2 CORINTHIANS 3 (SECOND READING)
2 CORINTHIANS 3 (SECOND READING)
Ques Is the writing mentioned here by the Spirit?
CAC One feels, perhaps, that we have not sufficiently given place to the Spirit in connection with the new covenant.
Ques What is the importance of the Spirit?
CAC I suppose as furnishing the subjective conditions which enable covenant relations to be taken up intelligently and affectionately so that we become pleasurable to God.
Ques Is that the result of the writing of the living God?
CAC That has a very essential part in it. I thought that the saints had come under the hand of Christ to be written on so that they become tables of the covenant. The covenant finds expression in the saints.
Ques Is that in contrast with the tables of stone?
CAC It strikes me in reading this chapter that it is very difficult to separate divine Persons, because there is no doubt that the covenant is consummated by God. It is Jehovah who said that He consummated a new covenant;
[p. 224] He does it mediatorially by Christ so that Christ is identified with God, and then we find He is identified with the Spirit too. This chapter gives a wonderful thought of unity; divine Persons are operating to bring about conditions in the saints that will be entirely pleasurable to God.
The Spirit is prominent in chapter 3.
HB I was going to ask what part the Spirit has? It says that the Lord is the Spirit. Christ is Mediator and then the Spirit is brought in, and then we get the ministry of the Spirit.
CAC That is very important. It seems to me that to connect the Spirit with it gives the thought of new covenant ministry a permanent place in the assembly. It is not a once for all ministry; the ministry of the new covenant was not what converted the Corinthians; it was not what they began with.
JB It is a continuous ministry throughout the dispensation.
CAC What we look for is ministry of a glorious character which is to be maintained in divine power in the assembly and which promotes the service of God in a wonderful way.
LM When the Lord was here He wrote upon the ground; now we have a divine Person come in who writes on the fleshy tables of the hearts of the saints.
CAC The living activities of God are in question; it is the Spirit of the living God. The fact that it is the living God gives vitality and permanence to it. The ministry of the Spirit gives character to the whole period.
It is a period marked by what is glorious and excellent, and divine Persons are concerned in it, so you find it difficult to draw any line between divine Persons in this chapter. It belongs to the truth that we are made conscious in our meetings for worship and service that we worship God as known in the Trinity; it belongs to the [p. 225] ministry of the new covenant. It is to give character to the worship of the assembly. Therefore the point is that something is effected by the Spirit of the living God; something is written on the fleshy tables of the hearts of the saints; something is written indelibly. The whole ministry of the Spirit can be presented to the saints with the assurance that there is a condition of heart that will answer to it. There is additional material secured as tables but they are looked at as complete at any particular time; the tables are never incomplete and they remain.
LM What is God’s workmanship by the Spirit?
CAC Christ is the Writer, and the saints being the epistle of Christ are the evidence and manifestation of the divine writing. It shows how Christ is identified with God. The thought in the Old Testament is God writing; in the New Testament it is actually Christ. Though it is God’s writing the mediatorial activity is that of Christ.
J.B. The finger of God?
CAC It is God personally but suggests the mediatorial idea; God does it. The Spirit of God would deepen in our souls the sense of Christ as in Deity. What is so wonderful is the mediatorial idea as seen in Christ, though it is not so wonderful, perhaps, as to see it in Paul. Paul becomes the instrument in the hand of Christ for divine writing; it is the mediatorial idea carried a step down; Paul is the pen. The Spirit of the living God is connected with something written in the hearts of the saints, and brings what is divine into the hearts of the saints.
JB It makes us desire an impression of heart.
CAC Yes, indeed. There can be something in human hearts that is positively divine in character; every mark that is made is made by the living God. There is something in the human heart that corresponds in quality and power to what is in the heart of God. The hearts of the saints are put into correspondence with the heart of [p. 226] the living God. Could you think of anything greater than my heart as the subject of divine writing being in correspondence with the heart of God? The ministry is continually going on. We dwell in God and God in us; that is John’s way of putting the covenant. We have such a restricted idea of the covenant. The place of the Spirit in the covenant is very important, so I am very thankful we have read this chapter. The Lord’s supper is very great because it sets before us the immense results of the incarnation, that is the great point in the Supper.
LM In that way Christ is not a dead letter but a living epistle in the saints. That is even more than Scripture.
CAC Yes, it is. The Spirit is greater than the Scriptures because He inspired them all. A great deal lies in the intelligence of the Spirit that has never been put into Scripture. The Spirit is a divine Person, and He is the vitality of things. The Scriptures without the Spirit are like the body without the soul.
HB Would you say a word as to the expression, “the Lord is the Spirit”? Leaving out the parenthesis it reads, “who has also made us competent, as ministers of the new covenant; not of letter, but of spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens ... Now the Lord is the Spirit”.
CAC It is to show us that you cannot have one divine Person without something of the virtue of all. When the Lord was here the Father and the Spirit were here. You cannot think of the Lord in any other way than that He was in the unity of the Godhead all the time. It confirms us in the truth of the Trinity. There is one God; that needs to be known in our souls, but it is God known in three Persons. It is a mystery but it is known to faith and love. The Lord can be identified with the Spirit; the Lord is the Spirit. The Spirit quickens, not the letter, not even the letter of the New Testament quickens. It is the [p. 227] Spirit who quickens; there is no vitality in the letter itself.
LM What a fine company the saints would be as sitting together as quickened! Paul linked Timothy and Silvanus with himself.
CAC Paul loved to link others with himself. Because the character of his ministry was to be worked out in the assembly he loved to put others with himself. Though he had the ministry yet he liked to identify others with himself.
LM Is it possible for us to be linked with Paul?
CAC I thought so — if any are competent for this ministry, for it is entirely of God. The vessel of it was a human vessel, but the ministry and the competency for it are entirely divine. That separates us from human thoughts and theology and everything about us in the religious world. We come to a new character of things where all is divine. In the assembly there is no competency to take up the new covenant except in the power of God; it is a spiritual realm. There is the attaching of saints to Christ, the anointing, the sealing and the earnest; that is all to supply what is necessary for us so that we may come into this new and glorious system.
LM Even though the first covenant was introduced by glory, it now is surpassed by a greater glory altogether — indeed it is annulled. Therefore I suppose we can understand that the first covenant caused them to be afraid. In the new covenant, the nearer we get the brighter we find things.
CAC Yes. Therefore there is liberty; it is a system of liberty. We want that so that we can move happily in relation to God and the brethren. We are in perfect liberty outside the domain of the letter.
Ques “Not of letter, but of spirit”. What does [p. 228] that mean?
CAC Things are taken up in their vitality apart from the letter; it is spirit. It is very difficult to say whether there should be a small ‘s’ or a large one there. Paul goes on to say, “The Spirit quickens”; there you have evidently got a Person. Paul contrasts the two systems of things, not letter but spirit, but afterwards a divine Person is in view and he passes from the one thought to the other almost imperceptibly. As to our taking up things in spirit in contrast with the letter, we can only do it by the Holy Spirit; we only touch them in virtue of being quickened by the Holy Spirit who is a divine Person. Then you find the Lord is the Spirit so the Lord and the Spirit are identified; the Spirit that quickens is the Lord.
JB Why is there that designation, “the Lord”?
CAC I thought it was to enhance the dignity belonging to Him as Mediator of the new covenant.
LM There is authority with ‘Lord’.
CAC Yes, and all that is of God is set forth in the Lord.
HB What is the character of the fleshy tables in contrast with the tables of stone?
CAC The work of God beginning with new birth. The fleshy tables view the saints as subjects of divine work; this wonderful writing and ministry follow on that, and they go on. We want to make room on every occasion for the ministry of the Spirit.
LM If the covenant is known as we are looking at it here, there must be springs of love to God. It says, “If any one love God, he is known of him”, 1 Corinthians 8: 3.
CAC Yes. We should come together to the Lord’s supper in the liberty of that.
HB Does the ministry of the Spirit make me know what the saints are in God’s thoughts?
CAC Yes. It liberates us when we get [p. 229] to divine thoughts and divine love. We have to look at the death of Christ as in the Supper as that which has inaugurated this glory system in which God shines. He is radiant in the face of Jesus and it is all founded on the value of His blood. There should not be any want of liberty in giving thanks for the cup for it introduces us to such radiant glory. In 1 Corinthians 12 we read, “For also in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body”; that refers to the loaf, but then we read, “and have all been given to drink of one Spirit”; that refers to the cup. It is as much as to say that all that is conveyed in the cup is not only what is expressed in the death of Christ but also all that is known in the power of the Spirit. We are all made to drink into one Spirit so there is perfect unity and liberty.
HB We are sometimes in a hurry to get away from the covenant.
CAC I think we should not hurry away from what the Lord suggests to us. The Lord distinctly gave us this cup and He said, “This do”, and in giving us the cup He told us it was the new covenant in His blood poured out for us. Therefore if we reverence the Lord we ought not to be too quick in getting away from the thought of that. It is wonderful to think of what comes out in chapters 3 and 4 of this epistle. A better knowledge of God in the covenant would put substance and body into our worship to the Father as we move on; it would give stature to sons. Mostly the saints are ‘small’ sons and we only get stature in sonship through the covenant. It is as we know God that we get stature. We learn God in the covenant, so we should have more stature for sonship if we knew God better. You do not leave the Lord out, for you never forget that you only know God through the Lord; we only know Him through the Mediator.
LM It is only as in the good of the [p. 230] new covenant that we are able to address God freely.
CAC Yes.
LM That brings us into the presence of divine Persons and then we are led on from glory to glory.
CAC Yes. The Lord loves to link Himself with any right thought in relation to God; He loved to identify Himself with the repentant remnant, to be on their side, to be baptised. He said, “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”, Matthew 3: 15. The Lord loves to identify Himself with those who receive the knowledge of God; He loves to lead them on from the point they have reached. That brings in His headship. The Lord has great pleasure in coming to our side; on the mediatorial side He is on God’s part, but when we have got the benefit of that there is something He can identify Himself with; He is attracted by what He finds there. When He comes He must be Leader; He leads us on as far as He can, as far as to Bethany in Luke 24. On any occasion the Lord will lead us as far as we can go; we cannot always reach to John 20. The marvel of all is that the Lord is the Spirit; that is the divine side. He is the quickening Spirit; the spiritual, vital relation to God has its origin in the Lord. We cannot separate between the Lord and the Spirit, but we read, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. I feel I little enter into that. We have the Spirit of a divine Person who is identified with the Lord, so we cannot separate them. The same Spirit is in the saints and secures liberty, so that we move in relation to God in the same liberty in which the Lord Himself is. It is possible to withdraw into the region of the Spirit — to leave one’s business, one’s family and oneself and pass into the region of the Spirit. That is a spiritual possibility I should like to cultivate for myself. It is wonderful liberty! “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. It is the same Spirit in Him and in the saints, so there is [p. 231] liberty on both sides, with Him to lead and with us to be led. Our meetings are strangely lacking in liberty often; we get into ruts and say the same things over and over again. If the Spirit put us in liberty it would give us freshness and variety even in what we say. Freshness in the affections leads to variety.
HB “My soul set me upon the chariots of my willing people”, Song of Songs 6: 12.
CAC Quite so. What a delightful company for the Lord, a company quickened by Him! Something is written in their hearts by the Spirit of the living God and they are quickened and brought into this system of glory, and there is the ministry going on continually! All ministry in the Spirit tends to liberty. People say sometimes that we put the saints in bondage, but the truth always makes free. Nothing of God ever puts the saints in bondage.
Ques Is it an encouragement to surrender human resources?
CAC Yes, and give more place to the Spirit. If we all, brothers and sisters alike, knew that we are in the day of the Spirit, a wonderful period marked off as the time when the Spirit dwells here, there is no limit to what the Spirit could do for us as we admit this and give it place with us.
LM Would Olivet be on the way to John 20?
CAC Surely. The Lord, in coming to a company He could lead, would always have in His mind the terminus. He might only be able to lead us as far as to Bethany, but He would always have in His mind the terminus, John 20. As having the Spirit of the Lord — there is a wonderful dignity and exaltation about that — there must be liberty, liberty to behold the glory of the Lord so that we are changed. We become unified with God’s character and glory and become like it. What a company the assembly would be if this were entered into! There is [p. 232] more on the line of the covenant in Scripture than on the line of sonship. If we take account of the types, what a lot there is on the line of the covenant. There is an immense region opened up by the covenant; the covenant qualifies you to go into the land. The thought of the threshing floor and the wine press is in the covenant; the book that was sprinkled with blood was the book of the covenant; the Hebrew servant was in the covenant; the feasts were in the covenant and the covenant qualifies us for the land. There is a lot in the covenant; in the power of the: covenant you can take up the service of God in the land. The central point for worship in the land is the ark of the covenant. We get the temple too, but the centre is the ark of the covenant. The land is only enjoyed properly in the blessedness of the covenant. The covenant that was given at Horeb was in view of the land.