விரிவுரை தற்போது ஆங்கிலத்தில் மட்டுமே கிடைக்கிறது. தமிழ் மொழிபெயர்ப்பு நடைபெறுகிறது.
2 Corinthians 3 — From Glory to Glory
Paul needs no letters of commendation — the Corinthians themselves are his epistle, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. God hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. If the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious so that Israel could not behold Moses' face, how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? The veil that remains on hearts in the reading of the old testament is done away in Christ. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty — and we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:18
- v.1-6 Living epistles; ministers of the new covenant
- v.7-16 The fading glory and the lifted veil
- v.17-18 Liberty and transformation by beholding
The answer to 2:16's who is sufficient? No one — of himself. Sufficiency is not achieved but received. The minister's competence is a daily allowance drawn from God.
Self-sufficiency is the occupational disease of the gifted. Paul, the most gifted of all, disclaims even the ability to think anything as from himself.
The letter killeth — not because the law is evil, but because it commands without enabling. It diagnoses and condemns. The spirit giveth life — the new covenant supplies what it requires.
A ministry of the letter produces either pride or despair; a ministry of the Spirit produces life. The difference is not the standard preached but the power imparted.
Liberty — not from the moral will of God, but from the veil, the condemnation, the bondage of approaching God through fear. The Spirit brings sons into the throne room unveiled.
Wherever the Spirit truly governs there is freedom, not constriction. Legalism and license are both bondage; the Spirit's liberty is the freedom to behold and to obey gladly.
The mechanics of sanctification in one verse: we become what we behold. Moses' face shone from forty days of gazing; the believer is transformed by continual beholding of Christ in the glass of the word.
From glory to glory — transformation is progressive, not instant. We all — not Moses only; every unveiled believer has access to the transforming sight. By the Spirit — the agent is divine; the posture (beholding) is ours.
You become like what you stare at. Verse 18 makes beholding the engine of becoming — so audit your gaze. The believer who beholds Christ daily in the word is being changed by degrees into His likeness; the believer who beholds everything else is being conformed to that instead.
Christ is the glory of God beheld in the glass (v. 18); the veil over Moses' covenant is done away in Christ (v. 14). The old covenant's fading brightness was always pointing to the unfading face of Jesus Christ (4:6).
Changed lives are Christ's handwriting. The Corinthians — once fornicators, idolaters, drunkards — were now a letter the whole world could read. The Spirit writes on hearts what Sinai wrote on stone.
This fulfills Jeremiah 31:33 and Ezekiel 36:26 — the law written within. The new covenant does not lower the standard; it relocates it from tablet to heart.