WRITTEN AND ENGRAVEN IN STONE.
FROM two correspondents, very recently, comes a similar request concerning an important passage of scripture. Many others are puzzled over some of the expressions in the passage in question, because of the use which has been made of them in theological controversy. We do not propose to discuss it from that point of view. Such a course usually hides more truth than it discloses. The question is as follows: Please explain 2 Corinthians 3, especially from the seventh verse onward. Was not the ministration "written and engraven in stone" the Ten Commandments, which the eleventh verse tells us was done away?
E. C. and M. C. H.
The question opens before us the great subject of salvation, and our reply must at best be but suggestive. First of all, then, let us note that it is not the truth itself, but the ministration of truth that the apostle is discussing. In the second chapter he tells us that his preaching of the Gospel made him a savor of life or a savor of death; savor of life to them who are saved, savor of death in them that perish. Which, depended on how they received the saving truth; yet he declared that the word of God must not be corrupted, but preached in sincerity. That his preaching was right, however, they who received it bore witness; and therefore he tells us in the next chapter that he needs not to commend himself, but that the Corinthian brethren were his epistle of commendation, "known and read of all men;" and that his ministration to them was by the Spirit, that wrote the very truth of God to them, not on tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh. In the fifth verse he declares that he did not do this of himself; but God did it by the power of His Spirit. He makes us ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit; "for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." That is the proposition. What follows is an illustration of the principles which the apostle states. He did not mean by "the letter" that the letter of some old truth killeth, but that the spirit of some new truth giveth life; but that the letter of any truth killeth, even the new covenant, while the spirit of any truth of God giveth life. As an illustration of this he goes back to the time of the children of Israel. When God came down upon Mount Sinai, He desired to take that people into a wonderful nearness to Himself. He wanted to talk with them face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend. Thus He did talk with Moses, and the Spirit of God ministered unto Moses, writing in the heart of Moses the very precepts which God wrote on tables of stone, so that Moses' face shone with the glory which was in the law. Ex. 34: 29-35. The law gave to him not simply the glory of condemnation, which pointed out his sin, but as blessed Gospel enabling acts, it gave him power to do the law, thus making him a lover of the law, and bringing him into such wonderful connection with God that the law became a very part of his being, written in his heart. That was the ministration of the life of the Spirit. When God came down on Mount Sinai and spoke His law, He did not design to drive His people away; He wanted them so to yield to Him that He could do by every one of them just as He did by Moses. But they, being sinners and holding to sin, feared lest they die. They saw God's glory, but it was the glory of condemnation, in contrast to Moses' view of the glory, which was the glory of justification and righteousness. Therefore, they plead with Moses, "Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." Ex. 20: 19. "Behold, Jehovah our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire; we have seen this day that God doth speak with man, and he liveth. Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of Jehovah our God any more, then we shall die. . . . Go thou near and hear all that Jehovah our God shall say; and speak thou unto us all that Jehovah our God shall speak unto thee; and we will bear it, and do it." Deut. 5: 24-27.5 By their own choice they interposed the human agency between themselves and God. It was not Moses' choice. Moses said, "Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before you, that ye sin not." Ex. 20: 20. The Lord said, "O that there were such an heart in them that they would fear Me, and keep My commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever." Deut. 5: 29. That was God's desire, and yet He saw that in their sinful condition they could not bear His word, and so He said to Moses, "I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee; they have well said all that they have spoken." Verse 28. They were not able in their sinful condition to hear the voice of God. Yet God gave that very law to them because He loved them. "Jehovah came from Sinai, and rose from Seir unto them; He shined forth from Mount Paran, and He came from the ten thousands of holy ones; at His right hand was a fiery law for them. Yea, He loveth the people." Deut. 33: 2, 3. Moses gave them the law according to their request, but he could only minister to them condemnation because of their sinful condition, so that all that they received of the law was its moral lesson; all that they could do of the law was mere outward performance; all the glory which they received was the glory of condemnation. The ministration of the law to them was the ministration of death, because "sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." Yet it was glorious, so glorious did it come to them, even thru Moses, that they could not bear the shining of his face, because of the glory of his countenance. God designed to do away with that glory of condemnation in the greater glory of justification. This Moses experienced in his own life, so that the blessed presence of God was to him life and salvation, where he could tarry forty days and forty nights without eating; but the glory of condemnation without was such that it could not keep the children of Israel back from their idolatry and their idolatrous feast during the time that they were waiting for Moses to come from the presence of God. If they had received that law from the veritable presence of God, the lesser glory of condemnation would have been done away by the greater glory of justification, and the glory within would have been in perfect harmony with the glory without. Then the faces of the whole congregation would have shone as did the face of Moses. Then, indeed, God could have used them as a kingdom of priests to all nations of the world. The Corinthian brethren received the law as from God; they heard God speaking thru Christ, and God by His Spirit spoke the law upon the very tables of their hearts and made it a very part of their being, so that the glory of their condemnation in sin was done away in the glory of the righteousness received from Christ Jesus. The law did not change; the ministration did. The ministration of condemnation came thru reception of the law in its letter; the ministration of true justification or righteousness came thru reception of that law in Christ Jesus by the Spirit. Therefore, they had the greater glory of righteousness. The law was glorious, so that even the sinner would say with Paul, "For the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin." "But the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good," but he found in him no power to do the law. But when he received Christ Jesus, the Lord, the living personification of that law, then the law became in him thru Christ a mighty worker of righteousness, manifest in obedience, the greater glory of righteousness. Rom. 8: 1-4. Therefore Paul could use to the Corinthian brethren great boldness. They had received the law in their hearts. He did not have to do as Moses, put a veil upon his face. The children of Israel would not look to the end, where God would have done away the glory of condemnation, and so they would go with that veil lying upon their hearts still, and yet, whenever the heart turns to the Lord and looks to Him alone, the veil is taken away. The lesson is that with unveiled faces we should look upon the glory of God, even tho it condemn us by revealing by its brightness our sins; that we should continue to look till the righteousness which is in Christ Jesus our Lord will shine all the sin away, and eclipse the glory of condemnation by the greater glory of righteousness. This, in brief, is the teaching of the chapter. It does not in any wise tell us that the eternal, immutable law of Jehovah is done away, but it does tell us, if our hearts will put away their unbelief, that the condemnation which always comes to us thru the letter, thru the mere reading of that law on the tables of stone, thru having it taught us by some one else and knowing only its condemnation, may all be done away by the greater glory of letting the Spirit of God write that law upon our hearts.