2 CORINTHIANS 3 (FIRST READING)
2 CORINTHIANS 3 (FIRST READING)
F Is this chapter connected with the sealing in chapter 1, verse 22?
CAC I think it would be the fruit of it. It is characteristic of the gospel that it is the ministration of the Spirit; and the writing on hearts is by the Spirit of the living God.
N Why does Paul speak so much about himself in this epistle? It is here, in chapter 5, in chapter 10 and at the close of the epistle.
CAC I suppose they were perhaps charging him with trying to put himself forward. He did not need any letter of commendation at Corinth. If a brother came to a place where all those breaking bread were his converts it would be strange if he needed a letter of commendation.
N He could point to the Corinthians as his work; they were written in his heart, if in none other.
CAC It is much in keeping with the previous chapter; the affections and sensibilities of Christ come out in the apostle’s heart. But more than that, they were known and read of all men.
F Is not that the result of Paul’s ministry?
CAC Yes; he says — “ministered by us”. He passes on then to the thought of the epistle of Christ. I suppose that is really a letter Christ has written; the Corinthian saints were the writing of Christ.
N Is it the expression of Christ seen in them?
CAC I rather thought it was the character of God that had been inscribed upon them, and that no one could have written but Christ. You can recognise a man’s writing! We recognise Christ’s writing in them. The great point here is that Christ brings into evidence all that God is, and He takes up saints to make them tables of testimony. These tables do not express what man should be for God, but what God is for man, and no one could write them but Christ. He stooped down once to write that in the dust of death. Only once do we read of His writing — in John 8:6 - 8. His stooping to write was a twice repeated figure of His coming down from heaven to write the love of God in the dust of death, and that was the cross; it was written there. He stooped to write all the revelation of God’s love to men. He says to us, ‘I have stooped from the glory to write the story of God’s love’; now from the glory He takes up Paul, as a pen, to write in human hearts the same thing that was written in the cross. Others could write epistles, but the finest epistle of all is the living epistle of Christ, and every saint is a page or verse of it. The most wonderful epistle of all is the saints.
N The devil had no answer to that; he can cavil at John’s or Paul’s epistle, but there is no cavilling at Christ’s.
CAC It is the light of divine love; love has come in as light. We put light and love as if they were a contrast, but the light that shone in Jesus is the light of divine love:
‘The light of love has shone in Thee,
And in that love our souls are free’.
[p. 217] That is the end of the chapter; no one is free till he knows the end of this chapter. It is wonderful to think of all that was concentrated in the death of Christ; all the telling out of divine love is now written in myriads of hearts from the glory by the same Person who wrote it in the dust of death. These Corinthians were the setting of it forth. We see in 2 Corinthians that Christ is Writer and Speaker. He is Writer here: “Ye are ... Christ’s epistle” — and in the last chapter He is the Speaker: “Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me”. It was Christ who spoke in the apostle and Christ who wrote using the apostle as a pen to write on the fleshy tables of the heart. So that what is in view is a divine work; it must be so from the beginning because no one but God could give man a heart of flesh. A fleshy table is a soft impressionable material, but man’s heart is naturally a stone and nothing impresses him unless God gives him a fleshy heart.
N Is the writing like that of an indelible pencil?
CAC Yes, every mark in the soul made in the power of the Spirit is indelible. The tables are divinely prepared and the writing is there; nothing can ever erase it; it lasts for eternity.
N Would you say the new covenant is written in letters on Israel’s heart and in spirit on ours?
CAC It is the love of God that is written. God will cause Israel to delight to do His will; the very spirit of the covenant is the knowledge of God, the spring from which it all flows — “they shall all know me”. They delight to do His will because they know and love Him. It is not the letter of the new covenant with us but the spirit; the letter only kills.
M Will you explain how the letter kills?
CAC The letter of the covenant is outside of man and condemns him because he is such a contrast to it. If you take the letter of the gospel, it only kills a man [p. 218] because it exposes his terrible state. If you tell him that God is love and that Christ has died for him, it only shows what a contrast he is: he is not love, he is just the opposite, so it condemns him. Christ was the true neighbour; He says, “Go and do thou likewise”. If man tries to do as Christ did, it kills him. “The commandment having come ... but I died”, Romans 7: 9. But how wonderful it is when the Spirit is put in the heart! The apostle had not ministered the letter but the spirit of the new covenant: all his ways and manner of life were imbued with the spirit of the gospel. If asked if they had heard the gospel, they could have said, ‘Yes, and seen it, too’.
Last week we were seeing how the apostle was imbued with the very spirit of Christ; it is the Spirit that gives life. There are tens of thousands in England who know the letter of the gospel and are not converted. Well, it will only condemn them; their hearts have never been touched and subdued by it. When the heart is touched by the Spirit, a man is subdued; there is an inlet for the love of God into his heart.
N Was the writing of Christ Paul’s confidence?
CAC His confidence was that a divine work had been effected in them: he had no sufficiency, not even an apostle had for such a work as this, but his confidence was that this divine work had really been effected in them.
N It is a marvellous change from what he had to say to them in 1 Corinthians.
CAC Yes; there is no life seen there, but their sensibilities showed that there was life. We find by the second epistle that they had sensibilities, and when touched they were sensitive. If there is no sensitiveness you can not do anything. People try by talking and persuading to do something, but you cannot if there are no sensibilities.
The effect of the first epistle showed the Corinthians [p. 219] were sensitive and could be acted on. There was a quickened company; they proved it by their sensitiveness to the first epistle.
Many believers do not think of the side of the gospel that comes out here, the ministry of the Spirit and of righteousness. It is a ministry that serves out the Spirit to man. God serves out His Spirit to man. Just as the law served out death and condemnation, so new covenant ministry serves out the Spirit and righteousness. Christians do not often think of this, that God is dealing out His Spirit to men. It is the great reason for which the gospel is preached; those who preach are ministering the Spirit to men, as we read in Galatians 3: 5, “He therefore who ministers to you the Spirit”. There had been those amongst them who ministered the Spirit. It is the conferring of the Spirit on men; we get it even in Proverbs 1:23: “I will pour forth my spirit unto you, I will make known to you my words”. That is the order of the new covenant: we get wisdom’s Spirit so that we may understand wisdom’s words; that is, we begin with the Spirit and then we understand the words. So that the first thing served out to men is the Spirit of God. People think a good deal about the forgiveness of sins; they can understand how that is served out in the gospel, but they lose sight of the Spirit. No one has forgiveness consciously till he has the Spirit; the consciousness of forgiveness is in the Spirit, so the ministration of the Spirit comes first here and then the ministration of righteousness, which corresponds with forgiveness and justification, but we must have the Spirit to be conscious of it. A great many people try to get at the joy of forgiveness by the letter, by what Scripture says, but it is by having the Spirit that we get the joy and consciousness of it. Everyone in the Church of England says in the apostles’ creed, ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sins’; they have it in the letter but [p. 220] not in the Spirit. Christendom ignores the Spirit: christians do not dishonour Christ half as much as they dishonour the Spirit; that is the sin of christendom. I once searched to see what is the first thing man gets in the New Testament. It is the Spirit. In Matthew 3 it is the first thing spoken of as being conferred on man. The great object of the gospel being administered is that saints may receive the Spirit, and that is the side overlooked. I have had great opportunity of listening to the gospel for the last fifteen years, and have carefully observed it and noticed that the essential blessing of the gospel is rarely presented. What is presented in Scripture as the greatest blessing is little alluded to in the preaching of the gospel today.
N Peter and Paul did not always mention the Spirit, but their preaching made room for it.
CAC They served out the Spirit, and that is the character of new covenant ministry; it ministers the Spirit and righteousness, and it is because of those that you get life and quickening.
N Is this a subject for the gospel?
CAC I think it is a fine subject for the gospel. I do not know why what was preached on the housetops in early days should be hidden from men today! Peter said, “Repent ... and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For to you is the promise and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God may call” Acts 2: 38, 39. Why should what Peter presented so fully and clearly be hidden now? Many would be greatly interested; would it not affect a man greatly to think he might have the Spirit of God? He would say, ‘Is it possible for a sinner like me to have the Spirit? I never heard anything like that before’. It is a denial of the gospel if you think you have to work up to the Spirit: in the new covenant the Spirit is served out. The law served [p. 221] out death and condemnation; everyone who came under it was condemned; but the new covenant serves out the Spirit to be a vital spring in the souls of men. The Lord spoke of it to the sinful woman at the well (John 4) — “He would have given thee living water ... whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”, John 4: 10, 14. The Lord is just telling her the very thing.
N But is not this ministry for saints?
CAC No doubt people who have hearts of flesh are the only ones who can appreciate it; but there is a divine work going on and there are people all around who are subjects of it, who have hearts of flesh and are impressionable. These are the people who can receive new covenant ministry. Many of us might be content with the letter of it. I do not know anything more humbling than to challenge my soul as to how far I have received this ministry; how much have I got in my soul in the power of the Spirit of God? How much have we got in quickening power? It is an exercise for us all.
F. How does it begin?
CAC God begins. He makes the heart into a heart of flesh and man is exercised. God tells him of the Person and the work of Christ, and of the forgiveness of sins, and of the gift of the Spirit; he receives the Spirit and It becomes a living spring. He has got what is living and it can be added to. It can grow and expand. Nothing counts for God but what is living; He is the living God. It is the “Spirit of the living God” that we have. The new covenant is connected with quickening power. In Psalm 119 quickening is spoken of a good many times; it shows that things are made living. It is not only the letter of the law but the living character; the spirit of it is there. In [p. 222] connection with it God promised to pour out His Spirit.
Scripture has said, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. There is a shade of difference each time the quickening is mentioned in Psalm 119; each time it applies to something different. I commend it to everyone to read and look up the different connections.
It is a wonderful chapter that we are reading tonight! It is the Lord that quickens, and the Spirit. It all begins with the serving out of the Spirit. It is an immense thing to look at it from the divine side. Why did God send His Son into the world? The end was that men might have the Spirit. Redemption was effected for that and now the gospel is sent out with the object in view that men might have the Spirit. God is not holding It back. People say, Have I got It? The cure for that is to see what God is doing; He is delighting to give the Spirit. Jesus came down and died, and He went up and is glorified. His coming down and going up was all in order that God might give the Spirit. In Acts 10 while Peter was yet speaking the Spirit fell on them all, showing in what a hurry God was to give the Spirit. As soon as souls turn to Christ the Spirit is given. People often speak as if they longed for the Spirit and God would not give it to them; they say, ‘I want to have It and I have been praying about it’. That is a slur on God, for there is nothing He so delights in as to give His Spirit. It is His longing and His joy to receive the cry of “Abba Father”, and He cannot get it unless He gives His Spirit. People will not believe the gospel; they will do anything rather than believe it! The new covenant is dependent on the presence of the Spirit to be understood and responded to.
How can men know the love of God? Only by the Spirit shedding abroad the love of God in their hearts. John 3: 16 is not of practical value to a man without the Spirit. I remember what a comfort it was to me at one [p. 223] time; it made me feel I should not go to hell! But I did not touch the love of God till I got the Spirit. Many read that verse, a beautiful word, and they get comfort out of it, but they do not get the spring of it till the Spirit pours out the love of God; then the spring of it is in our hearts and we can enjoy it a thousand times more than before.
F Does not the word quicken?
CAC We are quickened “according to thy word”. The word is there and God quickens us according to it, but response is by the Spirit.