And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
The letter to Corinth was written to settle minds concerning the gospel and to meet the trouble and dissensions stirred up by Judaizing teachers, who were the greatest difficulty to be met because they continually exalted the virtues of the law and ceremonies above the gospel of Christ and condemned the failure to urge ceremonies that foreshadowed Christ and lost value after His death. The trust described is confidence toward God through Christ, resting not on personal sufficiency or on self-commendation or on any human teacher who brought light and truth, since ministers are not sufficient of themselves to originate anything. God Himself is the sufficiency, which is the righteousness of Christ as perfect obedience to the law of God.
Believers are manifestly shown to be Christ's letters entrusted to gospel ministers, inscribed not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the heart. The faith, grace, and transformed lives of believers are themselves the sufficient recommendation of ministry, so ministers need no human letters of recommendation to or from others. God gives effectiveness and makes ministers capable servants of the new covenant of the life-giving Spirit rather than of the letter that kills, a ministry of the Spirit and of righteousness that far exceeds in glory and remains beyond the ministry of death and condemnation engraved in stone whose glory was passing away.
This trust brings hope with great openness of speech and liberty where the Spirit of the Lord is, with the veil removed in Christ and taken from the heart, so that beholding the glory of the Lord with open face results in being changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. For those laboring in evangelistic work to win souls, the trust means God makes them sufficient to manifest the knowledge of Christ in every place and to make converts into living Spirit-written letters on the heart. Trust through Christ to God excludes ranging oneself on the side of one human teacher and refusing harmony with fellow believers, since such partisanship shows lack of sanctification through the truth and need for reconversion, making a claimed conversion a stumbling block to sinners.
The letter to Corinth was written to settle minds concerning the gospel and to meet the trouble and dissensions stirred up by Judaizing teachers, who were the greatest difficulty to be met because they continually exalted the virtues of the law and ceremonies above the gospel of Christ and condemned the failure to urge ceremonies that foreshadowed Christ and lost value after His death. The trust described is confidence toward God through Christ, resting not on personal sufficiency or on self-commendation or on any human teacher who brought light and truth, since ministers are not sufficient of themselves to originate anything. God Himself is the sufficiency, which is the righteousness of Christ as perfect obedience to the law of God.
Believers are manifestly shown to be Christ's letters entrusted to gospel ministers, inscribed not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the heart. The faith, grace, and transformed lives of believers are themselves the sufficient recommendation of ministry, so ministers need no human letters of recommendation to or from others. God gives effectiveness and makes ministers capable servants of the new covenant of the life-giving Spirit rather than of the letter that kills, a ministry of the Spirit and of righteousness that far exceeds in glory and remains beyond the ministry of death and condemnation engraved in stone whose glory was passing away.
This trust brings hope with great openness of speech and liberty where the Spirit of the Lord is, with the veil removed in Christ and taken from the heart, so that beholding the glory of the Lord with open face results in being changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. For those laboring in evangelistic work to win souls, the trust means God makes them sufficient to manifest the knowledge of Christ in every place and to make converts into living Spirit-written letters on the heart. Trust through Christ to God excludes ranging oneself on the side of one human teacher and refusing harmony with fellow believers, since such partisanship shows lack of sanctification through the truth and need for reconversion, making a claimed conversion a stumbling block to sinners.