After further wrestling with this portion of Scripture, I’ve re-written this post.
Did anyone, apart from Christ, know the Old Testament better than Paul – “a Hebrew of the Hebrews” (Phil. 3:5)? So, what did Paul think it was all about?
Paul discusses the relationship between the Old and New Testaments in 2 Corinthians 3:6-16. And on the face of it, he seems to paint a very stark contrast between them.
He describes the Old Testament and its effects using the following phrases: “the letter kills” (v. 6), “the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones” (v. 7), and “the ministration of condemnation” (v. 9).
His description of the New Testament is quite a contrast: “the spirit gives life” (v. 6), “the ministration of the spirit” (v. 8), “the ministration of righteousness” (v. 9). This comparison raises two questions:
Question 1: Is Paul describing all of the Old Testament or simply one part of it?
Paul is not referring to the whole Old Testament, but to the moral law, the Ten Commandments, which were “written and engraved in stones” (v. 7).
Question 2: Paul says that the Ten Commandments killed and condemned. Is that what God designed, or was it the result of a misunderstanding and misuse of the law of Moses?
Let’s just recap before we answer this question. You will remember how Jesus said that Moses and the other prophets spoke of Him (Lk. 24: 27, 44; Jn. 5:39, 46).
Peter confirmed this in 1 Peter 1:10-12. In fact, earlier in his ministry, Peter looked back at the times of Moses and said that despite the burden of religious ceremonies then, there were also those who by grace believed in Jesus (Acts 15:10-11).
Paul also taught that the law of Moses witnessed to Jesus Christ as the saving righteousness of God (Rom. 3:21). And remember, Paul taught elsewhere that the Sinai covenant did not cancel grace but rather revealed and furthered it (Gal. 3 & 4). So the Sinai covenant, taken as a whole, was a revelation of the covenant of grace, not a contradiction or cancellation of it.
Ripped out of context
However, in 2 Corinthians 3, Paul is focusing on the moral law, the Ten Commandments, ripped from their gracious context and taken in isolation. It’s not that the Sinai covenant as a whole was a killing and condemning covenant. Rather, by taking one part of the Sinai covenant, the moral law, and divorcing it from the gracious redemption that brought the Israelites into a gracious relationship with God, they turned it into a condemning and killing covenant.
This fits the context of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 3. First, at the beginning of the chapter, he contrasts the written letters of commendation that the false apostles boasted of, with the living letters of commendation that the Corinthian believers were to him. The contrast was between what was purely dead letter on dead paper, and what was internal, living and vibrant due to the work of the Spirit and of Christ (v. 3).
Second, in verse 6, Paul describes himself as a minister of the New Testament, “not of the letter, but of the spirit.” As these words are part of a letter, he is certainly not decrying letters or words! Rather he is speaking of the bare letter, as contrasted with the letter accompanied by the Holy Spirit.
Third, at the end of the chapter he describes how the Word divorced from the Spirit and from Christ results in the continued blindness and deadness of the Jews. In that sense they repeat the mistake of their ancient ancestors. But those who have seen Christ by faith and enjoy the work of the Spirit in their hearts, are freed to live and be transformed from glory to glory (vv. 14-18).
The mere letter murders
So, three times this chapter describes the killing effects of the mere letter, the Word without faith in Christ or the work of the Holy Spirit. It therefore makes sense to view the middle verses (vv. 6-11) as describing the mere letter, the killing and condemning effects of the Sinai Law when separated from its redemptive and grace-revealing context. As Augustine put it, “If the Spirit of grace is absent, the law is present only to accuse and kill us.”
Temporary and transient grace
But Paul is not just concerned to expose the Jewish perversion of the Old Sinai covenant. He also wants to show its temporary and inferior nature compared to the New Covenant. The fact that the shining glory on Moses face gradually faded indicated that the Old Covenant was not God’s last Word. Paul says that the temporary nature of this glory was a parable for the whole Mosaic system. It was temporary and transient, designed to fade away and eventually be replaced by a system that would be far superior due to its clarity and permanence (vv. 7, 11-12).
As we have seen, grace was gloriously displayed in the types, the predictive pictures of the Old Covenant. Sadly, the people became attached to the pictures themselves, the sacrifices and ceremonies, rather than One pictured and prophesied in them. This focus on the physical and the visible obscured Christ from them, an obscurity symbolized by the veil over Moses face. Hodge explained:
In contrast, the new covenant used “great plainness of speech” (v. 12). It was the same message of grace but the veil was “done away in Christ.” Thus, when Christ fulfilled the ceremonies, the symbols, and the shadows, he removed the need for these interim measures. Hodge puts it like this:
Hodge summarizes 2 Corinthians 3 as follows:
Illustration
Let me give you an illustration that I hope will clarify what Jesus, Peter, and Paul teach about the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.
Eventually, their warehouses were full, but their order books were empty. At this point, the managing director’s son, who had been trying for some time to change the company’s product range, offered to buy out the older management. A deal was soon concluded and the son took over. The warehouses were emptied of old stock, and in came personal computers, printers, and business software. The well-respected company name, Office Administration, was retained, but below the signs and the letterheads was written “Under New Management.” The company soon began to prosper again. The company name and business was the same – Office Administration – but the product range was now suited to a new age and to the new ways that offices were administered.
Under New ManagementIn a sense, the story of the whole Bible is about Grace Administration. What the New Testament tells us is that the coming of Jesus Christ changed the way grace is administered. The Old Testament administered grace in a way that suited the times and the people then – through prophecies, types, and symbols. It was glorious – for its time. But now, the same grace is to be administered directly and only through Jesus Christ. Grace Administration is “Under New Management.” And, as such, it is even more glorious. “For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remains is glorious” (2 Cor. 3:11). In other words, the New Testament is not a new “business” but a new way of administering the same “business” of grace. It is Grace Administration “Under New Management.” It’s not that the Old Testament was Law-works Administration and the New Testament is Grace Administration. It is not a contrast of absolutes – law v grace; it’s a contrast of relatives – less grace v more grace. The old management of Grace Administration was glorious (the Old Covenant), but the new management is far more glorious (the New Covenant).
