Paul contrasted the ministry of Christians with the ministry of Moses. He did so to enable his readers to understand and appreciate the glory of their ministry and its superiority over that of the Mosaic economy.
"The countermissionaries in Corinth are, in some significant way, exponents of the Mosaic ministry. They are, to use the term imprecisely, Judaizers.'"118
3:1 The preceding verses could have drawn offense from the Corinthians because Paul told them things about himself that they already knew and should have remembered. He mentioned these things as though they were new. He explained that his intention was not to introduce himself to them again in a self-commending fashion. Letters written with pen and ink for this purpose were superfluous since they had already received a much better letter of commendation. He had lived his life among them as an open book.
Representatives of the Jewish authorities in Judea carried letters of commendation (recommendation) to the synagogues of the Dispersion (cf. Acts 9:2; 22:5). The early Christians evidently continued this practice (Acts 18:7; Rom. 16:1). Paul contrasted himself with the legalistic teachers of Judaism and early Christianity who believed that observance of the Mosaic Law was essential for justification and sanctification (cf. Acts 15:5).
3:2 The Corinthians, too, were such letters that God had written. God's method of commending the gospel to others is through the supernatural change that he writes on the lives of believers by His Holy Spirit. In this instance the transformation of the Corinthians' lives was the strongest proof of the genuineness of Paul's apostleship. For Paul to have offered other letters written on paper would have been insulting and superfluous. What God had said about Paul by blessing his ministry with fruit in Corinth spoke more eloquently than any letter that he could have carried on his person.
"Proof of Paul's genuineness was to be found not in written characters but in human characters."119
3:3 Paul's ministry and the ministry of all Christians consists of being the instruments through whom Christ writes the message of regeneration on the lives of those who believe the gospel. He does this by the Holy Spirit.
"The Corinthian church is a letter of which Christ is the author; Paul is either the messenger by whom it was delivered' (Gk. diahonetheisa, ministered' or administered') or perhaps the amanuensis who took it down; it was written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.' This contrast between ink' and Spirit' reminds Paul of the contrast between the old covenant and the new, but in view of the material on which the Decalogue, the old covenant code, was engraved, he thinks not of parchment or papyrus (which would have been suitable for ink') but of tablets of stone' as contrasted with tablets of human hearts' (lit. tablets, hearts of flesh') on which the terms of the new covenant are inscribed."120
3:4 Jesus Christ had given Paul confidence that the changes that the gospel had produced in the Corinthians validated his apostolic credentials. That confidence was not merely the product of Paul's imagination.
3:5 Paul did not want his readers to confuse this confidence with the confidence that comes from feeling adequate or self-sufficient. Our service is really God working through us rather than we serving Him. God is the one who makes us adequate servants. Paul was contrasting God-confidence with self-confidence.
3:6 Paul proceeded to identify seven contrasts between the New Covenant (agreement, Gr. diatheke) under which Christians serve God and the Old Covenant under which believing Israelites served God.121He did so to heighten understanding of and appreciation for the ministry of Christians. The Old Covenant in view is the Mosaic Covenant, and the New Covenant is the covenant that Jesus Christ ratified by His death (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25; Heb. 13:20).122
The Old Covenant was very specific concerning human responsibilities. It was essentially an objective, external standard that God revealed for His people Israel without any special enabling grace. However the New Covenant rests on promises that include the indwelling and empowering presence of God's Holy Spirit who enables the believer to obey (John 14:17; 16:13; Acts 1:4, 8; Rom. 8:4). It is also more general in its demands.
The outcomes or results of each covenant differ too. The Old Covenant slew people in the sense that it showed how impossible it was to measure up to God's requirements. Moreover it announced a death sentence on all who fell short (cf. Rom. 7:9-11; Gal. 3:10). The New Covenant, on the other hand, leads to fullness of life because God's Spirit helps the believer do God's will (cf. Rom. 7:6; 8:3).
Paul used "Spirit"in this passage in a double sense. On the one hand, he contrasted the letter or exact wording of the Old Covenant with the spirit or true intention of the New Covenant. On the other hand, he contrasted the non-enabling, external words of the Old Covenant with the enabling, internal Holy Spirit of the New Covenant (cf. Rom. 2:28-29; 7:6).123The second of these senses is more primary.
3:7-8 Another contrast between the two covenants concerns the medium God used to carry them to His people. He employed stone tablets for the Old Covenant but His Holy Spirit for the New Covenant. These vehicles represent the nature of each covenant: hard and unbending compared to personal and friendly.
Another contrast is the relative glory of the ministries that marked the economies that the covenants created.124Both covenants involved ministry to God that resulted in glory for God. However the glory of the New Covenant far surpasses the glory of the Old Covenant. Here Paul began to think about the glory that appeared on Moses' face when he descended from Mt. Sinai after he had communed with God for 40 days and nights (Exod. 34:29-35). The glory (i.e., the manifest evidence of God's presence) was so strong when Moses reentered the camp that the Israelites could not look at him for very long. The evidence of God's presence was very strong during the economy when a covenant leading to death governed God's people. How much stronger, Paul argued, will be the manifestation of God's glory in an age when His life-giving Spirit inhabits His people?
3:9-10 The New Covenant is also more glorious than the Old in that it manifests the character and purposes of God more fully and finally. Similarly the dawning of the sun transcends and supercedes the illumination of a lamp. Greater glory attends the proclamation of the gospel than was true when God gave the Mosaic Law.
The purpose of the New Covenant is to produce righteousness. The purpose of the Old Covenant was to show that humans stand condemned because we cannot please God by obeying Him completely. Both covenants had both purposes, but their primary characteristics are what Paul contrasted here. This is Paul's sixth contrast.
3:10 The New Covenant glorifies God so much more than the Old Covenant did that Paul could say the Old Covenant had no glory by comparison.
3:11 Paul's seventh and last contrast is between the temporary character of the Old Covenant and the permanent character of the New. The New will remain (cf. Heb. 13:20). The Old has passed away (cf. Rom. 10:4; Gal. 5:1; Heb. 7:12). Paul compared the fading glory on Moses' face with the fading glory of the Old Covenant.
The New Covenant went into effect and replaced the Old Covenant when Jesus Christ died. Some of its benefits began to bless all people immediately (vv. 6-11; cf. Heb. 10:1-18). However other of its benefits, specifically those on Israel, will not take effect until God resumes dealing with Israel as a nation (Jer. 31:31-34). This will happen when Jesus Christ returns to the earth and restores Israel as her Messiah.
"The thrust of these covenantal contrasts is that the New Covenant provides divine enablement and has replaced the Old Covenant. In this way Paul firmly established the superiority of his apostolic ministry over that of his Judaizing opponents."125
Paul was not saying the Old Covenant involved laws but the New Covenant does not. Both covenants include both laws and grace, though there were more laws in the Old Covenant and there is more grace in the New. His purpose was to contrast the spirit, emphasis, and primary characteristics of each covenant.
"In II Corinthians 3:7-11 Paul makes the comparison between what is ministered through Moses and what is ministered through Christ. That which Moses ministered is called a ministration of death and it is specifically said to have been written and engraved in stones. The only part of the Mosaic Law which was written in stones was the Ten Commandments--that category which some designate as the moral part of the law. Thus, this passage says that the Ten Commandments are a ministration of death; and furthermore, the same passage declares in no uncertain terms that they are done away (vs. 11). Language could not be clearer, and yet there are fewer truths of which it is harder to convince people."126
The best explanation for the Christian's relationship to the Ten Commandments that I have found is as follows. God has terminated the whole Mosaic code, of which the Ten Commandments were a part, as a code. We are now under a new code (covenant), the "law of Christ"(Gal. 6:2), which contains nine of the Ten Commandments.127
