2 Corinthians 3:6-7

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL

‘The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.’

2 Corinthians 3:6

This short sentence is frequently misinterpreted; certainly it is frequently misapplied. Beyond doubt the imagery present to the Apostle’s mind was not the contrast between a book and its ‘spirit,’ but that between the inscribed edict of the Tablets of Mount Sinai, the awful ‘This do and live,’ ‘This do not and die,’ and the revelation in the Gospel of a Power Which can, for the justified, write the will of God on the heart and put it in the mind. It is the contrast between Sinai and the double glory of Calvary and Pentecost.

The Law killeth, with its unrelieved sentence of death upon the law-breaker who offends even ‘in one point.’ The Gospel giveth life. As the Gospel of Calvary, it is ‘the ministration of (justifying) righteousness.’ As the Gospel of Pentecost, it is the ministration of spiritual liberty and power to the believer.

I. Note the denomination of the Gospel by that glorious term ‘the Spirit’.—Can we give the fact too great a weight? We are reading St. Paul, the Apostle of Justification. And that great theme of his is close at hand; we observe it in that passing phrase (2 Corinthians 3:9), ‘the ministration of righteousness’—words whose reference is easy to fix when we remember that the Corinthian Epistles form one great dogmatic group with the Galatian and Roman. Yes, but in this very context, when he comes to state as it were the ultimate glory of the Message, he writes not ‘the Cross,’ but ‘the Spirit.’ Not that the Cross is not, primarily and eternally, as necessary as it is wonderful and glorious. Not that it is not the rock-foundation of the believer’s peace, from first to last. Not so; but because the Cross is in order to the Spirit. Justification is not an end in itself; it is provided in order that the justified may justly, and effectually, receive ‘the promise of the Father,’ and live by the Spirit, and walk by the Spirit, filled with Him, while He (Ephesians 3:16) ‘strengthens them with might in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith.’

II. Surely we have here a principle to govern our faith, hope, and ‘ministration of the new Covenant.’—The whole passage is pregnant of caution in the matter, but far more of positive and animating suggestion. It spends itself upon reminding us of the eternal Spirit, with His light, His liberty, His glory.

III. Let us evermore embrace, appropriate, and preach the Gospel of the Holy Spirit.—It is not ‘another Gospel’; God forbid. It will glorify eternal foundations by showing them in their living relation to the eternal superstructure.

Bishop H. C. G. Moule.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

DEATH AND LIFE

When St. Paul speaks here of ‘the letter,’ he means the words or text of the law which God had given to men. When he says, ‘the letter killeth,’ he means that the law condemns man.

I. Death.—Is it not true of you what St. Paul says of the whole human race—‘the letter killeth’—the law condemns? It is true. There is no exception in your case. ‘Oh Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers.’ That must be, and that is, the heart confession of every honest man. There will be, indeed, here and there the ignorant and carnal mind who really does not see anything much amiss with itself: there will be sometimes the Pharisee, who knows it in his heart, but will not acknowledge it; but every one who is not wilfully blind, or wilfully obstinate, must feel that of him, as of others, it is true, that the law condemns him utterly—the letter killeth—killeth for this world and for the next world—for time and for eternity.

If we had to stop there, our fate would be dark indeed, and without hope.

II. Life. But, says St. Paul, ‘the Spirit giveth life,’ and in that life is our salvation.—‘If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’ All things must become new for the sinful soul that would be saved. The soul must be turned away from evil, and turned towards good by this work of the Holy Spirit. The Christian who has stained his soul with sin must obtain forgiveness and spiritual strength. That is conversion. The great mercy and blessing of the redeeming work of the Spirit is this—that it is free and full and without limit of time or place. However sinful, however dead in trespasses and sins a man may be, there is absolution and renewal for his need, and the Saviour will not reject his petition for pardon.