The New Covenant of the Spirit

… utterly easy to throw off and very readily spat out. And indeed God said somewhere, “This people draws near to Me with their mouth and honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8–9). But our Lord Jesus Christ writes His holy and divine laws for us on fleshly tablets of the heart, that is, on tablets that can feel (2 Corinthians 3:3). That is why He also said through the voice of the prophet Ezekiel, “And I will tear out their heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may walk in My ordinances” (Ezekiel 11:19–20). If anyone, then, does not lean on the shadows given through Moses, and does not have the law written in ink as on tablets of stone, but within, in the mind, through the Spirit, he is a letter of Christ known by all men (2 Corinthians 3:2–3).

Volume 2, Discourse 1.

“Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God,” and so on (2 Corinthians 3:4).

Paul, knowing it well, ascribes the dignity of the apostleship not to human powers but to God, who is mighty in all things and who holds it out, through Christ the mediator, to those worthy to receive it. That is why he says that all good things come to the saints in Christ; for “every perfect gift is from above,” from “the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Yet He through whom all things are, and in whom all things are, is Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16). He mediates between us and God in the saving economy, yet He works all things from God the Father, since He is His very Wisdom and Power (1 Corinthians 1:24).

But what is the confidence through Christ toward God? Listen as he goes on to say, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to reckon anything as coming from ourselves” (2 Corinthians 3:5); for “all wisdom is from the Lord” (Sirach 1:1), as it is written; “but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit; for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:5–6).

And what is the letter? The type in the law, the things still carried out as in shadows. And the spirit is the power of the worship in Christ, which shows those who approach it through faith to be spiritual. As far as the type falls short of the truth, so far, I think, do those who serve it come behind those who minister the truth as priests. For Christ sprinkles us with His own blood, and not only for “the purity of the flesh,” as the rites of the law certainly did; rather He cleanses “our conscience from dead works” (Hebrews 9:13–14) and frees us from transgression. Besides this He also grants us the hope of life; for it is true that “whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). For He has promised also the resurrection of our very bodies, and their return to incorruption and to a life without end.

“For indeed what was glorified has not been glorified in this respect, because of the glory that surpasses it” (2 Corinthians 3:10).

Again he brings the dignity of the divine apostleship back to its incomparable superiority. Having compared the two ministries and set out very well what is proper to each, he shows that the ministry in Christ through the Spirit is the more radiant. This is the aim of his thought in these words, but the saying is not phrased very clearly; for it seems somehow not very easy to see into, nor ready to hand even for those who wish to see it. For what does “What was glorified has not been glorified,” and what follows, mean? What he wants to show is something like this. Moses was indeed glorified, he says, as minister of the law that is being set aside; but the glory of the new proclamation, the proclamation in Christ, overcame the first and made it seem not to have been glorified at all. For just as, while night still remains and its darkness blackens this whole universe, the disk of the moon flashes out, as it were, and the chorus of the stars has its own glory, yet when the sun …