What the apostle wrote in chapter 2, leads him now to give an exposition of the gospel in contrast with the law, which false teachers mixed together. Law and grace do not go together. The law demands; grace bestows.
Verses 1-3. “Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we as some others, epistles of commendation to you or from you? Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men.” They were his letters of commendation; the proof of the power of his ministry was seen in their conversion. They were ever in his heart, and he could tell it out afresh, since he was assured of their obedience. They were his letter, because in their faith they were the expression of his doctrine. They were the epistle of Christ, his ministry was used to make them that, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but on the fleshy tables of the heart by the power of the Holy Ghost, as the law had been engraven on stones by God.
Verses 4-6. Paul was confident in regard to his ministry— “such trust have we through Christ toward God.” Yet it was not trusting in himself; his ordination and authority was from and of God. His competency was from God who hath made us new Covenant ministers, which ministry was not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life, and the Lord is that Spirit (see verse 17). Every sacrifice and ordinance pointed to Him.
Verses 7-16 is a parenthesis to show the difference between law and righteousness. The law graven on stones was brought in with glory, so that the children of Israel could not bear to look at Moses’ face for the glory of it, yet it was all to pass away, for it was the ministry of death and condemnation. The ministry of the Spirit began with glory, the glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and there it ever subsists. It is the ministration of God’s righteousness in Him, and therefore exceeds in glory. The glory of the law had no glory, compared with Christ’s glory that excelleth. If that which was done away was glorious, much more that which abides is glorious.
There is a danger of Christians making a law of Christ Himself, and thinking of His love as a fresh motive to oblige them to love Him, making it an obligation, which they are powerless to meet to their satisfaction, and consequently they feel condemned in their consciences.
The ministry which the apostle fulfilled was not law. It was the ministry of righteousness and of the Spirit, not demanding righteousness to stand before God, but revealing it in Christ, who was made this righteousness of God for us, and we are made the righteousness of God in Him. The gospel proclaimed righteousness on God’s part for man, instead of demanding it under the law. The Holy Ghost is the seal of that righteousness.
He sealed the Man who was without sin, “Him hath God the Father sealed,” He was approved of God. The Holy Ghost also dwells in all believers, because they are made the righteousness of God in Christ. Thus it was the ministry of the Spirit given to us on our believing the gospel of our salvation. This makes it possible for us to understand the mind and purposes of God revealed to us in the person of a glorified Christ, in whom the righteousness of God was revealed and subsisted eternally before Him.
Verses 17, 18. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” They were no longer under the yoke of the law, nor of the fear of death or condemnation as one has said, “They were in Christ before God, in peace before Him according to perfect love and the favor that is better than life, even as it shone upon Christ without a veil, according to the grace which reigns by righteousness.”
“When it is said, Now the Lord is that Spirit, allusion is made to verse 6 (7-16 is a parenthesis). Christ glorified, is the true thought of the Spirit which God had previously hidden under figures, and here is the practical result; they beheld the Lord with open (that is, with unveiled) face; they were able to do this. The glory of the face of Moses judged the thoughts and intents of the hearts, causing terror by threatening the disobedient and the sinner with death and condemnation. Who could stand in the presence of God? But the glory of the face of Jesus, a man on high, is the proof that all the sins of those who behold it are blotted out; for He who is there, bore them all before He ascended, and He needed to put them all away in order to enter into that glory. We contemplate that glory by the Spirit, who has been given to us in virtue of Christ’s having ascended into it. He did not say, I will go up; peradventure I shall make atonement. He made the atonement and then went up. Therefore we gaze upon it with joy, we love to behold it; each ray that we see is the proof that in the eyes of God our sins are no more. Christ has been made sin for us; He is in the glory. Now, in thus beholding the glory with affection, with intelligence, taking delight in it, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the power of the Holy Spirit who enables us to realize and to enjoy these things; and in this is Christian progress. Thus the assembly, too, becomes the epistle of Christ.
The allusion made to the Jews at the end of the parenthesis, where the apostle makes a comparison between the two systems, is most touching. The veil, he says, is taken away in Christ. Nothing is now veiled. The glorious substance is accomplished. The veil is on the heart of the Jews, when they read the Old Testament. Every time that Moses entered into the tabernacle to speak to God, or to hear Him, he took off his veil. Thus, says the apostle, when Israel shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.
The glory of the person of Jesus Christ, is the substance or spirit of that which the Jewish ordinances represented only in figures.”