covenant. What happens? Being part of God's family through faith, they know that atonement for this sin was already made through Jesus Christ shedding His blood.

The Old Covenant people feared God's wrath and judgment continually. They were forever making blood sacrifices as prescribed by the law. They were forever wondering if they did enough. They were forever reaping the consequences of falling short of keeping their end of the bargain, the expectations placed upon them in the covenant. It was, as Paul says in verse 9, a "ministry of condemnation." It was good from God's perspective, but it was condemning from man's perspective.

In the New Covenant we too fear God and seek to honor Him, but we do not fear His wrath. We know that Jesus Christ took the fullness of His wrath upon Himself when He died on the cross. We know that atonement is complete. We know that each of our sins have received their just punishment already. And we know that the New Covenant is, verse 9, a "ministry of righteousness" because Jesus Christ has given to us His perfect righteousness. We are not only forgiven, but we are credited with Christ's righteousness which justifies us and permits us to stand in the presence of God's almighty blazing glory without fear of being incinerated (totally unlike those in the Old Covenant).

Yes, we can take it for granted. Yes, we can be too flippant and familiar with this privilege. But let us never miss the point that while the Old Covenant member feared the face of Moses and the second-degree display of God's glory, we can boldly approach His throne, be in His immediate presence and find not an angry God, but now a Father that receives all His children with love and grace and kindness. That is why we, unlike those of the Old Covenant, can now dwell in the presence of God without the fear of being judged. The Old Covenant was a "ministry of condemnation" (verse 9). Remember what Paul said in in Romans 8:1 of this New Covenant "ministry of righteousness" (verse 9)? "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

3. The Third Comparison

And briefly, the third comparison is found in verse 11. "For if that which fades away [better "renders inoperative"] was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory."

The Old Covenant is done. Hebrews tells us it's obsolete (Heb. 8:13). Romans tells us we have been released from the Old Covenant so that we can now serve God in the newness of the Spirit (Rom. 7:6). The Old Covenant has been rendered inoperable, verse 11, because of the New Covenant that has now arrived, revealing the fullness of our relationship with God adding up all His promises now completely fulfilled in Christ. The New Covenant is never to be supplemented or surpassed.

So the New Covenant, point one, provides unlimited exposure to God's glory. Point two, a righteousness given to us from Christ to stand in God's glory. And point three, a permanent covenant that will never end to enjoy God's glory.

And while Paul's point in this discourse is to prove to his critics that he indeed is superior to Moses and privileged to be a minister of this great New Covenant, we need to sit back and absorb these great truths in our own lives that we indeed are privileged to be members of this New Covenant.

So I ask you, my friend, are you a member of the New Covenant? Has this sermon exposed you to the terrifying wrath and judgment of God upon sinners? Do you realize how you can never obey God to earn His favor? Rather do you realize that Jesus Christ died for all the sin of sinners and we can receive this gift of forgiveness through faith? And when we receive Christ, we enter into a relationship with the living God. Condemnation and curse and death are gone. Righteousness and blessings and life have arrived. The Spirit is given to us and evidence of His presence is the ability to follow God's commands resulting in transformation into that same righteousness we have been granted (2 Cor. 3:18).

And if you are in Christ, think about this: Alive in the era of the New Covenant. Called by God to be His child. The law written on our hearts. Clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Fellowship with God that we need not fear. And given the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. Going forward into eternity this is the relationship God has with His people. We need not fear losing it because He has promised in the New Covenant to always be our God as we will always be His people.